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Saturday, December 02, 2006

Books for November

I'm a couple of days late with these. Oh, the craziness. Ratings are out of five, bold title indicates first-time read.

1. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood -- Ann Brashares -- 4
   • I actually cried reading this. Granted, it was 3 am and I'm always more liable to cry over a book at that hour, but still. The book focuses heavily on mother/daughter relationships, and some of the bits about girls growing away from their mothers and then back to them had me sniffling. The whole book is pretty good -- I especially liked to see Bridget finding herself a bit. Recommended for light-but-not-inane reading.

   
   

2. Ralph's Party -- Lisa Jewell -- 2.75
   
   • This was fluffy and sometimes a bit amateurish, and rather laden with vulgarity, and what is it with EVERYONE in adult novels smoking marijuana these days? Sheesh! The core story was interesting (six [?] strangers who live in one triplex in London, and their various interrelated trials and tribulations), and some of the characters (particularly Jem) are well-drawn. Still, it was kind of a fun read, although the ending of one of the threads was Not Satisfying to me. It sort of screams FIRST NOVEL at you, but not in the worst way I've ever seen. This is another addition to the "don't mind having read it but won't be re-reading it or passing it around to my friends" pile.

   
   

3. Water For Elephants -- Sara Gruen -- 4.5
   
   • I LOVED THIS BOOK. Sersly. It would have been a five if it hadn't been for the unnecessary vulgarity (again). I sound like a prim maiden aunt saying that word, but really, do I need the mental image of, say, a dwarf having what should be an extremely private moment, etched in my mind forever, in order to be able to enjoy this story? No, I don't. I hope, honestly, that they make a movie out of it and leave in everything except the nasty bits, because it's a brilliant story, very well-told. It's set both in the modern day (the narrator is either ninety or ninety-three; he doesn't know what year it is) and in the deeps of the Depression; in an assisted-living facility for the elderly and in a traveling circus. Both settings are pitch-perfect, truly; I can smell them, know what I mean? The ending is uplifting (possibly the most perfect book ending I've read in years -- original, interesting, almost gleefully happy, and unpredictable -- and it's rare to find a truly unpredictable ending without it being high-art-nobody's-allowed-to-be-happy melancholy for melancholy's sake). It's been weeks since I read it, and Gruen's expert treatment of everything from aging to acceptance of other's differences to spousal abuse to schizophrenia to the care and treatment of large exotic animals is still going around and around in my mind. READ THIS NOW THIS MEANS YOU. Even in spite of the nasty bits.

   
   

4. Happiness Sold Separately -- Lolly Winston -- 3
   
   • I liked this well enough while I was reading it, but in looking back I can't remember much about it other than a very sketchy outline. This is probably not a good thing. It's about divorce after infertility (almost a yawn nowadays), and infidelity, and... yawn. Sorry. Couldn't help it. Truly, it wasn't a bad book. I remember thinking it was quite well-written, and you do get into the characters' heads a good deal, and oh! the little boy! She did a very good job with the boy. I didn't like the ending, though.

   
   

5. Pat of Silver Bush -- L.M. Montgomery -- 4.5
   
   • I like (and, honestly, mildly dislike) different things about LMM's books pretty much every time I reread them. This time I confess I got a wee bit annoyed with Pat's unending devotion to a house, although I can kind of identify with it, especially if I manage to interpret it as undending devotion to the people in the house. Still, I think this is one of LMM's five best books; Pat is the character of hers with whom I can most closely identify, and Hilary is my favorite of her male characters -- in this book, at least, he's as well-defined as Dean Priest in the Emily books, without that is-he-creepy-or-is-he-not factor that makes Dean a bit harder to like.

   
   

6. Mistress Pat -- LMM -- 3.5
   
   • Jingle vanishes for the entire book until the last page (typical of LMM's males); LMM skims over eleven years in not very many pages, and Pat becomes a bit annoying. Which is pretty realistic. I really do like this book quite a lot, especially its portrayal of Pat's relationship with her sister, but it's not on a level with its predecessor.

   
   

7. Rise and Shine -- Anna Quindlen -- 3.5
   
   • I would have liked this a lot better if it hadn't been for Quindlen's too-frequent lapses into material that's better suited for her Newsweek column than for a novel. Her thoughtful passages about life in New York, or about the dog-eat-dog social structure among, well, socialites, or the little zingers about politics (especially those) were unwelcome intrusions in a novel that could quite well have been rather brilliant otherwise. I guess it doesn't help, either, that I'm really kind of OVER the whole "of course the only really interesting people live in major urban centers, preferably New York or London but LA will do in a pinch" theme in modern novels, about which I ranted very briefly in I think last month's books post. This is worth a read, though, because Quindlen is really quite a good writer -- she immerses you quite fully in her characters' lives, except for those columnist intrusions -- and because this novel's treatment of sisterly relationships is not exactly standard fare for chick books. I don't have a sister, so I can't say how on-the-money it is, but it was more interesting reading than the usual Ya-Ya (yes, I know they weren't sisters, quibble quibble) kind of simplistic view of things.

Comments

Posted by: Maria at December 3, 2006 12:07 AM

Posted by: Kathy at December 3, 2006 01:09 PM

Posted by: Kat with a K at December 3, 2006 08:50 PM

Posted by: Paula at December 6, 2006 06:12 AM

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