Each year I keep track of the books I've read because I'm a geek like that, and this year I decided to write short reviews of each one just for fun and so I'd remember when I look back. Hopefully you'll find something good to read, or at least might be steered away from something not worth your time. Enjoy!
Book List 2008
January:
Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine (**, Not what I was expecting. Her social commentary regarding elections as well as the actual research she put in to spending on a national and cultural level, didn’t add anything to the book for me. I expected it to be more personal, and while she did journal her feelings on a regular basis about not spending, it seemed rather cold to me.)
Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy (****, It might make you reconsider ever trying to go through the act of childbirth, but it’s so fascinating you can’t help wanting to at least give it a go to see what the experience is like for you! Particularly interesting is the section on “twilight sleep” births and some of the stories about men’s roles in childbirth throughout history.)
The Pact by Jodi Picoult (*** ¼, The only reason it doesn’t get 4 is because there’s an interview at the back of my copy where the author talks about how she does a lot of research for her books because she hates when she reads a book and finds a mistake, it makes the author seem sloppy. And I found a mistake. It’s not a big one, and it doesn’t affect the plot at all, but it’s still annoying. And Laura told me she found two grammar/spelling errors when she read it.)
Baby Proof by Emily Giffin (***, The book was good, but the ending left me feeling a little cheated. The author developed a character all throughout the book, and then at the end, she has a major change of heart. Sort of. It left me wondering if it was just taking the easy way out or whether the character had really had the change of heart the author wants to make you believe she did. If she did, I didn’t buy it. Something Blue is better.)
February:
P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern (**, Maybe I’m tainted by the end of the book which didn’t have the ending I expected and seemed almost abrupt about one key thing, but the book in and of itself is decent. And it made me cry repeatedly, but that may be more circumstantial given the death of my grandpa right before I started reading it. I know, why I picked THAT book at the airport on the way back from the funeral is beyond me.)
March:
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (**, There’s a lot of hype surrounding Mitch Albom. Maybe not as much with this book as Tuesdays with Morrie, but still pretty big. I can’t say that it lived up to it. It was ok, but not great. I expected the five people to provide more universal lessons as opposed to just lessons for the main character, the recently departed. Though I guess if Mitch Albom had all of the answers he’d be God almighty and just a best-selling author. It’s a fast-read, if nothing else.)
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (***, This is the kind of book I would write. Informative, funny, and just a touch macabre. I am a McKown, after all. My parents dated in a mortuary and for most of my life I wanted to be President, so it’s no surprise that I would find a book based on trips to presidential assassination sites incredibly interesting. The author covers the first three presidential assassinations providing great historical detail while always keeping the topic interesting and even humorous. When you can laugh out loud reading a book about assassination, you know you’ve found a gem. The only reason it doesn’t get four stars is because I think she’s a little skimpy when it come to Garfield and McKinley. Granted they’re no Lincoln, but still…they deserve a little more attention.)
April:
Nothing
May:
Nothing
June:
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire (**, If you've read "Wicked" it might be worth it, but I'd suggest reading "Wicked" again before reading this one. It really relies on your recall of the first book a lot. But...I don't think it's nearly as good as "Wicked" and the end just left me "eh." And there's a lot of stuff in the middle that left me scratching my head. I was never really sure what to make of the main character, Liir, and in the last 60 pages, Maguire throws in a character trait that while it doesn't necessarily bother me, had me going "What?? Was I supposed to see that coming??" I find it hard to recommend books because people's tastes are so different, but I will say this is one book that I wish I'd borrowed from the library instead of buying. I don't feel the need to read it again.)
July:
To Be Someone by Louise Voss (***, The basic premise is that a former rock star, turned hit DJ indulges in a little cocaine, takes a nasty fall, and then must deal with the mess that her life has become. She decides to do that by inventorying some of the songs that hold a particularly important place in her life, the songs that were present in moments – both good and bad – that shaped where she is now. It’s a pretty interesting notion because we all have certain songs that we can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard them. We hold them in a special place in our hearts and call them to mind as necessary. I didn’t really know any of her songs (if they are indeed real), but she does a great job of putting them in context, and after reading the book, I now want to do this with my own life. Just without the dramatic purpose the main character, Helena, has.)
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. (**, I purchased this book on a whim after reading the title because of what was going on in my life at the moment. The book chronicles the stroke experience of a neuroanatomist. Trained to understand the brain in great detail, when she suffers a major hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 37, Taylor gains a whole new perspective on the way her brain works and the way she can control her brain both during rehabilitation and afterwards. The actual description of her stroke and rehabilitation was great. You really get into the moment. Her explanation of brain function is a little technical, but it’s a brain, so you expect some complexity. The part that I didn’t really enjoy was her somewhat redundant emphasis on how if we all just tap into the right side of our brain, we’ll all realize we’re just one big sea of humanity. And while I’m a big fan of flowery language – Nathaniel Hawthorne is my favorite author – she overdoes it. I suggest sticking to the middle of the book for the best read.)
August:
Man o’War: A Legend Like Lightning by Dorothy Ours (***, You might have to be a horse-racing fan, or live in Kentucky, to truly appreciate this book but it really was quite good. It’s pretty technical in a few places, talking about track distances and speeds and horse anatomy, but the author does a good job in bringing it down to the layman’s level. And it’s filled with interesting facts like how trainers used to shoot horses up with cocaine before races. Plus, I now know why Lexington, KY has had the main road “Man o’War” for years, and only recently added “Sir Barton Way” when Sir Barton was the original Triple Crown winner.)
The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz (**, For a novel centered around a woman who runs a literary magazine focused on showcasing the best writers, I expected better writing. I realize it’s unfair to compare the real author with one of her characters, but I couldn’t help feeling that Horowitz wouldn’t measure up to Jane’s standards. The story was reined in, with no meandering plot lines, but perhaps it was reined in too much. And the main character, Jane, started getting on my nerves by the end, recognizing that she’s dull and doesn’t fit into the world around her, but not sure that she wants to do anything about that. Still, I read 2/3 of the book in one sitting, so it gets an additional star for that.)
September:
Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank (** ¾, The book started off really well for me. I like the conflict of Grace, a single woman from a staunch Catholic Italian family, living in sin with her stem cell researching agnostic Irish boyfriend. Her parents are primarily a hoot, though they get a little over the top at times, and the struggle is interesting. Then, about 2/3 of the way through, all of a sudden the book takes a surprisingly religious turn. It’s not preachy, but all of a sudden what was a story about family becomes a story of faith and miraculous conversion. It’s not a bad twist per se. I just wasn’t expecting it. On the plus side, the writing is really good. I found a lot of myself in Frank’s turn of phrases.)
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (****, I honestly didn’t know that this book had been written in 2006. Nor did I know that there were three more in the series until the fourth and final book came out a few months ago. And even then I thought, “Vampires? Really? It’s like a second rate Harry Potter.” It’s not. I don’t have enough good words for this book. I bought it on a whim – a few people I know had read the books and liked them well enough, and it was on sale – and literally got sucked in!! I started reading on a Monday afternoon and was done Tuesday morning. The writing is incredible, and if you don’t fall in love with one of the main characters, Edward, check to make sure your own heart hasn’t stopped beating!)
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (***, The second in the Twilight saga, this is the only book that felt a little bit like filler. It’s a book that sets things up for the third and fourth installments. But it’s still good. I tore through this one in two days.)
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (****, As with the second book in the Twilight saga, this book is more of things that are leading up to the climax in book four. Unlike the second book, this one does a much better job of really bringing in the important points that you need to know. You might not understand them as such, but when you encounter their significance again both later in this book and in the final installment, you recognize that incredible skill that it took Meyer to weave everything in. She’s an incredible author! Her attention to detail is magnificent!)
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (*** ½ , I didn’t realize it because I was so out of touch with whole Twilight frenzy, but there were two major camps of fans: Team Edward and Team Jacob. Basically people who wanted the main character to end up either with the vampire or the werewolf respectively. I was solidly in the Team Edward category, but this book gave me a real love of Jacob. Again, it was a page turner, though sometimes it felt like there was too much going on. In the end it was all important, but this book seemed longer than the other books, figuratively as much as literally. And while I won’t say I was disappointed in the end, the climax was less climactic than I anticipated. The beginning and the middle of the book more than made up for that!)
October:
Nothing
November:
The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent (***, This book was listed on a recommendation list of new books, so I went in search. The author is an ancestor of one of the women hanged during the Salem Witch trials, and the book novelizes the story of Martha Carrier, and specifically, Martha’s daughter, Sarah, who was also imprisoned for several months on charges of witchcraft. Three quarters of the book provides lead up to the imprisonment of Martha, and I found that part a little slow. It was buildup that was slightly repetitive, if for no other reason than there are only so many ways to say “We were outcasts from the beginning.” But the prison account is spell-binding, which earns the book an extra half star.)
December:
Dinner With a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory (***, A very easy read, I sat down and finished this in one sitting. I’m not even sure it’s a hundred pages, but the length almost lends itself to the book. The premise is that an ordinary man is invited, anonymously, to have dinner with Jesus Christ. At first the man, Nick, is skeptical, but as the conversation goes along, he begins to entertain the notion more and more that he is indeed sitting across the table from the Son of God, albeit in a tailored suit with a tight haircut. I’ve read in some reviews that the end-result of the book was a little preachy, but I didn’t feel that way. When dinner was concluded, I felt instead that a great conversation had taken place. Nick, wondering about God, religion, and faith in general, and Jesus, answering with clarity and patience. I’m sure it’s a book that can be taken a thousand different ways depending on the mileage of the reader, but I liked it.)
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (*** ½, Absolutely terrific!! Walls does an amazing job of chronicling what is a childhood of abject poverty, borderline neglect, and raging alcoholism in a way that isn’t pity-filled. She recognizes the major mistakes her parents made in raising her, but her descriptions of their lives are almost magical in their retelling.)
The Surrogate by Judith Henry Wall (** ½, I’m not sure this book deserves that high of a rating, but it doesn’t deserve any less either. A young woman deep in debt agrees to be a surrogate mother for a very rich, very private couple. However, to go along with the contract she is essentially held hostage and begins to fear for her life. While not necessarily unrealistic, the story seems to get a little far-fetched toward the end, and except for a dog and the baby, I didn’t have any real emotional ties to the characters when I was done. But it wasn’t a bad book. Hard to explain.)
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (***, The story of a young girl created to be a donor for her sister who is sick with cancer was very well written. The two books that I’ve read of Picoult both contain different viewpoints giving the reader an omniscient presence within the storyline, but I think it was much more effectively used in this story than in The Pact. And the interwoven tangential storyline of fire really added a layer to the book, I think. I will say that the end threw me for a total loop; I didn’t expect the ending at all! The only reason it doesn’t get four stars, like the one from January by Picoult, is because there were two editing errors in the last two pages (an omission of a space and then an unnecessary italicized word when another word later in the sentence should have been, but wasn’t) that literally made me stop crying from the storyline. Yes, I’m picky like that.
Doesn’t She Look Natural? by Angela Hunt (*** ¼, The first half of the book about a recently divorced widow who inherits a funeral home and moves into it with her two sons, her mother, and a very energetic Jack Russell, seemed to move slowly. At first Jen doesn’t want to be there, and I think her continual reticence/pining for her ex-husband gets a little boring. But slowly, as she learns to like the small Florida town and learns to appreciate the work of the funeral home, the book got better. Then end is a lot of twists and turns, none really expected, but decent. I’ve read Angela Hunt before, and this one, while having faith-based overtones to it as well, didn’t seem as “preachy” at the other one I’ve read. And apparently this is the first in a series about the characters and locale. I’ll be looking up the rest.)
The Church Ladies by Lisa E. Sampson (* ½, A minister’s wife struggles to live life in small town where Caesar’s wife must be above reproach. The crux of the story is the secret the main character, Poppy, harbors and the relationships she forms with the over ministers’ wives in town, but for being the title of the book, “the church ladies” really get short shrift. You don’t learn anything about them until the very end, and then it feels almost anecdotal. The emotional tug you’re supposed to feel in the middle never really hit as hard as it could, and I honestly never developed much interest in Poppy at all. Plus, I felt like I needed a companion guide to go along with this book on a lot of different levels. You should have a Bible handy, and if you’re not completely familiar with it, you should have some sort of Bible reference book handy because of all of the “there’s that verse that says”s Poppy uses. She also references “The Christian Ladies Handbook” ad nauseum, which probably isn’t even real, but you feel like you need to really understand the point she’s trying to make when she references it. A review on the back of the book says it’s “laugh-out-loud funny one minute, soul-deep serious the next.” Not so much.)
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