I don't need to say anything more than that to fans of this series -- as usual, this is a smart, funny, and exciting novel that all fans of forensics should read. I only wish they'd made more of the books in this series into movies! If you haven't yet experienced Jeffrey Deaver's creations, pick a book and dive right in. You cannot go wrong with Lincoln Rhyme. Highly recommended! (5/27/03)|MYSTERY Lost in a Good Book|Jasper Fforde|Yay! Thursday Next is back! This novel starts out with Thursday trying to avoid the spotlight after her escapades in "The Eyre Affair" (the first book in this series) get out to the public. Everybody wants to know how she did it -- how she got INSIDE "Jane Eyre." And, even better, how she managed to change the ending of that novel from bleak and depressing to romantic and uplifting!
But Literary Detective Next's success in "Jane Eyre" interests someone else too. First there are the Prose Police, who intend to charge Next with tampering with a classic. And then there's the evil Goliath corporation. They want Thursday to use her page jumping skills to retrieve a vanquished enemy, Jack Schitt, from "The Raven." And just in case she refuses, they've given her a good incentive -- they've gone back in time and eradicated her husband by changing one event in his past (keeping his father from preventing his drowning when he was three) and letting him die when before he was saved. If Thursday gets Schitt out of Poe and turns him over, they'll put history back the way it was. If she refuses, her husband will remain dead and buried at the age of three -- lost to her forever.
But leaping into Edgar Allan Poe's works is no job for a rookie literary interloper. Many Prose Resource Operatives (PROs) have tried to get into Poe's works only to find themselves "boojummed" -- trapped inside their gruesome worlds forever. Lucky for Thursday, though, the top PRO at the Jurisfiction department has agreed to be her mentor -- to teach her the ropes of page jumping. Thursday rushes off to the department (which is located in a different dimension) to meet her mentor and is surprised to discover she is none other than Miss Havisham from "Great Expectations" (all the greatest prose operatives are fictional characters, by the way).
Will Miss Havisham be able to train Thursday well enough so that she can survive a page jump into Poe? Or will Next end up boojummed like so many others? And, if she does bring Jack Schitt back, how can she be sure Goliath will honor their promise to return her husband to her? Or, perhaps even more importantly, how can she stop the evil corporation from using its chrono-skills to alter history and eradicate anybody else who ever gets in their way? Clearly a company with such a bad attitude can't be allowed to maintain that kind of power. But how can one Spec-Ops literary detective possibly stop them?
Yet again, Fforde has written an absolutely delightful, quirky, and hilarious novel that takes the reader in and out of a variety of literary classics (her trial for messing with "Jane Eyre" actually takes place IN Kafka's "The Trial," for example, and just wait until you see what it's REALLY like inside Beatrix Potter's "Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies"!) and up and down a wild roller coaster of surprises and laughs. Fans of books and wordplay will love this book and its predecessor, "The Eyre Affair." And while Fford spends a lot of the novel on subplots that don't add much to the overall story -- in any other books, I would've found that extremely annoying -- his writing is just so damn fun, I didn't care what he was talking about. I just didn't want him to stop!
Here's to hoping the Thursday Next series will be long and full. Fforde is one of the most clever, creative, and original writers out there today. You have never read anything like this, I guarantee it! Highly, HIGHLY recommended! (5/17/03)|FICTION CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- Sin City|Max Allan Collins|A friend of mine loaned me two CSI paperback novels she'd picked up somewhere and this is the first of the two. I was a little skeptical at first -- how could they possibly be any good? But this one, about a professional stripper who is found strangeld to death in a locked room in the club where she worked, was actually pretty entertaining. It's not the most well-written novel I've ever read, but it moves at a pretty fast clip and seemed pretty true to the characters we've gotten to know and love on television. This was definitely an entertaining way to spend an afternoon -- almost as fun as watching the show itself! I'll probably read the second one my friend loaned me within the next week or so, so watch for a report on it here. If it's as fun, I'll definitely be looking for more of these in the future. (5/14/03) |MYSTERY Murder in the Hearse Degree|Tim Cockey|Another one in the Hitch the Undertaker series -- this one has Hitch being pulled into the case of a missing nanny. When Hitch hears through the grapevine that an old flame of his is back in town, he goes to look her up -- shoot the breeze, get caught up, remember old times, etc. But she's not around for a vacation -- she's left her abusive husband and she thinks he may have had something to do with the fact her young, lovely new nanny has suddenly disappeared. A few days later, the nanny turns up dead in the river. The cops say it was suicide, but Hitch is not so sure. . .
Not as entertaining as others in this series that I have read, though it could be my fault -- I had a hard time concentrating on it because I've been kind of anxious lately about the arrival of my new nephew (born on May 13th!). This one didn't seem as funny as usual, though. Still, Cockey is a great writer and this is a series I have enjoyed quite a bit. I'll keep reading 'em, if he keeps crankin' them out! I'd recommend you start with another one if you are new to the series, though. (5/12/03)|MYSTERY Jarhead|Anthony Swofford|When the U.S. Marines were sent to Saudi Arabia in 1990 to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, a jarhead in the infanty, on the front lines. This is Swofford's story about what life was like fighting the war and living for six months in the deserts of the Middle East -- the sand, the camaraderie, the physical challenges, the heat -- as well as a few anecdotal flashbacks to boot camp. While those stories are definitely enthralling, what makes this memoir really stand out is Swofford's honesty and candor about what he felt while he was there -- the emotional ups and downs. Anger, hate, fear, compassion, sadness. Lather, rinse, repeat.|Swofford swears like a sailor and writes like a pro, but everything else about him is 100% USMC. This book isn't pretty -- it delivers as many troubling truths about war and soldiers as it does inspiring tales of incredible valor. But it's a must-read for anyone curious about what life is like, physically and mentally, for the military personnel who fought in Iraq then, as well as now. Highly recommended, unless you are easily offended by lots of cursing or talk about private parts. I'm looking forward to reading more of Swofford's writing soon -- hope he keeps churning things out! (5/10/03)|NON-FIC Shutter Island|Dennis Lehane|When I first read about the plot of this novel, a psychological thriller about two cops who are sent to an Alcatraz-like mental hospital for the criminally insane to investigate the escape of a patient, and who then become trapped on the island when a hurricane hits, I thought to myself, "Not a terribly original idea," but since I'm always up for a good trapped-on-a-dangerous-island-during-a-hurricane story, I immediately put it on hold at the library.
I was quickly glad I had, too, because almost instantly I could tell Lehane was a terrific writer. And the two cops are wonderful characters -- I just love witty banter and clever dialogue, and these two absolutely excelled at that.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- until the astonishingly unoriginal (and stupid, no offense) "plot twist" that comes in the last twenty pages. When I realized what Lehane was about to do, I literally groaned with agony from the let-down. What could've been an exciting, intriguing, complex conspiracy-type spin on a story I've read dozens of times before instead ends up standing out from the others only because it's such a perfect example of the "author couldn't figure out how to successfully end his complicated story, so he weaseled his way out of even having to try" thing. Think "and then I woke up and it had all been a dream." Man, bummer. The weird thing is that I totally loved Lehane's "Mystic River" and heartily recommend it to people who love a good thrill. But I'll have a hard time recommending this one to anybody, good thrill lovers or not. Dammit. I hate it when a great book is ruined by a bad ending like that! Sucky. (5/8/03)|MYSTERY Gray Matter|Gary Braver|I'm not quite sure how I felt about this book, a medical thriller about a doctor who performs a risky, experimental brain surgery on kids with low IQ's to make them smarter. Well, let's begin at the beginning and see where it leads us. Okay, so, one of the two storylines in the novel follows the Whitman family, Rachel, Martin, and their six year-old son Dylan. Rachel did drugs in college so, of course, her child is brain damaged (because drugs are BAD! BAD, I TELL YOU!). Well, not really brain damaged, actually, but dumb as a post, although incredibly cute, happy, and talented at music. She becomes desperate to do something about it -- to make him smarter -- and that's how she ends up finding out about Dr. Malenko and his experimental, secret brain surgery.
The moment Rachel tells her husband Martin about Dylan's low IQ and Dr. M's magical cure, Martin becomes obsessed with fixing Dylan too. Only, ridiculously, Rachel suddenly flips over to the skeptics' side, immediately arguing that she doesn't trust the doctor she just convinced Martin was the solution to all their problems and becoming self-righteously disgusted by Martin's desire to make Dylan "better" instead of just loving him for who he is. Even though, pages before, she was essentially talking the same way. Insert big sigh of annoyance here, as well as a snort of disgust for both selfish, yuppie, lame-o, undeserving parents who think of their child in terms of what he can do for their social status instead of in terms of what he can do for their happiness. And nevermind HIS happiness. As if that's important -- ptaw! There's a lame attempt by the author to make us believe Rachel wants to have her kid undergo secret brain surgery because she doesn't want him to suffer as a result of his low IQ (teasing at school, etc.), but it's made wholly unbelievable when she later talks about how stupid people can't succeed, even if they are musical geniuses. If Dylan isn't smart, he's worthless. She sucks and so does her butthead husband.
Okay, so the surgery actually works, but since this is a medical thriller, it doesn't work quite the way the parents are led to believe it does. In short, it turns their kids into obsessive-compulsives at best and sociopathic murderers at worst.
The second plotline involves a cop on the trail of a serial killer, after finding the skulls of two little kids, both with strange drill marks in their skulls. As Rachel and her family slowly edge closer and closer to Dr. Malenko's hospital, so does the cop, as he picks up clue upon clue leading him to suspect Malenko of being involved in the murders. The two groups collide at the hospital, in a very disappointing and uneventful denouement. And though it sounds like I must have thought this was one of the worst books ever, you'll note that I did actually make it to the denouement, and that's because despite the totally unsympathetic characters and several ridiculous plot elements, the writing is pretty good. Suspenseful and well-paced. So, I couldn't put it down, even though I was spending an awful lot of time sighing heavily and rolling my eyes. For whatever that's worth. Which, in retrospect, isn't a lot. I suggest skipping this one. Unless you're trapped on a desert isle and this is your only option for passing the time. In which case, enjoy! (5/2/03)|FICTION The Last American Man|Elizabeth Gilbert|In this wonderfully written book, Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway, who left his home at age 17 to move into the Appalachian Mountains, where for the last 20 years he has lived off the land. He sleeps in a tepee, makes fire with rocks and sticks, eats what he forages and kills. And in his "spare time," travels all across the country trying to convince others that they can do it too.
It's the story of one of the last true American pioneers, and it's told by a writer who is not only funny and intelligent, but who has a very strong emotional attachment to Eustace and his family. As a result, we really get a strong sense of Conway and his ideas about life. It's not a story being told by a distant observer, but by someone who is actually close to him. It's written by a friend whose admiration for her subject is palpable and infectious. And also, did I mention she's damn funny? Because she is.
I greatly enjoyed this and found it inspiring as well. Eustace urges all he meets to slow their lives down. To step back from the material world and try to return to a lifestyle based on simplicity. He talks about how we should stop thinking about "reducing, reusing, and recycling," and instead think about "reconsidering and rejecting." And while I definitely have no plans to quit my job and move into a tent, I have gained a new perspective on my life thanks to Eustace, a perspective I hope sticks around for a long time. Recommended! And when you're done with this, make sure you immediately read Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" -- they make an excellent and humorous contrast to each other. (6/25/03)|NON-FIC More Than You Know|Beth Gutcheon|I read this book for the first time a few years ago and recently got the urge to pick it up again. And boy, I now happily report that it was just as great the second time through as it was the first time (though the first time, I actually gasped in fear audibly a few times and this time, I knew when the scary parts were coming and was better prepared for them). Here's my old review -- not much has changed!
Hannah Gray, an elderly woman, returns to the house she summered in as a young woman and decides to tell us the story of the summer she spent falling in love and being terrorized by a ghost. Her story is separated by the story of a family who lived on the island across from Hannah's old summer houseover 100 years prior to that fateful summer. The love story is intense and unforgettable, the ghost story is scary as hell, and the connection between Hannah's ghost and the old island family that slowly emerges as the stories progress will totally surprise you. I could not put this down once I picked it up. It's FANTASTIC.Highly, HIGHLY recommended! (6/22/03)|FICTION Scott Free|John Gilstrap|Sixteen year old Scott O'Toole has parent problems. His mom, Sherry, a famous self-help book author, and his father, Brandon, went through a nasty divorce six years ago and have been bickering over Scott ever since. Brandon got custody, and Sherry has ever since felt threatened by his close relationship with their son.
So, in an attempt to woo Scott over to her side, Sherry invited him for a week of skiing at a posh resort. But, as usual, she gets too busy with work to spend any time with him so, partly in anger, Scott jumps at the chance to skip town with a friend and go to a Metallica concert. The friend owns an airplane and the two decide to fly instead of drive because snow has closed many of the roads.
A few hours later, the plane has crashed, Scott's friend is dead, and Scott is alone in the frozen wilderness with no supplies and no way to call for help. Luckily, he and his father had taken a survival course together and Scott remembers enough to be able to make a shelter and keep from freezing to death. But after three days with no food or water, he knows it's up to him if he wants to get out alive. He begins walking and, luckily, fairly quickly comes across the yard of a hunter's cabin deep in the woods.
The good news is: someone's home! The bad news is, that someone turns out to be pretty strange. And then, pretty scary. And when Scott stumbles across something he wasn't supposed to see, the strange, scary man turns out to be something even more terrifying. Jar Jar Binks! No wait, I'm just kidding.
I can't say this was a great book. The writing was mediocre and the whole subplot about the warring parents who learn they have to work together if they want to save their son is trite and cliche. Also, the whole scary cabin guy thing was a bit over the top. But regardless of its numerous flaws, I still enjoyed "Scott Free." I'm a sucker for a good wilderness survival tale, after all. If you are too, you might as well pick this one up. If not, I'd recommend not bothering with this one, as it has little else to offer. (6/21/03)|FICTION When the Emperor Was Divine|Julie Otsuka|It started when the men came one night and took her husband away -- the father of her two young children. Not long after that, the signs went up around town: all people of Japanese ancestry were to pack a single suitcase each and board a train headed towards a special camp built just for them.
So, the mother and her two children did just that. The train was hot, the ride long. There wasn't enough food or water. And the camp -- an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII -- was almost insulting it its hypocritical attempts to seem friendly and hospitable. The armed guards who shot anyone who dared to touch the fences were "the safety council." The prisoners were "residents." Their tiny room with its single lightbulb and no heat was on "Alexandria Avenue," near "Elm Street" and "Cottonwood Way."
But there was nothing hospitable about the way they nearly froze to death in the winters. Or the way they nearly died of thirst in the hot desert summers. Or the way "residents" who became ill were left to die. Or the way anyone who mentioned Hirohito or clung to their Japanese culture were deported. Or shot. The way the family's home was vandalized and looted while they were away. Or the way their father finally returned to them, four years later, a broken man.
This may be a short novel, but it packs a tremendous wallop. From the simple, confused thoughts of the children to the fact the family is never even named, this novel brings to life this horrible part of our nation's past in a variety of subtle, powerful ways. Anyone studying the history of WWII would do well to spend an afternoon with this book. And may this novel serve as a reminder of what we're capable of when we are afraid. Then may it sadden us so deeply that we vow never to let this happen ever again. Highly, HIGHLY recommended! (6/18/03)|FICTION City of Masks|Daniel Hecht|Engrossing ghost story about a professional parapsychologist, Cree Black, hired by a New Orleans woman being tormented by a violent spirit that has invaded her family home.
The house has been in the Beauforte family for generations, but stood empty for years after the murder of one of its tenants (the Beaufortes rented it out for a time to a TV news anchor and his family after the Beauforte matriarch, Charmian, had a stroke).
Lila Beauforte, Charmian's daughter, decided to move back into the house with her husband Jack, hoping to recover a bond with her family and its lengthy history in the city. But almost immediately, she found herself hunted and tormented by a terrifying spirit. After a month of torture, she finally moved out, on the verge of a complete mental collapse.
Desperate to help his wife, Jack agreed to let Cree come and work with Lila, despite his disbelief in her work and his suspicion that his wife is just plain nuts. Cree is not only a ghostbuster, though, she's also highly empathic. And not only can she sense quickly that the spirit exists, as well as the fact it has nothing to do with the murdered tenant, she gradually is able to actually hear its thoughts -- feel its emotions. She also makes a startling realization -- there are actually two ghosts in the house. Two spirits violently connected both to each other, and to Lila.
I'm a sucker for a good ghost story and while I usually prefer a bit more in the thrills and chills department, I found the psychological approach to the story really unique and interesting. Cree is a fascinating and interesting character and the story was well-developed and fast-paced.
The only real complaint I have is that the novel was about 100 pages too long. There are a lot of lengthy passages that are unnecessary to the story or its characters' development -- too much rambling on about New Orleans, Mardi Gras traditions, and various psychological concepts. And some of the stuff about Cree's past could've been touched on less frequently without altering its impact or relevance to the story. All these long, unnecessary passages got in the way of the plot at times which, especially towards the end when I was on the edge of my seat, really frustrated me.
But ultimately, this is a book I greatly enjoyed. I'm looking forward to the next installment (and hoping it will be set in Cree's hometown, Seattle!) and recommend this to all fans of ghostly fiction. (6/16/03)|FICTION Homeland and Other Stories|Barbara Kingsolver|I'm not a big short story reader, usually. Which is odd because whenever I do pick up a book of stories, I end up really liking it (most of the time). I guess I just have to be in the right mood, and that that mood comes infrequently for me. But clearly, I've been in that mood all week this week, and a few days ago, I finally picked up this book, which I've had on my shelf for years now, and started to read it.
I have greatly enjoyed most of Kingsolver's novels, especially the older ones, and I greatly enjoyed this collection of stories for all the same reasons. As usual, her writing here focuses mainly on women, especially women who have some connection to the natural world (other than just living in it) -- they're hippies, or they live in cabins somewhere, or they have somewhat annoying mothers who make necklaces out of animal bones and greeting cards out of bark. And, as usual, these characters are both tough and tender and Kingsolver's writing makes them come vibrantly alive. Fans of her novels will find much to love here too. And fans of short fiction ought to give this a try as well. It was nice getting to spend some time in Kingsolver's world again -- her novels sure are too few and far between! Recommended! (6/11/03)|FICTION Pure Drivel|Steve Martin|Short collection of some of Steve Martin's latest essays and short stories, many of which readers of the New Yorker will recognize. I've read a lot of Steve's stuff and not only is his writing often as funny as his comedic acting, but it's also witty, smart, and occasionally even pretty darn profound. Fans of the man and his often bizarre mind will greatly enjoy this collection. Recommended! (6/7/03)|FICTION Prey|Michael Crichton|Wouldn't it be cool if scientists could create teeny tiny mechanical cameras, each the size of a single atom? You could program them to work together -- to swarm like bees, kind of -- and have them pull into a ball and effectively work like an eye that records images and beams them back to a compter. It's entirely possible -- scientists are actually working on stuff like that this very minute. And getting closer and closer to figuring out how to do it.
But what would happen if the nanoparticles took their programming a step further? Started to evolve -- to reprogram themselves, to adapt? And then, what if they got out?
This suspenseful, intelligent novel is about just such a scenario. A group of scientists working in an isolated lab in the middle of the Nevada desert have created these amazing machines and figured out a way to mass produce them. Inject them into a patient's veins and you can see right where a blockage is forming -- these tiny cameras are about to revolutionize medicine as we know it. But, before they realized one of their air-tight vents wasn't acutally air-tight, a swarm of nanoparticles escaped and now it's out in the desert buzzing around, reproducing, and adapting.
And, trying to get back inside.
While there were aspects of the plot of this novel that weren't all that original (scientists working on secret project screw up and secret project escapes and threatens to destroy the world, so scientists have to work together to try to destroy secret project before the rest of the world finds out what they've been up to -- heard it before? Yeah, me too.), the actual premise was pretty interesting. Crichton is such a great scientific dreamer and I found his explanations and descriptions of this technology fascinating -- enough so that I didn't really mind the fact the rest of the novel was something I'd read 80 gazillion times before elsewhere. It's essentially "Jurassic Park" with nanoparticles instead of dinosaurs, really. But while I was a little worried coming into this novel that Crichton might be going the way of Robin Cook -- turning into a total hack who can't even keep the details straight, let alone come up with an original idea -- my fears were completely unjustified. This is an entertaining and thought-provoking novel that science geeks everywhere will enjoy. Recommended! (6/4/03)|FICTION Sara Moulton Cooks at Home|From time to time, I like to watch Sara Moulton's cooking show on the Food Network. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan, but I've enjoyed it the few times I've happened across it. So, when I heard she had a new cookbook out, I put it on hold at the local library. Sara seems to specialize in simple, accessible foods and cooking and as someone who prefers quick and easy over complex and showy, I truly appreciate her focus on recipes that don't take a lot of work, but result in great, healthy dishes.
Her cookbook, however, didn't have much in it I found intriguing. There are barely any photographs of the food -- my favorite part of most cookbooks -- and the recipes were for things I just don't really eat -- squash soups, roast duck, flan, etc. Despite the lack of recipes I wanted to try, though, I did enjoy her personal anecdotes about family and cooking, and there are also a bunch of general cooking tips that I found interesting. All in all, I'd recommend the library approach to this one -- read it and return it. (6/2/03)|NON-FIC Avoidance|Michael Lowenthal|Jeremy Stull has two passions. Well, three really. The first is a passion for his summer job -- as a camp counselor at Ironwood, a camp for young boys in Vermont. It's the camp he himself attended as a youth and since the first day he set foot there, he's never been able to imagine life without it.
His second passion is for his work the other nine months of the year. He's a graduate student at Harvard, writing his thesis on the Amish. In particular, those Amish who have been shunned. He even spends several months living with a devout Amish family and through them becomes acquainted with Beulah, a young Amish woman who was banished from the community when her husband was shunned and she refused to respect the rules that said she must not touch him, speak to him, or even acknowledge his presence.
Jeremy himself is about to learn a little something about confusing and bitter exile, though. Because his third passion is for Max, one of his campers, a young boy with a rebellious nature and a seductive charm. And though Jeremy struggles to remain in control, ultimately he is forced to confront both his reprehensible desires and their root -- a legacy of sexual abuse perpetrated by counselors on campers at Ironwood. Abuse he experience himself as a camper there -- abuse Max now says he is a victim of as well (not by Jeremy, but by another counselor there).
This is an extremely well-written and thoughtful, intelligent novel that compares two communities where people are cast out when they let their passions overpower their sense of right and wrong. Where individual desire is grounds for exile, and all deeds must have the good of the group at heart. Though the situation at the camp is clearly far more disturbing than Beulah's shun-worthy crime, Lowenthal has a gentle touch with this topic. A non-judgmental touch that makes it hard not to feel compassion for Jeremy even while you recoil from his thoughts. And though this is ultimately a sad tale, Lowenthal is an incredible writer and his words will make you think as well as feel. Highly recommended! I'll be looking for more work by this author.(6/1/03)|FICTION The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle|"Avi"|It's 1832 and thirteen year-old Charlotte Doyle is supposed to meet up with a family her father knows who have agreed to chaperone her on her sea voyage from England to Rhode Island (where her family moved a few months prior, leaving Charlotte behind to finish the school year). Much to Charlotte's surprise and dismay, however, the family never shows on the docks, and she is left to board the ship totally alone, with only nine dirty sailors and the ship's captain for company. Luckily, the captain seems to be a man of some quality and he quickly befriends Charlotte and promises to look out for her.
And so the voyage begins. Charlotte quickly becomes bored with her plan to stay in her cabin and read books to better herself and soon begins to venture out, gradually befriending members of the crew, despite the fact she openly considers them beneath her (don't worry, she learns her lesson about smugness later). This familiarity, however, leads the crew to be less cautious about what she overhears in their company, and when Charlotte hears a group of them planning a murderous mutiny, she quickly races to the captain to warn him.
Never has Charlotte regretted anything as much as she comes to regret her decision to rat on the crew. Because by the end of the trip, Charlotte is wearing pants, climbing the rigging herself, and, finally, fighting for her life, sentenced to hanging for the murder of another shipmate. She has only 24 hours before the captain intends to put the noose around her neck -- 24 hours to figure out who she can trust, and who is only acting trustworthy so they can more readily sneak up and stab her in the back.
This short novel, which was an ALA Notable Book for young adults in 1990, is something I would have absolutely LOVED when I was thirteen myself. And, even at 29, it was a pleasure to behold. The writing is terrific and the story is utterly gripping. Also, there is just the right amount of detail about the ship and ship's customs, along with a diagram of the ship's various masts and sails, and a glossary of terms in the back. Absolutely wonderful and highly recommended to readers of all ages! (7/28/03)|FICTION Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix|J. K. Rowling|I'm not going to say too much about this one, because anything I could say would just spoil it for those of you who haven't yet gotten your hands on a copy of it. Suffice it to say I definitely think this, the latest in the Harry Potter series, is the best installment yet, with absolutely wonderful villains, hilarious antics and pranks, a riveting storyline, and a lot of interesting and enlightening character and relationship developments. Rowling has said she cried while she was typing up the scene in which one of the characters is killed, but I confess I didn't get misty until much later -- when I read the final paragraph, closed the book, and realized my week-long adventure with Harry and his mates was at an end. This series is just getting better and better. It's an utter delight and I cannot wait for the next installment (here's to hoping it doesn't take Rowling QUITE so long to crank that one out!). Highly, HIGHLY recommended! (7/25/03)|FICTION Bare Bones|Kathy Reichs|This novel, the latest in the Tempe Brennan, forensic anthropologist, series, has got me a little worried that Kathy Reichs may be going the way of Patricia Cornwell. After all, both of their popular series share several common story elements -- Kay Scarpetta and Tempe Brennan are very similar women living very similar lives. And, both series started out totally terrific - some of the most entertaining mysteries of all time. But Cornwell's books started to get sloppy several novels ago, and now it looks like Reichs' are headed down the same rotten path.
This new installment, the sixth in the series, has an intriguing plotline. One afternoon, while picnicking on the fields of a remote, abandoned farm, Tempe's dog starts to go crazy. He begins to tear at the earth over by the treeline, and moments later, he's discovered a pile of bones. Tempe quickly calls in the cops and organizes an official dig for more remains. When she gets the bones back to her lab, she determines that they are primarily skeletal bear remains. Except for the couple of human fingers. Uh oh.
Back to the farm the gang all heads, where they quickly discover in an outhouse the rest of a pair of hands, as well as a skull. In the meantime, a few other strange events are popping up - a small plane crash in which a pile of drugs is discovered along with the dead bodies of the two passengers, the discovery of a set of feathers from an extremely rare bird, threatening emails in Tempe's inbox, and the mysterious disappearance of a couple of Fish and Wildlife agents. Somehow, it seems, all these events are connected - connected to a woman whose baby Tempe found burned up in a furnace about a week before she found the bear bones. But how?
Okay, so, the storyline was a bit convoluted, but it was still as entertaining as ever, and so was the science (though there was not nearly as much science this time as is usual for Reichs, much to my dismay). What's changed is Tempe, who in this novel rolls her eyes at least every other page and has turned into a crass, insulting, stuck-up-sticky-beak. She goes on and on (and on and ON) about how much she hates cop Skinny Slidell for how uncouth he is, and yet she spends a great deal of her time insulting people left and right (inwardly and outwardly). Making fun of their clothes, their body size, their mannerisms, etc. The only person she doesn't insult is her new love interest. And frankly, despite that, I couldn't figure out what that great guy was doing with her. Which is strange, because previously, I thought Tempe Brennan was one bitchin' chick.
Additionally, it seemed like every chapter ended in a cliffhanger. The last sentence was always a variation on "And you'll never guess what happened next!" And while this can create an entertaining "page-turner" effect when used every now and then, when it happens at the end of practically every chapter, it just feels amateurish and clumsy. As though Reichs realized her story was flawed and had to come up with some other way to make sure people kept reading. Or, even worse, as though Reichs has just started to focus on quantity instead of quality.
Overall, I still enjoyed this novel and will be looking forward to the future installments, just as I still look forward to new Kay Scarpetta novels, despite the fact they usually disappoint me now. Fans of the series will definitely want to pick this one up. Newbies, though, should start at the beginning ("Grave Secrets"), not only because the novels contain plot elements that carry over, but because if you start with "Bare Bones," you'll never read the others. And thus, will miss out on the ones that made Tempe Brennan great. May Reichs be reading all the negative reviews of her latest and take their words to heart. This is one series I'd hate to lose.(7/16/03)|MYSTERY East of Eden|John Steinbeck|My Mom, an ex-English teacher, was amazed to hear that I, an ex-English major, had never read this novel and she suggested I pick it up, despite my protestations (read "Grapes of Wrath" -- wasn't that impressed). When I saw a nice new paperback edition of it for sale in the local bookstore (at half-price, no less), I bought it, though I'll confess that at the time I still wasn't sure I'd actually read it. After all, summer is not usually the best time for tomes (and at 600+ pages, this is definitely a tome) and I had a bunch of other books on my shelf I was eager to get to. Good, trashy, summery books. Like "Sanctuary" by William Faulkner (coming soon).
Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try. Mom's are so often right about these things, after all. And boy am I glad I did. This is an absolutely riveting novel about three generations of fathers and sons, brothers and brothers, and their complex and often violent relationships to each other and those around them. There's love. There's hate. There's jealously and desire. Brawling and bawling. War. Honor. Introspection. Extroversion. Mind-broadening. Friendships. Despair. Tragedy. And a fair smattering of self-fulfilled prophecy to pull it all together. In short, there's a reason why they call these kinds of books "time honored classics" -- not much has changed, when you look closely, between the world of Steinbeck and the world of today.
This is a terrific, fast-paced novel that would go great with a weekend at the beach, believe it or not. You will be engrossed, so watch out for sunburn. And, as if that weren't enough, this new Penguin paperback edition is just a mighty good-lookin' book. Recommended!(7/13/03)|LITERATURE Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana|Isadora Tattlin|Tattlin's husband's job kept the family living all over the world. For years, she begged him to find a position a little closer to home, the U.S. But she was a little surprised the day he came home and announced she'd gotten her wish -- sort of. They were moving to Cuba.
Intrigued and a bit intimidated, Isadora pledged to keep a diary of her time in Havana, and this book is the result. Packed with fascinating descriptions of the country, its culture, its people, and their politics, this book was an absolute delight. I was having so much fun sinking into Tattlin's Cuban world, I hardly noticed how much I was learning about that enigmatic, isolated, beautiful country.
This is a great book for people who like a little education with their entertainment. And I hope that wherever the Tattlin family is living now, Isadora is keeping a journal! Armchair travel doesn't get much better than this -- recommended! (7/6/03)|NON-FIC Tell No One|Harlan Coben|Eight years ago, Dr. David Beck's life was perfect. He was a successful surgeon, married to his high school sweetheart, the only girl he'd ever loved. But on the 21st anniversary of their first kiss, something terrible happened. The two of them were spending a romantic night at the old family lake when Elizabeth mysteriously disappears. Her body was later found miles from the lake. She had been tortured and the signature of an infamous serial killer was left at the scene. When the killer was caught, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison, David thought the nightmare might finally be over.
But he was wrong. Now, eight years later, a message has suddenly appeared on David's computer. It contains clues, including a secret phrase only he and Elizabeth knew about. Suddenly, he is faced with the idea that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is still alive. But how can that be? Her father identified her body -- it had to be Elizabeth!
But Beck can't put the idea out of his mind. He begins to look back at the details of what happened that night eight years ago. Only, the people he's been questioning are showing up dead the next day, with clues left at the scene that lead the police to his front door. What's more, whoever is sending the emails is now sending him warnings -- tell no one, you're being followed, etc. etc. The more Beck pries into the past in an attempt to find Elizabeth in the present, the more some really bad dudes start to get antsy. The murder of Elizabeth was calculated as part of a cover-up -- if she's really alive, they've got to kill her quick or else she can ruin everything for them and for their rich benefactor. Can David find her before they do, though? Or before they find HIM?
This novel was an absolute thrill-ride, fast-paced, suspenseful, and clever. It contained only one slight error -- Coben uses the term "microfiche" when he actually means "microfilm" -- But hey, we can't all be genius librarians, now, can we? This was a terrific book, perfect summer reading, and I'll definitely be hunting down more Coben novels soon. Highly recommended! (7/2/03)|FICTION