Beastmomma

From Goodreads:

Thirty years ago, on their Cape Cod honeymoon, Jack and Joy Griffin made a plan for their future that has largely been fulfilled. He left Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his parents had aspired to, and now the two of them are back on the Cape—where he’d also spent his childhood vacations—to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. Sure, Jack’s been driving around with his father’s ashes in the trunk, though his mother’s very much alive and often on his cell phone. Laura’s boyfriend seems promising, but be careful what you pray for, especially if it happens to come true. A year later, at her wedding, Jack has another urn in the car, and both he and Joy have brought new dates.

Pages: 272 (hardcover)

Rating: 4 out of 10

I started this book in Maryland while I was riding the Metro into DC for a conference.  It is the book club selection for my Partners of Professor book club.  I would not have picked this book up on my own, but I thought that it was okay.  The main character was arrogant and whiny.  I had a hard time liking him or caring about his troubles.  None of the characters in the book seemed to be kind to people with whom they were intimate.  I wanted to see a romantic relationship where the parties were faithful and happy.  It seemed like most of the relationships were being held together with fear and wrapped with doubt.

One person in book really loved the book and thought that it was funny.  I missed a lot of the sarcasm.   Maybe I would be amused by the confidence and rudeness of the New England characters if I was not around so many bloated egos everyday.   Many people love Richard Russo and while I did not enjoy this particular body of work, I would be willing to read something else by him.

From goodreads:

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Pages: 318 (paperback)

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett for the second meeting in October of the public library book club I joined.  Prior to reading the book, I had heard that it was an unlikely engaging tale; I totally agree with that assessment.   While it took me over a month to write my review, the story has stayed with me.  Questions about the enemy and the search for meaning are explored.  The characters are transformed, some by what they shed and others by what the acquire.  All engage in a bit of daydream where the lines between terrorist and hostage are blurred.   When I finished the book on the commuter rail, I had to stare out the window to keep people from seeing me cry.  The book finished as strongly as it started.  While some in my book club were not pleased with the ending, I liked it.  I wish that I could follow the characters for a bit longer to see what becomes of them. 

I am very slow with completing books as I adjusted to married life in the New England area. I thought it would be fun to track my reading progress each week. The Sunday Salon is  an online reading group where all the participants set aside time to read every Sunday and blog about the experience. To learn more or to join, click on the picture above.

Purse Book

Since I carry a book in my purse and do a lot a of reading during my commute, I decided to add a section about what I read during the week.  I started reading People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.  I need to finish the book in time for the library book club meeting on December 2nd.  In the mornings, I have to struggle a little bit to wake up and some novels do not keep my attention.   With People of the Book, I had not trouble diving in; the only challenge I have with reading the book so far is that I need to read some paragraphs over again to make sure that I am getting all the details.  Every sentence is packed with information and I want to read slowly to make sure I get everything.

Nightstand Book

I started reading Their Eyes were Watching Godby Zora Neal Hurston last weekend and have been trying to read a few pages before bed every night andin the mornings.  I am only about 10 pages in, but I am already drawn to the characters.  I read the forward in my edition before starting the novel, so I feel like I have a pretty good background on the importance of this novel to feminist literature.

Other Book Related Happenings

I finally started to catch up on my reviews! This week, I wrote two reviews. One for a book I absolutely HATED Blindsight by Robin Cook and one for a book I wanted to like more: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. In the coming week, I hope to do some more reviews of books that I read and to give a bit of a challenge update. Basically, I am very behind and may not complete all the challenges which were of interest to me.

From Goodreads:

With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia's stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver.And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.

Pages: 307 (paperback)

Rating: 5 out of 10

I finished this book at the end of September and I am just now getting around to writing my review. (Tisk Tisk-- Shame on me)  Anyway, I read this book for the first meeting of the book club I started.  Based on the premise I thought that I would really like the book. I feel like I can relate very well to the desire to have a purpose to your days and feeling like your job is sucking the life out of you.  However, I found Julie to be a bit off putting.  She was crass and whiny.  At times, I hated the way she treated her husband.  On the plus side, the book was good for discussion.  My edition of the book had questions in the back which certainly helped us to have a lengthy conversation.

In spite of all the reasons why I thought the book was just okay, I did love this quote:

"Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world.  It's not what I thought it was.  I thought it was all about-- I don't know, confidence or will or luck.  Those are all some good things to have, no question.  But there's something else, something that these things grow out of.  It's joy."

If the whole book had been written in that flavor and with that sentiment, I would have had a different (probably more pleasurable) reading experience.

I wrote about the book for one Sunday Salon post.

From amazon:

Cook's lack of ability as a stylist generally has been masked by his talent for fashioning a solid medical drama--often ripped from current headlines--that keeps readers turning pages. Unfortunately, that's not the case in his 12th novel (after Vital Signs ), which has a plot so ludicrous that the weak characters and silly dialogue are all too obvious. Most offensive in the latter category are the stilted, out-of-kilter exchanges between a pair of Mafia hit men who run about New York City "whacking" (murdering) people with increasing frequency. Meanwhile, Dr. Laurie Montgomery, a forensic pathologist in the NYC Medical Examiner office, finds a pattern of unrelated cocaine overdose deaths among career-oriented people never known to have used drugs. Despite the obvious evidence that she's onto something, her boss couldn't care less, while the homicide detective she becomes involved with is more concerned about the mob killings, and, like her boss, cannot understand why she is outraged by the behavior of two corrupt, thieving uniformed cops in her department. As luck would have it, there's also another man in Laurie's life, a self-centered ophthalmologist whose patients just happen to include the mob boss behind both the cocaine deaths and the murder spree. Readers who plow through this amateurish effort will guess the ending long before any of the characters has a clue.

Pages: 252 (paperback)

Rating: 2 out of 10

I read this book to fulfill the medical condition category of the What’s in a Name Challenge 2 and wish that I had not wasted my time.  One of the most frustrating things about this book for me was that it was recommended to me by a librarian.  I visited the public library in my new home town for the first time and decided to ask for a recommendation.  I was a little skeptical when I picked up the book, but I thought that I should be open minded.  Turns out that it is possible to be so open minded that your brains fall out. 

The review that I posted above sums up some of the issues that I had with the book.   I started to articulate some of the issues I have with the book in a Sunday Salon post. The characters were weak! Also, I found the book filled with some racist undertones.  As I was reading the book, I started making a list of each racist or stereotypical comment I encountered.  Since so much time has passed and I misplaced the paper, I am going to go from memory.  In an effort to be descriptive, the author let’s us know the ethnic backgrounds of several side characters.   I found that annoying not only because the description usually also contained something negative, but I found myself wondering about the ethnic background of all the other characters.  Are we to assume that if the author does not describe the characters that they are white?

One of the main characters of the novel is Dr. Laurie Montgomery.  From the author’s description, she is an attractive woman who is the recipient of sexist comments and is having trouble dating.  I did appreciate the attempt at having a strong, female lead. However, I got annoyed with all the descriptions of her beauty and her strange dating antics.  I just felt like it did not move the plot forward.  Instead, I found her dialogue whiny and her approach to matters of the heart trite.

Finally, the worst part about this book is that I figured out the mystery with at least a third of the book remaining.  The ending tied together a little bit too neatly. I did not care much about any of the characters and I felt angry with the lack of character development.  I would not recommend this book to a friend.