Gossip Girl; Somebody Owes Me Money; Uncertain Endings

After Shriver's "We Need to Talk about Kevin", I was craving something light and fluffy, so I read Cecily von Ziegesar's "Gossip Girl", the first in the series about a bunch of Upper East Side spoiled kids who attend private school but all they ever seem to do is drink and have sex. I wasn't very impressed. It was too silly and pretentious, and the whole omnipotent gossipgirl.net voice over thing was annoying. I suppose I was supposed to care who was writing the site, but really, I don't. I probably won't ever read it again.
"Somebody Owes Me Money" by Donald Westlake was a hard case true crime book about a New York taxi driver named Chet who makes a bet on a horse and when he goes to collect the money from his bookie he finds the bookie dead. The cops think Chet did it, McKay's sister thinks Chet did it, and two rival gangs think Chet did it. Chet's in a big mess. It was pretty good, although the ending was so convoluted I'm not 100% sure who the killer was. I probably won't ever read it again, but it was kind of fun.
"Uncertain Endings" was a book of mystery short stories with ambiguous endings edited by Otto Penzler. I'm not normally a short story person, but this one was pretty good. Most of the stories were satisfyingly frustrating. I probably won't ever read it again, but it was worth it the first time.

My Life in and Out of the Rough; Bubbles Unbound; We Need to Talk About Kevin

"My Life In and Out of the Rough" by John Daly is the golfer's own account of his life. While only a slim 200 pages, he manages to pack a lot into it, never shying away from admitting the uglier details of his life, including his 54 million dollar gambling debts over the years. Holy Jesus!! I probably won't ever read it again, but it was good for the first go round.
"Bubbles Unbound" by Sarah Strohmeyer is her first Bubbles book. I've heard the Bubbles series compared to the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, and so I figured since I loved Evanovich's books so much, I would check these out. Bubbles is a hairstylist and part-time journalist who is determined to expose a rich woman and her arrogant husband as murderers. It wasn't very good: the zaniness seemed forced and unfunny. I won't ever read it again, and I highly doubt I'll read any of the other Bubbles book. It was a good premise, but not very well executed.
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver more than made up for the disappointment of Bubbles. Shriver's book is told in letters from Eva, to her estranged husband, Franklin. Right from the beginning we know their son, Kevin, killed several classmates and a teacher in a Columbine like attack a year and a half earlier. Eva recounts their marriage and Kevin's life in these letters, wondering if her indifference and sometimes downright hatred of Kevin made him the way he was. Right from the start, Kevin seems evil. His babysitters sense it, his teachers sense it, parents of other children sense it. The only one who doesn't seem to realize it is Franklin. This was an amazing book, well written and gripping. It raises questions as to why these kids do what they do, and if anything could have been done to stop them. Of course, like all good fiction, it answers none of these questions, just asks so the reader ponders them. The last 40 pages are absolutely shocking. I would definitely read this one again, as well as recommend it to anyone looking for a great book.

Ella Minnow Pea; Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime; Where are the Children?

"Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn was really cute, about a group of people living on Nollop Island who consider the creator of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" to be their literary guru and have erected a statue to him containing that sentence. When letters start falling off the statue, the council decides that Nollop is speaking from the grave and wants the citizens of his island to stop using those letters. At first most of the islanders are up to the challenge, but eventually, as more tiles fall and they have fewer and fewer letters of the alphabet to choose from, more and more islanders are banished for breaking the rules by speaking or writing with those now forbidden letters. It is up to a couple of determined people to come up with a sentence that uses all 26 letters of the alphabet with only 32 letters. It was interesting to see how the islanders coped with the restrictions placed on them (the whole book is told in letter form). I would read it again.
"Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime" by Robert J. Randisi is a mystery featuring the Rat Pack. Frank, Dean, Sammy, and the rest of the gang are in Vegas shooting "Ocean's 11" when Dean starts getting threatening letters. Frank asks the Sands' pit boss, Eddie G., who has Vegas wired, to check around and see who is behind the threats. Eddie, in the course of fulfilling this favor to Frank, accidentally stumbles into a couple of murders and is almost killed himself. It was a really good book; the mystery was well written and kept me guessing, and the voices of the Rat Pack seemed authentic. I'd read it again. Randisi has another Rat Pack mystery I'm eager to read now.
"Where are the Children?" by Mary Higgins Clark was one I read because I'm trying to read things I normally wouldn't, so I can better understand why people enjoy them. Clark is so popular, I figured her books must be spectacular. Maybe it was just this one, but it seemed really contrived. Of course, it was written in 1975, so many others have basically done the same thing she does (only better), so I don't know for sure if she did it first. In this book Nancy has two young children and on the seven year anniversary of the murder of her first two children her two new children are kidnapped. Nancy had been convicted of murdering the first two, but the verdict was thrown out after members of the jury were discovered to have been discussing the case in the middle of it. The prosecution couldn't retry because his star witness disappeared. Now of course everyone in the small Cape Cod town she's living in thinks she killed her new kids, too. It was easy to tell who the bad guy was and what was going to happen in the end. The only way I can describe why I didn't like this book is to say this: if Stephen King had written it, it would have been 600 pages long instead of 280. He would have fleshed it out, and added some flashback courtroom scenes, some unexpected twists, and the characters really would have popped. I don't know, I just didn't feel like it was worth investing my time in these people, they were so one dimensional. I won't read this one again, and I probably won't read anymore by Clark. I can see why people read her, because she is quick and easy, but it's just not my cup of tea.

Life with My Sister Madonna; Stori Telling

I know, I know: two trashier books don't exist, right? Well, while both were very dishy, I kinda liked them. It's awful, but I'm in the mood for fluff right now.
First, "Life with My Sister Madonna" by her brother, Christopher Ciccone. I hope he wasn't expecting Madonna to forgive him after reading this nasty little tell all. Admittedly, there isn't a lot of surprising dirt on Madonna: she doesn't drink or do drugs or anything crazy like that. She just treated her dear brother like crap (or so he claims, I'm inclined to take everything with a grain of salt. However, that being said, he did seem like a really fun, likeable guy). It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I probably won't ever read it again, but it was worth it the first time.
"Stori Telling" by Tori Spelling did what I thought would be impossible: it actually made me feel sorry for her. I know! Who feels sorry for Tori freakin' Spelling?! But I did, and she too seems really likeable and friendly. I'm really glad she has finally found true happiness with her husband, Dean. I hope it lasts for her. She seems to really have worked hard to deserve it. And as a huge "90210" fan (boy, I'm admitting a lot of guilty pleasures here!) I always liked her character, and never thought she only got the job because of her dad. I probably won't ever read it again, but it was good for laughs the first time around.

Wild Thing: John Daly; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; Mother Warriors; The First Quarry

"Wild Thing: John Daly" by William Wartman is a biography about golf's most outrageous athlete, John Daly, who won the 1991 PGA tour on his first time out. It was lots of fun; he seems like a wild and crazy guy. I totally would love to watch him play. I'll probably never read this one again (I don't usually, with biographies) but it was worth the time the first time.
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows was very cute. "Charming" was how my co-worker described it, and she summed it up well with that word. It takes place right after World War II on Guernsey Island, and is told entirely through letters. It was sweet and sad and I'd definitely read it again.
"Mother Warriors" by Jenny McCarthy blew me away. I picked it up at the library last night and even though I was dead tired after work and just wanted to go to sleep, I stayed up, reading it. Jenny's son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism, which utterly fascinates me and I don't know why. It scares the bejesus out of me that 1 out of every 150 kids get this and we aren't doing more about it. Jenny and other families with autistic kids have found treatments that work, like the gluten free diet, and the medical community is just ignoring their amazing results, saying that you can't possibly cure autism. Jenny talks alot about her frustration and I totally understand. It's insane! It makes me so angry, and I don't have an autistic kid. She is such an amazing lady, and a real champion. I hope soon that the mainstream medical community smartens up real soon, for the sake of all those poor kids. I would definitely read this one again, as heartbreaking as it is.
And finally, "The First Quarry" by Max Allan Collins was a hard case crime book and I really liked it. It was full of graphic, gross death and sex but totally fun. Quarry has just returned from Vietnam (the book is set in 1970) and has become a gun for hire. His first hit is a college professor who is sleeping with a big mob boss's daughter in order to get info out of her for his new book. There were a lot of neat twists in this one I didn't see coming. I probably won't ever read it again, but it was worth the time the first time around.