Another Jodi Picoult

I just finished Picture Perfect, one of Jodi Picoult's older books. It's about a girl married to a movie star who ends up being abusive, and her struggle to get out of the relationship. It was intense, especially the second half, but I felt like there were too many things going on at once: a movie star's career, anthropology, Native American culture, whirlwind romance, amnesia, pregnancy, abusive backgrounds. It felt a little like Picoult was trying to bring way too many things in to the story. The ending felt rushed, too--like you had just begun getting into the heart of the story and she ended it. Still, a good book, but I would say her writing has improved through the years.

Brooklyn - by Colm Tóibín

I'm a sucker for character driven novels. I discovered this book by accident while randomly pulling books off the shelf in the library and looking at their covers to see if they looked interesting. Toibin is an Irish author, and in this story the main character is an Irish young woman who sails across the ocean to Brooklyn because she can't find work in Ireland.

The story follows her from Ireland to Brooklyn and is narrated, albeit in the third person, in her voice. It tells of her experiences in the strange world of America and about how she copes with her distance from her family, and how she falls in love with an Italian boy. I think what I loved so much about this story is that the reader grows and changes with the girl (I keep calling her that because I can't remember her name!) as she experiences new things. The writing style is not fussy or overdone; the prose is elegant and interesting and doesn't interfere with the story.

Although this work is fiction, long after I've finished this book I find myself wondering what happened to her, and what her life was like after the story ended. The book covers only about a year and a half of her life. Definitely worth reading if you like in depth character studies.

More Orson Scott Card

I know Amy already posted about Orson Scott Card, but he is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Besides Enders Game, I've also read some of his other books in a series called "Women of Genesis". These are historical fiction novels about, you guessed it, the women in Genesis. Since OSC is an devout Mormon, he has a healthy amount of respect for Biblical stories and instead of skewing the story (like Anita Diamonte does in the Red Tent) he tells mostly faithful "interpretations" of the stories of women we've all read about in the Bible. So far I've read "Sarah", "Rachael and Leah," and half of "Rebecca." I like "Sarah" best so far. OSC's gift is his ability to create believable dialogue, and these books are beautifully written depictions of the culture and struggles of these women.

Additionally, I have listened to book One in OSC's "Memory of Earth" series on CD. These books are a return to the science fiction he is best known for and worth reading in my opinion. Like the book Amy reviewed, this story is set in the future on a planet called Harmony where the last survivors of earth fled after destroying their own planet in nuclear war.

Comment on The Help

I'm afraid that no one else will go back over the comments and find this one that Tawn recently posted about The Help so I want to encourage you to go back and read it--or at the very least read the book as she urges you to do in her comment: http://readreviewcrew.blogspot.com/2010/02/help.html.

In case you're interested, your email address can be added so you receive an email when someone posts a comment. I hate for follow-up comments to be lost in the archives.

Enders Game, Orson Scott Card

I really dislike sci-fi, but this book was well written and made me think and definitely kept me interested. This is set in the future, but as it was written in the 70's, it's a little interesting how things are skewed (Russians are the super bad guys on earth.) It's mostly about a boy who is groomed to save the world from the "buggers" and all that this entails, and incorporates all sorts of plot points from boarding type/military school, family love/bonds, keeping religion, etc. Try it, you might like it.

Songmaster, by Orson Scott Card

Thanks for the tip, Tawn. I probably wouldn't have read one of Card's books without encouragement, since they are sci-fi, but I really enjoyed Songmaster. There were some strange parts, but mostly it was a great book. It reminded me of Lois Lowry's The Giver trilogy (which I also recommend).

I listened to this book, which I recommend--one thing I don't like when reading a book is having character names that I'm not sure how to pronounce. The whole book I feel kind of disconnected from the characters because I'm not sure what their name is. It was only as I listened to the last half hour on my computer that I discovered one character's name is spelled "Rruk"---but since I'd been listening to it, I had no problem pronouncing it.

I have to admit it is fascinating to get someones take on what an alternate reality would be like. Songmaster is set thousands of years in the future, and it mentions the once-huge city of Seattle and how it's become just a small town.

I just realized that part of the reason I resist science fiction is because the mere thought of it brings to mind the few times growing up when I saw Star Trek episodes on TV and how much I didn't like it. I'm scarred for life...

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly. Some books you read and read and read and keep hoping to get to the good part, and it never comes. This is not like that.....you read (actually I'm listening to it on my walks) just because it captures your interest, and it doesn't matter where it leads! And, it makes me laugh out loud! A 12-year old girl, Texas, 1899, and delightful, so far.

A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True

by Brigid Pasulka. Several times I thought about putting this book down, because of frequent crudeness, but I persisted and really did enjoy the book, and the last bit of the story brought me to tears. It's about the people in a little village in Poland, beginning before WWII and jumps back and forth to the present time.

The Apothecary's Daughter

Julie Klassen wrote this book, set in the early 1800s. In a lot of ways it's a typical romance from that time period, with one girl trying to decide between her many suitors. But, there is also the struggle of a young girl trying to keep her father's apothecary going in the face of a culture that doesn't approve of women accomplishing anything in the medical field. I especially enjoyed reading details about outdated medical treatments (leeches, blood-letting, etc.) and the tensions between physicians and apothecaries.

I was a little annoyed to keep coming across typos--sentences that didn't read smoothly because of missed, added, or changed words.

I would rate this worth reading, especially if you're looking for a clean historical romance that has only the slightest hints of religion in it.

Songs of the Humpback Whale

I just finished reading this book, by Jodi Picoult, and it was typical to Picoult's writing: emotionally charged, interesting characters, well written.

I have only recently been able to put into words an observation about writing: Just because you have an interesting story to tell doesn't make you a good writer; even if you don't have an interesting story to tell, you can still write a good story. Picoult is from the second category. Not that this wasn't an interesting story, but some aspects of the story line were cliches: a marriage in which the husband and wife have grown apart due to him being a workaholic; a daughter caught in the midst of it; the wife's past of abuse comes back to haunt her; falling in love with people they shouldn't fall in love with; the husband realizing what he is missing when the wife and daughter run away and going to find them.

But the book is incredibly well done. Same old story, yet told in an interesting way. That, to me, is a fantastic author.

One of the techniques that Picoult used to make this book unique is she wrote the story from the perspective of several different people. All of the narrators told the story front to back, except for one, who tells the story back to front. So you know what happens at the end in the very beginning of the book, but the book is so engaging that you want to read it anyway.

The Lobster Chronicles

I recently listened to The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island, by Linda Greenlaw. I was intrigued by the title since my life lately has been spent in very small, isolated communities. (Okay, Juneau is not so small, but it is very isolated since you have to get here by either boat or plane.)

This book is almost more a series of essays than a novel, yet it still flows well as a whole. Greenlaw describes lobstering and some of the perks and shortcomings of living in an isolated place. It kept my interest, but wasn't riveting by any means (great as far as I'm concerned--interesting enough to make me pick it back up, not so fascinating that it keeps me up at night until I'm finished).

I'm pretty sure that Greenlaw did the reading herself for the audio book, which I'm not a fan of in general. So the audio wasn't great, but I would be interested in looking for her other books in the paper form.