My parents were the same way. My mother only said that I couldn't read one book series, and that was based on what my aunt told her. That was The Sleeping Beauty trilogy by Anne Rice, which were like the mid 90s 50 Shades I think, just better written.

My mom got the warning because I was really into Anne Rice's Vampire books, so I would be trying to read anything else by her that I could get my preteen/teenage hands on. They just told me it was erotica in more vague terms. I was cool with it, I had tons of other stuff to read anyway. :D

I really like Art of Atari by Tim Lapetino. I love video games in general and I grew up with Atari and Commodore 64 specifically, so seeing all the art used in arcade signage, boxes and whatnot is so interesting. The art is beautiful too.

I read The Collector a few years ago. It's hard to verbalize, I read it, it propelled me along and I couldn't stop reading it, but I could never say that I "enjoyed" it. The protagonist, is awful, does awful things, but what is more uncomfortable is that you are put in his head for 75% of the novel. It is a horrible place to be, and you can't easily separate yourself from him. You are seeing his thought process and hearing his innermost desires and goals. And those desires and goals are so contrary to normal human life and decency.

Pair that with the portion of the novel that switches to the Miranda's perspective and seeing the events of the novel through her viewpoint. It just makes it so much worse to have to go through her suffering with her, but also to have been with her captor as he executed his plans. It is interesting that in most ways, both people agree on the particulars of the events, what they did, etc. It's not that one party is lying and the other is revealed to be being more truthful. There isn't some grand twist that grants greater understanding. This man does this shitty thing to this woman. That's it. And he will keep doing it.

I know there are deeper interpretations, which I haven't really delved that much into. For me it was a rough read.

Tree of Life - Terrence Malick

I really liked The Thin Red Line. I appreciated The New World, but didn't like it as much. I pretty much was bored to tears by Tree of Life.

I can see what he is trying to do, but it doesn't connect with me. Except, like I said, The Thin Red Line, which I really did enjoy quite a bit.