In Her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner (2002)
Oh, god, it is two o'clock in the morning, but this book is three days overdue with no renewals left, and I am a person who Returns Library Books On Time so it must go back tomorrow or I will not be able to face the librarians, so I am reviewing right this minute.
You know how when an author has a successful first book, it's common for all the reviewers to wet their pants with enthusiasm; but then, when the second book comes out, they go crazy with disappointment? Not this time. I read Jennifer Weiner's first book, Good in Bed, last week, and I liked it very much but I felt it could have been better: a tweak here, a continuity there, a fact-check here, a fresh adjective there. THIS book, this second book, is what I was hoping for. It's like Christmas, isn't it?
It's an intense story. Rose is a lawyer, smart and accomplished and responsible, and Maggie is her learning disabled, infrequently employed, kicked out of her apartment, unbelievably moochy little sister. When I said "unbelievably moochy," I think you probably just went right past those words, thinking you knew what I meant. But Maggie takes EVERYTHING. She takes everything. And I'd like to hate her, but she's also this absolute doll, funny and clever and lovable and knows what to wear and say in any situation. So, all right, we can feel what Rose feels: this ripping love for her sister, combined with this justified urge to rip her head off. Add in a mother who died young, a father who remarried a classically bad stepmother type, and a mysteriously missing grandmother, and you have the book that made me--ME--incur library fees, because I couldn't bear to bring it back until I was done with it.
There's a beautiful balance here: the plot has exactly the right number of weep points, exactly the right number of laugh points, and exactly the right number of well-chosen poems. It has a romance that means something, a romance we believe is true--not one of those "they are hot for each other so it must be love" romances we're expected to fall for in lesser books. It has excellently timed and excellently chosen childhood memories. And instead of telling us what the characters are like, the author shows us: a thought, an action, some little thing that tells us more than a dozen pages of description. Also, it has several parts so funny, I thought I was going to gag up a lung.
The Perpetual Ending, by Kristen den Hartog (2002)
This is the sad story of a girl whose twin sister dies in an accident. Here is an excerpt from the book, which I think sums the whole thing up perfectly:
"...you shrugged and said that there was whimsy missing...that the story was relentlessly sad. I told you that some stories are, that I had wanted it that way..."
Fine. But that's not the way _I_ want it.
Purgatory: A Prison Diary, Volume 2, by Jeffrey Archer (2003)
Jeffrey Archer, as you may know, is a writer of short stories. He was imprisoned for perjury. This is the second volume published of his prison journal entries.
You know what this book reminds me of? A cranky elderly man complaining about the service at a resort hotel. The towels aren't thick enough. The food isn't fit to eat. The portions are too large and too greasy. People are being too loud. The soap is cheap and small. The razor is a disposable. No one's treating him respectfully.
We all roll our eyes when it's the cranky elderly man, but when it's a prisoner? Well, geez. It's hard to drum up sympathy for Jeffrey Archer's frequent complaint that he has to spend too much time locked in his cell. That he's treated like some sort of criminal. That the guards enforce the rules, even for him. That the exercise room has only ONE treadmill, three rowing machines, and no step machine. Wah.
It sounds like a pretty good prison to me, despite his complaints, which is what makes his complaints so irritating. As far as I can tell, he hasn't been beaten, raped, starved, or even deprived of his Sugar Puffs. As I understand it, he'd like prisons to have luxury accomodations, with no one locked up. I stopped reading the book partway through, sick of his righteously indignant tone.