A Reliable Wife

I read A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick, for my book club, and had never heard of it, but based on the description and reviews was reasonably interested. Then my sister started it and warned me about smutty it was for a book club and that she wasn't so sure about it. Me either, frankly. The characters are pretty annoying all around. I liked Catherine, except for her strange fixation with her disgusting, slovenly, drunk, oyster eating boyfriend. I felt bad that I liked her as she slowly and torturously tries to kill her husband (not giving anything away here - she admits this early on), but she's definitely the most likeable character out of all the bunch and at least she wants to live. And as the book repeats over and over and over, she either wants to live with money, or with love. The book got more interesting for me when she goes to the library to study plants, but the love scenes (or descriptions of previous love scenes) were pretty sad. Really, I don't want to read about the pools of goo on your sheets. My recommendation - skip it!

The Aviary Gate - Katie Hickman

Kind of torn on The Aviary Gate, but overall I would give it a decent review. I was not familiar at all with the history of the late 1500s in Istanbul, so I enjoyed reading about life in a harem during that time period. There are a lot of people, names and places to remember, which are hard to keep straight in the beginning. Partially because of that, I had trouble concentrating on the initial chapters of the book, but it helped that chapters flucuate between present day and 1599 in Istanbul.

The present day part of the book is very easy to follow, because you have a pretty weak female heroine, Elizabeth, with an irritating 'lover,' and a standard subplot of boy being mean to girl, girl accepts meanness with love and lust, girl's best friend tells her to move on, girl finally gets out of town to do research and realizes guy is a jerk... etc. etc. You don't even understand why Elizabeth is so into him, he's not even good in bed!

The Istanbul part of the book has a lot more intrigue, but by the end it seems a bit over the top. I liked the interaction between Celia and her best friend at the harem, I liked the descriptions about how the women were prepared for sleeping with the sultan, the status given to the sultan's favorites, and I enjoyed learning about how the women came to the harem.

By the end though, I didn't feel really satisfied. I didn't feel Elizabeth had grown a backbone, and the huge mystery in which Celia gets herself involved is just so overdone I ended up just second guessing why and how everything occurred. It was worth reading, but not one of my favorite books this year.

The Falls

One word, terrible. At first I thought it was the audio book that was bad, because the narrator was awful, and i mean really awful. Also, it was 15 CDs, which is long even for a good book. In fact, it almost destroyed my faith in audio books.

But the more I think about this book, the more terrible I think the story itself really was. The characters aren't well developed, and Ariah, the only character who is somewhat developed, is so insane that is is hard to feel any sympathy for or feel any connection with. She is completely uninteresting, the plot drags, and there is really no climax. There are small questions that arise as you're reading that never go anywhere, or aren't answered in an interesting way. The cemetery sex scene, which could have been entertaining, is unrealistic and hokey.

I assumed other book reviewers would feel similarly, but I was surprised by the overwhelming positive responses on Amazon. Joyce Carol Oates regularly gets good reviews, so I wondered if people who liked her as an author read this because of her reputation. "Expertly crafted," "Page turner", "Interesting" - i couldn't disagree more. If anyone were to pick this up to hear an interesting story taking place in Niagara Falls, or to hear a fictionalized account of a family living in the time of the "Love Canal" case, please, don't bother. It's hard for me to stop reading a book once I start, but in this case, I wish heartily that I could have gotten that time of my life in the car back.

Living Dead in Dallas

Stayed up late last night watching Monday Night Football and finishing Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris's 2nd Sookie Stackhouse novel. I was a bit slow in picking up this series, but better late than never, right? I thought i would be done with vampires when I finished the Twilight series, but then I started hearing the 'True Blood' buzz and decided to check it out.

I liked this book a lot better than the first novel, "Dead Until Dark." i know the first novel in the series has to introduce everything, but unless you live under a rock you kind of know that Sookie and Bill are going to be girlfriend/boyfriend and she's going to have really hot vampire sex. The second book did not disappoint. Sookie's lustful imagination in the football stands is actually more intense than when she actually does the deed.

Also the plot is interesting... Sookie is getting more adventurous, flying in a plane, hanging out in Dallas and being hired out for work to a different vampire clan. Sometimes I wonder how she ends up in the situations she does when she can read minds, but she takes her bruises and kicks ass as she goes.

Sookie's growing on me more as a character, particularly since I don't have to look at her front tooth gap the way you do in the show. I'm so glad it's not just me who is bothered by Sookie's front teeth... I was reading this book in the dr's office and my dr's assistant actually approached to see what i thought about the gap. Nice!

"To Read" List

My 'to read' list stresses me the eff out. It's funny to me that reading is supposed to be an enjoyable activity, meant to decrease stress, and instead sometimes it has the opposite effect because I constantly feel I can never read enough. Just when I think I'm starting to make some headway on my list, I find a new author, book, series or topic I can't wait to delve into, and my list gets that much longer. I really try not to add to the list, but then I remember that I have multiple books on the table next to my bed, and I have books waiting to be lent to me by my friends that aren't even on the list. It makes me wish I had more time to read, or that I could read faster, or that maybe I'd stop hearing about so many good books!


So the other evening I'm at the grocery, minding my own business and certainly not looking for more books to read, but i'm stuck in a long line (seriously, how does a 40,000 sf grocery only have one-line open??), so I grab a magazine to flip through and of course, accidentally open it up to the book reviews page.


Out of four books listed, I write down two to add to the list.


Change in Altitude, by Anita Shreve, who can be really hit or miss with me, but one of her books was a huge favorite of mine, A Wedding in December, and if another of her other books is even close to being that good, I don't want to miss it! Also added was Half Broke Horses, by Jeanette Walls, whom I adored because of Glass Castles, her memoir. I just couldn't stop laughing at the book, which is non-fiction, so I'm interested to see how she'll do in a fiction account.


Then, while surfing the net (instead of reading and whittling down my list), I read about Chad Ochocino's new book, "Ocho Cinco", which was one of the funniest book reviews I've ever read. If nothing else, I know it will completely crack me up, and my husband follows him on Twitter, so it could potentially amuse both of us. Anyway, those are much further down the line - I still have loads more to read, starting now!

Baking Cakes in Kigali, Part II

Just finished Baking Cakes in Kigali, and it did not disappoint. In fact, it got even better past the half-way point. Gaile Parkin, the author, really draws you into the characters by mentioning them fleetingly in the beginning, just to give you a taste, or maybe just enough info for you to make a judgement about them, and then she reels them back in later in the book to tell you the real story. She gives you just enough truthful information to enlarge the reader's view and make an impact without ruining the positive feel of the book.

For example, the main characters live in an apartment building in Kigali, and a local prostitute tends to visit some of the expatriates who live there. I admit it, I made some personal judgements about the prostitute, while reading the book in my comfortable middle-class home. Then I found out how the woman became a prostitute, at what age, why she does so, and that she's actually only 17. I got a bit teary, because it is probably a very common occurence, and it reminded me to try to keep from being judgmental.

Early in the book, Parkin also mentions the local dumpster located on the street outside the apartment building, and how it stinks because it isn't always emptied regularly. Even the dumpster becomes a much larger topic later on in the book. I found that small children who had lost their parents, either to the genocide, to AIDS, or to other instances, tend to seek out empty dumpsters for shelter, for warmth, and for food. It made me sad thinking about these poor children, and how they will ever climb out of that kind of poverty. My cats have such a more comfortable life than those kids.

Following the conclusion, the book notes that Parkin heard many of these stories while working in Africa, and then fictionalized them. She volunteered for two years in Rwanda, and I hope she has more stories that she will tell in the future - I would definitely pick up her next book.

Funny quote:
"Would you like a beer?" "No, thank you, I don't drink." "You're not a Muslim, are you?" "No, I'm not a Muslim, I'm just somebody who doesn't drink." "You don't know what you're missing. This place is so much easier to take when you're not stone-cold sober all the time, believe you me!"

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Just finished watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the movie. Couldn't get over how completely different it was from the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I read in August of this year. I'm a huge Brad Pitt fan, and really, what girl isn't, and the movie looked great in the previews. Also, The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books.

So I had high expectations for both the movie and the book, and was pretty disappointed in each.

I liked how simplistic the short story was - basically this baby is born as an old man, and he eventually dies as a baby with an extremely interesting life in between, sometimes conveniently omiting his age or simply getting by in situations where he clearly appears to be the wrong age. It leaves a lot to the imagination, and Benjamin wasn't a likeable character for me. He and his wife grow apart because he grows young and she grows old, and his wife and child become annoyed with him because he becomes so unlike the old man he should be.

The movie of course has to be much more romantic, with a tragic love story, and Brad Pitt tends to be accepted by everyone without question, and is such a sweet charming character. No one seems concerned about his increasingly young and attractive appearance, and no one really seems annoyed at changing his diapers as he grows into a baby.

I get very frustrated when movies add things that didn't take place in the book. Considering how brief the short story is, and how long the movie is, I knew they'd have to ad-lib a bit, and it just didn't seem necessary. It's one thing to delete scenes because you can't film an 8 hour movie, but creating whole extra subplots irritates me to death. In this movie, for instance, they add this whole backwards ticking clock scenario to explain why Benjamin's life occurred, which just didn't need to be there. And his dad freaks out when he's born and just leaves him on a doorstep. Really? If they'd just had his dad raise him the movie could have been a much less objectionable length. Thank goodness for DVDs so I didn't have to sit through this in the theater.

While the book wasn't that great, it did just hand over the story, leaving the reader to accept it for what it was on faith, which I liked. If you get a chance to read the story, you may as well - it won't take up too much of your life. If it was longer though, I probably wouldn't recommend it.