Week 19: Living Dead In Dallas - Charlaine Harris (320 pages)

This is the second in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I find that these books are easy and fun vampire tales that will be nice to read in the spring and summer nights. This is by no means a literary marvel, but not everything we read has to be. Reading is fundamental, but reading should also be fun!


This second novel finds Sookie and Bill being sent to Dallas to use Sookie's telepathic talent to find out what happened to a missing vampire. Not as well-written as the first novel, but it was a clever read. I cannot say that it was predictable either, the book managed to surprise me a few times. 


If you are a fan of the paranormal - this is a great series. But if you enjoyed the relative "chastity" of the Twilight series, this is not the series for you. Charlaine Harris delves deeply into sexuality between vampires and other paranormal entities! Proceed with caution if you are particularly sensitive.

Week 18: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1) - Alan Bradley (370 pages)

Set in England in 1950, we are introduced to Flavia de Luce. Flavia is a precocious young girl, aged 11, who is fascinated with Chemistry. Flave (as she is called by family) is the youngest of three children. Older sisters Ophelia (Feely) and Daphne (Daffy) tend to pick on or ignore Flave and her eccentricities. 


Mysteries are not generally a genre that I enjoy, but this book was quite the exception. Flavia is an engaging character and her curiosity gets her in and out of scrapes. The mystery at the center of this novel involves a body found in the garden of Buckshaw (Flavia's family home). Flavia, being the fearless and strong-willed person that she is, goes forth in solving the murder. Flavia confounds the local police and has a helper in the family "jack of all trades" Dogger. 


So as not to spoil the story, I will forgo anymore plot points. I will say that this is a great debut novel by Alan Bradley. Bradley is 70 years old and has five books planned with Flavia as the protagonist. He was about 11 years old in 1950 and the book may be a bit autobiographical - whatever the circumstance, this was an engaging novel and I am looking forward to picking up #2, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. I highly suggest this book, especially if mysteries aren't your thing - you may find yourself rooting out loud for Flavia!

Week 17: Girls in Trucks - Katie Crouch (256 pages)

I must admit that I had a tough time getting into this book, actually, I had a tough time getting into any book this week. This was the third book that I picked up! What I love about this project is excitement of picking up a new book and learning something new or meeting new characters, what makes the project difficult is that sometimes, I just don't care! It felt like this week was going to fall into the "don't care" category. I must say, though - I am glad that this book finally caught my attention.


Following the main character Sarah Walters from the age of 9 through the age of 35 - we learn about the "rules" of cotillion society and what it means to be a Southern lady. The book opens on Sarah and her friends going to "Cotillion Training School" where they learn all of the proper dances young ladies will need to have under their belt for their cotillion ball. I thought that it was funny that the ball that they were training for didn't happen until after they graduated from high school. It seemed a little absurd to me that they spent all of this time between fourth and seventh grades for an event that didn't happen until after twelfth grade.


I found that sometimes the story meandered and I was a little unaware of where we were or who was speaking. Most of the story is told from Sarah's point of view, but a couple of times different characters from the book had a chapter to themselves. Mostly though, the story is told through the progression of men in Sarah's life, from her first kiss through the many, inappropriate others.


I feel that Crouch was trying to comment on the old Southern tradition and debs, touching on the fact that once you were a deb (in this case - a Camellia) always a deb. No matter where Sarah or her friends went away for college (most went to New York or Boston) they were still good Southern girls with strong connections to their family, friends and traditions. 


There were some unexpected twists in the story and this book didn't have a perfect, tied up happy ending. It is an interesting story and it is a nice Saturday afternoon read.

Week 16: The Family Man - Elinor Lipman (320 pages)

"The Family Man" is a fun book that delves into issues that seem particularly relevant in the 21st century. The plot involves a gay man that was married to a socialite, her child, now an adult, his love life and the coming together of all parties. It is a fun ride and I must say that I had an enjoyable time following the characters on this journey. 


Henry Archer, a retired lawyer, is surprisingly reunited with his step-daughter from a marriage that ended 25 years prior. Though he was gay - he married Denise Krouch, a socialite in NYC. I found it interesting that the marriage didn't end because he was gay - it ended because Denise was having an affair! In a nasty custody battle - Henry gave up his adoptive rights to his step daughter, Thalia, and moved out of her life. 


Circumstances crop up, as they tend to in some novels and television movies, that put Henry in direct contact with his long lost daughter, Thalia. She is an out of work actress trying to make it and when they are reunited she is on the outs with her mother following an unthinkable outburst at Denise's husband's funeral.


Plots twist and collide, comic events come to pass, misunderstandings place characters in peril and are corrected by the end of the novel. Sometimes the book was wholly predictable, but there were a few surprises as well. I would say this is a good beach/summer read. The first of Ms. Lipman's novels that I have read - good enough to make me want to explore the author's other offerings.

Week 15: Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson (198 Pages)

TThis book was suggested to me by my mother. She is a 7th/8th grade teacher and this is a book that her students have really enjoyed. I took her up on her suggestion, and I found that I liked the book. It is an intense read and I found it hard to put down - I actually read it in 2 days time.

This book opens on Melinda, our protagonist, the summer before her freshman high school year. She has been shunned by her group of friends, because she called the cops at a party that happened over the summer. Lots of kids got in trouble - and all of the kids blame Melinda for landing them in hot water. The reason that she called the cops is slowly revealed throughout the story and is told mostly through narration in Melinda's head. Since the party and the negative reaction from her peers - she has stopped speaking. 

The author tells a provocative story with all of the pathos and humor that you would expect from a coming of age story. Melinda goes through the motions of high school, barely passing and living as an invisible member of high school society. She finds some refuge in her Art Class where her teacher gives the assignment of a "tree". She must define what a tree is, give the tree emotion, etc. Through this assignment - she begins to put into words the thing that has happened to her. She finds the voice to speak. 

So as not to spoil the story - I won't really go much further, but I do suggest that you read this compelling novel. YA is a genre that sometimes we adults dismiss, but I will say that I have found some true gems out there. This is another in that group.

Week 14: Eating The Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman (256 pages)

This was my first introduction to Chuck Klosterman and his exciting style of writing. A dear friend of mine, Eric, let me know that he was reading and enjoying this book and after struggling through my original book for this week (The Help) - I decided to give this book a try. It is hard to fully describe this book, but basically it is several essays comparing what seem to be disparate subjects. 

Mr. Klosterman is essentially writing a philosophy book - there were times that my head was swimming with information and comparisons and thoughts that I clearly had never thought of before. This is definitely a thinking person's book. That being said - it was very easy to read, and I found most of the essays engaging. Reading about why Weezer fans are generally disappointed with Weezer albums, made me wonder if I was a true fan - since I have not been disappointed with any of their releases. He discusses Twitter, ABBA, David Koresh, Kurt Cobain and the Unabomber amongst many other topics. 

One of my favorite sections of the book was the section about football. Shocking, I know - but Mr. Klosterman was great about making the intricacies easy to understand and then, he did the best thing ever - he broke the fourth wall and gave me, the reader, permission to skip the section all together. Trust me my friends...I skipped ahead to read about ABBA. 

There were many times that I agreed with the author and many times that I thought he was a bit nuts. I really enjoyed the essays on Nirvana and The Branch Davidians, Ralph Sampson, and ABBA. I was intrigued by the others. I had some problems with the weird interview interstitials. Who who was being interviewed, what did those interviews have to do with what I had just finished reading? Outside of that bit of weirdness, this was really a great book.

Thanks to Eric for suggesting it to me. 

Week 13: The Solitude of Prime Numbers – Paolo Giordano (288 pages)

I really enjoyed this book and it is kind of hard to put my finger on why. In this debut novel – Giordano tells the story of Alice and Mattia, each tragic in their own ways. Using each chapter to tell the story from each of the character’s point of view was genius. Alice and Mattia – children growing up in Italy - have terrible burdens to bear and are each very lonely and isolated people. Giordano is quite good at letting us into their brains to see why it is they do what they do.

The book is a lovely and at times dark coming of age story – starting in 1983 and closing in 2007. Alice is pushed by her dad (quite overbearing) to become a skiing superstar. A tragic skiing accident leaves her scarred and with a limp. Of course she wants to fit in – but children being how children can be – she is taunted and teased and ridiculed.

Mattia is a twin. His sister, Michaela, is developmentally disabled and he is a genius. Strangely (to my American eyes) he and his sister are placed in the same classes at school – as he seems to be the only person that can control her “fits”. His parents insist that he take Michaela with him everywhere that he goes. He is embarrassed and is barely liked and the “burden” of his sister does nothing to improve his standing. While heading to a birthday party, something tragic happens to Michaela and Mattia turns even further into himself.

By chance, they cross paths in high school and an odd friendship grows. Each still withdraws into them self– but they also allow each other to be a part of their lives. They are prime number – numbers only divisible by themselves – but in their solitude they form a bond.  

This was a great debut novel and the fact that it was originally written in Italian is even more astounding. 27-year-old author, Paolo Girodano is a physicist by trade – he makes math fascinating and exceedingly readable. The English version is wonderful and loses nothing in translation. Lonely is lonely in any language.