Getting up to date on the booksies
I need to do something other than whine about my teeth and gums, all though I would quite gladly continue to do so...
I've read more books. I think I mentioned The Outlander by Gil Adamson in a previous post, while I was still reading it. I felt like it was a whole lot of nothing. By the end of the story, I still felt like it was a whole lot of nothing. It's been very highly reviewed and whatnot, but I just don't see it. I liked the dreamy poetry of the author's style, but that was the only redeeming quality. The characters didn't seem very believable to me, and the story was of no interest. It was mostly just this woman who murdered her husband wandering around in the woods. I kept reading it because it was there.
I also wouldn't really recommend Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. It's a sad, stressful and tedious story about a midwife who performs a cesarean section with a butcher knife on a patient she presumes is dead (but may or may not be), the legal implications of her decision, and the impact the trial has on her family. One might as well read a book about someone gouging their eye out with a spoon; it would have the same overall affect.
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield was just fucking amazing. It rivals Alias Grace for my favorite book I read this year. The beginning was a bit stuffy, but once the story picked up, I was hooked. It was gothic and literary and dark and twisty and delicious. It does some of what The Monsters of Templeton was trying, but failed, to do (without anthropology, hippies, or dead lake monsters). The novels are two completely different genres, but with similar underlying themes to the tune of family secrets. The bookish protagonist (we never figure out exactly how old she is, or even what era the story is taking place in) is hired to write a biography of a famous author and becomes ensnared in several generations of story, involving twins, incest, and murder. However, it is not the least bit eye-gougey.
Garlic and Sapphires, a memoir by Ruth Reichl, was nice, light reading. It was fun and colorful and I finished it in two days. Unfortunately, it made me very hungry, and it is a bitch to try to chew anything right now.
At the suggestion of my manager, who so kindly foisted her copy upon me, it looks like my next book will be Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Oh dear god.
I've read more books. I think I mentioned The Outlander by Gil Adamson in a previous post, while I was still reading it. I felt like it was a whole lot of nothing. By the end of the story, I still felt like it was a whole lot of nothing. It's been very highly reviewed and whatnot, but I just don't see it. I liked the dreamy poetry of the author's style, but that was the only redeeming quality. The characters didn't seem very believable to me, and the story was of no interest. It was mostly just this woman who murdered her husband wandering around in the woods. I kept reading it because it was there.
I also wouldn't really recommend Midwives by Chris Bohjalian. It's a sad, stressful and tedious story about a midwife who performs a cesarean section with a butcher knife on a patient she presumes is dead (but may or may not be), the legal implications of her decision, and the impact the trial has on her family. One might as well read a book about someone gouging their eye out with a spoon; it would have the same overall affect.
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield was just fucking amazing. It rivals Alias Grace for my favorite book I read this year. The beginning was a bit stuffy, but once the story picked up, I was hooked. It was gothic and literary and dark and twisty and delicious. It does some of what The Monsters of Templeton was trying, but failed, to do (without anthropology, hippies, or dead lake monsters). The novels are two completely different genres, but with similar underlying themes to the tune of family secrets. The bookish protagonist (we never figure out exactly how old she is, or even what era the story is taking place in) is hired to write a biography of a famous author and becomes ensnared in several generations of story, involving twins, incest, and murder. However, it is not the least bit eye-gougey.
Garlic and Sapphires, a memoir by Ruth Reichl, was nice, light reading. It was fun and colorful and I finished it in two days. Unfortunately, it made me very hungry, and it is a bitch to try to chew anything right now.
At the suggestion of my manager, who so kindly foisted her copy upon me, it looks like my next book will be Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Oh dear god.