Gretchen's Reading Journal

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult

2009-01-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

This is one of my 3 favorite Picoult books. I think it was the topics of religion and the death penalty that caught and kept my attention.

From Amazon: Examining a condemned inmate's desire to be an organ donor. Freelance carpenter Shay Bourne was sentenced to death for killing a little girl, Elizabeth Nealon, and her cop stepfather. Eleven years after the murders, Elizabeth's sister, Claire, needs a heart transplant, and Shay volunteers, which complicates the state's execution plans. Meanwhile, death row has been the scene of some odd events since Shay's arrival—an AIDS victim goes into remission, an inmate's pet bird dies and is brought back to life, wine flows from the water faucets. The author brings other compelling elements to an already complex plot line: the priest who serves as Shay's spiritual adviser was on the jury that sentenced him; Shay's ACLU representative, Maggie Bloom, balances her professional moxie with her negative self-image and difficult relationship with her mother.

Living Dead In Dallas by CHarlaine Harris

2009-01-19T17:04:00.000-08:00

I'm hooked!

From Amazon: For years, Charlaine Harris has delighted fans with her mystery series featuring small-town waitress-turned- paranormal sleuth Sookie Stackhouse. Now, Ace is pleased to republish her second novel in the series in hardcover. In this book, Sookie is pursued by a very sexy vampire—and a very deadly monster. With HBO and Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, launching an all-new series, True Blood, based on the Southern Vampire novels, the demand for Charlaine Harris and Sookie Stackhouse is going to be bigger than ever.

The Shack by William P. Young

2009-01-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why this book didn't do it for me. There were parts I agreed with and others that just rubbed me the wrong way. Which, I might have been having some of the issues the main character was excepting the "image" of God the author was trying communicate.

That said I am glad I listened to this one.

From Amazon: Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?"

2009 Reading List

2009-01-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

Just a list of books I'd like to get too this year.

Living Dead In Dallas READ
Change of Heart READ
So Brave So Young
Tin Collectors
White Out
Lost & Found
Appaloosa
2nd Chance
Vanishing Acts
No Mercy
Traveler
The Appeal
Back When We Were Grown Ups
Big Cherry Holler
Cry Last Heard
Cure For Modern Life
Well of Lost Plots
Eyes of Prey
I Am Legend
Two For The Dough
Skinny Dipp

Authors I'd like read at least one book by:

Beth Gutcheon
Robert B. Parker (Spencer Series)
Nelson DeMille
Jennifer Wiener
John Katzenbach
Michael Crichton

Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr

2008-12-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: When Deanna's father catches her having sex in a car when she is 13, her life is drastically changed. Two years later, he still can't look her in the eye, and though Tommy is the only boy she's been with, she is branded the school slut. Her entire family watches her as though she is likely to sleep with anyone she sees, and Tommy still smirks at and torments her when she sees him. Her two best friends have recently begun dating, and Deanna feels like an intruder. She tries to maintain a close relationship with her older brother, but Darren and his girlfriend are struggling as teenage parents. Deanna learns to protect herself by becoming outwardly tough, but feels her isolation acutely. Her only outlet is her journal in which she writes the story of an anonymous girl who has the same experiences and feelings that she does.

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

2008-12-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

What a fun and dark read! I found myself wondering where the story was taking from the beginning all the way to the end and still find myself wondering about what really happened. So glad I picked this one up.

From Amazon: Flannery Culp is 19, precocious, pretentious and incarcerated. Accused of Satanism and convicted of murder, she and her seven friends (the "Basic Eight") have been reviled and misunderstood on the Winnie Moprah Show and similar tabloid venues. So Flannery has typed up and annotated the journals of her high school years in order to tell her real story: "Perhaps they'll look at my name under the introduction with disdain, expecting apologies or pleas for pity. I have none here." Handler's sharply observed, mischievous first novel consists of Flannery's diaries from the beginning of her senior year to the Halloween murder of Adam State and its aftermath. The journals detail Flan's life in her clique of upper-middle-class San Francisco school friends, who desperately emulate adulthood by throwing dinner parties and carrying liquor flasks. Kate ("the Queen Bee"), Natasha ("less like a high school student and more like an actress playing a high school student on TV"), Gabriel ("the kindest boy in the world" and in love with Flan) and the rest begin experimenting with the hallucinogen absinthe. Squabbles once easily resolved grow deeper and darker when Natasha poisons the biology teacher who has been tormenting Flan. Should the Basic Eight turn on, and turn in, one of their own? Handler deftly keeps the mood light even as the plot careens forward, and as FlanAnever a reliable narratorAbecomes increasingly unhinged. The links between teen social life, tabloid culture and serious violence have been explored and exploited before, but Handler, and Flannery, know that. If they're not the first to use such material, they may well be the coolest. Handler's confident satire is not only cheeky but packed with downright lovable characters whose youthful misadventures keep the novel neatly balanced between absurdity and poignancy.

Chasing Windmills by Catherine Ryan Hyde

2008-12-21T14:53:00.001-08:00

I listened to this book and enjoyed it even though it was a bit perdictable.

From Amazon: In the simple and captivating latest from Pay It Forward author Hyde, a chance encounter proves life-changing for two lonely New York City subway riders. Four months shy of 18, Sebastian Mundt has been held a virtual prisoner by his father since his mother died: his father home-schools him and doesn't let him have outside relationships. One night, with his father heavily sedated by his sleeping pill, Sebastian sneaks out to ride the subway and locks eyes with Maria Arquette, a young mother who is caught in an abusive marriage. The two share an instant connection and take to meeting on the subway almost nightly and tentatively planning a future in the California desert town that Sebastian remembers from childhood, where thousands of windmills stretch out across the horizon.

Promise Not To Tell by Jennifer Mcmahon****

2008-11-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

I love when I find a new author that I can't wait to read their next book! Jennifer Mcmahon is one of those authors.

From Amazon: Part mystery-thriller and part ghost story, McMahon's well-paced debut alternates smoothly between past and present. In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del's death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate's return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del's spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth. McMahon does a particularly good job of portraying the cruelty of school children.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris ***

2008-11-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

I listened to Dean Until Dark while watching the series based on the book True Blood. Think this made it more fun to listen to that it might have been other wise. I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series or not. Maybe I'll wait till the second season of True Blood starts.

Amazon Editorial Review:
Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out....

Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.

A fun, fast, funny, and wonderfully intriguing blend of vampire and mystery that's hard to put down, and should not be missed. (Susan Sizemore)

Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin ******

2008-11-23T14:45:00.001-08:00

Touching Snow was a shared read with my daughter. We both loved it. Thought it was a sad and dark story but still uplifiting.

From Amazon: Grade 8 Up—To those back in Haiti, "touching snow" means living in America. For seventh-grader Karina, however, life in suburban Chestnut Valley, NY, is far from easy. Her extended family struggles to survive in a world in which they are social and cultural outsiders, where food and shelter are still uncertain, and where a visit from the authorities can mean deportation to a much more desperate homeland. For Karina, though, the biggest threat is within her family. Her stepfather uses brutal force to dominate his wife and stepdaughters. While Karina nurtures dreams of education and connects with caring people who might help her, she is held back by a man who sees his shaky power diminished by any sign of the girls' independence. As Karina and her sisters mature, this conflict escalates to a terrible scale. The author writes with insight about the realities of immigrant life, Haitian American culture, and the double worlds inhabited by many first-generation Americans like Karina. Readers can see the compromises that family members make in the name of survival and the stresses that drive the stepfather's rage, while still holding to the truth that these girls and their mother deserve a life without violence. Although the resolution is brutal, this story is a compelling read from an important and much-needed new voice. Readers will cheer for the young narrator who is determined to step out of the role of victim and build a safe and meaningful life for herself and her family.—Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

No One You Know by Michelle Richmond ****

2008-11-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

I don't know exactly what it is that appeals to me about Michelle Richmond's writing but she has become one of my favorite authors. The voice she gives her characters rings very true to me.

I enjoyed No One You Know even more than Year of Fog.

From Amazon:
Twenty years later, Ellie Enderlin is still haunted by the unsolved murder of her older sister, Lila, a brilliant math Ph.D. candidate at Stanford. With her family in turmoil after Lila's death, Ellie confides in a sympathetic English professor who then uses her confidences to write a hugely popular true crime book. Now a professional coffee taster and buyer, Ellie is on a business trip in Nicaragua when she by chance encounters Peter, Lila's secret lover and the man who the book claimed was Lila's killer, although the conjecture was never confirmed. This intense meeting reopens the painful past and sends Ellie on a renewed quest to find her sister's killer. This thoughtful, gripping page-turner grabs the reader's attention from the first chapter. Recommended for all public libraries. ~Andrea Griffith -- Library Journal

Long Time No Post

2008-11-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's been a little over a year since I posted! Coincidentally I started a new job a little over a year ago that is much more demanding and I have had little time to post. Less time to read. However, still squeezing in as much reading time as I can.

Currently I'm reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Suggested not only by my daughter Layla's but by a couple of friends. Thought I better get with it before the movie comes out.

I've recently started to listen to audio books. Which I've wanted to for a long time. I'm hoping it will motivate me to exercise more. Ha! It's great to listen to at work while I do time cards. Currently I'm listening to Dead Till Dark and the one before that was The Curse of The Spellmans by Lisa Lutz.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen #51

2007-10-29T15:47:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

The Office of Desire by Martha Moody #50

2007-10-23T13:22:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: sharply observed tale of office relationships gone very wrong at a small Ohio medical practice. When Dr. Will Strub marries office nurse Alicia, he becomes increasingly involved in the local fundamentalist church. That puts him somewhat at odds with his fellow doctor and business partner, Dr. Hap Markowitz, who defines himself as a non-observant, God-fearing Jew. Meanwhile, middle aged office receptionist Caroline begins her own new relationship with a 72-year-old patient named Fred, while Hap devotes his spare time to his seriously ill wife, making office manager Brice literally the odd man out. The slow descent into insanity by one of the characters leads to a tragedy that affects all involved; gay relationships, evangelical fervor, amputation and infidelity all play in. There is a point where loyalty became a sickness, where faithfulness to someone else became a way to destroy yourself, Hap observes, and each of Moody's well-drawn characters embodies that statement in his or her own way.

Sliver of Truth by Lisa Unger #49

2007-10-16T12:26:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: From the cryptic opening section, which ends with a New York Times reporter finding her husband bleeding to death, Unger grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Meanwhile, the FBI informs Ridley Jones, a magazine writer, that her late uncle, Max Smiley (who's really her biological father), is still alive and being sought by assorted international players on all sides of the law. Rapidly finding that little in her life is what it seems, Jones is horrified to be confronted with evidence indicating that Smiley is a misogynistic monster of the first order, who may have played a role in the murder of the reporter's husband.

Doohickey by Pete Hautman #48 ***

2007-10-08T10:05:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Nicholas Fashon and his pal Vince Love own a fashionable leather goods store in Tucson, Ariz. Nick's roguish granddad dies, leaving him a inheritance of useless inventions. Useless, that is, with one exception: a doohickey called the HandyMate, which performs numerous kitchen functions most efficiently. Yola Fuentes, a TV chef, is interested in the HandyMate and wants to use it on her TV show. Nick is grateful, especially since the building housing his store and the apartment upstairs containing all his worldly goods has just burned down. The fire department says the cause was electrical, but the insurance company says it's arson and won't pay. In addition, his partner Vince owes money to a scary man called Robo who, after cracking several of Vince's ribs, threatens to kill him for an encore. Nick isn't sure whom to trust.

These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner #47 ****

2007-10-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Based on the real-life exploits of the author's great-grandmother, this fictionalized diary vividly details one woman's struggles with life and love in frontier Arizona at the end of the last century. When she begins recording her life, Sarah Prine is an intelligent, headstrong 18-year-old capable of holding her own on her family's settlement near Tucson. Her skill with a rifle fends off a constant barrage of Indian attacks and outlaw assaults. It also attracts a handsome Army captain named Jack Elliot. By the time she's 21, Sarah has recorded her loveless marriage to a family friend, the establishment of a profitable ranch, the birth of her first child?and the death of her husband. The love between Jack and Sarah, which dominates the rest of the tale, has begun to blossom. Fragmented and disjointed in its early chapters, with poor spelling and grammar, Sarah's journal gradually gains in clarity and eloquence as she matures. While this device may frustrate some readers at first, Taylor's deft progression produces the intended reward: she not only tells of her heroine's growth, but she shows it through Sarah's writing and insights. The result is a compelling portrait of an enduring love, the rough old West and a memorable pioneer.

Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay #46 ***

2007-09-25T15:57:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: In Lindsay's third novel to feature endearing Miami cop and serial killer Dexter Morgan (after 2005's Darkly Devoted Dexter), the Dark Passenger, the voice inside Dexter's head that from time to time drives him to the Theme Park of the Unthinkable, inexplicably disappears while Morgan is investigating a gruesome double murder on the University of Miami campus. The crime scene, at which two co-eds were ritualistically burned and beheaded, gives even the human vivisection–loving vigilante the creeps. As the burned and beheaded body count continues to mount, Morgan realizes that the force behind the killings is something even more evil than his Dark Passenger. Though the macabre wit that powered the first two installments of this delightfully dark series (also a hit on TV's Showtime) is still evident, this third entry takes a decidedly deep introspective turn as Dexter is forced to contemplate not only life without his enigmatic companion but also who—or what—he truly is.

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mill Millington #45 ***

2007-09-18T12:07:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Millington's debut novel is an outgrowth of his Web site of the same name, on which he has been posting, for the last year, comic vignettes about life with his German girlfriend. Predictably, it consists mostly of comic bickering between first-person narrator Pel Dalton and his own German girlfriend, the insouciant Ursula Kretenjeger. The couple lives in a ramshackle, dirt-cheap house in "an area of the northeast of England so dire that the government was applying for a grant from the European Union for it to be placed under martial law" with their two young sons. Pel is something of a slacker ("for me, half-heartedness is a full-quarter too hearted"), the bumbling head of an IT team at the local university library. After their house is broken into, the marginally more conventional Ursula insists they look for something in a better neighborhood. House hunting, like most of the other plot turns in the book-which include Pel taking over for his mysteriously vanished boss and becoming the courier for a Chinese gang-is mostly an opportunity for lots of funny sparring on every subject from whose turn it is to defrost the refrigerator to whether "cock" or "dick" is the better euphemism for penis. Overall, the comic material is uneven; some of it is overwritten and a bit obvious, but at its best, Pel's narration is side-splitting. There are no shattering insights about men and women, but the book never pretends to be more than it is: an entertaining and genuinely funny romp through the trials of coupledom.

To The Power of Three by Laura Lippman #44 ***

2007-09-10T14:11:00.001-07:00

The three girls have been inseparable best friends since the third grade -- Josie, the athletic one; Perri, the brilliant, acerbic drama queen; and Kat, the beauty, who also has brains, grace, and a heart open to all around her. But their last day of high school becomes their final day together after one of them brings a gun to school to resolve a mysterious feud. When the police arrive, they discover two wounded girls, one so critically that she is not expected to recover. The third girl is dead, killed instantly by a shot to the heart.

What transpired that morning at Glendale High rocks the foundation of an affluent community in Baltimore's distant suburbs, a place that has barely recovered from an earlier, more comprehensible tragedy. For the shell-shocked parents, teachers, administrators, and students, healing must begin with answers to the usual questions -- but only if the answers are safe ones, answers that will lead back to one girl and one family and absolve everyone else.

For Homicide Sgt. Harold Lenhardt, this case is a mystery with more twists than these grief-stricken suburbanites are willing to acknowledge -- and the sole lucid survivor, a girl with a teenager's uncanny knack for stonewalling, strikes him as being less than honest. What is she concealing? Is she trying to protect herself or someone else? Even the simplest secrets can kill -- and kill again if no one is willing to confront them.

A Corner of the Universe by Ann M Martin# 43 ***

2007-09-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Hattie Owen had been anticipating a summer as comfortably uneventful as all the others ("I just want things all safe and familiar," she admits), helping her mother run their boarding house, painting alongside her artist father and reading "piles" of books. Then Uncle Adam (whom Hattie never knew existed) makes a surprise entrance, turning everything upside-down. Hattie's mother says that Uncle Adam has "mental problems." Hattie's grandparents act embarrassed whenever he is around, and her peers laugh at him. The author authentically conveys the ripples Adam sends through this small town. The heroine is continually amazed by his outlandish antics, moved by his sudden mood changes and secretly wonders if she and Adam might be kindred spirits. Hattie finds adventure and tragedy as well as enlightenment as she "lifts the corners of [her] universe" in order to better understand Adam. With characteristic tenderness and wisdom, the author portrays the complex relationship between the sympathetic heroine and her uncle ("I feel a little like his baby-sitter, a little like his mother, not at all like his niece, and quite a bit like his friend").

Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward #42 ****

2007-09-05T12:55:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: The secret demons of globe-trotting journalist Nadine, 35, form the core of this contrived but earnestly observed third novel from Ward (How to Be Lost). Badly injured by thugs while pursuing a story outside of Mexico City, Nadine wakes up at her estranged father and stepmother-to-be's Cape Cod B&B, under the care of the perhaps too interested Dr. Duarte. The unhappily confined Nadine reads a story about a local couple who are traveling to Cape Town, South Africa, for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings: testifying will be the young, black woman who killed their white son, a visiting American teacher, in 1988. Told to rest by her bureau, Nadine decides to cover the story on her own. On a flight from Nantucket to Cape Town, Nadine finds herself next to the local couple, who furtively give Nadine their son's boyhood journal. It's not Nadine's first trip to Cape Town: she spent years there as a fledgling journalist, and lost her one love, Maxim, there; the soul-wrenching revelations of the murdered man's diary bring Nadine face-to-face with her own personal and professional pasts, and force her to make difficult decisions about her future.

Ask Again Later by Jill Davis #41 ***

2007-08-29T09:26:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, New Yorker Emily Rhode ditches her too-perfect boyfriend and far from perfect legal career to become her mother's primary caregiver. At the same time, she reconciles with her estranged father, who left when she was five. When he offers her a job as a receptionist at his law firm, complete with Friday martini lunch dates and father-daughter cab rides to work, Emily agrees, and jokey family bonding follows as mom skates through treatment and dad proves to be more of a teddy bear than an iceman. Davis, author of Girls' Poker Night and a former writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, loads the narrative with one-liner asides and funny riffs (there's a particularly good bit about espresso machines), though she's less adept at sizing up Emily's inner turmoil, notably her fear of committing to smart, patient and loving boyfriend Sam.

Life's A Beach by Claire Cook #40 ***

2007-08-27T12:24:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Ginger Walsh, 41, who has ditched her job in sales and moved above her parent's garage with a cat she calls Boyfriend— despite (or because of) her casual relationship with alluring glassblower Noah. As big sister Geri gets anxious about her impending 50th, their parents decide to sell the house, and Geri's second-grader Riley lands a small role in a horror movie being filmed in their quaint New England town. Ginger babysits Riley on the set and meets a gaffer who may be charming enough to make her forget all about Noah.

08/28/07 Light, fun read.

The Ruins by Scott Smith #39 ****

2007-08-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Four American friends on vacation in Cancún, Mexico—Jeff, Amy, Eric and Stacy—meet a German tourist, Mathias, who persuades them to join his hunt for his younger brother, Henrich, last seen headed off with a new girlfriend toward some ruins. The four soon regret their impulsive decision after they find themselves lost in the jungle and freaked out by signs that they're headed for danger. Smith builds suspense through the slow accretion of telling details, until a deadly menace starts taking its toll, leaving the survivors increasingly at each other's throats.

08/27/07 Great horror/thriller read. I couldn't put it down and when I wasn't reading it I couldn't stop thinking about it.

100 Greatest Movies of All Time by Ty Burr #38 ***

2007-08-16T09:21:00.001-07:00

Pretty much what the title suggests! Great photos and added several to my "to be seen list".

Long Time No See by Susan Isaacs #37

2007-08-15T15:03:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: In Susan Isaac's Long Time No See, Courtney Logan, former investment analyst, devoted mother, and Long Island housewife, leaves her home on Halloween night for a quick trip to the grocery store. Five months later, her badly decomposed body is found floating in the backyard pool, concealed by the pool cover.
Enter Judith Singer, who helped find a murderer in Isaac's 1978 bestseller, Compromising Positions. Something about the Logan case doesn't make sense to Judith, and she becomes so engrossed in the mystery that she actually knocks on the grieving husband's door and offers to help exonerate him. Long Time No See draws on the best of the light, character-driven mysteries, like those by Janet Evanovich and Mary Daheim. Isaac's first- person heroine is impulsive enough to get herself into trouble, yet thoughtful enough to invite confidences. And her voice is appealingly funny and honest. "Since becoming a widow," she reflects, when faced with a twist in her investigation,

I'd tried hard not to indulge in the lonely person's Happy Hour: talking to oneself. About a year earlier, in the drugstore, I found myself befuddled, dithering between a condom rack and a display of batteries, and was startled when I heard my own loud voice demanding: 'Why am I here?' But now I gave in and had a chat with me.

Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern #36 ****

2007-08-15T14:58:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: A parent's worst nightmare becomes a crusade for justice in McGovern's dynamite second novel (after 2002's The Art of Seeing), set in an unspecified middle-class suburban community. Shortly after Adam, a nine-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder, and his friend Amelia, a 10-year-old diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder—not otherwise specified), disappear during recess from Greenwood elementary school, a traumatized Adam turns up next to Amelia's body in the nearby woods. Cara, Adam's 30-year-old single mom, helps the police unlock the clues in Adam's mind to try to identify Amelia's killer. Cara finds surprising assistance from 13-year-old Morgan, who's determined to solve the crime in order to distract authorities from his own guilty secret—accidentally starting a fire in the wetlands his lawyer/environmentalist mom was trying to protect. Meticulously researched and emotionally absorbing, this provocative page-turner also addresses an important issue—how to educate and care for children with special needs.

08/14/07 Great read.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls #35

2007-08-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover.

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond #34 ****

2007-07-30T10:09:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Photographer Abby Mason stops on San Francisco's Ocean Beach with her fiancé Jake's six-year-old daughter, Emma, to photograph a seal pup; by the time Abby looks up, Emma has disappeared. Abby, who narrates, flashes back to her growing relationship with high school teacherJake, and sketches its transformation over the course of the search. Emma's mother, Lisbeth (who abandoned the family three years earlier), wants back into Jake's life—even as he is giving up hope on finding Emma. Abby delves into the bereft missing children subculture and into the vagaries of memory. A hypnotist helps Abby unearth promising details of that singular last day with Emma, but the information requires major follow-through from Abby. The book's twist on missing child stories is wholly effective. Richmond develops the principle characters, and Abby's dysfunctional parents make for sharply drawn secondaries, as do local surfers.

08/03/07 Totally unique reading experience!

The Bright Forever by Lee Martin #33 ***

2007-07-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: On a summer evening in an "itty-bitty" Indiana town in the 1970s, nine-year-old Katie Mackey rides her bicycle to the library and never comes home. Her father, Junior Mackey, owns the town's glassworks, and to the town's residents the Mackeys are like the Kennedys, envied for their looks, their wealth and their picture-perfect life. Peeling back the layers of his characters, Martin slips easily into their darker, secret lives—lives that may harbor clues to Katie's disappearance: Henry Dees, the reclusive math tutor who sometimes lurks in the Mackeys' house; Clare Mains, the widow shunned for remarrying out of loneliness; her galling husband, Raymond R., whose drug binges and blackouts occupy stretches of unaccounted-for time; Katie's parents, freshly tortured by their own tarnished past; and Katie's brother, 17-year-old Gilley, who seizes the chance to gain his father's approval by avenging Katie's death.

Every Boy's Got One by Meg Cabot #32 ***

2007-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Cartoonist Jane Harris is delighted by the prospect of her first-ever trip to Europe. But it's hate at first sight for Jane and Cal Langdon, and neither is too happy at the prospect of sharing a villa with one another for a week-not even in the beautiful and picturesque Le Marche countryside. But when Holly and Mark's wedding plans hit a major snag that only Jane and Cal can repair, the two find themselves having to put aside their mutual dislike for one another in order to get their best friends on the road to wedded bliss-and end up on a road themselves... one niether of them ever expected.

True To Form by Elizabeth Berg #31 ***

2007-07-19T12:52:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Elizabeth Berg finds her way into the year 1961 and into the head of 13-year-old Katie Nash at the start of her summer vacation. Katie's world is smooth and easy with endless possibilities and sunshine. You almost expect sitcom-style canned laughter when she whines in frustration or stomps up to her room and turns the radio way up, but then almost everything Katie does fits that era's squeaky-clean conventionalities. The younger daughter of a remarried widower, Katie craves popularity, a great summer job, and a direct line to the local DJ to make requests. Newly transplanted from Texas, she settles in with her only friend, Cynthia, who shares her views on status and appearance and boys. Between a regular babysitting gig for a household of little boys and caring for an elderly bedridden woman, her summer is off to a less than auspicious start. Cynthia's mother's plot to start a Girl Scout troop and to camp out for a weekend in their living room doesn't help. Berg's plot doesn't exactly mine new territory, but Katie emerges as a girl who sees the world differently from the rest of her peers.

07/19/07 Read this several books ago and had forgotten to add it.

How To Be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward #30 *****

2007-07-18T10:52:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: How to Be Lost, provides for the reader with a finely-tuned ear, a nicely wrought, syncopated, octave-changing story. Featuring a hard-living, almost down-on-her-luck narrator, How to Be Lost isn't lost at all when it comes to telling a literary mystery wrapped in the arms of a strong woman's tale. Ward's story bounces between New Orleans and New York, taking her protagonist, Caroline, into steely encounters with her somewhat-estranged family, especially her older sister and mother, as they continue, many years after the fact, to deal with the wrenching effects of the unresolved disappearance of Ellie, the youngest of the Winters family.

07/19/07 Wow! I just flew threw this one. Very good with a happy ending!

A Thousdand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini #29 *****

2007-07-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny—"There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten"—is endorsed by custom and law.

07/18/07 Fabulous! Very heartbreaking but so worth the read. Mariam will go down as one of my all time favorite characters.

Anybody Out There? By Marian Keyes #28 ****

2007-07-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Anna Walsh has returned to the bosom of her family in the Dublin suburbs to recuperate from the horrendous car accident that has left her with multiple fractures and a disfiguring scar across her face. Desperate to go back to New York and resume her normal life, she soon packs up her bags and returns to her job in beauty PR for punk cosmetics brand Candy Grrrl. A lonely and debilitated Anna leaves e-mails and phone messages for her mysteriously absent husband, Aidan, pleading for him to reply. [...] Meanwhile, she reminisces about their courtship and marriage while her kooky family (especially her Mum and hyperactive PI sister Helen) tries to buoy her spirits.

07/13/07 I'm usually a big chicken when it comes to fat books. I'm afraid to invest so much time on a so so book.

However, I just flew through this book about Anna Walsh and how she copes with a tragic car accident. As always Keyes can break your heart one minute and have you laughing out loud the next.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill #27 ***

2007-07-05T08:49:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut.

Bastard Out Of Carolina by Dorothy Allison #26 ****

2007-06-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Set in the rural South, this tale centers around the Boatwright family, a proud and closeknit clan known for their drinking, fighting, and womanizing. Nicknamed Bone by her Uncle Earle, Ruth Anne is the bastard child of Anney Boatwright, who has fought tirelessly to legitimize her child. When she marries Glen, a man from a good family, it appears that her prayers have been answered. However, Anney suffers a miscarriage and Glen begins drifting. He develops a contentious relationship with Bone and then begins taking sexual liberties with her. Embarrassed and unwilling to report these unwanted advances, Bone bottles them up and acts out her confusion and shame. Unaware of her husband's abusive behavior, Anney stands by her man. Eventually, a violent encounter wrests Bone away from her stepfather. In this first novel, Allison creates a rich sense of family and portrays the psychology of a sexually abused child with sensitivity and insight. Recommended for general fiction collections.

07/05/07 I really am fortunate to have read this book. I hate to say I enjoyed it since it was about such a dark subject matter but I loved the characters and loved this family.

The Object of My Affection by Stephen McCauley #25 ****

2007-06-19T09:56:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: George is a gay kindergarten teacher, holding a torch of the inextinguishable variety for his not-worth-it ex-boyfriend. Nina is a pregnant "almost-psychologist" feminist with a nail-polish obsession and an overbearing boyfriend. The focus of the novel is certainly on the relationship between these two, but McCauley also brings an entire fictional ensemble to life, richly nuanced with quirky humor. After a night utterly devoid of sleep, romance, or even physical comfort on a stranger's futon, George decides to cut his losses and leave in the middle of the night, silently wondering about his generation's aversion to mattresses: "I've never trusted people who feel compelled to replace them with uncomfortable, expensive substitutes." As he leaves, his blind date caps off the evening with some unsolicited dietary advice, advising him that he should really cut down on dairy. "Thanks," George deadpans. "I've been meaning to eliminate it from my diet. This should give me the extra push."

06/27/07 This was a much better than I thought it would be. I had seen the movie and liked and was skeptical about the book, why??? I don't know. However, I ended up liking it and thought the movie was a good compliment to the book.

Night Fall by Nelson DeMille #24 ***

2007-06-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: John Corey, former NYPD homicide detective, assigned to the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force in the pre-millennium 90's, makes a return appearance in a thoughtful novel offering an alternative to the government's "official" position on what really happened to TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the Long Island coast in the summer of 1996. Accompanying his wife Kate to a memorial marking the five-year anniversary of the crash, Corey's curiosity is aroused by what appears to be a concerted effort by Kate's fellow federal agents to keep him--and her--from investigating a case that appears to be closed. Corey's detecting skills lead him to two witnesses to the crash, who were enjoying an adulterous interlude on the beach at the time the plane went down--and videotaping their sexual escapades while what appears to be a terrorist missile attack takes place in the background. What ratchets up the tension in this capably written thriller is what the reader knows but Corey doesn't as he heads for a showdown with those responsible for the official cover-up as the clock ticks down to the morning of September 11, 2001. DeMille's deft touch with a riddle wrapped in an enigma--what really happened to Flight 800--makes his "what if" scenario a more than plausible theory; you don't have to believe in conspiracies or government cover-ups to find his latest engrossing, entertaining, and enlightening.

06/19/07 This was an intriguing read. Was left a little unsatisfied but wasn't much else that could be done.

The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart #23 ****

2007-06-04T15:38:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Ever since a cataclysmic falling out with her best friend, Sonia, after college, Cameron's closest companion has been Oliver, the 92-year-old historian she lives with and cares for in Oxford, Miss. Oliver's death leaves Cameron alone and adrift, until she discovers that he has given her one last task: she must track down her estranged best friend (whose letter announcing her engagement Cameron had so recently ignored) and deliver a mysterious present to her. Cameron's journey leads her back to the people, places and memories of their shared past, when they called themselves "Cameronia" and swore to be friends forever. It was a relationship more powerful than romantic love—yet romantic love (or sex, anyway) could still wreck it. Stewart lures the reader forward with two unanswered questions: What was the disaster that ended their friendship, and what will be revealed when Cameron and Sonia are together again and Oliver's package is finally opened?

06/15/07 I loved it!

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore #22 ***

2007-05-21T14:42:00.001-07:00

From Amazon: For beta male Charlie Asher, proprietor of a shop in San Francisco, life and death meet in a maternity ward recovery room where his wife, Rachel, dies shortly after giving birth. Though security cameras catch nothing, Charlie swears he saw an impossibly tall black man in a mint green suit standing beside Rachel as she died. When objects in his store begin glowing, strangers drop dead before him and man-sized ravens start attacking him, Charlie figures something's up. Along comes Minty Fresh—the man in green—to enlighten him: turns out Charlie and Minty are Death Merchants, whose job (outlined in the Great Big Book of Death) is to gather up souls before the Forces of Darkness get to them. While Charlie's employees, Lily the Goth girl and Ray the ex-cop, mind the shop, and two enormous hellhounds babysit, Charlie attends to his dangerous soul-collecting duties, building toward a showdown with Death in a Gold Rush–era ship buried beneath San Francisco's financial district.

06/04/07 Another fun read from Christopher Moore. I enjoyed the characters alot.

Free Fire by C. J. Box #21 ****

2007-05-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Pickett, having been fired as a game warden, is working as foreman of his father-in-law's ranch when Wyoming's loose-cannon governor, Spencer Rulon, reinstates him--not to work his old district but to investigate, without official support, a crime in Yellowstone National Park. A lawyer has found a legal loophole that allows him to kill four campers and walk away scot-free, enraging Rulon. (A remote, uninhabited part of the park, soon dubbed the "Zone of Death," has murky jurisdiction and no residents to form a jury.) But, sure as Pickett is hard on government vehicles, there's something even more sinister than a twisted legal mind behind the murders.

05/21/07 This turned out to be pretty good. I happened to take a trip up to Jackson Hole while reading this and even though it takes place in Yellowstone still was cool getting the real feel for the setting.

Interesting and thought provking.

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot #20 ***

2007-05-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

From Amazon:This story unfolds, like 2002's The Boy Next Door, entirely through e-mails, journals, instant messages, phone mail, deposition transcripts, notes scribbled on menus, to-do lists and other hallmarks of a modern girl's life. Kate Mackenzie, an idealistic HR representative at the New York Journal, has just been forced by her evil boss, Amy Jenkins, to fire Ida Lopez, the wildly popular dessert cart lady at the company cafeteria. Ida bakes delectable goodies, but she won't serve them to priggish Stuart Hertzog, the paper's legal counsel, who happens to be engaged to Amy, known as the T.O.D. (tyrannical office despot) to Kate and her best friend and co-worker Jen. Sweet Ida sues for wrongful termination, and Stuart charges his younger brother, Mitch, with handling this delicate matter. But Mitch actually cares about justice more than his brother's bitchy fiancee (he's only working at the family firm at his sick father's request), and he quickly confounds Kate's expectations with his Rocky and Bullwinkle tie and "tie-him-to-the-bed" good looks. When the T.O.D. tries to lay the blame for her HR blunder on Kate, Mitch goes to the furthest reaches of lawyerly chivalry to save his ladylove.

05/11 Laugh out loud funny!

Paris Trout by Pete Dexter #19 ****

2007-05-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: In this novel of social drama, a casual murder in the small Georgia town of Cotton Point just after World War II and the resulting court case cleave open the ugly divisions of race and class. The man accused of shooting a black girl, a storekeeper named Paris Trout, has no great feeling of guilt, nor fear that the system will fail to work his way. Trout becomes an embarrassment to the polite white society that prefers to hold itself high above such primitive prejudice. But the trial does not allow any hiding from the stark reality of social and racial tensions.

05/09 I enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. A littl on the dark side.

Gone by Lisa Gardner #18 ***

2007-04-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: PI Lorraine "Rainie" Conner's fate hangs in the balance. Rainie, a recovering alcoholic with a painful past (who previously appeared in Gardner's The Third Victim, The Next Accident and The Killing Hour) is kidnapped from her parked car one night in coastal Oregon. The key players converge on the town of Bakersville to solve the mystery of her disappearance: Rainie's husband, Quincy, a semiretired FBI profiler whose anguish over Rainie undercuts his high-level experience with kidnappers; Quincy's daughter, Kimberley, a rising star in the FBI who flies in from Atlanta; Oregon State Police Sgt. Det. Carlton Kincaid; local sheriff Shelly Atkins; and abrasive federal agent Candi Rodriguez, who specializes in hostage negotiation. Gardner suspensefully intercuts the complicated maneuvering of this bickering team with graphic scenes of Rainie bravely struggling with her violent, sadistic captor. When the rescuers make a misstep, he raises the stakes by snatching a troubled seven-year-old foster child named Dougie, who's one of Rainie's cases. The cat-and-mouse intensifies, as does the mystery of the kidnapper's identity.

04/30/07 Better than I thought it was going to be.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult #17 ***

2007-04-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting.

04/24/07 This was pretty good. I did have a hard time liking the characters. I was surprised by the ending.

Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell #16 ****

2007-04-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Policewoman-turned-cabbie Shae-Lynn Penrose, a little over 40 and back in Jolly Mount after a rent-a-cop stint in Washington, D.C., raised son Clay (24 and the town deputy) on her own. For the past 18 years, she has believed that her sister, Shannon, was killed by their abusive father while Shae-Lynn was at college. (Their mother died of complications after giving birth to Shannon; their father was killed much later in a mine explosion.) When a New York lawyer turns up asking for Shannon Penrose, whom he seems to have seen recently, Shae-Lynn is shocked; when Shannon herself suddenly turns up, very pregnant, Shae-Lynn's reaction is primal and tactile.

04/01 I always love Tawni O'Dell and this one didn't disappoint.

Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger #15 ****

2007-03-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: After an act of heroism garners instant fame for 30-something New York freelancer Ridley Jones, she receives a faded photo of a man, a familiar-looking woman and a little girl along with a note asking, "Are you my daughter?" Shaken, she confronts her parents, who affirm she is theirs by birth; that same day, however, hot new neighbor Jake enters her life, and he's less sure. With breathless speed, Unger is off on an action-packed journey of treachery and intrigue—and sex and romance. Jake turns out to have just as much at stake in discovering Ridley's past as she, but in the way are Ridley's controlling parents; her drug-addicted brother, Ace; her intrusive former boyfriend, pediatrician Zack; and the people protecting the legacy of her Uncle Max, a real estate mogul who used his influence to fund rescue houses for abused women and children. Following leads garnered from scrutinizing the operations of places Max's foundation supports, Ridley and Jake uncover a chilling scheme for taking infants and toddlers from violent homes; their relationship heats up, and Ridley's family gets very edgy.

Ready to Fall by Claire Cook #14 ***

2007-03-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: "I feel as if the only time anyone even talks to me is to complain or criticize or to place an order for something they need," laments frustrated wife and mother Beth Riordan in this debut novel of frustrated domesticity. Indeed, Cook gives ample proof at the outset that Beth's husband Pete and children Margot, 14, Chloe, 13, and PJ, 10, notice Beth only when they run out of coffee or toilet paper. But Beth finds a secret way to make her life exciting. In between driving the kids to predawn swim practices, keeping the household running and working as a freelance quotation researcher, Beth starts an e-mail friendship with travel writer Thomas Marsh, her older neighbor, whose wife has recently left him. (She is Swimslave; he is Wanderlust.) Soon their e-correspondence escalates to e-flirtation, and the tension of whether or not their budding relationship will be consummated keeps the plot going at a decent clip.

03/20/07 This was a quick light, read. Great for vacation reading!!

Messenger by Lois Lowry #13 ****

2007-03-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Matty, who has lived in Village with the blind Seer since running away from an abusive childhood, is looking forward to receiving his true name, which he hopes will be Messenger. But he is deeply unsettled by what is going on. He has discovered his own power to heal others and learned of disturbing changes within his community. Under the gentle guidance of Leader, who arrived in Village on a red sled as a young boy and who has the power of Seeing Beyond, the citizens have always welcomed newcomers, especially those who are disabled. But a sinister force is at work, which has prompted them to close admission to outsiders. Also, it seems that Matty's beloved Mentor has been trading away parts of his inner self in order to become more attractive to Stocktender's widow. When the date for the close of the border is decided, Matty must make one more trip through the increasingly sinister Forest to bring back Seer's daughter, the gifted weaver Kira. On the return journey, Matty must decide if he should use his healing but self-destructive power to reverse the inexorable decline of Forest, Village, and its people.

03/15/07 A fun adventure!

Ida B: . . . and Her Plans ... By Katherine Hannigan #12 ****

2007-03-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Grade 4-6–As an only child, Ida B has had plenty of time to indulge her creative bent. She makes miniature rafts, to which she attaches notes with questions such as, "What is life like in Canada?" Acres of apple trees are her friends, and she enjoys long conversations with Beulah, Pastel, Henry VIII, and other trees. She lives life to the fullest, firmly believing there is never enough time for fun. When her mother develops cancer, her parents sell part of the orchard and send Ida B to public school rather than homeschooling her. The changes leave her feeling fiercely angry and betrayed. With the help of a wise and caring fourth-grade teacher and the enduring love of Mama and Daddy, the girl slowly begins to heal.

03/17/07 Absolutely loved it!!

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata #11 ****

2007-03-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: the Japanese-American Takeshima family moves from Iowa to Georgia in the 1950s when Katie, the narrator, is just in kindergarten. Though her parents endure grueling conditions and impossible hours in the non-unionized poultry plant and hatchery where they work, they somehow manage to create a loving, stable home for their three children: Lynn, Katie, and Sammy. Katie's trust in, and admiration for, her older sister Lynn never falters, even when her sisterly advice doesn't seem to make sense. Lynn teaches her about everything from how the sky, the ocean, and people's eyes are special to the injustice of racial prejudice. The two girls dream of buying a house for the family someday and even save $100 in candy money

03/12/07 Love it!! Thank you Layla for the recommendation!

Once Upon A Day by Lisa Tucker #10 ***

2007-03-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: In the present day, 23-year-old Dorothea has left her overprotective father's secluded 35-acre New Mexico estate, called the Sanctuary, where she and her brother, Jimmy, had been sheltered from current news and all modern-day innovations. Searching for her runaway brother in St. Louis, Dorothea meets a recently widowed doctor-turned-cabbie, who introduces her to the vibrant outside world he's been trying to escape. A parallel tale set in the 1970s follows the budding romance between a successful film director and the waif who becomes his muse, his wife and the object of his obsessive control.

03/07/07 This is a good read and I couldn't put it down. However, I found a lot of the characters hard to like in this one.

Little Children by Tom Perrotta #9 ****

2007-03-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: The characters in this intelligent, absorbing tale of suburban angst are constrained and defined by their relationship to children. There's Sarah, an erstwhile bisexual feminist who finds herself an unhappy mother and wife to a branding consultant addicted to Internet porn. There's Todd, a handsome ex-jock and stay-at-home dad known to neighborhood housewives as the Prom King, who finds in house-husbandry and reveries about his teenage glory days a comforting alternative to his wife's demands that he pass the bar and get on with a law career. There's Mary Ann, an uptight supermom who schedules sex with her husband every Tuesday at nine and already has her well-drilled four-year-old on the inside track to Harvard. And there's Ronnie, a pedophile whose return from prison throws the school district into an uproar, and his mother, May, who still harbors hopes that her son will turn out well after all. In the midst of this universe of mild to fulminating family dysfunction, Sarah and Todd drift into an affair that recaptures the passion of adolescence, that fleeting liminal period of freedom and possibility between the dutiful rigidities of childhood and parenthood.

03/05/07 Great read can't wait to see the movie!

Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane #8 ****

2007-02-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: In 1993, Dr. Lester Sheehan begins a journal to remember "Teddy and his poor dead wife. . . and those twin terrors, Rachel Solando and Andrew Laeddis." With this narrative device in place, the story flashes back to 1954, to Shutter Island's Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels is called after a female inmate vanishes from a locked room. One difference between simply listening and having a listening experience is Tom Stechschulte. He doesn't merely perform characters; he channels them. Main characters, doctors, nurses, inmates, and orderlies have believable individual voices and personalities.

02/28/07 I enjoyed this read the pages sped by. It did leave me with more questions than answers. May be worth reading again to see if I missed some things.

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore #7 ****

2007-02-14T12:31:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Nineteen-year-old Tommy is a bewildered hipster recently relocated to San Francisco from Incontinence, Ind. His sarcastic redhead (and bloodsucking) girlfriend, Jody, brings him into the fold of the undead ("I wanted us to be together," she says). Tommy, understandably, has mixed feelings; vampirism has its perks (you can turn to mist, live forever and the sex is awesome), but sunlight is death and blood hunger makes you do some pretty foul things. Also, the duo is hunted by Elijah, the ancient vampire who "turned" Jody and wants her back, and a band of Safeway stock boys/amateur vampire hunters known as the Animals (with whom pre–dark side Tommy once rolled). With the assistance of their devoted minion, goth girl Abby Normal, whose hilarious diary entries form part of the narrative, Tommy and Jody evade their pursuers, feeding at night and conking out at dawn, all the while learning how vampirism complicates love.

02/28/07 Another fun read from Christopher Moore!!!

Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes #6 *****

2007-02-14T12:26:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Irish by birth but a trendy New Yorker for the past eight years, Rachel Walsh learns just what it means to have too much fun in this lively drama about addiction and recovery. Rachel enjoys cocaine, alcohol and meeting men in bars, especially men wearing tight leather pants. She can match anybody's hilarious anecdotes about a Catholic childhood, but recently her life's gone awry, and God has become "more like a celestial stand-up comic" than a "benign old guy with long hair." When she wakes up in a hospital emergency room and finds she's been diagnosed as a suicidal drug addict, she's enraged. She's also broke and unemployed, and her boyfriend has abandoned her. As a final indignity, her father takes her back home and books her into Dublin's Betty Ford-like clinic, the Cloisters. Famous for a clientele of rock stars, it should be a glamorous spa, but it isn't. Quarters are spartan, clients do housework and group therapy is humiliating. It could be worse, though, and there's one good-looking fellow-inmate who might, or might not, be a lifeline post-Cloisters. This novel isn't a how-to on overcoming addiction but an examination, often comic, of treatment that is expected to result in personality changes necessary for recovery. Smart-ass Rachel actually becomes a beguiling heroine after learning to wake up and cook eggs at about the same time in the morning she used to fall into somebody's bed in New York. Clever badinage ("the only way to get over one man is get under another") unfortunately sometimes gives way to phrases like "pantie-meltingly gorgeous."

02/19/07 I adored this book!

Self Storage by Gayle Brandeis #5 ****

2007-02-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Flan Parker is floundering: her sweet but hapless husband, Shae, is procrastinating on finishing his dissertation, their young children are running wild, and the beloved yard sales she holds in their University of California-Riverside student housing cul-de-sac are under fire from the housing office. Then Flan becomes fascinated with her Afghani neighbors, particularly the wife, Sodaba, hidden beneath a burqa. When Sodaba, pulling into her driveway, accidentally runs over Flan's daughter, racial tension in the community is heightened. The unlikely friendship that develops between Sodaba and Flan in the accident's aftermath sparks its share of trouble as the FBI begins investigating Sodaba's husband for suspected ties to terrorism.

02/12 I thourghly enjoyed this story! I could relate to Flan on so many levels it was great.

Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares #4 ****

2007-02-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Like the summer before, Carmen, Bridget, Tibby, and Lena share their individual adventures with the Pants collective, creating an engaging, kaleidoscopic narrative of four voices. This summer, Tibby attends a film program in Virginia and Bridget (Bee), whose mother has died, impulsively jets off to Alabama to get reacquainted with her estranged grandmother. Lovely Lena tries to protect herself from the heartbreak of loving her long-distance Greek god boyfriend Kostos, and Carmen deals (poorly) with her mother dating again and having the nerve to borrow the Pants!

The Second Summer, while breezy and fun to read, deals seriously with love lost and found, death, and finding the courage to live honestly. The teens' lessons are often painful, but the Sisterhood prevails.

02/12 This is a fun read and look forward to seeing the girls grow in the next book.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman #3 ***

2007-01-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

02/06/07 Well I gave this 3 stars despite the fact I didn't even finish the only reason I'm including it is I was just about done but was so frustrated about how long it was taking me I had to move on. I know I'm probably missing a great ending but maybe I'll catch up with it another time. Had some good potential an in the end probably just not my genre.

Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors #2 ***

2007-01-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: This is the story of the eldest daughter of the 17th-century emperor who built the Taj Mahal. From her self-imposed exile, Jahanara recalls growing up in the Red Fort; the devotion her parents, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, had for each other; and the events that took place during the construction of the fabulous monument to their love. Although Jahan is the emperor and has many wives, Mumtaz (he calls her Taj) is his soul mate, a constant companion and wise political consultant. She even travels with him into battle, where she eventually dies giving birth to their 14th child. Fortunately, she has the foresight to begin preparing her favorite daughter, Jahanara, by instructing the girl in the arts of influence and political strategy. Thus the young woman is able to pick up where her savvy mother left off. From then on it is Jahanara who advises the emperor, often instead of her dreamy brother, Dara, who is the rightful heir to the throne. It is she who helps with construction of the magnificent mausoleum for Mumtaz's remains and who falls in love with its architect, Isa, a man whom she can never marry. And it is she who leads a failed effort to defend the throne against a coup by her evil brother, Aurangzeb.

The Pact by Jodi Picoult #1 ***

2007-01-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

Popular high-school swimming star Chris Harte and talented artist Em Gold bonded as infants; their parents have been next-door neighbors and best friends for 18 years. When they fall in love, everyone is ecstatic. Everyone, it turns out, except for Em, who finds that sex with Chris feels almost incestuous. Her emotional turmoil, compounded by pregnancy, which she keeps secret, leads to depression, despair and a desire for suicide, and she insists that Chris prove his love by pulling the trigger. The gun is fired in the first paragraph, and so the book opens with a jolt of adrenaline. But Picoult stumbles in delineating both sets of parents' responses to the tragedy. Unconvincing behavior and dialogue inappropriate to the situation (plus, most importantly, the fact that the parents fail to discuss crucial topics) never touch the essence of bereavement and thus destroy credibility. Picoult redeems herself in flashbacks that reveal the two marital relationships and the personalities of both couples; and she sensitively explores the question of how well parents can ever know their children. After Chris is accused of murder and jailed, the narrative acquires impressive authenticity and suspense, with even the minor characters evoked with Picoult's keen eye for telling detail. The courtroom scenes (reminiscent of Picoult's 1996 novel, Mercy), are taut and well paced. Readers may remain unconvinced, however, that an intelligent young man like Chris would not have sought some help rather than respond to his lover's desperate request.

01/10/07 This was a good read but a bit perdictible after reading My Sister's Keeper and Plain Truth prior to this. It's a bit of a sad story but interesting and a page turner.

#55 The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot ***

2007-01-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: New York City gossip columnist Melissa Fuller is known for being obsessive about Winona Ryder, dating the wrong men and being tardy for work. Arriving particularly late one morning, she explains to her colleagues at the New York Journal that she was detained by the attempted murder of her elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs. Friedlander, who is in a coma. Always the good girl, Mel has volunteered to take care of Mrs. Friedlander's many pets until the neighbor's nephew Max, a famous fashion photographer, can be reached. Her co-workers warn her about Max, a notorious lady's man. Contrary to the gossip, when she meets Max he is down to earth, funny and kind. Despite the strange fact that he likes to be called John and appears to be between photo shoots, she begins to date him and learns that he shares her love for Stephen King novels and natural disasters. It doesn't take long for her to fall head over heels, or for Mel's mom to write, "Get a ring on your finger before you uncross those legs, sweetie." When a mysterious e-mail arrives explaining that there is more to her beau than meets the eye, she is duly upset and uses the power of her pen to get even. But when Mrs. Friedlander's attacker returns, will Mel and Max be able to put their differences aside to catch a killer? Full of clever e-mail banter and tongue-in-cheek humor, this cheeky novel should be enjoyed in one sitting.

01/02/07 This was a fun, quick read. I got clued in on Meg Cabot from my 13 year old daughter and some friends over on the Woman to Woman board on iVillage.

#54 The Cold Dish By Craig Johnson **

2006-12-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Walt Longmire, the veteran sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyo., usually has little to do on his patrols. When Cody Pritchard is found shot to death near the Cheyenne reservation, everyone, including Deputy Victoria Moretti, a transplanted Philadelphian, believes he died in an accident. But two years earlier, Cody was one of four high schoolers convicted of raping a young Native American girl. All were given suspended sentences, and when another of the four turns up dead, it appears that someone is out for revenge. As fear mounts, Sheriff Longmire feels tension in the air between the white population and the Native American community, and he's not pleased to think that his lifelong friend, Henry Standing Bear, might be directly involved in the murders.

01/19/07 I hate to say this but this was just okay for me. I really wanted to like this Wyoming author being from there and all. Maybe that was part of the problem I didn't need so many words to tell me what Wyoming is like. The parts that caught my interest were just two few and far between. However, I was surprised; never guessed who the killer was.

#53 Leave No Trace by Hannah Nyala ****

2006-12-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Nyala's first foray into the fiction arena chronicles a similar quest for survival that's so believable, it's easy to forget this is fiction. Set in Australia's Tanami Desert, the book eloquently balances suspenseful and graphic scenes with moments of introspection and light humor. A trio of complex protagonistsTally Nowata (the female tracker who narrates the story), Paul O'Malley (her lover) and Josephine O'Malley (Paul's spoiled 10-year-old daughter from a previous marriage)engage the reader from the outset. The story opens with Paul taking a routine trip from his desert research camp to pick up Jo, who just arrived from the States. When Paul and his daughter fail to return after several days, Tally begins making her way across the desert, eventually encountering Paul, who's been murdered, and a near-death Jo. The rest of the novel chronicles Tally and Jo's courageous journey as they struggle to survive and elude Paul's killers, who are hot on their trail.

12/20/06 I really enjoyed this book. I was drawn to it because the main character is a SAR worker in the Grand Tetons. However, the book takes place in the Austrailian dessert. Tally took awhile to grow on me but once the story got moving it was nonstop adventure at it's best.

#52 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers***

2006-12-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

12/20/06 Glad I got this one read. I had it on my shelf for some time and saw it in the movie A Love Song for Bobby Long and had to pick it up.

The Best of 2006

2006-12-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

All 5 star reads!!!

Godless by Pete Hautman
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Watermelon by Marion Keys
So B. It by Sarah Weeks
Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs
Gods In Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
The book of Joe by Johnathon Tropper.

To make it an even 10 my favorite 4 star reads. I'll up them to 4 1/2 stars...

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst
Must Love Dogs by Claire Cook

***Subject to change since the year isn't up yet.

2007 Fiction Lovers Challenge

2006-12-01T14:21:00.001-08:00

Read 26 books that have been sitting on my shelf way too long!!!

I've composed a list which is subject to change. What constitutes too long?? Something that has been sitting on the shelf over 6 months???

2nd Chance by James Patterson
The Analyst by John Katzenbach
Back When We Were Grown Ups by Anne Tyler
Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
Eyes of Prey by John Sandford
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Second Summer of the Sisterhoodby Ann Brashares DONE!!
White Out by Ken Follett
Sahara by Clive Cussler
Tillerman Series by Cynthia Voigt
Shutter Islandby Dennis LeHane DONE!!
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
Two for the Money by Janet Evanovich
The Laughing Corpes by Laurell K. Hamilton
True To Form by Elizabeth Berg
Oliva Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Feilding
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Messenger by Lois Lowry
Magical Thinking by Augsten Burroughs
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King
Donorboy by Brendan Halpin
The Ha Ha by Dave King
Object of My Affection by Stephen McCauley

2006 Fiction Lovers Alphabet Challenge; How I ended up

2006-12-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

The challenge was to read a "new to me author" for every letter in the alphabet. Well I'm still missing a few letters but read over 30 new authors which were over half of all the books I read this year.

A
B = Beard, Philip Dear Zoe
C = Cook, Claire Must Love Dogs
C = Colas, Emily Just Checking
D = Dallas, Sandra The Persian Pickle Club
E = Estes, Winston M. Another Part of the House
E = Erian, Alicia Towelhead
E = Evanovich, Janet One For The Money
E = Edwards, Kim The Memory Keepers Daughter
F = Flock, Elizabeth Me & Emma
F = Farmer, Nancy The House of the Scorpion
G
H = Hautman, Pete Godless
H = Hunt, Irene Across Five Aprils
I = Isaacs, Susan Compromising Positions
J = Jackson, Joshilyn Gods in Alabama
K = Keyes, Marian Watermelon
L = Leavitt, Caroline Girls in Trouble
L = Lindsay, Jeff Darkly Dreaming Dexter
L = L'Engle, Madeleine A Wrinkle in Time
M = Myers, Walter Dean, Monster
M = McCullers, Carson The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
N = Nolan, Han Send Me Down A Miracle
N = Nyala, Hannah Leave No Trace
O
P = Packer, Ann The Dive From Clausen's Pier
Q
R = Rosoff, Meg How I Live Now
S = Spark, Muriel The Finishing School
S = Sandford, John Rules of Prey
S = Saul, John Perfect Nightmare
T = Tucker, Lisa Shout Down The Moon
T = Tropper, Jonathan The Book Of Joe
U
V = Voigt, Cynthia Homecoming
W = Westerfeld, Scott Uglies
W = White, Kate If Looks Could Kill
W = Weeks, Sarah So B. It
W = Wilde, Oscar The Importance of Being Earnest
W = Wiesel, Elie Night
Z

#51 Night by Elie Wiesel ***

2006-11-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

12/04/06 My daughter had gotten this book and gave it a good review. Also heard other good things about it. Good!!!

#50 Just Checking by Emily Colas ***

2006-11-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Colas worries a lot. She fears that the baby-sitter is using the family's toothbrushes. She suspects someone has tampered with her Cap'n Crunch. An obsessive-compulsive mother of two, Colas makes worry an art. This anecdotal, first-person account of Colas' illness is highly readable and funny. It also benefits from one of the symptoms of the illness (which affects 2.5 percent of Americans over the life course): a vague awareness that something is awry. At its best, Just Checking is a lighthearted glimpse of a treatable illness. But it's not the whole story. After she runs over a chipmunk, Colas repeatedly returns to the scene to verify that she has not killed a child. Behind the comic behaviors that Colas emphasizes is a gnawing disorder that is often painful and frightening. One hopes that Colas will take up her pen again, explore this part of her experience, and risk the darkness.

11/27/06 Was a nice quick read and you may not appreciate it unles you or someone you know has a quirk or two that could be persceived as OCD.

#49 The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer ****

2006-11-13T14:37:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Carrie Bell is the worst person in the world. Or so she would have you think. In the gripping, carefully paced debut novel of personal epiphany, The Dive from Clausen's Pier, by O. Henry Award winner Ann Packer, Carrie's very survival is dependent upon her leaving her fiancé, even after he dives into shallow water at a Memorial Day picnic and becomes paralyzed. Things hadn't been going so well for the Madison, Wisconsin, high school and college sweethearts. Carrie knew, deep down, that she wasn't going to become Mrs. Michael Mayer. But expectations and pressure from all sides--his family, her mother, her best friend Jamie, Mike's best friend Rooster--force Carrie to shut herself up in her room and sew outfits of her own design as if in a trance. Then one night she slips out of the only universe she's ever known. Many hours later she finds herself on the doorstep of a high school classmate living in Manhattan. Carrie's adventures in the city--quirky roommates and a new romance with an older, emotionally impenetrable man--confuse her in her quest both to forgive herself and to embark on a career in fashion design.

11/27/06 This was a good read but was unhappy with the ending.

#48 The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

2006-11-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Oscar Wilde’s madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers’ entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters of The Importance of Being Earnest have made it a mainstay of the high school curriculum for decades.

Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gewndolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack’s ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack’s country home on the same weekend—the "rivals" to fight for Ernest’s undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds—pandemonium breaks loose.

Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day!

#47 The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards***

2006-11-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well.

11/16/06 This was a good story. However, I did find most of the characters on the depressing side. Loved the way it ended even though I despised the way it started.

#46 Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay ***

2006-10-30T14:55:00.000-08:00

From Amazon: Dexter the Demon, Dexter the Avenger—whatever he chooses to call himself, the hero of this intelligent, darkly humorous series knows he's a monster who loves slicing people into little pieces. That Dexter limits his killing to "acceptable" victims—usually other serial killers—is designed to keep the reader from having to worry too much about the morality of his avocation. Dexter's just added his 40th victim, a homicidal pedophile, and is eagerly looking ahead to number 41 when he becomes involved in a case through his job as a blood spatter analyst at the Miami-Dade police forensics lab. A man is found with "everything on [his] body cut off, absolutely everything"—a piece of work that makes Dexter's own tidy killings look like child's play. This madman, nicknamed Danco, spends weeks surgically removing his victims' ears, lips, nose, arms, legs, etc., while keeping them alive to watch their own mutilation. Despite a certain professional admiration for Danco's dexterity, Dexter decides to take on the case.

#45 Second Glance by Jodi Picoult ***

2006-10-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Ghosts and ghost hunters collide in this compelling tale of the paranormal set in Vermont's green mountains. When the patriarch of the Abenaki Indian tribe that was nearly eradicated by that state's eugenics project in the 1930s encounters Ross Wakeman, the miraculous survivor of several attempted suicides who wants nothing more than to be reunited with the woman he loved and lost, they set in motion a chain of events that will unravel an ancient murder and lead to a second chance at life and love for the victim's descendants.

11/10/06 This was good and I enjoyed. However, it started out slow for me. So many characters and a lot of jumping around to each story line. However, once you start in on the second part it all starts to become more clear.

#44 Between, Gerogia by Joshilyn Jackson ****

2006-10-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: The biological daughter of poor, scared teenager Hazel Crabtree, Nonny Frett was left at birth with the wealthy, respectable Frett clan—a secret that doesn't keep long in a rural Georgia town of 90 people. Growing up at the center of a Crabtree-Frett feud begun by her birth, Nonny is caught between her biological family and her adopted one, between contempt for her philandering husband and the comfort of marriage, between an apartment in Athens, Ga., and her childhood home, Between. When a Doberman belonging to Nonny's biological grandmother Ona Crabtree attacks Nonny's adopted mom, deaf and blind Stacia Frett, and Stacia's twin sister, Genny, the families' dormant "war" awakens.

#43 Rise And Shine by Anna Quindlen ****

2006-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Bridget Fitzmaurice, the narrator of Quindlen's engrossing fifth novel, works for a women's shelter in the Bronx; her older sister, Meghan, cohost of the popular morning show Rise and Shine, is the most famous woman on television. Bridget acts as a second mother to the busy Meghan's college student son, Leo; Meghan barely tolerates Bridget's significant other, a gritty veteran police detective named Irving Lefkowitz. After 9/11 (which happens off-camera) and the subsequent walking out of Meghan's beleaguered husband, Evan, Meghan calls a major politician a "fucking asshole" before her microphone gets turned off for a commercial, and Meghan and Bridget's lives change forever. As Bridget struggles to mend familial fences and deal with reconfigurations in their lives wrought by Meghan's single phrase.

#42 Monster by Walter Dean Myers ***

2006-10-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: "Monster" is what the prosecutor called 16-year-old Steve Harmon for his supposed role in the fatal shooting of a convenience-store owner. But was Steve really the lookout who gave the "all clear" to the murderer, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? In this innovative novel by Walter Dean Myers, the reader becomes both juror and witness during the trial of Steve's life. To calm his nerves as he sits in the courtroom, aspiring filmmaker Steve chronicles the proceedings in movie script format. Interspersed throughout his screenplay are journal writings that provide insight into Steve's life before the murder and his feelings about being held in prison during the trial. "They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can't kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment."

10/04/06 Very good read. Think it captured a 16 year olds experience very well.

#41 Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis LeHane ***

2006-09-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Private detectives Kenzie and Gennaro, who live in the same working-class Dorchester neighborhood of Boston where they grew up, have gone to visit drug dealer Cheese in prison because they think he's involved in the kidnapping of 4-year-old Amanda McCready. Without sentimentalizing the grotesque figure of Cheese, Lehane tells us enough about his past to make us understand why he and the two detectives might share enough trust to possibly save a child's life when all the best efforts of traditional law enforcement have failed. By putting Kenzie and Gennaro just to one side of the law (but not totally outside; they have several cop friends, a very important part of the story), Lehane adds depth and edge to traditional genre relationships. The lifelong love affair between Kenzie and Gennaro--interrupted by her marriage to his best friend--is another perfectly controlled element that grows and changes as we watch. Surrounded by dead, abused, and missing children, Kenzie mourns and rages while Gennaro longs for one of her own. So the choices made by both of them in the final pages of this absolutely gripping story have the inevitability of life and the dazzling beauty of art.

10/04/06 I liked this but took me over 3 weeks. Think it was partially my mood but also think this lacked some power. Got good about the last 1/3.

#40 The Book of Joe by Johnathan Tropper *****

2006-09-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: After Joe Goffman's Bush Falls becomes a runaway bestseller, he never expects to go back to his small Connecticut hometown and face the outrage generated by the dark secrets his autobiographical novel reveals. But when his father suffers a life-threatening stroke, return the unhappy and unfulfilled Joe does, to meet head-on the antipathy waiting for him. Among the Bush Falls locals hellbent on revenge in this breezy sophomore effort by Tropper (Plan B) are deputy sheriff Mouse and ex-con Sean Tallon, both former members of the high school basketball team, as well as the wife of the basketball coach, who dumps a milk shake on Joe the first day he is back in town. Joe also crosses paths with his resentful older brother, Brad; Lucy, the sexy mother of a high school friend; and Carly, the only woman he ever truly loved.

09/15/06 I really enjoyed this book and hated for it to end.

#39 One For The Money by Janet Evanovich ****

2006-08-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she's so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn't own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.
If that hard-luck story doesn't sound compelling enough, Stephanie's several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.

#38 Perfect Nightmare by John Saul ***

2006-08-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: A creepy stalker story becomes a shrewd whodunit as Saul's latest tracks a move from tranquil suburbia to the big city. After a job promotion, the Marshall family prepares to move from Long Island to Manhattan, unaware that a menace edges ever closer to kidnapping their teenage daughter, Lindsay. Eerie first-person chapters from the stalker's close-call perspective effectively counterpoint parents Kara and Steve Marshall's stressful relocation hurdles, as intuitive Kara begins sensing the imminence of the threat, but meets with resistance from harried family members. After the anonymous menace snatches Lindsay, Saul broadens the scope to encompass four likely male suspects, including a pair of real estate agents (one dour and one impossibly chipper). Steve Marshall conveniently dies in a car accident; police sergeant Andrew Grant is cautious and unconvinced of foul play.

09/01/06 This was pretty good but not my favorite genre. I will say the last half was a real page turner. Not sure I'll pick up another book by Saul unless highly recommended.

#37 So B. It by Sarah Weeks *****

2006-08-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: One day in her apartment in Reno, Bernadette heard a pitiful sound in the hallway. She opened the door a crack and saw a young woman standing there in her raincoat, her bare legs spattered with dried mud, holding a crying baby wrapped in a blanket. The baby was Heidi, and they had come from the almost-empty apartment next door for help. Heidi's Mama can't tend her week-old child because she has, as Heidi later says, "a bum brain," so Bernadette steps in and cares for them both tenderly. Mama says her name is "So Be It," but with her twenty-three-word vocabulary, this is all the information she can give Bernadette.
Twelve years later this strange but loving household is still together. Heidi does the shopping because Bernadette has "angora phobia," and pays for it with money she wins at the laundromat; Bernadette teaches her at the kitchen table while Mama is happily occupied with her coloring books, and the rent and utilities are always mysteriously paid. But Heidi wonders who she is, where she and Mama came from, why they were alone, and most of all, she wants to know the meaning of Mama's word "soof." When she finds some old photos in a cupboard, she knows where to go to find out, and as she sets out on a long cross-country bus journey, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into surprising places in this intriguing and heartwarming mystery.

08/24/06 I really enjoyed this book. My daughter, Layla, recommend it to me and I think it's her best recommendation so far. This was a fun, mysterious, and heart wrenching read. I highly recommend it!

#36 The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker ****

2006-08-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Two sisters, Leeann and Mary Beth, have the debut novel The Song Reader firmly in their grip. Author Lisa Tucker seems almost entranced by her main characters, a teenager and her older sister whose mother is dead and father has disappeared. They've put together a cheery and eccentric life in their small midwestern hometown. Mary Beth--beautiful, empathetic and smart--practices an art she calls song reading. Clients come to her and tell her the songs that are stuck in their head, and she decodes the song to help them with their problems. Says her little sister Leeann, the novel's narrator: "She could take a customer who had all kinds of problems--poverty and family quarrels and lost love and even illness--and point her finger at the one thing that, if they found it and dealt with it, would give them the strength to handle all the rest." Leeann sees Mary Beth's song reading--and everything else about her sister--as admirable and glorious. But Mary Beth's gift leads her to a secret truth about a prominent neighbor, and the fragile structure of the girls' orphaned life comes tumbling down. Each secret seems to domino another until the sisters' whole complex emotional history is laid bare.

#35 Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs *****

2006-08-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Judith Singer is a housewife, out of the journalism business for many years. When a dentist she has been seeing (who has a strong bedside manner even while female patients are still in the chair) is found murdered, she finds that a neighbor is a suspect. She begins to investigate. This places her in danger from the murderer, from the women who have had affairs with the dentist, and from the police who begin to wonder why she is always at the scenes where clues are discovered. Her husband becomes angry at what is happening, placing strains on her family as she finds herself more and more attracted to the police detective investigating the murder

08/18/06 I absoultely loved this book! Funny and real! Can't wait to see the movie and read more by Susan Isaacs.

#34 Shout Down The Moon by Lisa Tucker ****

2006-08-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Patty, 21, is the mother of 2-year-old Willie and the lead singer in a band of musicians who resent her ignorance of jazz and the fact that her face rather than their music is what attracts the customers. The group's antagonism is the least of Patty's troubles, however. She has barely survived an abusive childhood, and when the story opens she is being stalked by the father of her child, a drug dealer recently out of jail who still has an emotional hold on the love-starved young woman. How Patty copes with the disrespect of her fellow musicians, their dishonest manager, caring for her son, her mother's alcoholism, and the frightening rage and rape by Willie's father makes a suspenseful story that will have readers holding their breath. Tucker depicts all the ugliness of the music business–drugs, sleazy managers, endless nights on the road, and poor accommodations–as well as the fierce dedication and hard work of talented, committed performers. In a satisfying and exciting conclusion, Patty finally escapes from her past and earns the friendship and respect of her fellow musicians.

08/14/06 I finished this over the weekend and really enjoyed this book. It's a page turner and every chapter leaves you satisfied and looking forward to the next.

#33 Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson *****

2006-08-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Arlene Fleet, the refreshingly imperfect heroine of Jackson's frank, appealing debut, launches her story with a list of the title's deities: "high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus." The first god, also a date rapist by the name of Jim Beverly, she left dead in her hometown of Possett, Ala., but the last she embraces wholeheartedly when high school graduation allows her to flee the South, the murder and her slutty reputation for a new life in Chicago. Upon leaving home, Arlene makes a bargain with God, promising to forgo sex, lies and a return home if he keeps Jim's body hidden. After nine years in Chicago as a truth-telling celibate, an unexpected visitor from home (in search of Jim Beverly) leads her to believe that God is slipping on his end of the deal. As Arlene heads for the Deep South with her African-American boyfriend, Burr, in tow, her secrets unfold in unsurprising but satisfying flashbacks.

08/14/06 I loved this story! Looking forward to reading my by Jackson. Between Georiga is already on it's way to me.

#32 A Savage Place by Robert B. Parker *

2006-08-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Or not couldn't find a synopsis so I'll take from the back of the book.

TV reporter Candy Sloan has eyes the color of cornflower and legs that stretch all the way to heaven. She also has somebody threatening to rearrange her lovely face if she keeps on snooping into charges of Hollywood racketeering.

Spencesr's job is to keep Candy healthy until she breaks the biggest story of her career. But her star witness has just bowed out with three bullets in his chest, two tough guys have doubled up to test Spenser's skill with his fists, and Candy is about to use her own sweet body as live bait in a deadly romantic game - a game that may cost Spenser his life.

08/07/06 This is the first in the Spencer series that I have been truly disappointed with. The plot was just too simple and the filler stuff was terribly boring. Descriptions of every single detail on every single drive Spencer had to take.

#31 Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst ****

2006-07-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: As two-person teams journey from Egypt to Japan to Scandinavia, the carefully constructed, TV-ready personae of the competitors slowly unravel. Employing a constantly shifting perspective, Parkhurst admirably juggles a large cast of characters, with a number of competitors emerging as standouts: squabbling mother and daughter Laura and Cassie, tormented by a secret neither of them wants to publicly acknowledge; Justin and Abby, an "ex-gay" married couple wrestling with unruly desire; and Juliet, a former child star desperately angling for a return to the limelight.

07/31/06 I really enjoyed this book! Was funny and could be on the emotional side as well. One of my favorites of the year. Kept me interested the whole way through.

#30 Rules of Prey by John Sandford ***

2006-07-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: A killer who calls himself the "maddog" has been murdering Minneapolis women, seemingly without pattern or motive. The crimes are linked only by their brutality and by the slayer's "signature": at each scene, he leaves a written rule of crime, such as "Never kill anyone you know," or "Never carry a weapon after it has been used." Into the case comes Lucas Davenport, a policeman with five kills in the line of duty, a surefire sense of how to handle the thirsty media and strong instincts about the killer's psyche. Sandford offers no mystery here; the killer's identity is revealed in the first pages, and the suspense comes in waiting for him or Davenport to slip up.

07/27/08 This was a fun and exciting read glad I finally got to it.

#29 House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer ***

2006-07-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlan, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by "eejits," humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world. The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacran's doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the family's mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patron's favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlan. There he and other "lost children" are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country.

#28 Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock ****

2006-06-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: The title characters in Me & Emma are very nearly photographic opposites--8-year-old Carrie, the raven-haired narrator, is timid and introverted, while her little sister Emma is a tow-headed powerhouse with no sense of fear. The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husbandÂs murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food.

07/10/06 This was a very compelling read. However, very sad and contains a couple of the mostdislikablee characters I've encountered. Flock did a great job of distracting me with what I thought would be thepredictablee ending leaving me surprised. I like to be surprised by an ending!

#27 Watermelon by Marian Keyes *****

2006-06-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: Claire Webster, heroine of this breezy Irish bestseller, thinks hubby James is the man of her dreams until he ditches her for an older woman (Claire herself is 29) two hours after their daughter is born. Mother and child repair to Dublin, where there's hope of solace and sustenance in the bosom of an eccentric family, while Claire downsizes from watermelon to wisp and struggles over the hurdles of blues and booze. When she attracts a handsome young lover and considers dumping the suddenly repentant James, it's clear a happy ending's in sight. Or is it? There are a few surprises and plenty of sassy girltalk in this slick if sometimes silly take on what it's like to be female. Much of the hilarity generated by Claire's funky family?airhead sisters who squabble over clothes and men, a mother who'd rather watch soap operas than cook, a father perpetually bewildered by the women in his life?wears thin, but readers will identify with Claire's flaws, applaud her irreverent wit and rejoice at her triumphant recovery.

07/05/06 I finished this over the weekend and absolutely loved it. Second 5 star read of the year. I really related because I've been through something similar in the past 6 months and Keyes nailed the experience pretty well.

#26 Send Me Down A Miracle by Han Nolan ****

2006-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: There's a startling, almost itchy moment in every adolescent's life when she or he first realizes that adults are fallible. Yet, for 14-year-old Charity, the revelation is even more profound: not only is her dad (the town's preacher) merely wrong about the eccentric Adrienne Dabney, he's dang-blasted and over-the-top wrong. Although she's always been a perfect preacher's daughter, Charity is about to shock the whole town by standing up to her father, proving him wrong in front of God and everyone.

06/19/06 Just a lovely story!

Relay for Life in Casper, WY

2006-06-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

#25 Stone Cold by Robert B. Parker ***

2006-06-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: This outing finds the laconic, troubled cop tackling three problems: to capture the pair of serial killers who are murdering random victims in small-town Paradise, Mass., where Stone is chief of police; to bring to justice the three high-school students who gang-raped a younger schoolmate; and to come to terms with his love of both alcohol and his ex-wife, Jenn. The serial killers, revealed early to the reader and soon enough to Stone, are a married yuppie pair who taunt Stone, whom they take as a dumb hick cop, as he collects evidence to bring them down; his pursuit of them leads them to kill someone close to him, then to target Stone himself, and eventually to an emotionally cathartic climax in Toronto, where the killers have fled. That story line serves as a fine little police procedural, but Parker is at his max here when following the rape plot, especially in scenes in which Stone, in his cool, compassionate way, tries to help the besieged victim as best he can. Meanwhile, under intense media attention and pressure from town elders for the ongoing serial killings, Stone works his way toward an understanding of the roles that booze and Jenn play in his life.

#24 If Looks Could Kill by Kate White***

2006-06-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: When her young nanny dies of poisoned chocolates meant for her, magazine editor Cat Jones enlists the help of freelance crime writer Bailey Weggins. Bailey's not really an investigator, but she knows the procedure: scope out the crime scene, interrogate possible suspects (including Cat's attractive photographer husband), reconstruct the victim's last hours, consult with pals, etc. Bailey's attention soon turns toward Cat's conniving colleagues at the magazine and farther afield.

#23 Joy School by Elizabeth Berg ***

2006-06-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

From Amazon: A 13-year-old girl falls in love with a 21-year-old garage mechanic who saves her life. From this unrequited love and other sorrows, she learns about the joys of life.

06/06/06 This was a sequal to Durable Goods but can easily stand alone. I did enjoy it and was a nice quick read.