The Goldfinch; Somebody's Going to Die if Lilly Beth Don't Catch That Bouquet

Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" is a brick of a book, but I enjoyed it. Thirteen year old Theo and his mom are in a museum when terrorists attack, blowing it up. When Theo comes to he is in a gallery with an old man who is dying. Theo tries to comfort him, and the old man gives him his ring and encourages him to take a painting that he is worried will be destroyed, the Goldfinch. Theo takes it and goes home, only to learn his mother didn't survive. He goes to stay with his friend Andy until his deadbeat dad shows up and takes him back to Las Vegas. In Vegas, the once hardworking, over achieving Theo meets Boris, a Russian boy who gets him involved in drugs, drinking, and stealing. When Theo's father dies, Theo knows he'll be shipped off to social services, so he runs off to New York, and ends up with Hobie, who is Welty's (the old man who died in the museum) business partner. Theo stores the painting in art storage, not sure what to do with it. He's afraid he'll get in trouble if he tells anyone, but at the same time he doesn't want to give it up. The book forwards about 10 years later. Theo is grown and now is Hobie's business partner in the antiques dealing/restoration business. Theo hasn't been 100% honest with some of their clients, however, passing off new furniture as antiques, and is about to be exposed when Boris turns up, apologizing for having taken the Goldfinch all those years ago in Vegas. Turns out Theo never unwrapped the painting, because if he had he would have discovered he'd been paying to house an old textbook in the art storage facility. Boris wants to make it right, Theo wants to make it right, since he's disappointed Hobie. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say, and this book showed that this is definitely true. I thought it was very nicely written.

In the mood for some laughs, so I picked up Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hayes's "Somebody's Going to Die if Lilly Beth Don't Catch That Bouquet". Part how-to wedding planning guide and part humor, it was full of stories of Delta weddings gone wrong and recipes to throw your own authentic Southern wedding to end all weddings. I'm assuming most of those recipes were a joke, I can't imagine even in the deep South people eat that much mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce, but it was pretty funny.