Think of a Number and A Stolen Life

I thought for sure I'd like this book.  A diabolical bad guy sends letters to someone he hates telling him to think of a number between 1 and 1000.  After coming up with the first number that pops into his head, he then has to open another envelope and it reveals that very same number.  My kind of book, right?  Nope!  I just couldn't get into it.

The writing is kind of old fashioned and I didn't like the characters.  There was too much introspection by the main character, a retired detective.   I don't know; maybe it was me and I just wasn't in the mood for this kind of book but I was very disappointed.

So, I moved on to this book, instead, and read it quickly. It's partly written from a young girl's point of view and partly from Jaycee as she is today twenty years after being abducted and turned into a sex slave for the demented Phillip Garrido.  How Jaycee survives is an astonishing story. 

I so admire her attitude and ability to endure and come out the other side fairly intact.

Her remarkable spirit shines through.



The last couple weeks have been crazy.  We watched my mother-in-law's health deline quickly from independence to not even being able to walk.  She ended up in the hospital twice and is in a rehab facility, now, to help her get stronger.  All the tests came back negative so, hopefully, she'll recuperate.  In the mean time, we have to care for my father-in-law who suffered a mild stroke last year and lost his short-term memory.

We also had a wedding in the middle of all this.  My brother's son got married.  It was a beautiful ceremony. 

So, I haven't had an awful lot of time to read.  So, I'm giving myself a kick in the butt to get off this computer and do just that!

Then Came You

I zipped right through this newest novel by Jennifer Weiner.  It revolves around four women, strangers to each other, who unexpectedly  come together. 

Jules is a college student who decides to sell her eggs to get money to help her father.

Annie is a married mother of two who agrees to be a surrogate to earn $50,000 to help her husband with expenses.

Bettina is the daughter of a rich entrepreneur.  She hates her father's new wife so hires an investigator to look into her past.

And India is the new wife with a closet full of secrets.

How these four women's paths intersect makes for a quick and satisfying read.

Delirium

This is the other book I read about on NPR and downloaded then and there.  Boy, they were right!  Excellent YA novel!

It's some time in the future.  Lena is a senior in high school and can't wait to be cured.  The operation can't take place until she's eighteen and her birthday is three months away.  She's not sick...yet...and the operation will prevent her from contracting the disease of deliria, otherwise known as love.

Yes, they've developed an operation that quells humans from falling in love and destroying their lives.  Lena lives in Portland, Maine (ten minutes up I95 from where I live!), where all the adults live in harmony...boring, predictable harmony. 

After her operation and a few years in college, she'll be matched with a partner and they'll live happily every after.

But, in that last summer of freedom, she meets Alex who turns her world and thinking upside down.  Now, she doesn't want the operation.  But, can she find a way to stay whole?

Lauren Oliver's writing is beautiful.  Her descriptions are breath taking.  I especially loved her use of poetry (You know me and poetry!). 


Lena is spunky and brave and human and she wants to stay that way.

Two thumbs up for this book!

Now You See Her

This was a quick gulp as most Patterson books are.  But, I still enjoyed it. 


Nina Bloom is a successful lawyer and single mom to her sixteen-year-old daughter Emma.  At a Yankees game one evening, someone from her past sees her and is determined to kill her.


Twenty years earlier, she'd been Jeanine, a college student on spring break with her boyfriend.  One night, after too many drinks, she hears her boyfriend cheating on her so she steals his car and runs over a man.  The cop who shows up takes pity on her and helps her dispose of the body.  They fall in love and get married.  But, is he who he claims to be?  No, so Jeanine has to escape and begin a new life.


Now, the past has intruded into that new life and Nina must do everything she can to protect herself and her daughter.

To Be Sung Underwater, Karma, & The Heart of Haiku

Well, I'm slowly settling into summer and retirement.  We had lots of celebrations and company the first few weeks but things are quieting down, now, and I'm getting some much needed rest and reading done.

This book seemed to take forever to read but I liked it.  It's a slow book just like the cover...like paddling lazily across a pond.  It alternates back and forth between Judith Toomey's present as a dissatisfied mom, wife, and film editor to her past when she was eighteen, starry-eyed, and in love with Willy Blunt.

Tom McNeal takes his time developing his characters and writes beautifully.  How many of us wish we could go back to our first loves?  This book does that with surprising results.

I read two other books while in the middle of To Be Sung Underwater.  I woke up in the middle of the night about four days ago and couldn't get back to sleep so I grabbed my iPad which was nearby and went to NPR to read their Arts and Literature news.  There was an article about YA fiction and  Karma was mentioned.  It caught my attention because it's written in poetry form.  So, I downloaded it right then and there and started reading.  I was hooked.

Jiva Singh is part Hindu and part Sikh and lives in Canada with her parents where she's as typical as any teenager from India can be.  After her mother's death, she and her father head back to India to take her ashes.  While they are there, Indira Gandhi is killed and Jiva and her father get caught up in the turmoil that erupts.  Somehow they get separated and Jiva is left to fend for herself.

After a horrifying incident, she is taken in by her doctor's family and their teenage son, Sandeep, helps her look for her father. 

Jiva's voice is fresh and unique and the poetry is just amazing in its simplicity.  Sometimes, it took my breath away!  At first I was a little turned off by the title and the look of the cover but I'm so glad I gave it a try, anyway.

This is one of those Kindle Singles that are really just mini books. I bought one before because it was by Jodi Picoult and I love her writing but it was just too short...like a tease, so decided I wouldn't buy any more of them. This one caught my eye, though.  Poetry?  Of course I'm going to buy it!

And I'm glad I did.  Jane Hirshfield writes about the most famous haiku writer, Basho.  She tells the story of his life and the story of haiku and weaves them together.  By the time I was done, I wanted to grab a pencil and write one, myself.  It was definitely worth the ninety-nine cents!

Time to start a new book, now.  Decisions, decisions!

The sun is shining and we're heading out for a motorcycle ride later with some friends.  We're going to bike down the coast a ways to Flo's Hot dogs in Ogunquit, Maine for lunch.  This place sells only hot dogs but what makes them so good is their secret recipe for relish.  Mmmm, haven't had one for a couple years.  I'm due!

But, until then, I think I'll take advantage of the quiet and read for awhile.

What's Been Going On

I'm officially retired! 

And we've moved.  From now on we'll be spending our summers on the Maine coast and our winters in Florida.

So, not only did I have to clean out my classroom, we had to clear out our house and put it up for sale.

It's been crazy trying to squeeze a houseful of stuff into our fifth-wheel camper.

My reading time has taken a major hit!

Hopefully, now that we're more or less settled, I'll be able to get back to a normal schedule.

This is a beautiful book of poetry edited by Caroline Kennedy.  All the poems are by women or about women.  Caroline introduces each chapter with personal words about how certain peoms have influenced her life.

Each day I try to read a couple of these and I haven't read one that I didn't like.  They are easy to understand but pack a wallop. 

Really, this is one of the best anthologies I've read, lately.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't finish this novel.  I really tried.  It started out great but then got too technical and then just plain weird and I had to put it aside for now.

It's well written, I liked the main characters, but just got too bogged down in minor issues and, when it shifted into kind of supernatural stuff, it lost me.

I'm working on To Be Sung Underwater and I'm liking it so far.  I wasn't sure at first because it seemed like all it did was tell instead of show and I hate that, but, after the first chapter, it changed and caught my interest.  So, I'm giving it a chance.

The sun's out today so I think I'm going to hop on my bicycle and head to the beach to sit and read for a while.

Tenth Anniversary

Yes, another James Patterson novel!  I know, I know!  But, I just can't resist. 

This Women's Murder Club edition sees Lindsey marrying Joe but, of course, their honeymoon is interrupted by a missing baby and a beaten-up teenage mother.  Lindsey's lawyer friend, Yuki, is prosecuting a heart surgeon for murdering her philandering husband.  Cindy, their newspaper reporter friend, is on the trail of a man who abducts women, drugs them, rapes them, and leaves them in alleys to wake up having no memory of what has just happened. 

Oh, yeah, it pulled me right in and I sucked it up and enjoyed it.  Will I continue buying these novels?  You can damn well bet I will!  I'm so weak!