Book Review: The Rent Collector

In January I read The Rent Collector by Camron Wright. Oh my goodness, I loved this book. I even want to buy it so that it is part of my collection. The book started out and I was worried it would be more of a drama, intense, and sad, book but it wasn't. It was warm, and full of life. It did paint a vivid picture of what 3rd world country life situations are like but it also showed that your life can still be full and "rich" by the people you surround yourself with.

The book is about a community in a dump in Cambodia, yes a garbage dump, and centers around the rent collector and one of the families in the dump. It is about a mother who keeps a positive attitude but also looks for ways to improve her family's life. She decides to learn to read and write so that she may teach her children, in hopes they will be able to attend better schools and have a better life than she. It was fun to go along her journey as she learned to read and to appreciate my ability to read.

This will be the book I recommend to people to read for at LEAST the next year or so.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"We are literature -- our lives, our hopes, our desires, our despairs, our passions, our strengths, our weaknesses. Stories express our longing not only to make a difference today but to see what is possible for tomorrow. Literature has been a called a handbook for the art of being human."

"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care, for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill." (Buddha)

"Just when we think we have our own stories figured out, heroes arise in the most unexpected places."

"Whether we like it or not, hope is written so deeply into our hearts that we just can't help ourselves, no matter how hard we try otherwise."

"It doesn't matter where you live, Sang Ly, it is how you live."

"Words demand justice, encourage freedom, change minds, and soften hearts -- and words save."