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!

Exposure

I've been reading like crazy lately!  And it feels great!


I couldn't put this novel down.  Amelia and Anthony are high school seniors.  They've been dating secretly for a year.  Amelia's father is very overprotective and won't allow her to date until she's eighteen.  That doesn't stop her from seeing Anthony as often as she can.

During the summer before their senior year, Amelia and her family spend a couple months at the seashore.  Because they miss each other so much, she and Anthony send naked pictures of themselves to each other.


Later that fall, Amelia forgets her laptop at home.  Her father goes through it and finds the pictures of Anthony and believes that he is corrupting his daughter.  He calls the police and Anthony is arrested.

That sets the dominos in motion: one consequence leading to another until the stunning climax.


Therese Fowler writes this novel from personal experience because something similar happened to her son.  Teenagers have no idea how serious their sexting can become.  I've told my students about the book and what can happen.  Makes me glad my own kids are all grown!

Save Me

I read this one pretty quickly and enjoyed it. 

Rose volunteers at her daughter's school to be a lunch mom because she wants to see what's going on.  Her daughter, Melly, is being bullied because she has a red birthmark on her face.  While at school, Rose sees her daughter's chief tormentor take some jelly and smear it on her own face to make it look like Melly's.  Melly see it and runs into the handicapped bathroom.

Just then there is an explosion from the kitchen.  When Rose regains consciousness, she has to make a horrible choice: run to the handicapped bathroom to save her daughter or try to get the bulliers out safely.

Her decision results in a maelstrom of condemnation from the parents and townspeople.  But something seems fishy to Rose about the explosion so she embarks on a quest to find out what was really behind it.

Nonstop action, likeable characters, a believable solution all add up to a great read.

Something Borrowed

I read this book really quickly.  It started out pretty well but got ho hum towards the end.  I downloaded it because I saw the advertisement for the movie and it looked interesting.  I should have saved my money!  It was just a typical chick lit book and I usually try to steer clear of them because the ending is always so sweet.  And this one was no exception.  I saw it coming halfway through. 


Rachel and Darcy have been best friends since grammar school.  Now, Darcy is planning her wedding to Dex and Rachel is her maid of honor.  A few months before the wedding, after her birthday party, Rachel sleeps with Dex and they fall in love.  What to do?  Continue?  Break up?  Tell Darcy?  Like I said, ho hum.

Flavors

This is a YA novel set in the South.  Sadie has to spend the summer living at her grand parents' along with several of her aunts and uncles who still live at home.  Her aunt is just a year older than her and they form a friendship along with the wife of one of her uncles. 

But at the heart of the novel is her grandmother, a stern taskmaster who is very hard on Sadie.  Sadie is twelve and experiencing all the changes grils go through at that age.  She deals with them in a very mature but believable manner.

I liked the book and loved Sadie but it seemed like I kept waiting for something big to happen and it never did.  I know that's more like real life but....

Horoscopes for the Dead

I love getting lost in Billy Collins's poetry.  Every poem is accessible on the first reading but it's on the second and third readings when the layers peel back and and I say, "Ohhh, that's what he's really talking about."

His style is so simple and ordinary.  He's not interested in flowery phrases.  He just looks around and uses the everyday items he sees as the backdrop for his musings.

It's real life gathered together in stanzas.  Here's an example:
Good News

When the news came in over the phone
that you did not have cancer, as they first thought,

I was in the kitchen trying to follow a recipe,
glancing from cookbook to stove,
shifting my glasses from my nose to my forehead and back,

a recipe, as it turned out, for ratatouille,
a complicated vegetable dish
which you or any other dog would turn your nose at.

If you had been here, I imagine
you would have been curled up by the door
sleeping with your head resting on your tail.

And after I learned that you were not sick,
everything took on a different look
and appeared to be better than it usually is.

For example (and that's the first and last time
I will ever use those words in a poem),
I decided I should grate some cheese,

not even knowing if it was right for ratatouille,
and the sight of the cheese grater
with its red handle lying in the drawer

with all the other utensils made me marvel
at how this thing was so perfectly able and ready
to grate cheese just as you with your long smile

and your brown and white coat
are perfectly designed to be the dog you perfectly are.