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Monday, October 13, 2003

two book reviews

I finished two books this weekend. (I am just on a roll lately!)


First was an Elizabeth Berg book (Open House), which actually helped to put me in an extraordinarily emotional mood when I finished it at 1:30 Sunday morning, as anyone who was unfortunate enough to happen upon that diary entry before it was deleted will know. Elizabeth Berg is very good at making mundane or sad or horrific situations into stories so wonderfully-told that on every page it seems like there's at least one line or paragraph that resonates so strongly with me that I have to re-read it several times to fully savor the rightness of it. Superficially, Open House about a woman heading toward middle age, dealing with a divorce and the increasing independence of her eleven-year-old son. But oh, there is so much more. If you're female, and you've ever loved anyone to the point of tears in your life before, you should read it. Especially if you're a mother. Be prepared to catch your breath, and cry, and laugh, and to shamelessly dog-ear pages that you want to go back to and re-read later.


Also, yesterday I read a book from start to finish. I don't know exactly how that happened. I had church in the morning and I had company over in the afternoon. And I wasn't rude to them -- really! My sister-in-law and I sat outside and watched the kids play and read for a while, and then after everyone went home and we got the kids in bed, T installed a game on our computer and spent a few hours playing that while I sat on the couch and read. I kept thinking I had to put the book down and go to bed, but I didn't, until I finished it. This book was called Same as it Never Was and it's the first novel by C Scovell LaZebnik. Obviously I liked it pretty well, considering the rapidity with which I consumed it. ;-). It's a pretty light read, but not too fluffy, about a cynical college student who becomes the guardian of her four-year-old half-sister when her father dies. It was a pleasure to see Olivia change from a college girl who'd built very high walls around herself to keep people out, into a young woman who cared about her sister, cared about decency, and cared about herself. The characters (except perhaps for the girl's father and stepmother, but they're only in the story for one or two "scenes" so their cardboard-cutoutness is excusable) are really well-written, and the relationships between them seem very realistic. I liked the book better and better as I went along.


In other news, today is a holiday for my husband and hence our school, and we're going to surprise the kids with a trip to the zoo. I'm looking forward to seeing their faces when we get there. ;-). I suppose I shouldn't go in a nightgown and my old threadbare gray leggings, though...

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