| Year 7, Book 34 |
[May. 10th, 2012|09:27 pm] |
34. My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick
This is a YA novel, but honestly the only reason I felt like it was YA was one because I knew going into it that it was classified as such and two because its protagonist is a teenager which pretty much signifies YA. I really, really liked this book though. Samantha Reed has grown up next door to the Garrett family, but has never really known them. Her mother, a state senator, who is extremely focused on appearances and order always looked down upon the unruly family with eight kids. Even though they are neighbors they have moved in different worlds. Samantha and her sister attended private schools and spent their days hanging out or working at the country club, but Samantha has always wondered what it might be like to be part of the family she has spied on from her bedroom window.
The summer before her senior year in high school she finally gets the chance. With her sister spending the summer in Martha's Vineyard before heading off to college and her mother deeply distracted by an intense reelection campaign, Samantha winds up befriending and falling in love with Jase, one of the Garrett boys and being drawn into their world. That is until something happens that might jeopardize everything.
It's a really sweet, well-written coming of age story. I give it 8 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 33 |
[May. 10th, 2012|09:17 pm] |
33. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson
This was my pick for one of my book clubs for May. I really liked it, so hopefully other people will as well. It is a suspense story centered around a woman named Christine. She has a form of amnesia that like in the movie 50 First Dates erases her memory when she sleeps. She sometimes remembers certain things from earlier in her life, but not always and not necessarily the same things each time she wakes up. Much of the book is treated as you reading a journal that she begins to keep, each day allowing her to re-read the journal and piece together more and more of what has happened in her past. The beginning of the book starts as she awakens wondering where she is and discovering the awful truth of her current state. Upon discovering the journal for the first time in the book she reads that she wrote not to trust her husband, but she doesn't know why. The book did an excellent job of keeping up the suspense throughout the book and making me want to keep reading to find out what happened. I had my guesses and it turns out I was partially right, but I didn't figure out the entire twist until it was being revealed. I give it a 7 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 32 |
[May. 10th, 2012|09:04 pm] |
32. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
This story takes place in a small town in Mississippi. Silas "32" Jones is the constable of the small town and is investigating the disappearance of a young girl. His main suspect is Larry Ott, an odd man suspected of murdering another girl many years ago as a teenager, and also someone Silas was connected to as a boy. No evidence ever connected him to the crime and no body was ever found, so he went free in the eyes of the criminal justice system but not in the eyes of the town. The story moves back and forth in time between the two cases and more clearly laying out the relationship between the two men for both the reader and the characters themselves. I liked the idea of the story and wish I had been more into the book, but honestly it kind of bored me. It may be because these types of suspense/thriller/murder mysteries are not my normal genre, so your mileage may vary. I give it a 5 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 31 |
[May. 10th, 2012|08:55 pm] |
31. How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America by Otis Webb Brawley
Brawley examines the failings of the current American medical system from both sides, meaning he looks at how we fail to properly treat those who are uninsured and can't afford to pay for skyrocketing medical costs as well as how we are often overtreated for a variety of reasons. Brawley is an oncologist so he looks at the issue through the lens of cancer treatment sharing both stories from his experiences as a doctor and as executive vice president of The American Cancer Society. I think what he has to say is important, but I felt the book dragged in places, and I got a little tired of what came across as his sanctimonious attitude of I'm this awesome doctor who would never do the things I'm describing in this book. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but it kind of irked me. If you're interested in the subject matter it's not a bad read, but I would recommend two books that independently look at these two issues over this one (Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker by Shannon Brownlee and The Healing of America: The Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Healthcare by T.R. Reid). I give it a 6 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 30 |
[May. 10th, 2012|08:45 pm] |
30. Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
If you already know you're going to read this book, then there's a good chance that you're already familiar with Jenny Lawson's writings via her blog (The Bloggess). This book is pretty much more of the same, which of course means it's awesomely hilarious. She writes a humorous memoir in exaggerate fashion beginning in her childhood all the way through present times. I haven't read her blog from it's inception so I'm not sure how much is repurposed.The only chapter I know for sure was taken straight from her blog was about Beyonce the large metal chicken. If you want a fun, hysterical read that also touches on some deeper, darker issues I highly suggest you get yourself a copy of this book pronto. Oh and if you're not already, go read her blog as well. |
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| Year 7, Book 29 |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|09:28 pm] |
29. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
This story takes place in rural coastal Mississippi, covering the 10 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, the day of the hurricane and the day after. The story is told from the perspective of 14 year old Esch, who at the beginning of the novel finds herself pregnant and desperately trying to capture the attention of the baby's father who cares nothing about her except for sex. Esch is the sole daughter in a family of four children being raised by a single father. Their mother died giving birth to Junior the youngest son. She also has two older brothers Randall and Skeetah.
This book is essentially the calm before the storm. You see this family going about its lives but with the sense that something larger is brewing but without really understanding what it is. Unfortunately most of the characters seemed only caricatures. I never really got a good sense of who Randall, Junior, or the father were. They seemed to be side notes each with their own quirk. Even Esch, who is the narrator of the story seems to be not very well drawn. Mostly what you know about her is that she is pregnant and has been sleeping around because it seemed easier than not doing it when boys started going after her.
Skeetah is really the heart of the story, though the relationship he has with his pit bull China and her puppies that serves as the real meat of the story can be hard to take. It is very obvious that he loves this dog more than anything else in the world and would sacrifice himself for her and yet this is juxtaposed with his use of her to make money and status through breeding her and entering her into dog fights. It fits with who the character is even though it seems counterintuitive to think that someone who puts his dog in such horrible situations could love her so much.
The part about Katrina was actually the weakest part of the story, and I think that it actually would have been better for the author to end it just as the hurricane was arriving. The descriptions of what happen during the hurricane to this family made little sense to me, and the aftermath just seemed rather anti-climactic to what you knew was building the entire time.
I give it a 6 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 28 |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|09:07 pm] |
28. The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Wal-Mart, Applebee's, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table by Tracie McMillan
McMillan is a journalist who took a year of her life to work at jobs where she got to experience food in it's process from the farm to the table. She began by picking various crops, moved on to working in Wal-Mart first in the shelved food area and then in a different Wal-Mart in the produce section, and finally as an expediter in the kitchen at Applebees's (a job that entails prepping everything that goes on a plate other than the cooked food and making sure it's ready to be sent out to the table). She also kept track of her own eating habits during her time at each of the jobs and how much of salary in each instance would have been devoted to food.
I enjoyed the book, though other than the mechanics involved in some of the jobs I didn't learn much of anything new. I liked her writing style though, and felt like she was telling the story of her life and her experiences rather than grinding an ax which so often I feel like similar books are doing. She didn't seem to be trying to present things as being better or worse at any of the jobs she was doing than they actually were. She pointed out the pluses and minuses she encountered in all of her positions.
It was an entertaining but also informative read and I would recommend it. I give it a 7 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 27 |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|08:56 pm] |
27. Carry the One by Carol Anshaw
I was really excited to read this book based on the description and reviews I had seen of it prior to it's release. Sadly, I was hugely disappointed. The story takes place over a span of 25 years starting with the wedding of two of the characters. While driving home from the wedding in the middle of the night heavily under the influence of drugs and alcohol a car full of wedding guests hit and kill a young girl. You then follow these characters through the next 25 years focusing most heavily on the bride, and her sister and brother who were both riding in the car that night. Essentially that night is supposed to have shaped what happens to all of them the rest of their lives, and is occasionally tossed in as a reference to remind you that it happened and the characters are supposedly haunted by it. However, I didn't buy it. For the most part that entire part of the story could have been eliminated and I don't think it would change anything except for the author bringing it up every every so often seemingly to remind us that it happened. It was more like she was telling us that it affected the characters rather than it actually seeming like it had. Based on the little you get to know about the characters prior to the accident I could totally see the trajectory of their lives winding up exactly as they did even without the accident. This book definitely does not deserve all the hype it has been getting in my opinion. I give it a 5 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 26 |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|08:45 pm] |
26. For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire, and the Secret Formula for the World's Favourite Drink by Sarah Rose
This book is essentially the tale of Robert Fortune, who was sent by the British East India company to infiltrate China to find out the techniques of growing green and black tea and to bring back plants and seeds that they could then grow elsewhere themselves. I found his story to be fairly interesting, but it was bookended by less interesting information about the tea trade and the British East India Company. I suppose I understand the author's intent in setting the stage for why what Fortune was doing was such a big deal, but her need to follow the British East India Company through it's demise just felt tacked on and unnecessary. I give the book a 5 out of 10. |
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| Year 7, Book 25 |
[Apr. 19th, 2012|08:37 pm] |
25. Mr. Broadway: The Inside Story of the Shuberts, the Shows, and the Stars by Gerald Schoenfeld
Mr. Broadway is a posthumously published memoir by Gerald Schoenfeld, who was the longtime Chairman of the Shubert Organization. This book is definitely not for anyone who not into Broadway theater. Schoenfeld details his work with the Shubert Organization starting with finding himself accidentally employed as their lawyer despite his lack of knowledge of the theater at the time. He wound up remaining with the organization the rest of his life and becoming not just one of their lawyers but the head of the organization working on the business end of keeping all their theaters running. He was also heavily influential in the cleanup of the Times Square Area of New York.
I definitely learned some things I did not know about the business side of Broadway, which I didn't know much about prior to reading this book. I found the stories about running the organization more interesting than the celebrity name dropping stories from the shows at the various Shubert theaters. It also definitely felt like a memoir in that there were many disagreements laid out in this book where of course Schoenfeld always felt his was in the right. You never get to hear the other person's point of view so you're just supposed to take his word for it I guess. I also felt like the book needed a little bit more editing. The oddest thing to me was the placement of the chapter about his work getting Times Square cleaned up. It's something that is alluded to more than once in the beginning of the book, but then doesn't appear until almost the very end. Although the book isn't strictly chronological as the beginning chapters tend to sort of move chronologically through his early work with the Shuberts and then move back and then forward again through time when talking about specific celebrities and plays. I felt like he passed two points in time chronologically when he should have included that story and finally decided I either somehow missed it while reading or he for some reason wasn't going to actually tell it.
If you're a big Broadway fan it's probably worth a read, but otherwise I would probably skip it. |
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