Delayed April readings part 1
I should have posted my readings from last month but haven't. I also need to get into the habit of writing the mini-review right after reading instead of trying to reconstruct it later.
Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong (library). HB 309 pages. Savannah Levine, now grown up, has her first solo case when a P.I. who is friends with her parents (who are on vacation) asks for help solving the murders of several women in a small town. At first there doesn’t seem to be a supernatural connection but there’s a small town cult and someone who has it in for people with supernatural connections. And at the very end there is a major twist that will have to be resolved in a future book.
Shock of Grey by Ted Fishman. Non-fiction. 368 pages. Subtitled The aging of the world’s population and how it pits young against old, child aginst parent, worker against boss, company against rival, and nation against nation. Alternated between chapters on a specific place and larger theme based chapters.
Up Jim River by Michael Flynn. SF/adventure. Library 331 pages. This is the second book in a series. It has some interesting ideas about a secret agent who has been altered to have multiple personalities each of which has a different talent/ability/purpose who reluctantly becomes involved in a harper’s quest to find her missing mother (who is also a secret agent). Lots of action and some nice twists.
Richard M. Nixon by Elizabeth Drew. Nonfiction/biography. Library. 151 pages. This was for a book club. There was a debate as to whether this was a hatchet job by a journalist with personal reasons to hate Nixon or if the flaws were a result of the short length of the book. But why would a series of presidential biographies hire a journalist and not a historian? And why such a short book for such a complex man?
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigurd. SF. Library 288 pages. For book club that I wound up not attending. Very subtle book about the upbringing of clones who are required to donate organs to originals. Most of the characters are very passive and the book is mainly about the interaction between Ruth, Tommy and Tommy’s girlfriend (even though Ruth secretly loves Tommy). I liked it but found it very slow.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (re-read) Fantasy. 560 pages. Read for book club. The viewpoint character finds himself working for a con-man who turns out to be the American version of Odin in a war of the traditional gods/myths against the new gods of our technological age. This is my favorite of Gaiman’s works.
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White. YA/Fantasy. 352 pages. The main character is the only human who can see through the illusions cast by vampires and other paranormals. She works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency that implants tracking devices into vampires and the like. But she really just wants to be a normal girl and go to a high school like the one on TV. But when she falls for a newly capture paranormal with the ability to change his appearance, Evie finds herself mixed up with a prophecy and learns she’s not human herself. Yes, there’s a strong Buffy influence, especially at the start, but it becomes its own beastie.
Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris. Mystery/supernatural. Library 306 pages. There is a supernatural element here in that Harper can identify bodies and how they died by walking over their grave and another friend sometimes can see into people’s future and find them by touching objects linked to them. However, few people believe them and the people with these talents eke out a modest living, certainly not changing the world. The coincidence level in this book was very high too as the case intersects with Harper’s personal life.