I really enjoyed Jenny Han's "The Summer I Turned Pretty". Belly (real name Isabel) spends every summer with her mom and her older brother Steven at a beach house with her mom's best friend Susannah and her two sons: Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has had a crush on Conrad for years, but the boys have always treated her like the tag-along little sister until now. Belly is almost 16 and has bloomed into a beautiful young woman. Through flashbacks to previous summers, Belly shares her special moments with Conrad and Jeremiah. This summer is different. Susannah is dying. It was sweet and tender and I really enjoyed it.
"Queen Elizabeth's Daughter" by Anne Clinard Barnhill was pretty forgettable. Fictionalized life of Mary Shelton, a ward of Queen Elizabeth (and cousin), Elizabeth has brought her up, groomed her for a life of luxury and is disappointed when Mary falls in love with John Skydemore, a widower with five children. She forbids their marriage, but Mary defies her and weds John anyway. When Elizabeth finds out, she overreacts in typical Tudor fashion, banishing Mary from court and arresting John for treason and throwing him in the tower. Mary is able to beg forgiveness from the Queen and free John, but they never really have a life together, since the Queen insists Mary stay with her at court always. Like I said, pretty forgettable.
When I realized there were two more books after "The Summer I Turned Pretty", I was dying to read them. I was pretty disappointed, though. Neither one held the charm of the first. In the second one, "It's Not Summer Without You", Belly and Conrad have broken up after only about six months of long distance dating, after a disastrous prom. Conrad is pulling away as Susannah is dying, and after she dies he completely shuts down. Conrad disappears from school and Jeremiah enlists Belly's help in finding him. Of course he's at the summer house, which their father is threatening to sell now that his wife is dead. It just felt really forced and completely ridiculous for Conrad to treat Belly the way he did.
And then the last one, "We'll Always Have Summer", was just as bad. Belly has been dating Jeremiah, and they are at the same college together. Belly finds out he cheated on her over spring break and is devastated, but Jeremiah apologizes and proposes. They decide to get married in August at the beach house. Their parents are of course opposed to a marriage so young, but they go about planning it anyway. Conrad confesses to Belly the night before the wedding that he still loves her, and she realizes she's too confused about how she feels to marry Jeremiah. They call off the wedding and she ends up marrying Conrad a few years later. Yawn.
I'm going to see the great James Ellroy speak at the end of October, so I've been trying to finish the L.A. Quartet. I read the first one, "The Black Dahlia", years ago. The second one, "The Big Nowhere" was gritty and dark, classic Ellroy. A brutal murder has officer Danny Upshaw combing gay bars, looking for a middle aged man with a predilection for heroin. At the same time, a task force is being assembled to bring down the Communist menace, and Upshaw has been asked to go undercover to seduce one of the women involved to see if he can get some evidence. Whole lotta blood, death, cold hearted killings, and incest of the worst sort made this one a gore fest, and it was great.
I love Mickey Spillane. I miss Mickey Spillane. "King of the Weeds" was great fun. Before his war buddy Marcus Dooley died, he told Mike Hammer where he'd stashed the 89 billion dollars he'd stole from the mob. Now everyone's after Hammer, trying to figure out where the loot is at. Also, a 40 year old murder is being reopened, threatening Pat's career. He arrested (with some help from Mike) Rudy Olaf for the murder of several bums, but now Olaf's old friend Henry Brogan is copping to the kills, complete with the long lost murder weapon. Brogan is, conveniently, dying, and Hammer suspects Olaf has made a deal with him that he'll take care of his grandkids with the fat payout he's getting from the city for 40 years of wrongful imprisonment. Good stuff.
And finally, another Sookie reread. "Club Dead" by Charlaine Harris is the third book in the series. Bill is working on a mysterious project for the queen of Louisiana when he is kidnapped. Eric suspects the king of Mississippi and asks Sookie to go to Jackson with a werewolf bodyguard, Alcide, who has access to Club Dead, where vampires and werewolves hang out. Sookie goes with Alcide to find out what she can about where Bill might be being held, even though she is angry when she discovers he's been cheating on her with Lorena, a vampire, and is planning on leaving her. Sookie is injured in the club while saving the king of Mississippi's right hand lady, and Russell takes her back to his compound to be healed. While there Sookie finds out where Bill is at, rescues him, and gets to kill Lorena in the process before heading back to Bon Temps.
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