The Sky Fisherman by Craig Lesley

Basic idea: memoir style coming of age book of a small town high schooler raised by his mother after his father dies and she leaves his step-father. Set in Eastern Washington/Oregon. (I get a kick out of reading things that refer to Yakima or to even briefly to my own high school, Crater, which was described as po-dunk.)



My overall take: funny dialogue, good writing, and mostly believable characters. Worth reading and enjoyable, but it didn't keep me up late at night. The main character/story teller became a real person to me.



What I didn't like: the ex-step father going wacky. It's fine that he was semi-psychotic, but maybe the character wasn't developed enough for it to have a lot of meaning for me; I was mostly just annoyed at him. Then theme of fire. The fires described were interesting aspects of the story, good story telling, but i felt as if I was supposed to write an essay on the theme of fire in the novel when I was done

an incomplete and unordered list of favorite authors from Tawn

Pat Conroy, Maya Angelou, Lee Harper, Brian Haig, Greg Isle, Isabell Allende, Jodi Picoult, Jeannette Walls, Jared Diamond, Steven Levitt, Margaret Mitchell, Jane Austen, Bill Bryson

This blog is for those who . . .

have books stacked on the nightstand
read shampoo bottles, cereal boxes, ingredient labels and anything else with print
are on the search for the book with both a good plot AND good writing
would re-edit many books if you were boss of the world
can't tolerate the likes of Danielle Steele and Dean Kootz
actually use your library cards for books
would rather listen to audio books than music