Monday, January 11, 2016

Pretty Ugly; nEvermore; Devil in Jerusalem

"Pretty Ugly" by Kirker Butler was a hilarious dark humor novel about the worst people ever. Miranda Miller is the ultimate pageant mom, forcing daughter Bailey to compete in pageants even though Bailey is sick of them. Bailey secretly eats candy so she'll gain weight and her mom won't make her compete any longer. Her husband, Ray, is a nurse who recently found out he got his barely 18 year old girlfriend pregnant. Miranda's mom, Joan, talks to Jesus, who tells her to kill people. All sorts of awful things happen to them, and I was thrilled because they deserved it.





I'm a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, so I was excited to see a book of new works by authors paying tribute to him in their unique ways. Unfortunately this collection just did not live up. Some of the stories were all right, but none were great and most were just mediocre. A few were flat out terrible. It's a shame, Poe left behind some wonderful inspiration to take advantage of.







Naomi Ragen's "Devil in Jerusalem" was a hard book to read. It was very good, but very graphically details horrific accounts of child abuse. Daniella is a young, idealist, religious Jewish girl growing up in a wealthy family when she meets Shlomie at a summer camp. They get married and move to Israel to begin their dream life of raising a pious Jewish family in the Holy Land. Shlomie becomes a Talmudic scholar and Daniella has seven children in ten years time. They have their fair share of misfortune but also good times, until Shlomie gets involved with an evil cult leader named Shem Tov, whose followers call him the Messiah. Before Daniella realizes what's happened her family is torn apart and she's divorced from Shlomie, married to Shem Tov, and her children are being abused. It was heartbreakingly sad and melodramatic, but not bad.

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