Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This was a short, quick read that took no more than a few hours to get through.
• Although this book was in no way, shape, or form up to typical Willa Cather standards, it should at least be somewhat appreciated as having contributed to the author’s overall experience as a writer.

Disliked:

• The heavy-handed, transparent symbolism found throughout the novel was one of the clearest indications of Cather’s inexperience.
• Bartley wasn’t a sympathetic character at all. While I guess I can understand wanting to recapture his youth, he really had no reason to cheat on Winifred and try to resume a relationship with Hilda. It was unfair to both women, actually.
• The death scene was sort of melodramatic. It was rather convenient that the bridge held up just long enough for Bartley to arrive, and then started crumbling. And of course Winifred was waiting around until the body was pulled out of the water, completely unaware of her husband’s recent infidelities.

Rating:

Well, what is there to say about a book that the author herself basically disowned? Alexander’s Bridge is only noteworthy because it was written by Willa Cather. Others have called it “Edith Wharton lite,” and I tend to agree with that assessment. Still, because it was so short and to the point, I think it deserves at least 3 stars out of 5.

In Teacher Man Frank turns his attention to the subject that he most often talks about in his lectures-teaching: why it’s so important, why it’s so undervalued. He describes his own coming of age-as a teacher, a storyteller, and, ultimately, a writer. He is alternately humble and mischievous, downtrodden and rebellious. He instinctively identifies with the underdog; his sympathies lie more with students than administrators. It takes him almost fifteen years to find his voice in the classroom, but what’s clear in the thrilling pages of Teacher Man is that from the beginning he seizes and holds his students’ attention by telling them memorable stories. And then it takes him another fifteen years to find his voice on the page.

With all the wit, charm, irreverence, and poignancy that made Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis so universally beloved, Frank McCourt tells his most exhilarating story yet-how he became a writer.

Liked:

• McCourt seemed like a wonderful teacher. In my academic career, I’ve had teachers that I’ve liked or admired, but none that truly inspired me. I have a feeling that MANY of McCourt’s students did receive a fair amount of inspiration along with their instruction, and for that I envy them. He mainly taught English, but I have a feeling that even if he taught wood shop or beginner guitar lessons, he would have been just as lovable.
• This book is funny and poignant in many places. This was the first McCourt book I’ve ever read, so I didn’t know what to expect. I really like his style, though, and will be looking at his other works soon.
• The best parts of the book were the ones that dealt with students and classroom happenings. I liked hearing McCourt’s impression of his students (didn’t we all want to know what our teachers REALLY thought about us?), and thought it was fantastic when he ran into a former student on the street a few years after the kid graduated and told the young man that he loved him like a son. Wow!
• McCourt’s insight into teenagers’ feelings regarding teachers was absolutely spot-on. Every time he talked about what he should or shouldn’t do in the classroom and weighed the effect it would have on his students, I found myself nodding in agreement with him. Yes, when I was a high school student, that’s EXACTLY what I would have thought if my teacher did this, that, or the other.
• I giggled imagining McCourt struggling through a whole year with a class of 29 black girls and 2 Hispanic boys. What an odd grouping that sounded like. And when the “ringleader” of the class (I forgot her name…Serena, maybe?) moved away and then wrote back to tell McCourt that she was going to go to college and become a teacher…well, that just shows how much of a profound effect he had on students.

Disliked:

• There wasn’t much I disliked about this book, but I do have to say that the parts that veered into McCourt’s personal relationships with women, his odd jobs on the docks or wherever, and his adventures in grad school in Ireland weren’t that interesting to me. I skimmed most of those sections in order to get back to the kids and the classroom more quickly.

Rating:

I thought Teacher Man by Frank McCourt was a wonderful book. It brought back tons of memories from my own school days, along with a fair amount of wistfulness about never having had a teacher like McCourt. The digressions into his other jobs and his own schooling prevent me from giving this book a perfect rating, but it definitely deserves 4 stars out of 5.

Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White’s wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood. Longtime fans and new fans alike will relish Betty’s candid take on everything from her rumored crush on Robert Redford (true) to her beauty regimen (“I have no idea what color my hair is and I never intend to find out”) to the Facebook campaign that helped persuade her to host Saturday Night Live despite her having declined the hosting job three times already.

Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and to the point-just like Betty White.

Liked:

• I listened to the audiobook version, which was read by Betty herself. She seems like such a truly sweet person that I couldn’t help but perk up and pay attention the whole time.
• I love that Betty has a whole room in her house devoted to stuffed animals and that she actually talks to them — out loud — whenever she walks into the room. I only have a few stuffed animals, but I do exactly the same thing!
• I enjoyed hearing a little bit about the show business side of Betty’s life, including the Snickers Super Bowl commercial that revived her popularity and the SNL hosting gig. She talks about Hot in Cleveland too, but not as much as I expected she would.
• I’m glad that Betty says being 89 (or 90 now, I guess) isn’t an “achievement”, that it “just happens”. That’s so true. Betty shouldn’t be celebrated just because she’s 90. She should be celebrated because she’s 90 and is still going strong in show biz!
• There were a few mentions of The Golden Girls and her work on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I’m all for nostalgia and loved the little tidbits Betty shared.

Disliked:

• There’s no way I’m going to be too harsh on Betty, but one thing I didn’t like was that this book was very short! I just borrowed it from the library, so it wasn’t that big a deal to me, but I can’t imagine paying $25 for the hardcover as some people surely did. I heard there were practically more photos in the book than text, which is pretty crazy!

Rating:

New Betty White fans might be disappointed that there isn’t much substance to If You Ask Me; to those folks I say check out her previous two memoirs (Here We Go Again: My Life in Television and Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo) for a fuller account of her life. I think this new book is just fine to bring people up to date with the latest happenings in Betty’s life, and I for one am glad that she wrote it (and that I read it). That doesn’t automatically make the work fine literature, though. I give the book 3 stars out of 5.

The perfect life
A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she’s built in New York–including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can’t let him pay for the real killer’s crimes.

The perfect lie
Nina’s secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina’s world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity.

The perfect way to die
Now, years later, Nina risks everything she’s earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet–a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.

Liked:

• As with most of Patterson + fill-in-the-blank co-author’s works, this book featured a ton of short chapters and plenty of twists and turns to the storyline. I bet if I took the time to analyze 3-4 of these type of books, I could walk away with an almost page-by-page template of how to write a thriller. Maybe that should be my next summer project!
• I liked when the FBI agent approached Jeanine (before she became Nina) and told her she had to get away from Peter. That was very cryptic; and when Jeanine researched Peter’s history at the library, her situation became downright scary.
• I liked that Charlie Baylor (the Key West lawyer for falsely accused murderer Justin Miller) and Nina ended up together. They seemed like a good match, and really, after all that time with the wrong man and then alone, Nina deserved some happiness. Here’s hoping they get to review medical malpractice insurance Florida laws together for a long time to come!

Disliked:

• I didn’t think that Peter’s wife-killing tendency was explained adequately. Did he just get tired of these women, so he killed them? Was it because he didn’t want them to have babies? If the former, what the hell was wrong with a simple divorce(or why even get married in the first place)? If the latter, why not use contraception even after marriage or get a vasectomy or something?
• Along similar lines, I wish the authors had explained why Peter decided to get married AND have children after Jeanine left him. Why the sudden change of heart? That seemed like an important thing to know.
• Why in the world would Nina stop at New York? I don’t know about you, but if I had a psycho ex out there like that, I would have gone clear across to the other side of the country. Sure, at first glance NY might seem far enough away from Key West, but with Peter’s Boston connection I would still be worried. Wouldn’t Seattle or San Diego have been much safer? I realize Nina didn’t have any money when she started out, so she had to stop in New York, but after she got herself together, she could have moved again.
• I don’t buy for one second that Nina never felt compelled to Google Peter to see what he was up to. She was surprised that he was still in Key West, had become the Chief of Police down there, etc. If she truly feared for her life all those years, I’m SURE she would have been Googling him to make sure he didn’t transfer to New York or something.
• I found it pretty amazing (in a bad way) that the Jump Killer so miraculously happened to pick Jeanine up on the highway — right after she staged her own disappearance to make it look like the Jump Killer caught her. How lucky!!
• Speaking of the Jump Killer, Peter just happened to have that guy under his thumb too and managed to set Charlie and Nina up on an empty dinner boat with that guy? Um, okaaaay.

Rating:

At this point, I know enough to have limited expectations regarding James Patterson’s assembly line works. As such, even though my Dislikes greatly outnumbered my Likes for Now You See Her, I’m still going to give the book 3 stars out of 5. It’s a fast-paced book meant to be consumed in a weekend, and in that regard it serves its purpose.

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey

Hardcover Fiction
BELIEVING THE LIE, by Elizabeth George
PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
GIDEON’S CORPSE, by Douglas Preston
STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS, by James Luceno
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James

Hardcover Nonfiction
AMERICAN SNIPER, by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
THROUGH MY EYES, by Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman

Paperback Trade Fiction
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
10TH ANNIVERSARY, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
SKELETON COAST, by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul
THE JEFFERSON KEY, by Steve Berry
HIDDEN SUMMIT, by Robyn Carr

Paperback Nonfiction
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
BOSSYPANTS, by Tina Fey
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
_____ FINISH FIRST, by Tucker Max
OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell

Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it became known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded.

No book takes readers deeper inside SEAL Team Six than this.

Liked:

• The parts about SEAL training were definitely the highlights of this book. It was interesting to get a look at all the physical and mental challenges the candidates had to face and to wonder how I would hold up in a similar situation (not very well). Making it through Hell Week and BUD/S, and then being selected for SEAL Team Six are accomplishments to be proud of. Note: I say this as a completely non-military person who has not read ANY other books about Navy SEALs before this one. If you’ve read a ton of stuff, then obviously your mileage may vary.
• The military often gets a bad rap, but this book just goes to show how much of a life-saver/changer the armed forces can be. Wasdin had very few prospects as a young man, but joining the Navy and trying out for the SEALs gave him purpose and direction. A lot of people need that.
• I’m glad that Wasdin is now a chiropractor and has found a career that he truly enjoys after bouncing around from job to job for a while. I checked out his website, and though he doesn’t look at all like what I picture a former SEAL to be, it’s cool that he’s happy and settled these days.
• The Somalia stuff was pretty neat, too. I especially liked how Wasdin contrasted what really happened with what was portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down.

Disliked:

• This book was not well-written. Despite the presence of a co-author, both the prose and dialog were awkward, clunky, and disorganized. There were many stray sentences that seemed to have been thrown into the mix just for the hell of it without ever leading anywhere.
• I didn’t like the descriptions of fights . Reading about how Wasdin and his buddies fought 30 cops (yeah, right) or kicked a bunch of rednecks’ asses was tedious and made him sound like a jerk, not a tough guy.
• Similarly, I didn’t like reading how he squashed a rat with his boot (nasty!) or shot kangaroos in Australia or wild animals in Africa from a helicopter. The part about him practicing field medicine on a goat or sheep or whatever was disturbing as well. Yes, I understand that most of this had to do with training, but still… I would rather not have read about it.
• Call me crazy, but I don’t understand how Wasdin could make excuses for all the beatings his stepfather (allegedly) gave him. If I got beat that much, I don’t know if I’d EVER have it in my heart to forgive the person, let alone try to justify the person’s despicable actions.
• I wrote “allegedly” up there because I’ve read some stuff from Wasdin’s half-brother claiming that a significant portion of the childhood stuff was made up. I obviously can’t verify if this is true or not, but it does give me pause. In particular, MANY people have said the wild cat in the suitcase bit was a tale that has been going around since the ’50s, so who knows.
• Wasdin left the SEALs in the mid-’90s, so a lot of the stuff in here is outdated info. I was kind of hoping to learn more about the SEAL Team Six of today and how they operate with the latest technology.

Rating:

SEAL Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin does provide some good insight into what it took to become a Navy SEAL and join the elite Team Six snipers back in the day. This is not a perfect book and probably isn’t even one of the best SEAL books out there. But I think it’s sufficient for the casual reader and is interesting enough that you’ll want to plow through the boring parts (of which there are many). I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Anyway, if you’re stuck for gift ideas, all you have to do is spend a few minutes at RedEnvelope and you’ll come up with something good!

Patch’s impassioned marriage to Gloria is fueled by alcohol and consumed by greed. The dazzling couple race through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes — first in hilarity, and later in despair. The Beautiful and Damned is a piercing and tragic depiction of New York nightlife, reckless ambition, squandered talent, and the faux aristocracy of the nouveaux riches. Published in 1922 on the heels of Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, it gives evidence to the sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism of one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The portrayal of Anthony and Gloria’s relationship felt very real to me. I’ve been in relationships like that, where things are only good when the money’s there and the couple spend all their time recklessly living it up instead of working, paying bills, and saving. Just as with Anthony and Gloria, that lifestyle is fun for a while, but soon becomes strained and exhausting. Their deterioration hit way too close to home and was very hard to read about at times.
• Speaking of hitting too close to home, I was surprised to learn that this book predates Scott’s own marriage to Zelda Sayer. Wow, shouldn’t he have used this as a real-life cautionary tale? Was he just perversely determined to become Anthony in the flesh? Yikes.
• The scenes towards the end of the book where Anthony tried to muster up the courage to ask Maury Noble and the film producer Mr. Black for money were just gut-wrenching. Again, if you’ve ever been in a position of pride/independence and then had to swallow that pride to borrow money… well, Fitzgerald captures those feelings perfectly.
• The novel really picked up steam after Anthony joined the Army and went south. I didn’t like the Dot character or the way Anthony carelessly disregarded his marriage vows, but that separation from Gloria seemed to be the impetus for the only true action in the entire book.
• Anthony’s pitiful attempt at becoming a salesman was another part that I found to be very realistic. Anthony is EXACTLY the kind of person who would spend more money trying to make a sale (e.g. getting drunk in bars in order to try to sell stocks to the bartender) than he would ever earn in commissions.
• Some of the writing was truly wonderful. This particular novel of Fitzgerald’s is generally derided by critics for being too overwrought, and while I do agree that many of the descriptions and adjectives are so ornate as to be distracting, it’s clear that this wasn’t written by an ordinary talent.

Disliked:

• The first half of the novel dragged in a LOT of places. Gloria and Anthony were interesting for a while, but then their scenes became way too repetitive. They drank, they spent money, they fought, they were irresponsible, they were unproductive members of society….how many different times and in how many different ways did we need to see that?
• I didn’t like the ending. I thought it would have been more interesting had Gloria and Anthony NOT received any money from the Adam Patch estate. Their downfall was delicious, and since they were utterly selfish characters without any positive qualities, I would have preferred that their descent continue until they were forced to work. To have $30 million fall into their laps at last didn’t feel right. The fact that Anthony was so frail at the time of his inheritance that he would likely be accepted into Housing for seniors mitigated the situation — but only a little.
• Dot was kind of a scary little stalker, wasn’t she? First the stunt about threatening to commit suicide if Anthony didn’t come see her right away, and then tracking him down in New York City when she knew damn well he was married… Women who are that desperate always give me the creeps.
• Did F. Scott Fitzgerald really name check himself in this book by mentioning This Side of Paradise as something that the young folks of the time were reading???
• Richard Caramel was a tedious character. What purpose did he serve? Was he meant to make Anthony jealous because Anthony wanted to write? Was he meant to be a parody of FSF and his contemporaries? Whatever the case, I didn’t like him.

Rating:

This was my second time reading The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and now that I was able to look at it with the perspective of one who has been through similar situations, I have a whole new appreciation for the characters of Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert. But the book still lacks the tightly focused writing and well plotted structure that Fitzgerald would become famous for with his third novel (Gatsby), and the story wasn’t very compelling after all is said and done. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I think David Mitchell is a tremendous writer. His prose is often very good and fun to read. It’s clear that he has talent galore, so I wouldn’t mind reading other works of his.
• The Robert Frobisher story, the Luisa Rey mystery, and the Timothy Cavendish piece were my favorites. All of those had interesting plot lines that made me want to keep turning the pages, and I felt that Robert Frobisher was perhaps the most fleshed out of all the characters in the entire novel.
• For me, the novel as a whole worked best when read as a collection of six discrete short stories instead of the nested stories they were intended to be.

Disliked:

• I didn’t like the structure of this novel one bit. Sure, I guess you could say it was “clever” to break each story off in the middle, continue with the next, and then finish each one off in reverse chronological order, but I found that to be annoying. The structure itself became more prominent than the stories, which should never be the case, IMO. Plus, there was simply no good reason to structure the story that way. It was merely for effect, which added to my annoyance.
• The post-apocalyptic future stories were incredibly dull and monotonous. I am not ashamed to admit that I skimmed almost the entire second half of “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After” because I couldn’t stand Zachry or any of the other characters in it. Ugh. And the Sonmi story was just a bit more tolerable than that. Too bad those two stories were by far the longest in the whole book.
• I didn’t see the point of having each story loosely connected to the subsequent one via such contrivances as someone finding a previous character’s letters or reading a manuscript about a previous character. Again, that just seemed like more “look at how clever I am!” posturing rather than an organic element of the book.
• The end of each story was rather…anticlimactic. Honestly, when I finished the book, I was rather unsatisfied that such a lengthy journey came up so short when all was said and done.

Rating:
I know critics and readers alike have mostly raved over Cloud Atlas, but I simply can’t share their enthusiasm. Though well written by a talented author, the stories lacked the kind of substance I was hoping for. This book seemed more like a technical exercise in structure than a deep, thought-provoking novel, so I couldn’t get into it as much as I had hoped to. Nevertheless, I still think it warrants 3 stars out of 5.

Combined Print & E-Book Fiction:
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
11/22/63, by Stephen King
KILL ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson
THE LITIGATORS, by John Grisham

Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
CATHERINE THE GREAT, by Robert K. Massie

Hardcover Fiction:
77 SHADOW STREET, by Dean Koontz
11/22/63, by Stephen King
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY, by P. D. James
LOCKED ON, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney
KILL ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson

Hardcover Nonfiction:
STEVE JOBS, by Walter Isaacson
KILLING LINCOLN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, by Daniel Kahneman
THROUGH MY EYES, by Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker

Paperback Trade Fiction:
THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
THE TIGER’S WIFE, by Téa Obreht
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
SPIRIT BOUND, by Christine Feehan
HIDDEN SUMMIT, by Robyn Carr
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
A GAME OF THRONES, by George R. R. Martin

Paperback Nonfiction:
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE, by Max Brooks
_____ FINISH FIRST, by Tucker Max
GOD IS NOT GREAT, by Christopher Hitchens