Against Medical Advice

Here it is another Sunday. It's amazing how quickly they come around. I didn't do an awful lot of reading this week. For some reason, nothing looked good.

I finished this at the beginning of the week. It was pretty good. It's about a young boy with Tourette's syndrome and it's told through his eyes so we get an in-depth look at what was happening to his brain and body. It's the true story of Hal Friedman's son Cory.

That's it! I've started Malice by Lisa Jackson and am about 60 pages into it. So far it's okay but a bit formulaic. I guess I'm just sick of the same old, same old. My friend loaned me Olive Kitteridge so I think I'm going to try that one, instead.

Living Dead in Dallas and Push

Good Morning. It's in the mid 20s and mostly cloudy but the weatherman said it's supposed to get up to almost 60 today. Balmy!

I sped through this book. It's the second in the Sookie Stackhouse series and Sookie and her vampire beau, Bill, are in Dallas to help the vampires solve a mystery. There are other things going on, too, with an interesting revelation at the end. This is a good inbetween book: light and silly but with moments of seriousness.

I had to go to Walmart on Thursday for groceries and crafting stuff and kept telling myself not to go to the book section. But, did I listen to myself? No. I only bought one book, though, since I'd just gone to the library the day before and gotten 5 books from there.

The new movie, Precious, is based on this novel Push by Sapphire. Oh. My. God. I could not stop reading it. Precious is a sixteen-year old overwieght black girl who is pregnant for the second time with her father's child. It's the mid 80s and she gets expelled from school for being pregnant. She begins attending an alternative school and her teacher helps her to change her life.

Of course there is so much more to this book including a mother who should be shot!

It's gritty, raw, painful, brutal, and hopful all at the same time.

Handle With Care and The Road

Happy Sunday morning! I love this long weekend when we get an extra hour. I know it's not much but it feels like more. When I woke up I looked at my clock and it said 6:48. Then I realized that it was 5:48 and I was well rested, ready to get up and start my day.



I pretty much gulped this book. I love Jodi Picoult's writing and this one is beautiful and interesting all the way through. Sometimes it's hard for a writer to do both but she blanaced them with finesse.

Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's second daughter is born with osteogenesis imperfecta or OI which means that she lacks collagen and her bones are very brittle and break easily. When her ultrasound showed this, poor little Willow already had 7 broken bones and she hadn't even been born yet. How they and their older daughter cope with this disease and what they are willing to do for Willow makes this a book where the pages practically turn themselves.


The second book I finished this week is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I had heard good things about it so when a friend at school loaned it to me, I got right into it and could barely stop reading. It's about a post-apocalyptic America where there is no sun and everything is colorless with ash. Nothing grows, nothing lives except for a few stragglers, some good and some bad. Two of the good ones are a man and his son. How they survive in this bleak world and how they remain human and caring is the glue that holds this novel together.

It's cloudy here in NH so I think it's going to be a good reading day. I've got laundry to do and bread to bake and an extra hour to use any way I want!

Relentless and The Penny Pinchers Club

It's Saturday afternoon. I just kneaded bread for 10 minutes and, now, am hoping it rises!

It's been pouring all day and is in the 30s. All the foliage is gone. The world is dull again. Good reading day, though! I finished a book and will start a new one later.

I finished this book earlier in the week. It took me a few days to get into it but then I couldn't put it down. I had a preconceived notion of what it was going to be about and, for the first eighth of the book, I was right and, honestly, was disappointed in it.

Then, it changed and went in a totally different direction than I was thinking and I loved it. Koontz has such a gift for creating lovable characters and he does it again here.

Cubby is a writer. His wife, Penny, is a children's book author, and their son, Milo, is a genius. The nation's leading book critic writes a scathing review of Cubby's latest book and Cubby has the audacity to try to get a look at him when he is dining. Wrong move! What follows is a nightmare. But, Cubby's humor and his wife and son's support make this a truly entertaining book.

The second book I read this week was The Penny Pincher's Club. This is a light-hearted book about a woman, Kat, who has never saved a penny in her life and all of a sudden realizes how stupid she's been with money. She joins the Penny Pinchers Club and tries to change her life.

I like a quick read like this once in a while. It was refreshing and humorous.

The Last Child

Good morning. It's cloudy and 20 degrees here in northern NH. I'm thinking it's going to be a perfect day for reading!


I LOVED this book! It is so well written with believable characters. Thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon's twin sister disappeared a year ago. Overcome with guilt because he hadn't picked her up at school like he was supposed to, their father abandons them. That leaves Johnny and his mom who is a wreck.

Johnny believes his sister is still alive so, with the help of his only friend, Jack, they embark on a mission to find her.

The Last Child is mysterious, and mystical, and human, and wonderful! I'll be looking for John Hart's other books, for sure.

Wishing you all reading weather!

Shanghai Girls

This is our last weekend at camp. We'll be closing up tomorrow and I won't see the ocean again until May. Sad, sad, sad.

Shanghai Grils is a very interesting book. I had no idea what immigrants went through when they entered our country. This book tells the story of two sisters, Pearl and May, and how they escaped China at the beginning of WWII.

The characters are well drawn and the writing is excellent, like I've come to expect from Lisa See. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt but, other than that, this is a great book.

Another Rainy Sunday

My husband has gone fishing and I'm being nice and lazy. I do have to drive 2 1/2 hours to get home from camp but, other than that and some laundry and blogging, I plan on reading.

Shangai Girls is turning out to be an excellent book. I wasn't sure after the first chapter but, then, it got really good.

Happy reading!