Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

This is a very hard book to read, not because of its reading level, but due to its content.  Lolita tells the story of Humbert Humbert and is told from his perspective.  Humbert is a pedophile and becomes obsessed with a 13-year-old girl.  This book tells of his seduction of her after she is his stepdaughter, when she is 15.  Can you see why it is hard to read?  The book surprised me because in popular idiom, a "Lolita" is a sexually precocious girl, so that's what I was expecting.  Although Humbert Humbert believes this of his stepdaughter and therefore portrays her that way in the story, she is only fifteen and he is middle-aged, so it certainly doesn't ring true.  Obviously Humbert Humbert has a warped view of the world.  He tries hard to engage the sympathy of the reader, but I can't imagine that happens very often.

It is an interesting book just because it is so different.  It is fairly short and reads easily.  I found it challenging, probably partly because I'm a mother!