Fervent Reader

Plot summary (with spoilers): Little seven-year-old Sara Crewe is the only daughter of Captain Crewe, a widowed officer in the British army. The Captain had been stationed in India, which is where Sara was born and raised. But now that the girl is of school age, Captain Crewe thinks she should go back to England and get her education there. So despite being the closest of companions and the only family either of them has, the two separate. Sara goes to Miss Minchin’s boarding school in London; Captain Crewe returns to India.

Captain Crewe is a rich man, and has made provisions for Sara to have everything she could ever want at Miss Minchin’s. She gets the best rooms, has them richly appointed with exquisite furniture, and also has nicer clothes and toys than any of the other girls. Sara, being the generous, good-natured, kind-hearted child that she is, willingly shares everything she has with the other girls — even the younger ones who are usually left out in the cold or bullied. Unfortunately, this willingness to share does nothing to stamp out the jealousy raging in a few of Sara’s classmates’ breasts, so it’s not long before Sara earns the nickname of “Little Princess”. Her friends use the term lovingly to describe how beautiful and thoughtful Sara is. Her enemies use the term derisively to point out that Sara lords her wealth over the others.

Disaster strikes when Captain Crewe invests his fortune with a friend who claims to have found a diamond mine. The friend thinks all is lost, and runs away rather than own up to the mistake. The Captain soon falls ill after hearing the devastating news and dies, thereby leaving Sara with no benefactor in all the world. Once Miss Minchin is apprised of this fact, she turns Sara into a servant, working her to the bone, putting her up in the cold, dingy attic, and practically starving her to death.

But Sara is the type of child who can bear anything. She uses her imagination to conquer her circumstances, forcing herself to believe that she is a princess wrongly subjected to the ill-treatment she is receiving. A true princess, she says, would accept the burden and show no outward sign of distress. This bearing impress a neighbor, Mr. Carrisford, and greatly outrages Miss Minchin, who would like nothing more than to see the child’s spirit broken.

By the novel’s end, Sara’s incredible patience is rewarded. With the help of a secret friend, her existence in the attic becomes bearable, and with the clearing up of a big misunderstanding, her wealth is restored, making her a little princess once again.

Liked:

• Little Sara was such a lovely character! My favorite characters in literature are those who, like this tremendous girl, have incredible inner strength and resolve, and can endure whatever the vicissitudes of life or the deliberate cruelties of others hurl their way.
• This was an encouraging story with important lessons for children. The author stresses the importance of sharing, of treating people as equals (Sara’s relationship with Becky the scullery maid is a prime example), and of making the most of whatever hand you’re dealt. These messages are as relevant today as they were in 1904, when this story was first published.

Disliked:

• How could I dislike anything in this book? I’d have to have a heart of stone to do that! That’s not to say it was perfect, but there’s nothing to actively dislike about it.

Rating:

A Little Princess is a gem of a children’s book. The story is interesting, the main character is exceptional, and everything works out for the best in the end — which is just the way most kids like it. I give this book 4 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
4-Star Books, Children's by Julie

Plot summary (with spoilers): Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist are back in The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment of the so-called Millennium Trilogy. It is about a year after the events of the first novel, and in that time there has been no contact between Lisbeth and Mikael. He has tried keeping in touch with her, but she saw him with another woman and ran off in a huff. Lisbeth ended up traveling the world for a year, and is in Grenada when the story begins.

In the meantime, Mikael has been busy trying to get back into the swing of things at Millennium after the Wennestrom affair that nearly ruined his career. The magazine has turned around and is performing fairly well, which is of course good news. Things are expected to get even better as freelancer Dag Svensson and girlfriend Mia Johansson are working on a brilliant piece that will expose the illegal sex trade. The story is sure to be explosive because the two journalists are prepared to name names — a list that includes several cops and other prominent figures.

But then Dag and Mia are found brutally murdered in their apartment. Blomqvist is convinced that the killings are directly related to the article the journalists were about to publish, but the police aren’t so sure. Since Nils Bjurman, Salander’s guardian, was also found murdered on the same night, and since all three were killed with the same murder weapon, the official investigation targets Salander — whose fingerprints happened to be on the gun.

The rest of the story then focuses on how Salander and Blomqvist, working together via messages left on Blomqvist’s computer, work to prove her innocence, while the bumbling cops and real killers do everything they can to prove she is guilty — or eliminate her altogether.

Liked:

• The pacing really picked up towards the end of the novel. The last 10 percent of the book made for a fairly good read — and showed me that the whole thing might have been decent if an editor had the sense to use the ‘Delete’ key on scores of pages in the beginning and middle.

Disliked:

• Larsson sure as hell took his sweet-ass time getting things moving along in this book. The beginning was filled with a holiday in Grenada that didn’t connect with the rest of the story at all, and a bunch of minute details about Lisbeth getting set up in her apartment. What kind of details? Um, like the exact catalog names and descriptions of all the modern sofas, chairs, tables, beds, and other furniture she bought. No, seriously. The double murder didn’t even occur until 34% (Kindle edition, obviously) of the way through the book. Yawn.
• Why is Lisbeth such a freakin’ caricature? She has no emotions because of “All The Evil” (again, eye-roll at how this phrase popped up over and over) and is like the damn Terminator with the way she takes/unleashes beatings and escapes from dire situations. Need I even mention how she was shot three times (including once in the fucking HEAD), and yet still managed to claw her way out of a shallow grave and kill a full-grown man in that state??? LOL. Her character, while somewhat entertaining, is not the least bit believable.
• Exposition, exposition, exposition. There is just soooo damn much of it in this book!!! There are long stretches where Larsson TELLS us about Salander rather than SHOWING us through action. Remember when the boxer explained Salander’s past to Blomqvist? Yeah, I literally fell asleep and dropped my precious Kindle in the process!
• Speaking of the boxer, how effing ridiculous was it that he got involved in the story at all? Yeah, I can really see Manny Pacquiao following a kidnapper and getting his ass beat to protect the friend of someone he “used to spar with”. Whatever.
• Salander bought a 25,000,000 kroner ($3.4 million) 21-room apartment in cash, and the transaction didn’t raise an eyebrow with authorities? She regularly transfers large amounts of money from overseas with similar ease? Yeah, not likely in the post 9/11 world.
• God, it was so annoying to have Salander referred to as a “little girl” throughout the whole damn book. She was a 26-year-old woman, ferchrissakes!!
• “All The Evil” turned out to be the most underwhelming reveal ever. Her father tried to kill her mother, so she firebombed his car? Traumatic for sure, but I personally thought the Bjurman torture/rape was 100x worse.

Rating:
I am truly having a hard time understanding why there is so much fuss being made over Stieg Larsson’s work. Is it because these books were published posthumously? I seriously don’t get it. The writing is mostly awful, the characters are utterly ridiculous, and the plots are extremely thin. What is it we’re supposed to like about this stuff? I give The Girl Who Played With Fire 2 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
2-Star Books, Crime/Thriller by Julie

As much as it saddens me to acknowledge that my mother is growing older, this is something I have to prepare for. One of the things I’ve been doing recently is trying to learn something about Medicare because I think Mom will have to apply for this kind of coverage soon. I’ve tried navigating some websites, but I just don’t understand much of what I read — plus, there seems to be some conflicting information out there.

I think my best bet at this point would be to buy a book like Medicare for the Clueless and hope it explains all the important info I need to know about the Medicare part D plan. This is critical right now because Mom is paying about $250 out-of-pocket for prescriptions, which is hard for someone on a limited income.

I really hope I can sort this out and get my mom the kind of coverage she’s entitled to.

Filed under:
Nonfiction by Julie

Plot summary (with spoilers): Gemma Jericho is a 38-year-old New York emergency room trauma specialist who has sworn off love after being hurt by her last relationship. Gemma recalls her amazing times with hunky Texan Cash Drummond in bits and pieces, leaving readers to wonder what happened to bring the affair to an end. Instead of trying to find another man, Gemma is content to worry about raising 14-year-old daughter Livvie, while getting sometimes unwanted advice from mother Sophia Maria, otherwise known as Nonna.

Their lives change forever when Nonna receives a mysterious letter from Italy. It seems that a Count from her hometown of Bella Piacere died several months ago. Because the Count had no family of his own, he left his estate, Villa Piacere, to the Nonna since Nonna’s father had saved the Count’s life when he was a young boy. Gemma thinks the letter sounds like nonsense or some kind of scam, and worries that Nonna will go all the way out there to find that her “villa” is nothing more than one of those little prefab steel buildings that looks more like a warehouse than a residence — or that the place doesn’t exist at all. But Nonna convinces her daughter to take at least a month to go to Italy and check the place out.

So the three women head to Italy for what will turn out to be a very adventurous time. Nonna gets to see a bunch of childhood friends again, and strikes up a tentative romance with Rocco Cesani, a man from her past. Gemma, meanwhile, meets the handsome, intriguing American artist Ben Raphael, a longtime renter of Villa Piacere who insists that he bought the estate outright last year. So although there is a sexual attraction between Ben and Gemma, the impending legal battle looks like it might get in the way.

The rest of the book then shows how Ben and Gemma’s relationship develops despite her Cash baggage and the estate stuff. Along the way, we also see Nonna and Rocco’s relationship bloom into a marriage proposal, witness Livvie getting her first kiss, and finally hear what happened between Gemma and Cash.

Liked:

• Some of the descriptions of Italy were interesting. The book never ventures into travelogue territory, so the descriptions were actually kept to a minimum, but whenever Adler did venture to talk about the ancient sites, I perked up.

Disliked:

• I hated how the Cash stuff was dragged out through the entire novel. Adler built it up to be some kind of major revelation, so to hear that he died in a car crash and Gemma felt guilty about it because he was coming to meet her was extremely anticlimactic. I waited to hear something as clichéd as a fatal car accident!
• Some of the writing was just terrible. Consider this sentence from a scene where Ben and Gemma are eating cherries and flirting with each other:
  

  The cherry juice seemed to have slipped all the way down to between my legs.

  WTF? That’s disgusting, not sensual or sexy!

• A lot of the scenes seemed pretty repetitive, which made it feel as though the plot wasn’t moving along at all. Ben and Gemma are attracted to each other. Ben and Gemma argue about the estate. Ben and Gemma get frustrated/angry with each other. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ugh!
• None of the characters interested me in the least. I didn’t particularly like Gemma, so I didn’t care if she ended up with Ben or not. And he didn’t even seem like a real person; just the lead in a romance novel.

Rating:
I was expecting Summer in Tuscany to be a lighthearted, breezy, fun read — something perfect for a lazy August weekend. But this book was populated with dull characters and uninteresting scenes. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
2-Star Books, Romance by Julie

Plot summary (with spoilers): Tim and Kate Welch have been married for nine years, and have slipped into that comfortable routine (rut?) that so many young, haggard parents of two preschool-aged children find themselves in. They live in a tiny apartment in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn, never have enough money for anything, don’t have to worry about finding cheap auto insurance because they can’t even afford a car, and barely have time for each other anymore. Moreover, Tim is trying to finish his dissertation so he can get his PhD and perhaps start making a better living for all of them. This adds up to a whole lot of stress, discontent, and discord.

Things start happening after Kate decides to take a job with a six-figure salary while Tim quits his teaching position in order to stay home with the kids. This puts Tim in contact with all the moms and the few other stay-at-home dads in The Heights, including one Anna Brody, the beautiful wife of wealthy Phillip Ashworth. It doesn’t take long for Anna to set her sights on Tim (for reasons that are beyond me) and the two are soon making arrangements for a weekend rendezvous so they can “get it out of their system” and move on.

Meanwhile, Kate’s having impure thoughts of her own, as ex-flame and current TV star Jeff Slade still has the hots for her. Jeff comes back to New York to visit Kate, which gets her to thinking about what her life would now be like if she had chosen Jeff all those years ago instead of Tim.

Other threads that run throughout the book are the mad crush Bea Myerly, Tim’s 16-year-old former student, still has on him; Tim having to deal with his father’s disgraceful firing after being accused of sexual misconduct by members of the women’s college basketball team he coaches; and the still unfinished dissertation, which actually ends up playing a big role in Tim and Anna’s weekend.

Liked:

• I thought the Bea Myerly character was fairly amusing, particularly after she became the Ashworth’s babysitter and discovered that Tim was waiting for Anna at the hotel. She was just about the only enjoyable character in the whole book.

Disliked:

• Hedges hit just about every single cliché and tired situation out there. I listened to the audiobook version and was able to finish the characters’ sentences a good deal of the time — even though this wasn’t something I was actively trying to do. Tim calls out Anna’s name during sex with his wife? Cue the eyeroll. A weekend to get it out of their system? Yeah, right. Kate feeling guilty about going back to work and leaving her boys at home? Yawn.
• Why was Anna even attracted to Tim in the first place? This was never adequately explained, and didn’t seem logical given how dull Tim was as a character. He wasn’t good-looking or rich, and had a bland personality. Why would this beautiful woman want him? No idea.
• I take it this book was supposed to be a “farce”, because that’s what the professional reviewers are calling it. But since none of the situations were familiar to me, and I don’t know anyone like these characters, I guess a lot of the comedy went right over my head.
• I found the whole adultery part extremely distasteful, particularly because Anna was friends with Kate and tried to convince her to go have an affair of her own. Cheating is bad enough when the spouse doesn’t know the other party; but this situation was all kinds of wrong. And just not funny at all.
• The “twist” of having Kate cheat with Jeff while Anna stood Tim up seemed as though it was pulled out of the author’s ass. I suppose this was one of the “farcical” parts that was supposed to generate laughter, but all I could manage was a, “WTF?!”

Rating:

I’m not familiar with any of Hedges’s other work (I’ve never even seen What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?), so I don’t know if The Heights is an anomaly or not. What I do know is that it didn’t appeal to me in the least. I found the characters insufferable and their little dramas wholly uninteresting. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
2-Star Books, Contemporary Literature by Julie

Summary: Other People’s Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy presents the reader with a case study conducted by author Victoria Purcell-Gates. Purcell-Gates met a woman named Jenny, who was functionally illiterate but desperately wanted to learn how to read so she could help her sons break the cycle of illiteracy. Her oldest son Donny had “passed” first grade despite not being able to read at all, which understandably caused Jenny a great deal of concern. She asked — begged, really — the school district to make Donny repeat first grade, but they refused. So he was promoted to second grade where he of course ended up lagging even farther behind his classmates.

Things started to change when Purcell-Gates provided both Jenny and Donny with some one-on-one tutoring sessions at the local literacy center. Jenny made rather quick progress, and started to learn how to read “environmental print”, which consists of the signs, labels, etc. that we come across in everyday life.

Donny, however, was a tougher nut to crack. Since his father, Big Donny, didn’t see any value in reading, Little Donny didn’t see any either. Reading simply didn’t fit into their Appalachian lifestyle. It was difficult for Purcell-Gates to change Donny’s attitudes about reading; once she succeeded, she started to make a bit of headway with him.

Purcell-Gates also addresses the larger issues of literacy in our public school system. How is it possible that children like Donny continue to slip through the cracks in this day and age? She really took the school district to task — and rightly so — for allowing the boy to move to second grade. She also argues that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way reading is taught. It’s not fair that children from middle- and upper-class families enter kindergarten having been read to and exposed to reading and print for most of their young lives, while those from a lower socioeconomic status are just beginning to come into contact with print. The children from higher SES groups begin with an advantage, and the gap grows larger with time.

Purcell-Gates posits that instead of starting with the assumption that kindergarten kids already know their ABCs and understand something about the function of print, school systems should start at the beginning for everyone. Moreover, schools need to do a better job of finding books and materials that appeal to all lifestyles, not just the white middle class. And there needs to be specialized instruction in classrooms instead of the “whole class” approach to ensure that every child gets the attention he or she needs.

Liked:

• Purcell-Gates did a fantastic job of personalizing the illiteracy issue by introducing us to Jenny and Donny and showing how illiteracy plays affects so much of their lives. It’s one thing to read endless stats and figures about illiteracy, but quite another to hear about it in regards to a specific family.
• I think Purcell-Gates makes some interesting proposals regarding the teaching of reading in the early elementary grades. She has a point about low SES students not having the same amount of exposure to reading and print, and argues quite persuasively that this negatively affects their ability to pick up reading as quickly as their middle-class counterparts. In order to close the gap, maybe something really does need to be done about the way reading is approached in kindergarten, first, and second grade.
• I never thought about the kinds of books typically available to kids in the public schools and how that might affect a specific child’s interest in reading. There could actually be some truth to that. Wouldn’t you rather read a book about something you like than something you’re not familiar with at all?

Disliked:

• I think Purcell-Gates puts too much blame on the school system alone and not enough on the students and/or parents. While it’s true that the teachers and administrators should have paid far more attention to Donny, it’s also true that Jenny and Big Donny should have made it clear to Donny that he had to try hard, not goof off during lessons, etc. He can’t just sit there like a passive vessel and expect to “acquire” reading skills. He had to be ready and willing to learn.
• A few of Purcell-Gates’ proposed solutions were impractical because of the sheer cost of putting them into place. While it would be fantastic to have books that interest every single child, how could that plausibly be implemented in a single cash-strapped school, let alone a whole district, city, or state?

Rating:

Overall, I think Other People’s Words is a very worthwhile read, particularly for educators interested in the problem of illiteracy in the United States. The case study is actually rather engrossing, and you’ll probably end up wondering, as I did, how Donny and Jenny are doing today. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
3-Star Books, Nonfiction by Julie

Here are the current NY Times Bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. THE REMBRANDT AFFAIR, by Daniel Silva
2. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
3. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
4. FLY AWAY HOME, by Jennifer Weiner
5. PRIVATE, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. —- MY DAD SAYS, by Justin Halpern
2. THE OBAMA DIARIES, by Laura Ingraham
3. THE BIG SHORT, by Michael Lewis
4. MEDIUM RAW, by Anthony Bourdain
5. SLIDING INTO HOME, by Kendra Wilkinson with Jon Warech

Paperback Trade Fiction:
1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
3. LITTLE BEE, by Chris Cleave
4. ONE DAY, by David Nicholls
5. UNDER THE DOME, by Stephen King

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction:
1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. NINE DRAGONS, by Michael Connelly
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. CHARLIE ST. CLOUD, by Ben Sherwood
5. SMASH CUT, by Sandra Brown

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
3. THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls
4. MY HORIZONTAL LIFE, by Chelsea Handler
5. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT’S ME, CHELSEA, by Chelsea Handler

Filed under:
Publishing News by Julie

Plot summary (with spoilers): Harvard Law graduate turned sports agent Myron Bolitar once again finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery. This time, however, he walks into the case with his eyes open, having been hired by Clip Arnstein, the GM of the New Jersey Dragons basketball team. One of Clip’s star players, Greg Downing, has gone missing. Downing has always been sort of a head case, so that event in itself isn’t a big deal. But this time Downing has been gone longer than in any of his previous disappearances, and with the team so close to the playoffs, Clip is understandably on edge. He believes that Downing’s teammates might know where Greg is, but they won’t talk to an outsider. So Clip hires Bolitar to play for the Dragons, get close to the team, and find Greg.

Myron is stunned at first. After all, Clip was the man who drafted Myron in the first round for the Boston Celtics. But then Myron blew out his knee in an exhibition game, thereby ending his career forever. Now he’ll finally get to achieve his dream of playing in the NBA — albeit under very strange circumstances. He accepts the case.

Best friend Win and assistant Esperanza are less than thrilled at the prospect. They knew how much basketball meant to Myron and how it destroyed him when he learned he couldn’t play anymore. They don’t want to see Myron go through this charade because they don’t think he can handle it being a charade. But he convinces them to help with the case anyway.

During the course of the investigation, Myron and Win slowly uncover bits and pieces of Greg’s history as well as recent goings-on in his life. They start to cobble together a few different theories about what might have happened to the superstar, but none of the theories make much sense. The stakes are raised when the marks of a crime scene are found in Greg’s basement and the dead body turns out to be a woman he knew.

The plot takes a few twists and turns before the full story becomes clear. The woman, Carla (aka Liz Gorman), had been involved in a bank robbery in Arizona. Part of the haul included an audiotape from a safe deposit box. On the tape, Greg Downing and another player are heard, with Greg paying the other player $10,000 to deliberately injure Myron. Carla thought the tape could be used to blackmail Greg, so she got in contact with him. Once he realized the tape could leak, he went into hiding. Then Greg’s girlfriend, a sports reporter, killed Carla to protect Greg. Myron and Win figure everything out by the end and bring everyone to justice.

Liked:

• This was another quick, easy read from the Myron Bolitar series. Sometimes there’s nothing better than light entertainment!
• Myron and Win are definitely growing on me as characters, as it’s obvious that Coben is honing and refining them as the series goes along. There weren’t quite so many smart-ass remarks from them this time around, which made the dialogue more believable and made it funnier when the two did crack jokes. And Win didn’t come off as quite so much a Superman caricature in this one, which is progress in the right direction.
• The case was very twisty, and even though it was rather far-fetched once all the details were unraveled, at least it kept me guessing throughout.

Disliked:

• Come on, Myron getting put on an NBA team in the middle of a playoff run just because the coach “really liked him” and wanted him to realize that his knee was blown for good? That was about as stupid a plot point as they come. And to have Myron actually get in a couple games and score points? Oh, puhleeze!
• That whole blackmail-murder scenario seemed like a stretch. Those are some pretty damn extreme actions for over an audiotape about an assault that took place 10 years ago. But I guess if a professional athlete thought his career and millions of dollars were in jeopardy, maybe things would unfold like this. Just maybe.
• The Big Cindy stuff was ridiculous and made it seem like Coben was trying too hard to be funny. I could have done without that.

Rating:
Overall, I thought Fade Away by Harlan Coben was an average mystery novel. It featured good characters and the plot kept me guessing until the end, but it wasn’t a page-turner by any means. An average book gets an average rating of 3 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
3-Star Books, Mystery/Suspense by Julie

Plot summary (from the publisher): “Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin’s inner city, and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and Rosie Daly were all ready to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives.

But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn’t show. Frank took it for granted that she’d dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie’s suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he’s a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he’s willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.”

Warning: spoilers below

Liked:

• I’ve read all three of Tana French’s novels, and think this was the best by far. The story was well-written and engrossing, and the characters were great.
• At first, I thought Shay’s motive for killing Rosie was weak as hell, and I started to get pissed off at being cheated out of yet another satisfying ending. But then French came back with the bit about Frank and Shay having planned their father’s murder, and suddenly Shay’s actions made a LOT more sense. Kudos to French for that twist, which I never saw coming at all.
• I liked that French wasn’t afraid to make her protagonist unlikable. There were many times in this story when I wanted to punch Frank in the face, and then many others when I cheered him on. I like this kind of character much better than the ones who are ALWAYS right no matter what. Someone like Frank Mackey at least comes off as realistic.

Disliked:

• I kind of pegged Shay as the doer as soon as he was introduced (despite not being able to guess at his motive), so I was a tad bit disappointed that I turned out the be right. Still, I found it odd — and not very likely — that he would fully confess to Frank so readily. He hadn’t seen Frank in 22 years, and knew the guy took his duties as a cop very seriously. If Shay had just kept his mouth shut, Frank wouldn’t have had much of a case at all.
• I wish the ending had gone a bit further and told us if Shay was convicted or not. I actually felt bad for him by the time he got done spinning that tale about how he and Frank were supposed to kill their dad, so I’m hoping he got off scot-free.
• The middle of the book really lagged for me. The beginning and end were great, but it took some work to plow through the middle. I think some of the scenes with the Murder Squad floater (I forgot his name already) could have been cut. I’m not sure why French had to build that character up so much — unless her next novel will center on him.

Rating:

I thought Faithful Place by Tana French was a gripping read for the most part. French is clearly a talented writer, and though she occasionally has problems with plot and pacing, this book is still a wonderful achievement and a perfect candidate for your summer reading list. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Filed under:
4-Star Books, Mystery/Suspense by Julie

I was over at a friend’s house today, and saw this utterly delightful book called Funny Farm. It’s a cardboard book that’s suitable for children, and it features babies and toddlers in the most adorable kids costumes you can imagine! They were dressed up as farmers and barnyard animals, and were just so cute that they almost made me want another baby of my own! Well, perhaps that’s going a bit far. But they did make me regret not dressing my son up for Halloween when he was younger. We do now, of course, but I didn’t really see the point when he was a baby.

Anyway, I’m trying to find this book so I can buy a copy of my own, but apparently it’s out of print. Bummer!

Filed under:
Children's by Julie