11/22/63

You know how I can tell a book was good?  When I have to wait a few days after finishing it to begin a new one.  I finished this one Saturday night and couldn't even think about starting something new until Monday evening.

This is vintage Stephen King.  This is why I fell in love with his writing forty years ago.  This is falling into a book and letting it consume me.  This is talking about it to anyone who will listen.

I was in the ninth grade when Kennedy was shot so I remember it well.  This book took me right back to that era because King captures the culture so well. 

Jake Epping is an English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine.  Al Templeton owns a diner built over an abandoned chemical plant.  In his back room is a portal to September 9, 1958.  Al tried staying in the past long enough to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy but he developed cancer and couldn't stay.  Now, he begs Jake to go through the portal to do it for him.

Besides the time travel aspect, there isn't much science fiction or scary, gory scenes.  This is just a good, old-fashioned story written by an expert craftsman.  It's a long book but I wanted it to be longer. 

Of course, we know going into it that Jake will not be successful.  So, it's fun to imagine how King will end the book.  And the ending is masterful! 

These Things Hidden and Daughter of Smoke and Bone

It feels so good to be reading, again!

These Things Hidden was a real page turner.  I gulped it in just a couple days.  Alison is twenty-two and has just been released from jail for murdering her newborn five years earlier.  Her parents and younger sister want nothing to do with her.

Her younger sister Brynn is trying to make a life for herself away from her hometown but can't get past the horrible events that happened the night her sister gave birth.

Now, Alison must try to find a way to go on with her life and make amends with her family.

This is a chick book, to be sure, but I liked it.

If any of you participate in Sunday Scribblings, you'll recognize the name Laini Taylor as one of the original authors of that meme.  That's where I first found her.  I checked out her blog just as she was getting ready to give birth to her adorable daughter Clementine Pie and keep going back to see pictures of her as she grows up.

Laini writes a genre (YA fantasy) I don't normally go for but I thought I'd give her book a try since it was getting rave reviews.  I'm so glad I did.  She's a wonderful writer!

Karou is a blue-haired teenager living in Prague going to art school. But she isn't like most normal teenagers; she was raised by devils and must occasionally leave her regular world to collect teeth for Brimstone, her "father."

Then she meets Akiva, an angel, and her enemy.  They are drawn to one another even though Akiva is still in mourning for his lost love Madrigal.

The age-old enemies-faling-in-love theme is given a new twist in this novel.  But, even more than the compelling scenario is the writing.  Ahhh, the writing!  It is so beautiful! Not a page goes by where there isn't a wonderful description to please my poetic heart.

And, now, I'm on to Stephen King's latest 11/22/63.  More fantasy!  Hmmm...what's going on with me?

The Litigators

Yay!  I finished a book!

I had pre-ordered this one and was thrilled when it became available for download.  I started reading it right away and finished it a couple days later.  It helped that we were flying to Florida for the winter.  I love all the reading time I get when on an airplane.

David Zinc is fed up with the grunt work of being a lawyer in a huge law firm and one day he up and quits.  He stumbles upon a flailing "boutique" firm with only two lawyers and joins them.  Their first case is a class action suit against a giant pharmaceutical company. 

The characters are well drawn and likable and the concept is believable.  I enjoyed it.  But, what this book has, that most of his others don't, is humor.  At one point I had tears rolling down my cheeks! 

I needed a good book like this to get me back into reading mode!

A Reading Slump

I don't know what's wrong with me but I just haven't felt like reading lately.

This is a first for me.

One of the reasons could be because I'm not that invested in the novel I'm reading.  The Art of Fielding is a beautifully written book but, for some reason, I can't get into the characters.  I'm about half way through and hate to give up on it but...

Another reason could be because I'm watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager.  Every night I get in bed and, instead of reading like normally, I stream an episode or two of this addicting show on my iPad.

And then there is the iPad, itself.  I love it!  And am always fiddling with it instead of reading.  I mean, there are just so many apps to explore and play with.

I wish there were more hours in the day.  Too bad I don't have two or three brains so I could do everything I want!

Abducted

When she was in high school, Lizzy was abducted.  Somehow, she managed to escape.  But, she's not free.  She lives in terror that it will happen again.  Now, she's in her thirties and runs a private investigation business.

One day her old boyfriend, who is now a detective, calls her to consult on a missing teen.  Together they must solve the mystery of who he is before any more girls go missing.  And, in the process, she must solve her own mystery.

Formulaic but a real page turner!

Blood Wounds

What makes a happy family?

That's one of the questions this book proposes.

Willa and her mom escaped from Texas and Willa's abusive father.  In Pennsylvania, her mom met Jack, married him, and they all live together with Jack's two daughters.

And they all actually get along and like each other.  Oh, there are issues, of course.  Jack's ex-wife is rich so Willa's step sisters get lots of expensive clothes and trips and lessons.  But Willa doesn't seem to mind.  Or does she?

Maybe that is why she sneaks down to the cellar to cut herself.

When Willa's biological father murders his new wife and two of Willa's half sisters then abducts the other child and heads to Pennsylvnia to find Willa, she finds out what her present family is made of.  She also finds out what she is made of.

Susan Beth Pfeffer has written a YA novel that explores the workings of a blended family and has created a memorable character in Willa who is forced to find and stand up for herself.  So many teenagers, nowadays, must deal with broken families.  It's nice to see a book deal with modern issues featuring a strong female character.

My own daughter and her husband have split up and I worry how that will affect Kylie.  She's only five, now, but it's bound to have some repercussions on her as she gets older.  This is one book I'll be recommending she read in a few years.

Jane Was Here & The Language of Flowers

I've been reading such good books lately!  And this one is no exception.  I didn't really like the cover but I'm glad I gave it a try, anyway.

Jane has escaped from a mental hospital and is now searching for her home...not the home where her biological parents live, but the place she was born...in the 1800s.  Jane has images of another existence from another era and will stop at nothing to discover who she really is.

This novel is filled with great characters and the writing is down-to-earth...until it hits us with the supernatural.  Sarah Kernochan does a superb job of making the extraordinary feel ordinary. 

Holy tearjerker!  I haven't read a novel like this, where I had to have a box of Kleenex nearby, for quite some time.

This book flips back and forth between Victoria Jones as an angry, emancipated eighteen-year-old living on her own to ten-year-old Victoria, damaged by foster care, living with Elizabeth who wants to adopt her.  We know it's not going to happen right from the get-go but what transpired to force Victoria back into the system is what keeps this story moving.

Elizabeth is the one who taught her all about the language of flowers and Victoria is able to use that knowledge to help her begin a new life.  But, first, she has to learn how to live without hating everyone and everything.

I'm a sucker for flowers, anyway, so this book with its many references to them  was right up my alley!  I stayed up late last night reading and wiping tears away!