Friday, January 24, 2014

Wedding Gift; History Decoded; Baby Boom

"The Wedding Gift" by Marlen Suyapa Bodden was a moving story of Sarah, a slave who dreams of being free, and her white half-sister, Clarissa. They grow up together, first Sarah is Clarissa's playmate, and then her maid. Sarah's mother teaches them both to read and write, even though it's against the law for slaves to have that knowledge. Sarah marries Isaac, her mulatto cousin, while Clarissa puts off her marriage to wealthy Julius Cromwell for as long as she can, until she discovers she is pregnant. A scant five months after marriage, she gives birth. Sarah recognizes the child as Isaac's, and the Cromwell's throw Clarissa out because it's obvious the baby is partially black. Clarissa, Sarah, and the baby go back to Clarissa's family but her father is having none of it and send the child to an orphanage and lets Clarissa die of childbed fever. I really liked the ending, it was a good story.

"History Decoded" by Brad Meltzer was fun. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist type of person, like Area 51 for example, I don't particularly care what's being hidden (if anything) out there. But it's still interesting to read about the different mysteries that have never been solved, like D. B. Cooper and the Confederate gold.

P. J. O'Rourke always makes me laugh, and his latest "Baby Boom", was very funny. He turns his wit on himself and his generation. It made me nostalgic for a life I never even lived.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Poe; Tudor; Twilight of Lake Woebegotten; The Influence

J. Lincoln Fenn's thriller "Poe" started out very good, but then it got very long and felt unnecessary. Dimitri discovers he has the ability to summon spirits because he is the grandson of Rasputin. Poe is what he calls the somewhat friendly spirit who is trying to warn him about a demonic spirit who has inhabited the body of his girlfriend Lisa's brother and is now killing people. If the spirit kills one more person, he'll be unstoppable.

"Tudor" by Leanda de Lisle was very good. It was an interesting look at the Tudor dynasty in terms of familial relationships: how they were all related, who married who and what the consequences were in terms of the succession, etc. I enjoyed it, and actually learned some new things.

"Twilight of Lake Woebegotten" by Harrison Geillor was a hilarious parody not only of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" but also Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon books. Bonnie Grayduck moves to Lake Woebegotten in Minnesota to live with her dad. She meets Edwin Scullen and falls for him, but it turns out Edwin and his family are vampires. What made this book so funny is that Bonnie is a cold hearted, calculated killer. She wants to be a vampire so she has powers, and manipulates Edwin and everyone else in Lake Woebegotten into thinking she's a harmless, helpless, somewhat klutzy girl when really she's ruthless and vindictive. Edwin comes across as a real pansy, especially after he turns Bonnie into a vampire.

I haven't read any Bentley Little in a long time. His latest, "The Influence", was gross and creepy good. Ross lost his engineering job a year earlier. He's living off his savings, afraid of losing his condo in Phoenix while he hunts for a job, and resentful that despite the fact that he's helped everyone in his family, no one steps up to help him. Until his cousin Lita offers him her guest house at her and her husband Dave's farm in Magdalena. Ross gratefully takes her up on it, even though he's not a fan of living in the middle of nowhere. Ross finds Magdalena isn't so bad. He helps Dave with some simple chores and sends out resumes and job hunts online. Everything is fine until New Year's Eve. At a raucous party at wealthy rancher and local bully Cameron Holt's place, a group of rowdy citizens fire off their pistols into the air at midnight and shoot something out of the sky. Everyone is convinced it's an angel because that's what it *wants* everyone to think. It must be protected. Even though Ross, Lita, and Dave weren't at the party, they do eventually find out what happens when things in town start going wonky. Luck changes: formally unlucky people suddenly find themselves rich, and the rich are losing all their money. Animals are dying, or changing into unrecognizable monsters. Ross, his girlfriend Jill, and Dave and Lita flee Magdalena but find that they can't escape the influence of the angel and so they make plans to go back and destroy it. Sure, good luck with that.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Manson; The Novel Cure; Game; August: Osage County; Innocence

"Manson" by Jeff Gunn was well researched and well written, not just an account of the famous trial (which Vincent Bugliosi wrote about so well in "Helter Skelter"), but about how Manson was able to attract followers in the first place, and how he persuaded these lost souls to kill for him. Truly a dangerous man.

"The Novel Cure" by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin was great fun. They listed a bunch of maladies, from loneliness to stress, some tongue in cheek (like burning dinner) and suggest some appropriate reading material to help take your mind off your worries. The only problem is now I have a huge list of books they've suggested that I don't have time to read but really want to! Plus, they are actually bibliotherapists: it's an actual profession, where they help people decide what to read. Sounds kind of like a cross between a librarian and a therapist. Sounds neat!

"Game" by Anders de la Motte was an exciting thriller. Henke finds a cell phone on a train, and it asks him if he'd like to play a game. He accepts, and finds himself sucked into a world of increasingly daring missions, until he ends up hurting his sister. Now not only is his life at risk but everyone he cares about as well. It's the first of a trilogy, so I'm excited for the next one.

I wanted to read Tracey Letts' play "August: Osage County" before I go to see the film. It was very good about a dysfunctional family who can't even put their hurts and differences aside in the face of tragedy. It was very dark but funny. I can't wait to see the movie.

And finally, I was surprised by how much I liked Dean Koontz's latest, "Innocence". It was really different. We're introduced to Addison, who was turned out of his house at the age of 8 by his mother, who promptly killed herself. Something about Addison whips people into a murderous rage: we're told the midwife tried to smother him upon delivery. Addison does his best to keep himself hidden from the world, and makes his way to the city, where he finds a man who suffers from the same affliction he does. Together they keep each other safe and happy in their simple underground world, until the day when Father is brutally murdered. Six years later, Addison meets a young girl on the run for her life. Gwyneth suffers from a crippling form of social anxiety and can't bear to be around people, or to be touched, and together they form an unlikely pair based on mutual trust. A man-made plague is coming to end the world, and they survive because what makes them hideous to others is their purity. When mere mortals look upon them, they relive all the awful things they've ever felt and done, and it makes them want to kill them so they don't feel that way anymore, which actually made a lot of sense to me, moreso than a monster or something. Anyway, I enjoyed it. 

Friday, January 3, 2014

Bad Monkey; Lost Girls; The Circle; Elizabeth of York

"Bad Monkey" by Carl Hiaasen was pretty hilarious. A tourist fishing boat pulls up an arm and a disgraced police officer named Andrew Yancey is determined to get to the bottom of it, despite being demoted to restaurant inspector.

"Lost Girls" by Caitlin Rother was well written and heartbreaking. John Gardner, a sexual predator, raped and murdered two teenage girls a year apart before he was caught. Rother details how the system broke down and even allowed Gardner to be on the street to begin with.

Dave Egger's latest, "The Circle", was truly scary despite being fiction. It takes place in a future I can definitely see happening at the rate we're going. The Circle starts out as an online social network but soon becomes so much more. Transparency is the key, and no one is allowed privacy, nor should they *want* privacy. It's like an updated version of Orwell's "1984".

"Elizabeth of York" by Alison Weir is her usually meticulously researched and well written look at Henry VIII's mother, who saw so much change during her short life. From her father being on the throne to tossed off of it, to be put back on, to die young and have his kingdom in upheaval. She had to marry Henry VII, who stole the throne from King Richard III (my opinion, not Weir's) and become mother to one of history's most awful men. Fascinating.