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Thursday, May 31, 2007
books for May
- The Pact -- Jodi Picoult -- 3.5
- Now that I have experience with Jodi Picoult she no longer catches me off-guard with her tacky, cheap-shot bait-and-switch endings, and I can enjoy her lovely prose and knowable characters without having the whole thing ruined for me by a low-blow cop-out twist in the last three pages (me bitter? I am looking at you, My Sister's Keeper). This was a good book, one of her earlier ones I think, and now that I knew to be on the lookout for a twist ending, it wasn't twisty at all; I knew what it was going to be about halfway through, except that I thought she wouldn't lay on the foreshadowing so thickly and maybe she was trying to be extra tricky and make us think we knew what would happen when we really didn't. But we (or I) did. I'm not sure if I recommend this or not. I think I do. Just get it in paperback (I don't think there's any other way to get it; it's about ten years old) so that when you feel like throwing it against the wall, you don't break anything. P.S. Maybe I'd been watching "Jericho" too much (O "Jericho", we hardly knew ye) but I totally pictured Pamela Reed and Gerald McRaney as one of the couples in this book.
- The Patron Saint of Liars -- Ann Patchett -- 4.5
- I HEART ANN PATCHETT'S BOOKS (well, except for Truth and Beauty: A Friendship or whatever it was called). I was shocked -- shocked I tell you -- when I found out this was her first novel, because it didn't have even the slightest tinge of that first-novel inexpert feel that so many first novels, even if they're really brilliant, can't seem to shake. (Now I am looking at you, The Time Traveler's Wife.) No, Ann Patchett was either gifted and completely savvy from Day One, or she had an editor who knew just how to handle her, because wow. The story is truly original, there's not a single character who does what you think s/he'll do every time s/he turns around, there's none of the gratuitous "hey, here's a topic I know a lot about, let's toss in a bunch of pages about that even though it really doesn't fit in the story" stuff that annoys me so, and while it's not perfect -- I felt like we were just getting to know some of the characters when they would shy away and we'd never really get close, but then maybe that was intentional -- it's a darn good read. Get Bel Canto too. yay.
I know I finished something else -- maybe two something elses -- but I can't remember what it/they was/were. I'm knee-deep in a bunch of books right now -- To Kill a Mockingbird, A Beautiful Mind, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, just off the top of my head, and I think there are a couple more -- and I just finished a knitting project (pictures later) and I have a new one started, and there's this DPChallenge team contest going on (yes, DPChallenge has again sucked me in), and I'm trying to make time for Librivoxing again now that I don't sound like I have a clothespin on my nose, and I'm generally kind of, um, scattered and dabble-y right now. So. If I remember the other book(s) later I'll edit this post. Off to see where I left my brain now. Bye.
Comments
Funny how everybody is so different. "The Pact" is the only Jodi Picoult book I've disliked (and promptly swaped for another - Yay www.bookmooch.com! ) whereas I LOVED "My Sister's Keeper" and it's one of my very favourite books :-)
I'll have to keep a look out for Ann Patchett. She sounds worth a read.
Posted by: Maria at May 31, 2007 10:17 PM
Maria, I loved My Sister's Keeper until I got to the end. I think if I'd known to expect a twist ending, it wouldn't have bothered me so much. The twist didn't bother me in The Pact, but the melodrama did, a bit, now that I think of it, at the end.
Posted by: Rachel at May 31, 2007 11:40 PM
I loved Time Traveller's Wife - read it in France! - and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my favourites. I find Jodi Picoult's books to be a great summer read - if they drop in the pool, it doesn't really matter. All the better for a good dunking. They are the kind of books you read when you want to disengage your brain - light, enjoyable.
Have you ever read the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters? LOVING this series!
Valerie
Posted by: Valerie at June 1, 2007 01:20 AM
I've not read The Pact, but I've read several other Picoult books. I have to say that even though you warned us about a silly twist at the end of My Sister's Keeper, I was still way irritated.
As for Jericho, I have to admit we have I think 7 episodes piled up on our TiVo which we are hoarding. Maybe it's our fault that it got cancelled. WHY would they cancel it? There is a movement afoot online somewhere (haven't looked for it yet) to try to get CBS to resurrect it.
Posted by: mary ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.1970dodgecharger500.com/oldsite/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 1, 2007 06:37 AM
They cancelled "Jericho"? I hadn't heard. I never got back into watching when the "new season" (or whatever it is-- I'm not used to the new shorter seasons) started, but I was hoping to catch up on re-runs by next season. :o( Oh well. They hardly give shows a chance to prove themselves, these days!
I'll have to make a note of Ann Patchett. I'm currently reading something that's actually new (to me) and isn't a craft book!! (Shocking, I know.) _The Jane Austen Book Club_ by Karen Joy Fowler. I thought of you when I picked it up at the library booksale. It's really not at all what I expected. Have you read it?
Posted by: Michael at June 1, 2007 04:46 PM
Michael, yes, they cancelled it because apparently about six million people did what you did (quit between season halves). I guess it was also on at the same time as American Idol in the spring.
And yes, I've read The Jane Austen Book Club -- two years ago this month, in fact. I... did not like it. (interestingly, it was the same month that I read My Sister's Keeper.)
Posted by: Rachel at June 1, 2007 04:52 PM
