Fiction

The Master of Secrets

1 Comment / 2007, Books in Bed, Fiction, Religion /

Oh boy, another book about God and Jesus. How did that happen? The Master of Secrets wasn’t half bad. A “man behind the curtain”, anti-Christ character and a lost boy. Interesting and troubling and then redeeming. Which is sort of what Christianity is all about, isn’t it?

Not bad at all. But I am sooo done with religion at this point. Maybe TW will let me stay home from church on Sunday. Surely I’ve read enough about God this week to get time off for good behavior… (and how is it that I do not have a religion sub-category in the “books” topic area? weird, very weird.)

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Simple Genius

1 Comment / 2007, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery /

I didn’t really want to read Simple Genius. I don’t have any idea how it landed on our library shelf but I’m guessing TW picked it up off the shelf when we were down to no books from our reserve list waiting for pick up. TW swore I should read it. She swore it was really good. I didn’t really believe her but I didn’t see anything else on the shelf that I was just dying to read. So, I picked it up. And that first night I read half of it. I read long past the time that TW turned out her light and went to bed and I almost never do this because I tend to be just a little tired at the end of the day.

First I read late into the night and then today I finished it before I even read my blog feeds. This should tell you something. It should tell you that it was a good book and I’m glad I read it. I might even like to read more books about Sean and Michelle.

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Throw Like a Girl: Stories

2007, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, short stories, Women /

I don’t usually like short stories very much. And a book of short stories is just too much of a not so great thing. Throw Like a Girl might be the first book of short stories that I’ve ever really loved. OK maybe the Atwood book that Sassy sent me, I really liked that one too. Other than that, can’t think of any others that I’ve liked this much – enough to drop into the “favorites” category.


Once again, I can’t remember who recommended this or which blog I saw it reviewed on – but thanks, whoever you are.

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The Saffron Kitchen

2007, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

I think TW just picked The Saffron Kitchen off of the shelf last week when we had ZERO library books and she was dying for books. These sorts of books I often just skip, I’m usually too far behind on my TBR list to even consider something that hasn’t been recommended by someone. But this time, we really had NO library books on the TBR shelf – so I went ahead and gave it a try. And it was good.

At first I assumed this was going to be “just another Iranian/British book” and it was for about 50 pages and then I was hooked. I’m not sure the bridge scene, in exactly that way, needed to happen – yes to the bridge scene, no to what happened to Sara. Other than that, I have no complaints about this book.

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The Descendants

2007, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I’m not sure how it happened but now that I’ve finished The Descendants I’m feeling like this is one of my favorites for 2007. It was slow going, particularly slow going since I read a dozen or so pages in Charleston at the end of June and picked it up again on the trip home from BlogHer Con and was just as confused as when I started reading it the first time.

After reading the first dozen pages and feeling like maybe I should just give up because I couldn’t figure out whose voice was speaking or the relationship between the characters, I closed it – read the jacket and started over one more time and then it all clicked.

What a great dysfunctional family. Matt’s frequent mention of blogs as a primary resource for parenting advice was one of the most amusing things I’ve read in ages.

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The Deathly Hallows

1 Comment / 2007, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Harry Potter, Queer /

I did finally finish Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows. Finally. I cannot believe it took me more than a week. Well yes I can since I had one of the craziest weeks of my life.

I liked it, the book not the crazy life – well I guess I liked that too. There are some parts that I was disappointed in, the “19 years later” part is probably the biggest disappointment. She should have just left it alone.

Rather than ramble on and on, and include some spoilers that piss people off, I’ll just link you over to Mombian and her post about Rowling and lesbian literature. That won’t piss anyone off, will it?

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Original Sins

2007, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Queer /

I finally finished Lisa Alther’s Original Sins. I’ve only been reading it for weeks. I can’t remember when it has taken me so long to finish a book but it wasn’t the book’s fault, it was mine – I was distracted. So, about the book. It was much better than Kinflicks but again, very doggone long. I liked the characters quite a bit better. I liked watching them move from childhood into the adulthood – figuring out how to navigate through racism and feminism and a wee bit into orientation. And, I liked the ending.

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The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights

2007, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

The Garden of Eden and Other Criminal Delights by Faye Kellerman is a book of short stories or short crime stories to be specific. TW reserved this on from the library on audio. Do you know why she reserved this one on audio? Because Nancy McKeon was listed as a narrator of the book. We were about half way through it and enjoying it very much when we realized we hadn’t yet heard Nancy narrate a story. We got all of the way to the end and still no Nancy. Weird. Apparently our library version is not the same version as the one you can order at Amazon. Ah well, we still enjoyed the stories very much. We would both recommend this one but agree that we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if we had read it rather than listened to it.

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