The books of April 2011

This has been an unexpectedly full month. At the beginning of the month, I saw Source Code with my roommate (very entertaining), went to lunch (and hung out forever) with a couple of friends I don't get to see that often, went to the abCU event (see last month), hung out with friends, went to a bachelorette evening out, had Easter lunch with a friend and her family (always tasty!), took some time off, watched the Royal Wedding, and read. But as usual, my month had ups and downs.

Down: I said bye to a friend who moved to Chicago to start a new job. I made her a parting gift:

Aren't they always?

Neutral: I worked on a new Iron Craft challenge that will end up being my mom's Mothers' Day gift:

Proportionally, I think the bee will crush the teeny flower.

Ups: My BFF and I went to see a couple of great bands, The Delta Kings and The Whiskey Daredevils. Those of you who know me understand that I'm no gardener. Heck, I killed a cactus one time simply because I forgot I had it. My BFF bought some pansies (a lot of pansies) in a frenzied flower spree on the only nice day earlier this month. She was kind enough to give me a few, knowing that I would eventually kill it. I did really well and managed to keep it alive for a couple of weeks.

It was so pretty while it survived. It will be missed.

With Lent still in effect most of the month, I couldn't buy books until after Easter. I bought two: Candace Bushnell's Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel and Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later. Luckily, there's a library in town, so I did read some items that weren't waiting for me on the nightstand.

This month, I read some very good books. I finished The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan that I had started at the end of last month. I also read This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cask, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl About Love by Justine van der Leun, Between a Heart and a Rock Place by Pat Benetar with Patsi Bale Cox, Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! by Jonathan Goldstein, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell, and just under the wire, finishing it up late last night, Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a teen novel...part one of three so far. The beginning of the story follows the heroine as she watches her mother die, her dreams fall apart, he brother abandon her, and then things got worse. The town is surrounded by fences that are under constant watch by the town's guardians. The sisters (church women) are the holders of all the town's history and knowledge. At some point in the history of the planet, a disease swept through turning those outside of the town's fences into zombie-vampire things that live only to eat and kill and make others of their kind and then die. One night, a stranger appears at the church...fueling the heroine's beliefs that there's more than what they've been taught...that there are other towns with other people, trapped by the monsters outside their own fences. The stranger is promptly given to the monsters and the heroine's journey begins. A very small team of people make it out of the town with her when the final attack destroys everything and everyone. Following the secret gate to other towns' secret gates, the heroine and small team make their way to safety...and more disaster. The survival rate is extremely small and to keep traveling in search of a dream is basically a death wish. I haven't started the second book, but based on the chapter or so at the end of this book as a teaser, it looks to be the next generation doing their own dreaming. 

This Is Where I Leave You was a book I'd been eyeing at the store for a while, but ended up borrowing from a friend. It was about one extremely dysfunctional family and how the main character deals with them and his own unraveled life in his small hometown after his father's death. Apparently death does funny things to people and this book ended up being something that made me laugh out loud over and over. I don't want to spoil anything, so just read it.

I did not finish The Last Supper. Mainly because at about a third of the way into the book, I found that I didn't care about any of the people, but I also wasn't pulled in by the writing. I thought it would be about food and Italy and it's more about history in small towns in Italy...which is normally something I enjoy, but I don't know. This one just didn't work for me and I took it back to the library.

On the other hand, The Help was amazing! Kathryn Stockett built on her own experiences and created a fictional world in the south in the 1960s. The African-Americans who waited on the wealthier white people have a very complex story to be told in this book and Stockett does an amazing job with it. Each character has secrets and vulnerabilities...even the bullies that you want to see fail. She takes a turbulent time and writes a story that you can't put down despite your horror at some of the things she tells you. All of these women, whether they are the employers or the employees, are people you want to read more about. I was very sorry to see it end, but glad to hear it's being made into a movie.

I checked out Marcus of Umbria because I saw it on a reading list and I liked the synopsis. Girl goes to Italy; girl falls for boy; girl goes home; girl returns to Italy to be with boy she barely knows; girl finds dog/true love; girl names dog Marcus and then discovers Marcus is female; girl leaves boy but keeps dog; girl goes back home with dog. This dog. I totally wanted this dog while I read the book. She has loads of energy and you just know she had way more little adventures than are described to us in this book. Leun's love for the dog and the dog's love for Leun is a constant from the moment they meet. It never waivers. No talking, no arguing, no grumpiness...just a friend who'll never give up on you. Leun thought she went to Italy for love, but really, she ended up finding a completely different relationship that ended up lasting much, much longer.

The Pat Benetar book has been on my list for a while. I've always liked her music and I knew that she was one of the forerunners for women in the rock industry today. What I didn't know was how normal she is. If you want a crazy, rock'n'roll, madcap, drugged-out adventure book, this is not the one for you (may I recommend Motley Crue's Dirt for that?). She's been married to her music partner for around 30 years now I believe. She's pretty amazing, but nothing in the book was shocking. I guess the parts where women were treated badly in the industry simply for being women is bad, but it's not a shock...that still happens every day, at any job, all over the world.

Eating the Dinosaur is a collection of Klosterman's essays. I always enjoy his books, laughing out loud and rereading the funnier bits to friends. I'd forgotten this one was on the nightstand and I squealed a little from happiness when I saw it there. He covers music, sports, and everything else. It's always nice to read collected essays by him because the topics jump around and it's something you can read while reading other things as well...although, I'm generally entertained enough to plow through the whole thing without changing books. He's someone you'd definitely want at a dinner table...the conversation would never be boring!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! was an impulse buy a while ago. It takes some of the most well known stories (Adam and Eve, Noah, Jonah, etc.) and turns them into more modern day fables that have funny dialogue. It was a short read, but I will admit it felt a little strange to read reinterpretations of these Bible stories so close to Easter.

A Reliable Wife is another one I've had for a while. It looked interesting and it was getting good reviews, so I bought it. And then a couple of friends read it and didn't like it. I've started it several times, but never stuck with it until this week. It wasn't what I expected at all. Whether it was good or bad, I've not decided. Once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. It switched your expectations more than once during the story, trying to guide you away from the real story that you didn't finally get until about halfway through...and even then, not really until the last chapter do you get each characters' viewpoints and knowledge of the situations around them. I don't know if I would read another one by him, but this definitely kept my interest. I think I like the real-life mysteries better...like Devil in the White City.

Yesterday morning, I finished some fluff, the latest of the Carrie Diaries from Candace Bushnell. This is the second diary...the first one took place during her last year of high school and included no one we knew but Carrie until the very end when she left for New York. This second book picks up right where it left off...Carrie meets Samantha (she's a cousin of a girl she knows from high school) and several others that are mentioned in the grown-up series: Miranda, Capote Duncan (a bit player in the adult TV series, he's a major character in this book that takes place the summer between high school and freshman year of college), and at the end of the book, she also meets Charlotte, bringing the core group together when she's only 18 years old. A lot of people don't like these pre-packaged prequel-type books, but I enjoy them. I already know the characters and it's fun to imagine what they were like before we knew them. Should teens be introduced to this particular group of women? Possibly not, but as a grown-up, I want to read the books too, so clearly there's a market.

Due to a glitch with the blogging system, I couldn't post yesterday after working on this thing for over an hour. So, I decided to start...and finish...the Sweet Valley High book. I read a few when I was young...and saw a few of the tv episodes, but I never totally got into this particular series. I knew enough about it to justify the purchase and I was curious to see what had happened to the twins. I enjoyed the book...the way I enjoy a book like a Harlequin. It was a fast read; I didn't really feel invested in the characters (mainly because of my lack of teen knowledge of them); and in the end, it was just a decent way to pass time between sneezing and coughing and napping.

Hope everyone had a happy April! We've definitely had enough showers to have LOADS of May flowers.