(cue dramatic music)
So, without further ado, here are the books I read last month and what I thought of them...
Just In Case- Meg Rosoff- This story is about a teenage boy who becomes convinced he is doomed. That Fate is out to get him so he changes his identity in hopes of avoiding catastrophe. He’s not all that successful. I’ve read a few of her books now, and they’re always interesting. There are parts that I love and parts I don’t love, but they never fail to make me go “Huh. Well, that’s interesting.” She’s a cool writer; she really is.
Robert B. Parker’s Lullabye- Ace Atkins- The first Spenser novel not written by Robert B. Parker. I put off reading this because I was very worried that I wouldn’t like it. I read the first Jesse Stone mystery that wasn’t written by Parker, and I didn’t love it. I didn’t even really like it all that much, so I was hesitant because I didn’t want the same thing to happen here. Well, I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It was very good, and there were only a few moments when I thought “Not Parker.” There is a lot to like in this book, and I am interested to see what Atkins will do next.
Shatter Me- Tahereh Mafi- An interesting (Hmmm. I seem to be using that word a lot this time around) read that really captivated me for the first 190 or so pages. She has a metaphor-heavy and comma-lite writing style that I didn’t mind and I thought worked pretty well in the first 190 or so pages. But after that, I was less enthralled with the story, and the further I got into it after that, I became even less so. The story became tiring and tedious. And by the end, I was just downright irritated. That said, I'm sure I'll eventually read the rest of the series. Because I'm a freak like that.
The Search- Nora Roberts- #2 Boss lent this to me after she found out that I do a search & rescue class with my dogs. She thought I’d love it. I didn’t. There were a few scenes in which canine search & rescue scenarios took place, and those were interesting, but the bulk of the book—in particular the romance part—bored the life out of me. I didn’t care for either of the two main characters, especially the male lead. I didn’t know why anyone would want to be in a relationship with him. Sure, take him home and enjoy some hot sex on the dining room table, but I didn’t know why the MC would want to marry him which is (spoiler alert!) how the book ends. I mean, I’m not a girly girl by any means, but even I would’ve scoffed at that proposal. And I felt bad for his dog. I wanted to track down this fictional character and take his dog away from him and bring him into a home where he’d actually be loved and wanted. There were also way too many pages devoted to dog training classes. I love going to dog training classes and the approach presented in this book is pretty similar to my own training philosophies, but the book wasn’t about training really. And there was so much time spent discussing the bad habits of bad dogs and the reasons why these habits had been developed (owner negligence and ignorance) and whatnot and while they were…not wrong, they didn’t further the plot or really add to the story. They just added to the word count.
Lovely, Dark and Deep- AmyMcNamara- I loved how this story began and I was so enthralled by the first three hundred pages or so because it was beautifully written and the characters engaging, but the ending (or lack thereof) disappointed me. I wasn't expecting it to be fully resolved or anything—in fact I would've been pissed if it had—but I did expect the main character to be more on a path toward resolution than she was.
If You Find Me- Emily Murdoch- Some books you read and when you finish them, you kind of shrug and say “Great. What’s next?” Then there are the books that stay with you for hours or days or even longer, after you’ve finished them, and you can feel them sitting there inside you. This book is the latter. I read it in one sitting. I read it in about four hours because I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s really beautifully done. It broke my heart and made me cry, and even now, after the reading as come to an end, I still get teary-eyed thinking about it. Damn, I love it when a book does that.
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That's going to do it for me today...Read anything good lately?