V's pick #40: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

After my less-than-impressed opinion of Year Two and cheers from John to keep going, I was eager to get into Year Three and grow up a little bit. Thank goodness for pre-puberty.

I devoured this book.

Seriously, couldn't.put.it.down. We went to go see Toy Story 3 last night and I had three chapters left before we got in the car...it took every once of willpower to not read while on the way to the theatre. The minute we got home? You betcha!

I kept thinking to myself yesterday while reading the entire book in about 12 hours, "so this is what all the fuss is about!" It's been a long time since my imagination has been so rapt with firing images so fantastic, scary and wonderful. It's been even longer since I felt downright obsessed with finishing a book; I'm a fast reader but I couldn't read this book fast enough!

Rowling's writing has grown up, Harry and friends are pre-puberty and as a result, all a little more haughty, the adventures are more amazing, Black is a fascinating character, the fear is a little deeper intellectually, the story is unfolded a bit more and there's even mention of a GIRL Harry thinks is pretty! Most refreshing, while Harry does still pull out a hero, we get a break from Voldemort in this book; I was beginning to wait for him at the end like some kind of video game "boss" one must beat before a change of scenery is granted. With Year Three under my belt, it's official: I'm hooked on Harry Potter.

V's Pick #39: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

I found the Chamber to be almost more childish than the first book and it felt at times as if I were watching an episode of Scooby-Doo. Ohhh...what's going to happen... spooky...funny...ha, ha....BOO!...oh no, the hero's in danger...who's going to save his friends?.... he's going to die!!!....oh wait, here comes a hat and a bird! Yeah! Gee, I wonder how this is going to end....oh! Harry saves the day and wins the House Cup again!!

As a result of the predictable nature of this book and two nice weekend days of sunshine, I rushed through it with my goal to reach the (supposedly) better Year Three. With over 900 pages of Potter behind me as I write this, I know the Chamber will probably be my least favorite. It felt sort of like Rowling's writing was lost, trying to figure out where to go,  and like she was still deciding what her strengths were. This book as a result, was a nice continuation of a good tale, but didn't do anything for me emotionally or intellectually. I found the ending haphazard and yawn-ish. Also, I found it incredibly annoying that I was re-introduced to everything from the first book again, some paragraphs in almost identical wording; she probably never expected people like me to wait so long and then read the series back to back, but still, it made me feel disrespected as a reader. Blah, moving on.

V's Pick #38: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Like Blythe, I too have been spending part of my summer coming out from under the pop culture rock from where I've been avoiding Harry Potter and friends. Unlike Blythe, I hadn't read ANY of the books until this month and because I haven't spent the last six weeks in a class about them, I will parse them out into different entries.

Before I get into it though, I will explain a little about how it was that I found myself under the rock in the first place. Also, I will warn that because I'm sure almost all of you have either read and/or seen the movies, my posts will not be plot-driven, rather, will be made up of wholly stinky-armpit-opinions.

So, the rock. It happened like this: about five years ago every intelligent and accomplished reader I knew was buzzing on and on about this Harry Potter crap, assuring me it was a great series full of whimsy, imagination, endearment and adventure. I've never been big on series books as an adult (how can one top the emotional connection I held with the Babysitter's Club characters or Sweet Valley High or Goosebumps?) and a series with so much hype has usually proved to be disappointing. Looking back, I was a brat about reading HP because I think some part of me was a little afraid to like it. Here I am, trying to prove myself as a scholar, a thinker...and I'm reading a children's series?! Anyway, I remember debating blindly in bars with friends as to the lack of literary importance of HP, trying hard to hold my own as a person who refused to come down from the degree-baring high horse of righteousness and eventually, everyone just left me alone about it.

The rock began to be lifted this past semester when I assigned my students to write literacy narratives and an overwhelming amount of them spoke about deep and altering impressions reading HP had for them in 4th grade and beyond. For some, the HP books were the only they'd really enjoyed reading. For others, HP at a young age made them appreciate writing and reading as pleasures. For others, the HP series was a moment of sheer impossibility...thinking they could never read that much and then doing it so effortlessly. A few of my students actually had interviews and were hired for the park during our semester together, one of whom (an excellent writer) told me in private that it was one of the happiest moments of her life - to be able to wear the Slytherin uniform and live in that world while getting paid to relive her childhood with her favorite books! I didn't spend 16 weeks with 50 exciting and unique young adults to not understand their brilliance individually...and if so many of them thought HP was so great, maybe it was time I learned something. With my resolve crumbling, John and his brother Michael served the near-fatal blows. John, who doesn't read novels very often, has told me many times about his HP experience (at the hand of his forceful little bro) and how he, like me, thought it would be too babyish for his tastes. He assured me, like all those friends years ago, that he was wrong, I was wrong and my students were right.
Michael, who's my students' age, has debated HP with his boyfriend (a self appointed Arts and Culture Gay) nearly every time they've come home for college for a weekend or holiday. For Memorial Day, they launched into a Vodka-infused bickering argument that lasted until 5:30am about how books like HP do or don't damage the future of fine literature. Finally, though, I was pushed to the edge by our very own Blythe. I'd seen signs up around our English building on campus about a Harry Potter grad class and I was curious...would it be taken seriously, taught like other literature? Well, when I heard that Blythe had signed up and would be reading the books during her short semester, I broke down.

The rest, is history, as they say. I'd been warned that the first two books were a little subdued, more childish than the rest and that Rowling's early writing left something to be wanted, but I dove in as open-minded as possible. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone found me laughing at the Dursley's, cheering for Harry, loving Dumbledore and Hagrid, cringing at the thought of Voldemort and in general, engulfed. Here we go, I remember thinking when I'd closed the back cover in less then 24 hours later.

V's Pick #37: Push by Sapphire

Reading Push is kind of like when your guy friend shows you some foreign porn he's downloaded from the internet for shock value. It's not sexy, it's hardly even sexual, it's hard to digest and even harder to forget...the images burned in your once-innocent brain making you wish for an "un-know" switch to wipe the slate.

I picked up this book at Walmart of all places. My dad landed himself an ambulance ride due to a back injury and I needed a car charger for my iPhone so I could let people know what was going on while he was awaiting diagnosis. While waiting to check out, I found this book among about twenty different bibles, a handful of coloring books and the standard supermarket chick-lit. I'd been meaning to read it for a while and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to check it off my list while attempting to forget about my own worries for a little while. I also found it a much needed break from the academic articles I'd been speed-reading for my thesis work and so dove right in with little hesitation.

Beyond the story itself, I must say, I'm kind of proud of Walmart for stocking this book. I can't buy a can of spray paint without being carded yet I can pick this harrowing and disgusting story of struggle up without so much as an eye-blink in my direction. I'm sure most of you have read this and/or seen the movie (the later of which I haven't done yet), not to mention, Blythe's post about it a few months ago was fantastic...so I'll skip the plot-synposis in this entry. I will say that I feel it moved me on the most deep level as an educator. The last set of classes I taught I used what's considered the "literacy model" of teaching college writing, meaning, the content of the course is writing based and focuses on the study of literacy. This book would have fit in perfectly and while I'm not sure what approach I'm going to take to my classes in the Fall, I'm considering making this book some part of what we look at when we discuss the power of writing. For the little time we have in a semester and because I teach writing, not literature, I don't think I would assign the whole book...but the idea that silence in writing occurs when people are unable to voice their stories is never more clear than in Push. In addition, I think teaching some of this book from a writing standpoint could serve as a serious wake-up call for some of the more cookie-cutter and coddled students I run into. Push is an excellent example of why we need to be aware of the way others live for it helps us to understand ourselves and how we can or cannot push or be pushed...

V's Pick #36: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berndt

I've been to Savannah a few times now (me and DeMerese's friend Heather is a SCAD student) but despite my jaunts to the mysteriously hospitable city, I'd never been interested in reading this book. Main reason? I saw the movie in theaters when I was 15; my boyfriend and I at the time chose it because it was long (time for lots of "cuddling"), had an early showing (mom as taxi service) and we'd heard there was some sex in it. As it turned out, the movie was SO boring that I fell asleep within the first 30 minutes and didn't wake until the very end when my boyfriend, who'd stayed away for the whole thing, grudgingly shook me to let me know the torture was finally over. I never looked back...until about two months ago when I was bored with my currently-owned-not-read books and was poking around in Goodwill. I found a battered, used copy for about $1, flipped through some pages and was amazed that the writing captured me so strongly. I took it home and tore into it between thesis work, determined to finish it before our June 10th drive to SV. Part travelogue, part "true-story" murder mystery and part raunchy and delicious Southern gossip in print, The Book (as locals call it) was more than I bargained for.

Like that city has always done, it's an understatement to say it surprised me. Just when I thought I knew what it was about, what it all meant and where I should eat, Berendt flipped the coin and I was back at square one, all my prejudices shaken out of pocket. I did manage to read it all before our trip, finishing the last twenty pages or so on the road...and I feel like this trip to Savannah was very different because of this book. For one, I made us walk about an hour out of our way in the sweltering mid-day sun just to catch a glimpse of the infamous Mercer House (where much of the book and the surrounding murder takes place); I'm not usually one for landmarks like this but I was beyond excited to stand in front of the gates where it all went down. Two, it gave me a sense of belonging in a rather transient town, which included name-dropping from The Book with our hotel bartender who was more than happy to oblige with additional information. Three, I appreciated the homeless, the roaches and the crazy all the more - from the blind guys on River Street playing Louis Armstrong, to the old men in the squares talking about drinking handles of Jim Beam, to the weird-but-nice shopkeepers and of course, the food... It was all there, including Lady Chablis - the famous drag queen who much to my excitement, still performs once a month at Club One.

If you're going to Savannah, do read this. I've yet to see the movie again (have read it's horrible compared to the book) but I feel like I got a first-rate tour of the inner-workings of one of the most mysterious cities in America through Berendt. This book does as much to celebrate and explain as it does to complicate though - be warned. Many believe that Berendt was romantically involved with the murder suspect during his eight years writing The Book...personally, I think that might be true...but I also don't really care. Through him, them, I know about Moon River now, voodoo, the men in alligator shoes, whores and black debutantes; servants and those served, afternoon tea, drinking and driving into trees, invisible dogs, hormone shots, poison, prudes and of course, fried chicken.

I love the South.

Blythe's Books 28: Sarah's Key

On the bottom of the cover is a review from Augusten Burroughs that says this book will "haunt you... it will complete you." This book SO did not a) haunt or b) complete me. Instead, it completely annoyed me. I've said before that I like books where I learn something new, especially about a different culture from mine. That was the ONLY redeeming part of this book: I learn about the Vel d'Hiv, which was when the French (yes, the French, not the Germans) took it upon themselves to round up thousands of French Jews, many of who had been born in France, and send them to Auschwitz. Children and parents were separated at camps in France before they were shipped out, made to live alone for weeks and months, then sent on cattle trains to Germany, from where they never returned. This was surprising and interesting to me. Unfortunately, Tatiana de Rosnay insisted on creating a story about a journalist seeking information on the event and a little girl who lived through it to go along with the historical account, and the story itself sucked. Predictable, contrived, and stupid writing. I am not one of those English teachers who rolls ther eyes at the use of adverbs, or swoons at the right word; I love light fiction as much as the next person (maybe even more). But this aspired to be great literature, posed as a great novel, and that it was not. Rosnay felt the need to spell everything out over and over so that everyone got the idea that persecuting the Jews was horrendous. Yeah, got that. Example: "Why was this happening to her? What had she done, or her parents done, to deserve this? Why was being Jewish so dreadful? Why were Jews being treated like this?" And later on the SAME page: "'Your parents are dirty Jews, you are a dirty Jew.' Why dirty? Why was being a Jew dirty? It made her feel ashamed, sad. It made her want to cry." This was on page 48. It got better by page 293, when I reached the blessed end, but not much-- nowhere near what I need to be "completed" by a book.

Blythe's Book 21-27: The Harry Potter series

I know it seems incredibly lazy to condense seven novels into one post, but I'm coming off a six-week class and nineteen-page paper both solely focused on all things Potter, so... I just can't talk about it much more. I'm sure this also seems like a cop-out: hasn't everyone read the Harry Potter novels? Aren't we supposed to be reading new books? Truth be told, I never read past book 2 (HP and the Chamber of Secrets) before this summer. I really enjoyed book 1, but by the time book 2 came out I had to re-read all of book 1, and when I started book 3 and realized I needed to re-read book 2, I thought, "Forget this; I'll read all of them at once when they're all published." Unfortunately, I just never got around to it. So here I am, finally knowledgeable about all the pop culture Harry Potter craziness that has been surrounding me (more so lately, what with Universal Studios opening up the HP realm of their park). I LOVED the Harry Potter books! There were so many great lessons, great characters, great interactions between reader and text. Rowling really knows how to keep readers interested; I never felt like I was too old, or too experienced to be reading the novels, and the way she changes the text (in terms of the language and focus) as the characters progress through adolescence rings true. This is definitely a series I am going to keep on the shelves to read some day with my kids.

Favorite lines:
"Slowly, very slowly he sat up and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart?" -HP & The Deathly Hallows

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" - HP & The Sorcerer's Stone

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends." -HP & The Sorcerer's Stone

DeMerse's book #6: Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

A few things you might not know about me: I was not an english major. I cannot make blog posts about rhetoric and composition books sound appealing. I am used to books written in the 3rd person.

"Upstate" is about two love struck teenagers who correspond through letters. At first, I found this format annoying. I felt that I wasn't getting enough background information about the characters and that I was missing out on some important details. But I grew to like the fact that the entire book was composed of letters written by Antonio and Natasha (even after phone calls and face-to-face correspondence was available to them). The book began after Antonio was arrested for killing his father. He was only 17 and Natasha was 16. I am somewhat familiar with this type of juvenile letter writing (no felonies were involved!) and I was brought back to a point in my childhood that I try not to think about often. To be in prison at that age...to be in love with someone in prison at that age...can you imagine?! It was a heartbreaking story that left me with burning eyes.

The first letter was written by Antonio on January 25th, 1990 (my birthday) and they continue for almost 10 years. Through the years you see how they have both changed and grown...both of them educate themselves, Antonio by getting his GED in prison and Natasha by finishing high school and moving on to college, and it is visible in the text.

When someone goes to prison at the beginning of a story you wonder what can happen that will keep you involved and interested. Although I was not bored, I kept wondering what could happen next. I got my answers in the last 20 pages. It was long awaited but I was not disappointed by the ending.

DeMerse's book #5: The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

I have been crocheting off and on for more than a year now and I love it. Lately, though, I have been obsessed with everything knitting. I've been listening to knitting podcasts at work, trying to teach myself to knit again, and even dreaming about yarn and stitches. So, when I was picking my next book to read it is no wonder I pulled "The Friday Night Knitting Club" from my shelves.

It is basically your typical chick lit book but instead of focusing on a male/female relationship it centered on a diverse group of women in a knitting club...

Georgia - the owner of a yarn store in New York City (the setting for the majority of the book) and a single-mother of 13 year old Dakota

Anita - an older women who worked at the store and helped Georgia get back on her feet when she found herself newly single and pregnant

Peri - a college student who worked part-time at the store

Lucie - at 42 she decided she wanted a baby. One problem - she was single with no prospects. So she went to online dating sites and found herself a 'sperm donor'.

K.C. - Georgia's friend who left a career in publishing and pursued one in law instead. Her knitting projects ended like her marriages - "they sputtered more than they failed"

Darwin - a grad student in women's studies who was researching her dissertation. She didn't knit and and believed that women who wasted time on old-fashioned activities such as knitting would never realize their full professional potential.

I hate to admit it but I love chick flicks and chick lit (minus the happy endings, of course). I liked the story and the idea of this book but I just couldn't get over some of the writing. Ex: "It was her first kiss. And it was delicious, made her insides all gooshy and twisty and jingly-jangly." Seriously...how did her editor/proof reader/whoever reads books before they are published not see that and say "Are you sure about that?!!?"

On a positive note: I actually liked the ending.

Erin's Book #18: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a snowy night in 1964, David Henry delivers his own twins. The boy, Paul, is healthy and beautiful. The girl that follows, Phoebe, has Down syndrome. David makes the shocking decision to hand the baby to the nurse, asking her to take the girl to an institution, and then proceeds to tell his wife their daughter had died.

Instead of following instruction, Caroline, the nurse, leaves town and raises the girl as her own child. The book follows the two families for the next twenty-five years.

It's a beautiful and heartbreaking story. David's decision is not as selfish as it seems. His desire is only to protect his wife Norah from a life of pain and loss. Yet his lie stands between them, driving them apart more each day. The book raises interesting questions - is there such a thing as karma? Is it possible to make "easier" choices and avoid pain and loss or does trying to do so simply cause more?

(Side note: While taking a break from reading it one evening, I flipped on the TV and found the movie version on Lifetime, which I'm curious to see.)

I couldn't put this book down. I found both stories engrossing and loved the characters. The ending was completely appropriate. I think this one will be on my mind for a while.

Pam's Book 27: The Mermaid Chair

Like Erin, I read this book because it was written by the same author as The Secret Life of Bees, which I loved. This book I did not love; in fact, it made me angry. As Erin said, this is more of a romance than anything, but it's a romance about adultery. As rare as it may be these days, I don't find anything about adultery romantic. Jessie returns to her hometown, a tiny island off the coast of South Carolina, because her mother has cut off her finger. Throughout the book we, along with Jessie, are trying to figure out why her mother would do such a thing. Somehow that remains mostly secondary.

Brother Thomas, with whom Jessie cheats on her husband (I don't feel like I'm giving anything away here, as it happens very early on and is implied in the book's description) has a quality, though, that I can't help but admire: doubt. It's not easy for a monk to admit, even to himself, that he doubts in God. I found the following passages to be the most striking:

"'Sometimes I experience God like this Beautiful Nothing,' he said. 'And it seems then as though the whole point of life is just to rest in it. To contemplate it and love it and eventually disappear into it. And then other times it's just the opposite. God feels like a presence that engorges everything. I come out here, and it seems the divine is running rampant. That the marsh, the whole of Creation, is some dance God is doing, and we're meant to step into it, that's all.'"

Later he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Before and with God we live without God."

Somehow I feel doubting God, even as a monk, or believing outlandish, undoctrinal things about God, is far more honest than romanticizing or rationalizing honesty. So your dad died when you were a kid. And that somehow gives you license to cheat? I don't think so.

Erin's Book #17: Wicked by Gregory Maguire

I've been wanting to read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West since seeing the musical last year. I was shocked by how completely different the book is. Perhaps I've forgotten a lot of the musical, but the book was not anything like how I remembered it.

Wicked follows Elphaba from a little green baby with razor-sharp teeth (her first word was "Horrors") to a college student, rooming with Galinda (the good witch), to her life as an activist, then a nun, and eventually becoming the Wicked Witch of the West, though this role was pretty much in name only (that and a flying broomstick).

The book is very dark and very political. Maguire focuses on all the different lands, Munchkinland, Emerald City, the Vinkus, and others that make up the area. The book is not nearly as whimsical as it might seem on the surface. Sure, there are talking Animals with souls, but they're murdered and oppressed. The Wizard is a villain, Dorothy (who makes only a small appearance) an accidental thief.

I found this book fascinating. It's pretty thick and took me about a month to get to, but I really enjoyed diving into the world Maguire creates. I'm not super familiar with the Wizard of Oz - I've actually only seen it once (it terrified me too much as a child), so I'm not sure how much this story meshes with that one. But regardless, it's an intriguing read. We're always kept at some distance from Elphaba. I found her endearing and sympathetic, even if I didn't always totally understand her. As you might expect, she's a rather tragic character, generally well-intentioned but rarely, if ever, getting the desired results and eternally haunted by guilt up until her untimely end. Wicked does not have the fairy-tale PG ending of the musical.

Maguire tackles a lot in this book - faith and religion, class, guilt and the quest for redemption, friendship and betrayal, family, politics and murder. I was expecting a much lighter tale, but what I got instead with rich and fulfilling. I picked up Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister this weekend and look forward to reading about the other side of Cinderella's story.

Pam's Book 26: Certain Girls

Certain Girls is the sequel to Weiner's Good in Bed, a book about an oversized, increasingly bitter and acerbic young woman, Cannie Shapiro. Now it's thirteen years later and Cannie is happily married to her former "diet doctor" Peter and the mother of thirteen-year-old Joy. Joy's premature birth resulted in hearing loss, and her hearing aids and low voice are the banes of her existence. Well, that and her mother, of course (she is in seventh grade after all). Cannie stresses that her daughter doesn't like her anymore; Joy stresses that her mother loves her just a little too much.

While the story revolves around Joy's bat mitzvah, it is more about the relationship between mother and daughter, and all the family history that has played a role in forming that relationship. I found that part of the book perfectly believable. I remember being thirteen and mortified that my parents existed at all. I teach fourteen-year-olds and see many of them still doing the same thing. At the end of the book, though, there's an event that brings mother and daughter closer together. I found the event contrived. It forced the natural, slow evolution of the relationship to accelerate simply because it was time for the book to end and the book apparently needed to end on a rainbows-and-puppy-dogs kind of note.

Pam's Book 25: The Year of Pleasures

I read this book quickly, in a matter of hours. I found it mildly interesting, a lot of it completely unbelievable. A woman, newly widowed, drives on back roads to Farmtown, Midwest, buys a house on impulse, collects stray young men (not in a sexual way), miraculously regains old friends she ditched thirty years ago but who still love her and treat her as if she never left, finds a man, unfinds a man. She was actually pretty annoying. I don't think it's just that her life was somewhat foreign to me; I've connected with characters far more removed from my life.

The best thing I can say about the book is that it took up several hours of an afternoon in which I had nothing else to do. I don't regret having filled those hours with this book, but I don't think I'm going to be picking up any others by her.

Pam's Book 24: Between, Georgia

I'm in Atlanta for a couple weeks, and I thought I packed enough books to get me through. Turns out I didn't, which shouldn't surprise me. There are never enough books to get me through. I took a trip to one of East Atlanta's used bookstores and looked through the staff recommendations. A different book by Joshilyn Jackson was recommended, but they didn't have a used copy (the store sells new books, too); there was only this.

At birth, Nonnie repulsed her teenage mother so much that one of the neighbors who helped give birth adopted Nonnie. Nonnie's adoptive mother is deaf and is slowly going blind, a process long completed by the time Nonnie reaches adulthood. The story takes place in the little town of Between, Georgia, yet, of course, the word "between" applies to much of Nonnie's life. She's between divorcing and not divorcing her husband, she lives her life between Athens and Between, she translates for deaf people and lives between that and the hearing world, she's between mother and aunt to her small abandoned cousin Fisher. By the end of the book, the betweens have mostly been resolved.

This was another light but well written summer read. I've passed the book onto my grandmother and plan to read more of Jackson's novels before the summer is over.

Pam's Book 23: Half Broke Horses

I've been putting off reading this book since Blythe blogged about it because she was so disappointed with it. Like Blythe, I read and enjoyed Jeannette Walls' Glass Castles, and I was worried that this wouldn't impress me either. And while I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed her memoir, I did find myself sucked in by Half Broke Horses.

The book tells the story of Walls' maternal grandmother, Lily Casey. Sort of. It does tell her story, but by the end it's pretty obvious that it's only about Lily insomuch as it explains the bizarre behavior of Rosemary, Walls' mother. I never really connected with Lily. She's pretty self-centered and is kind of a bitch. Her favorite character in all literature is Scarlett O'Hara, and I think that says a lot (she happens to be one of my all-time least favorite characters in all of literature).

I didn't love this book, but I did like the insight it gave me into Rosemary and why she ended up becoming the woman she did. I would be extremely interested in reading a book by Walls' daughter down the road; I'd like to see how much of her mother and grandmother she ended up inheriting...

Pam's Book 22: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Ahh, the final book in the Millenium trilogy. The book not intended to be the final book in any trilogy, just the third book of many. Then Stieg Larsson had to go and have a heart attack. I was terribly worried, beginning this book, that it wouldn't have a satisfying ending (it did) because it wasn't intended as the end. But, the ending notwithstanding, there was no way I could not read this book. The first two sucked me in even though I resisted. I love Scandinavian mysteries/thrillers, but I resisted the first book because everybody was reading it. Then I caved, and I'm so glad I did.

Larsson's books are heavily populated with strong, ass-kicking women: Lisbeth, Erika, Annika, Monica. Even though Lisbeth Salander is in the hospital for much of the book, she and Blomkvist still make a remarkable team, despite Salander's objections to the pairing.

I don't have much to say about this book except that it is fascinating reading, a well-written summer book, perfect for a long trip or the beach or the pool or just curled up on the couch. I'm quite perturbed the author is dead.

Pam's Book 21: The Imperfectionists

I read this book quite awhile ago. In fact, I've read several books since my last post and for some reason couldn't bring myself to blog about them. Then my cousin chastised me last night about it, so I figured I would make an effort to catch up. I still don't really feel like writing about them (summertime ennui?), so expect several short posts.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman reminded me a lot of Olive Kitteridge: it is a book of short stories that all share a common thread. Instead of a person, however, the common thread here is an English language newspaper based in Rome. The book follows its birth and demise in parallel stories. Each story is just a little depressing, in an everyday kind of way, like Olive Kitteridge. I enjoyed the glimpses into the life of people connected with the paper, but that's all I felt they were: glimpses. The only character I truly came to know was the paper. I'm not saying that's a bad thing; in fact, I think it was deliberate and necessary. I did enjoy how Rachman chose the people to portray in the book. Some choices were obvious, like the editor of the paper. Others, though, were just marginally connected, like the hopelessly unqualified recent college graduate who hopes for a job as reporter, or the washed-up old Paris correspondent who can no longer create a story.

This book read like Olive Kitteridge in some ways, but in others fell far short. This is Rachman's first effort, and the quality of language I fell in love with in Olive Kitteridge simply isn't present here. Instead of feeling hopeful at the end, I felt mildly depressed. But that's okay; the book was supposed to be mildly depressing. I hope.

Erin's Book #16: The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees was one of my favorite books of last year, so when I saw this on the bargain shelf, I couldn't resist. Had I not known it was the same author, I wouldn't have figured it out.

Mermaid is about a middle-aged married woman, Jessie, who goes back to the small island on which she grew up to care for her mother. She begins an affair with a Benedictine monk. (I'm not giving anything away; she says as much in the opening line). The titular chair resides in the monastery.

I guess the book is kind of about finding yourself and the truth and there's a lot of business with her dad, but it kind of just feels like a romance novel. The rest of it, what really should be the meat of the story, feels secondary.

It's an easy read, if you can tolerate the embarrassing title and cover (a co-worker of mine actually laughed out loud when he saw it). I do enjoy Kidd's style - she writes beautifully, lyrically, and has a way of tapping into emotions everyone has (or at least I do), such as - "I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache of it was palpable."

I might have liked this more had I not just come off reading Glass Castle and Shanghai Girls, stories where the stakes were seriously high and mothers were choosing not to feed their daughters or selling them off to the highest bidder. Jessie's mom cutting off her finger seemed just a little eccentric by comparison and I found myself a little annoyed at how everyone was treating it like a tragedy of the highest degree.

In reality, there's a lot to relate to about The Mermaid Chair. Jessie's suffering from some unknown emotional affliction, seeking answers, carrying around the guilt of her father's death and of abandoning her home. The resolution actually was a surprise to me. I just wish it hadn't felt so much like a romance novel. Apparently a movie was made in 2006 starring Kim Basinger. Hadn't heard of it. Has an awful awful poster. Anyway. I know I'm not making this book sound too great and since I finished it 3 weeks ago, it hasn't really stayed with me. But summer is coming (I guess it's been here for a while for you Floridians) and I could easily see someone spending an afternoon on the beach reading it. So there you have it - if you're looking for heavy drama, you're in the wrong place, but if you just want an entertaining summer-y trifle, you'll probably enjoy it.