The Eighth Confession

We just had a week of spring-like weather so I was able to sit on the porch after school in the sun and read.  Love doing that!

This is the latest installment of the Women's Murder Club.  Lindsey is after the killer of rich and priviledged people.  Yuki is trying to prosecute a woman who killed her father and almost killed her mother.  Cindy is tracking the person who murdered Bagman Jesus, a homeless person.  And Claire is doing her job of examining the bodies of the dead.

The mixture of their working lives with their personal lives makes for page-turning reading. 

Now that spring has officially arrived here in New Hampshire, winter is going to return with cool temps and possibly snow.  Wonderful!

Happy Reading, all!

Uglies

Good morning a day early.  Kylie is coming to visit overnight so I thought I'd update this blog before I'm too busy.

One of my students recommended this series to me.  She said she liked it much better than the Twilight one so I downloaded Uglies.  I had a preconceived notion that it would be about cliquey girls bullying less pretty ones and the message would be that true beauty is on the inside not the outside.

Well, the message was right but the premise was wrong.  This YA novel is set in the future where all adolescents are considered ugly.  They must live together in Uglytown until they turn 16, at which point they are given an operation to make them Pretty.  They then move to New Pretty Town and finish their teenage years partying and doing whatever they please.

Tally Youngblood is only months away from her sixteenth birthday when she meets Shay who is the same age as her.  Shay tells her about David and a secret settlement where Uglies, who do not want to become pretty, can escape to.  Even though Tally is anxoius to become pretty, she is forced to betray her friend and lead the powers-that-be to David and the others.

Lots of adventure and fast action keep this book moving and not boring.  While sci-fi is not my genre of choice, I still enjoyed this book and will read the next installment one of these days.

Have a good weekend.  Time for me to get dressed and go to pick Kylie up.  Can't wait to see her!

The Miracle at Speedy Motors and Alex Cross's Trial

It's weird; I get more reading done during school weeks than during vacations.  I finished one and read a whole other one and started one more.

I so enjoyed my visit to Botswana!  Mma Ramotswe and the rest of the crew never get stale.  There is such dignity and sweetness in this series that shows it's the little moments that should be honored in life: red bush tea, pumpkin, tiny white vans that keep on running, good employees, cases that turn out wrong but ironically right, and the hope for miracles.

I thought this would be a novel about a trial that Alex Cross is part of but it turns out to be a book written by Alex Cross about a trial his ancestors were involved with back at the beginning of the 1900s.  So, it turned me off mometarily...but just for a moment. 

Ben Corbett is a white lawyer from Mississippi now living and working in Washington D.C.  He's commissioned by President Teddy Roosevelt to investigate the lynchings that have been occuring back in his hometown of Eudora, MS. 

On the surface, it's a sleepy, pretty southern town but the more Ben searches, the more the rotten underbelly of the town is exposed.  He befriends Abraham Cross, Alex Cross's great uncle, and his family, and takes a stand with them against the sickness spread by the KKK.

So, even though I had to go back to school this week, I still got to enjoy two good books.

I just had the nicest week off.  My husband worked each day so I had lots of time to myself.  I decided to clean one room each day then do my own things: read, craft, walk, photography.  Although, I should put "read" at the bottom of the list since I didn't do very much. 

As always, I'm enjoying this newest edition of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  There is just something so soothing about these books.  They're simple but deep and the characters...ah!  the characters are wonderful!

Back to school tomorrow.  I begin each block with about 20 minutes of silent reading.  I can't tell you how many kids have admitted that, because they were forced to read, they finally completed a book on their own.  And their teacher gets to read, too!  It's a win-win for everyone!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Ah!  School vaction!  I so need this!  After two weekends in a row with Kylie, I'm enjoying a quiet and lazy time.  I read all yesterday afternoon and finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, finally!

I really enjoyed this book.  It's almost like it was two books in one.  There was the outer story of how business reporter Mikael Blomkvist is convicted of libel and then there is the inner story of how he solves the mystery of a 30-year-old dissappearance/murder.

What really mkaes this novel stand out, though, are the characters.  Blomkvist is flawed but ethical.  I like that he's not perfect.  Then there is the girl with the dragon tatto, Lisbeth Salander.  She's a genius when it comes to computer hacking and Blomkvist hires her to help him solve the mystery.  She's tough and brusque and will do anything to protect herself; she's had to do just that since she was a teenager.    

Now, I'll have to begin a new book but it will take me a day or two.  I spent such a long time with these two poeple that they feel like friends and it will take me a while to let them go.

Reading Update

I can't believe I'm still reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I'm enjoying it but just can't seem to find time to read.  I'm only about a third of the way through.

We went to Portland last weekend with Kylie so no reading got done, that's for sure.  Lots of fun, though.

And this week there's the Olympics!

Oh, well, I'll keep plugging away. 

Swimsuit

I'm having a Kylie weekend so not much reading is getting done.  All she wants to do is play school and I love it!

I finished this book on Friday and liked the little twist on his normal format.  This one is narrated by a newspaper reporter who is "commissioned" by the killer to tell his story. 

It kept me interested until the very end when it seemed a bit rushed and anti-climactic.  Other than that, though, it was a pretty good quick read. (Even though it took me a week!  But that was my fault, not the book's.  We started a new semester at school and I've been busy with that and extra tired at night.)

I hear the pitter patter of little feet so it's back to playing school again!