September Reading
62. The girl who stopped swimming
by Joshilyn Jackson
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 315
63. Shake the Devil Off
by Ethan Brown
Genre: Non-fiction, True Crime
Pages: 270
64. The Circle of Hanh
by Bruce Weigl
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 205
65. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
by John Berendt
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 386
66. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier
by Ann Packer
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 413
67. The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 679
I don't know why it took me forever to finish this entry. Spoilers ahead. gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson was a great book; her Between, Georgia was too heavy on the Southern-friend cutesiness, and The girl who stopped swimming falls somewhere in between as a pretty good book. Laurel has settled into a life of dull, suburban contentment when the ghost of her daughter’s best friend appears in her bedroom and leads Laurel to her dead body floating in Laurel’s pool. Her family’s dirty secrets begin bubbling to the surface, and her outrageous sister, Thalia, wants to drag Laurel out of her carefully constructed security. Jackson does do a good job of creating dynamic female characters and Thalia is one of my favorites. The book functions well as a family drama and a mystery.
Shake the Devil Off is about Zackery Bowen, who survived the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, then murdered his girlfriend. The murder gained notoriety because Bowen dismembered his girlfriend’s body in an apartment over a voodoo store. It’s a good book for what it is. In addition to the portrayal of the crime, Brown illuminates the problems of post-Katrina News Orleans and casts light on how the country is failing veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Bruce Weigl is my favorite poet, and I wanted to like The Circle of Hanh, but it is an odd little book. It is billed as a memoir of the Vietnam War, but Weigl spends more time discussing his childhood and his molestation by a babysitter as he does the war. The whole book seems to go round in circles and off on strange tangents. Weigl goes on and on about the difficulties he has with his passport when he goes back to Vietnam to adopt a little girl, then the book promptly ends after he meets the girl for the first time. A Vietnam veteran raising a Vietnamese daughter sounds like an interesting book, but that is not what we get.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a glorious romp of a novel that made me jealous that I don’t know any voodoo or drag queens. John Berendt is a journalist enjoying the colorful locals of Savannah, Georgia when his acquaintance Jim Williams, shoots his handyman/lover/local hustler, Danny, in alleged self-defense. All of the characters seem to eccentric to be real, but it is great fun. If you haven’t read it, read it.
The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer is the kind of book that makes me wish that I was part of a book club. It is well -written, but it is one of those discussion books. Carrie and her fiancé, Mike, are having problems when Mike dives off a pier and breaks his neck. Carrie feels even more suffocated by her life after the accident, and she flees to New York City and begins a relationship with a man that she has only met once. I wished that Carrie and Mike had not been having problems before the accident, because it feels like that was only there so you don’t hate Carrie for leaving. I wish Packer had taken the risk of having Carrie doing something most people would consider truly despicable and leaving Mike because he was paralyzed. I also disliked that in the end, it feels like Carrie has to make a choice between two men and not a choice of what is right for her. I enjoyed the characterization and I wish I knew someone who had read the book so we could talk about it.
I re-read The Prince of Tides to see if it still belongs in my all-time top favorites list. I think that it does. Conroy gets the South exactly right here--the eccentricities, the beauty and the badness. The rise and fall of the Wingo family is Shakespearian in its tragedy. A wonderful book.
by Joshilyn Jackson
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 315
63. Shake the Devil Off
by Ethan Brown
Genre: Non-fiction, True Crime
Pages: 270
64. The Circle of Hanh
by Bruce Weigl
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 205
65. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
by John Berendt
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 386
66. The Dive from Clausen’s Pier
by Ann Packer
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 413
67. The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 679
I don't know why it took me forever to finish this entry. Spoilers ahead. gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson was a great book; her Between, Georgia was too heavy on the Southern-friend cutesiness, and The girl who stopped swimming falls somewhere in between as a pretty good book. Laurel has settled into a life of dull, suburban contentment when the ghost of her daughter’s best friend appears in her bedroom and leads Laurel to her dead body floating in Laurel’s pool. Her family’s dirty secrets begin bubbling to the surface, and her outrageous sister, Thalia, wants to drag Laurel out of her carefully constructed security. Jackson does do a good job of creating dynamic female characters and Thalia is one of my favorites. The book functions well as a family drama and a mystery.
Shake the Devil Off is about Zackery Bowen, who survived the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, then murdered his girlfriend. The murder gained notoriety because Bowen dismembered his girlfriend’s body in an apartment over a voodoo store. It’s a good book for what it is. In addition to the portrayal of the crime, Brown illuminates the problems of post-Katrina News Orleans and casts light on how the country is failing veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Bruce Weigl is my favorite poet, and I wanted to like The Circle of Hanh, but it is an odd little book. It is billed as a memoir of the Vietnam War, but Weigl spends more time discussing his childhood and his molestation by a babysitter as he does the war. The whole book seems to go round in circles and off on strange tangents. Weigl goes on and on about the difficulties he has with his passport when he goes back to Vietnam to adopt a little girl, then the book promptly ends after he meets the girl for the first time. A Vietnam veteran raising a Vietnamese daughter sounds like an interesting book, but that is not what we get.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a glorious romp of a novel that made me jealous that I don’t know any voodoo or drag queens. John Berendt is a journalist enjoying the colorful locals of Savannah, Georgia when his acquaintance Jim Williams, shoots his handyman/lover/local hustler, Danny, in alleged self-defense. All of the characters seem to eccentric to be real, but it is great fun. If you haven’t read it, read it.
The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer is the kind of book that makes me wish that I was part of a book club. It is well -written, but it is one of those discussion books. Carrie and her fiancé, Mike, are having problems when Mike dives off a pier and breaks his neck. Carrie feels even more suffocated by her life after the accident, and she flees to New York City and begins a relationship with a man that she has only met once. I wished that Carrie and Mike had not been having problems before the accident, because it feels like that was only there so you don’t hate Carrie for leaving. I wish Packer had taken the risk of having Carrie doing something most people would consider truly despicable and leaving Mike because he was paralyzed. I also disliked that in the end, it feels like Carrie has to make a choice between two men and not a choice of what is right for her. I enjoyed the characterization and I wish I knew someone who had read the book so we could talk about it.
I re-read The Prince of Tides to see if it still belongs in my all-time top favorites list. I think that it does. Conroy gets the South exactly right here--the eccentricities, the beauty and the badness. The rise and fall of the Wingo family is Shakespearian in its tragedy. A wonderful book.