Remember a couple of months ago when I was talking about Tabitha King? Well I finally got around to reading Candles Burning the novel started by Michael McDowell. He died before it was completed so Tabitha King picked up his manuscript and wrote the story. It was good. Really very good.
Technorati Tags: tabithaking, michaelmcdowell, candlesburning, fiction, fantasy
Almost Doesn’t Count is the library book that disappeared from our shelves ages ago that neither of us could remember ever seeing. It’s the one I paid for to clear my library account. It’s the one I found on our bookshelves a month later. It’s the one TW said “Oh that was good! I wouldn’t mind owning that!”
Well I finally made time to read it and I can’t figure out why TW would want to own it. It isn’t a bad book but it isn’t great and the editing was troubling in a lot of places. A Georgia black woman dealing with childhood abuse and intimacy issues. Lots of rough sex, really rough sex.
Technorati Tags: fiction, almostdoesntcount, electaromeparks, georgia, abuse, bisexual
Almost Doesn’t Count Read More »
There are a lot of “awe” moments in the latest installment of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. Mostly there are happy endings for all of the major characters – but poor Charlie, poor poor Charlie!
Technorati Tags: alexandermccallsmith, ladies#1detectiveagency, thegoodhusband, fiction, africa
I should disclose the fact (to new readers or those wandering in from Google) that I am a Jodi Picoult fan. I have liked everything she’s written and I think I’ve read everything she’s written except her new Wonder Woman comics (and I am going to get those!). Some of her books I’ve liked more than others. The Pact is and probably always will be my favorite. Nineteen Minutes has no surprises if you are a Picoult reader, you probably figured out the ending long before you finished the first half of the book.
Nineteen Minutes does what all Picoult novels do – it takes a very very difficult subject involving teenagers and parents and spins it hard. It isn’t a feel good book, though there are moments when you will feel good. It doesn’t have a happy ending, none of her books really do. How could books about teen suicides and school shootings even have a happy ending? They can’t and they shouldn’t and that is why I am a Picoult fan. She takes those horrible difficult things that can and do happen to good people (and good teens) and she tells the stories that come along with them. She puts a parent’s worst fears on paper.
I’ve been putting off reading Surveillance for at least a month, maybe two. The cover did not look appealing and I couldn’t remember why I had reserved it from the library or if one of us had just picked it up off of the shelf. I had better things to read. When I saw it was due back to the library this week and had already been renewed to the limit, I went ahead and picked it up. It was good, at first.
Actually, it was good through til the end. What the hell? I feel like I’m missing chapters or something. It ended like that? But, but, but. Huh? I don’t even get it now. I almost re-read the last chapter thinking I missed something by trying to rush through it this morning so we could hit the library early. But I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have missed THAT much. It just ended badly. Very badly. Because of that – don’t read this book. Sheesh.
(Oh goodness, I should have read the Amazon reviews – they all were disappointed in the ending. What crap! The author should be shot!)
Technorati Tags: fiction, seattle, paranoia, surveillance, jonathonraban
It took me a long, long time to finish Zoia’s Gold. It was slow until the end and then it picked up nicely and I was turning pages as quickly as I could. Interesting, though I was troubled that it took so long for them to figure out what Zoia was hiding with the gold… it seemed obvious to me, which is probably why I found it moved so slowly.
Heh, I had forgotten this was on the A to Z challenge list! Yea! One more to cross off. Not a bad book either. I’d like a Zoia painting, I think.
I could have sworn we read all of the Booker Prize Nominees from last year but apparently we missed In the Country of Men. I’m glad we didn’t miss it entirely. It was good. Better than the darn winner, that’s for sure!
Is there a serious absence of books about Libya or is that my imagination?
Technorati Tags: inthecountryofmen, libya, fiction, bookerprize
Another Radish book down, is it two or three more to go? I am not sure, I’ve lost track and they are beginning to blend in together just a little bit. Though Sunday List of Dreams was different from the other two in some significant ways (main character was just a little more reserved than the others and errr uhhh ummm the whole sex toy industry thing….sheesh).
TW didn’t really like this one, she said. The person who first recommended Elegant Gathering didn’t like this one very much. I, on the otherhand, liked it quite a bit more than Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn. It’s not often that you read a book about sex toys and the “womyn’s festival”.
Technorati Tags: krisradish, fiction, thesundaylistofdreams, GLBT, womynsfestival, sextoys
The Sunday List of Dreams Read More »
Look! A post about a book! A book I was very disappointed with. The Story of the Cannibal Woman has a great title and got some good reviews and I yawned my way through it. (At least I made it through, TW put it down early.) There were lines I really liked, passages where I thought “Hey, this might improve!” but in the end it was disappointing. All of that back and forth, mixed up mess, for this ending? OK. Well. Ho Hum.
Technorati Tags: thestoryofthecannibalwoman, africa, racism, GLBT
The Story of the Cannibal Woman Read More »
I know, I know – again with the books and nothing in between. My life is like that sometimes. 😉 So, Singing With the Top Down felt a lot like the Anna Casey book but grown up. It also read a lot like a young adult book. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Rescuing hitchhikers and mummies, dealing with slime bag men and doctors, becoming a “family”. Nice story, good solid happy ending. It was fun but not frivolous fun at the expense of orphans or hitchhikers!
Technorati Tags: fiction, singingwiththetopdown, hitchhikers, orphans, families
Singing With the Top Down Read More »