Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett (2004)
An excellent book: not just the combination of silly humor and clever humor that can overwhlem a story, but also a good and interesting plot to string the jokes together.
Moist Van Lipwig is blessed not only with his given name, but also with a knack for the con. One con takes him to the gallows, but instead of waking up dead he wakes up to a job offer. And a golem to make sure he sticks to it. He'll be running the post office, of course. And he'll need to begin by scraping off all the pigeon crap. And finding out that his five predecessors are, um, predeceased.
One of my favorite characters is the golem, who is not the sniveling whiny Gollum seen in The Lord of the Rings, but instead a big hulking Jeeves-the-butler type.
Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler (1988)
This is at least my fourth time through this book, and I'm surprised to find I haven't reviewed it yet. As with most Anne Tyler books, the plot is difficult to accurately describe. If I tell you it's about a married couple and their different approaches to a problem with their son, doesn't that sound dull? What if I went on to say that the problem brings them closer together? *yawn*
Maggie has a reputation for being klutzy and featherbrained, but gradually we learn that it's more that she sees things the way they SHOULD be, and then uses poor judgment about applying that vision to the world as it is. When her teenaged son and his girlfriend discover they'll be having a baby, Maggie rises to the occasion: meeting the girlfriend at the abortion clinic to talk her out of it, coaxing a wedding, bringing the now-wife to live with them during her pregnancy, helping to care for the new baby. When the marriage doesn't work out after all, Maggie can't stop trying to get things back the way they were. At first we see things the way she does: the son and his former wife are just misunderstanding each other, and things would work out if they could just stop being so sensitive. Later we come to see that they'll never be able to communicate; they may love each other, but things are never going to work out the way Maggie wants them to.
Maggie's husband Ira likes to think of himself as the sensible, level-headed one, the one who sees things as they are and knows they can't be changed. He thinks his son is never going to commit to anything, certainly not to a wife and child, and that Maggie should give it up and knock it off. But he gets pulled into the fray all the same.
The way Maggie's mind works is what pulls me back to this book again and again, especially when we see how compatible she is with Ira.
The Goodbye Summer, by Patricia Gaffney (2004)
Normally I like Patricia Gaffney books, sometimes in spite of myself. This one was pretty lame. It seemed like it had an agenda: "Old people are people too." I felt like the author had an eye-opening experience working with older people and wanted an excuse to turn it into a book. I liked the stories, but I would have preferred them in a non-fiction collection.
We're supposed to identify with Caddie Winger, the main character. She's taking care of her beloved Nana, dating an inappropriate man and overlooking an appropriate one, and being the darling of a bunch of older people. They all think she's fabulous, and we're supposed to think so too, but instead I found her an empty character, too good and perfect to be a real person. She's just a vehicle for moving the story along to the next interview with an elderly person.
It was FINE, I'm not saying don't read it, but it wasn't what I'd hoped for.
The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting, by Christie Mellor (2004)
This slim little paperback is a light, occasionally amusing read, but not worth its price. The old-fashioned illustrations are pleasing, and some of the text is good, but much of it is the kind of thing you might write for your friends to read--not for actual publication. In fact, the chapter headings are the best part: Bedtime: Is Five-thirty Too Early?; Child Labor: Not Just for the Third World!; "Children's Music": Why?; Self-Esteem and Other Overrated Concepts. The content of the chapters, however, disappoints. The tone dips from amusing rant to annoying smugness. Instead of gathering parents together in a unified front against small tyrants, the point seems to be to criticize everyone else's parenting methods. Even when I was in full agreement with the author's opinions, I found myself disliking the way they were expressed. It seemed like she was trying to be snarky but couldn't pull it off. Still, the format/illustrations/cover are pleasing and the titles are excellent; it would make a nice gift book if it weren't so sure to irritate on some level or another.
The Snapper, by Roddy Doyle (1990)
This book was made into a movie, which I saw years ago, and I'm not sure how much that influenced my reading of the book. I read it almost like a screenplay, with all the movie characters and their voices in my head. I sure liked the movie, and I liked the book as well.
The only thing I didn't like was merely stylistic: I didn't like the way dialogue was prefaced with dashes, instead of surrounded with quotes. But big deal.
Sharon is a 20-year-old girl still living at home with her large family. When she gets knocked up, everyone plays "guess the father" but she won't tell. (Thank heaven she tells us readers--I don't like to be left out of the secret.) Her dad is a good-natured swearin' type, her mom is the stoic quiet type, and her brothers and sisters run all over the house with their fights and their hobbies and their demands. Sharon holds her own through it all.
I thought it was a good book; and if you don't feel like reading it, or if the dash-quotes bother you too, then I recommend renting the video.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum, by Kate Atkinson (1995)
The first thing you will notice about this book is that it is narrated by a zygote. The last thing you will notice is that it does not involve being behind the scenes at a museum. Between these two observations you will notice nothing, because you will be too enthralled.
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler (1982)
This is the first Anne Tyler book I haven't liked. I still felt riveted by it, and I went back to it eagerly. But it was depressing.
Most Anne Tyler books seem like they'd be depressing: a marriage isn't working out, or a woman runs away from her family. But they're so filled with humor and happiness along the way, the story ends up being uplifting rather than discouraging. This book, however, was nothing but the sad parts.
When Beck leaves his wife Pearl and their three children Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, Pearl decides not to tell the children. Beck is a traveling salesman, so it's a long time before the children even realize he's gone. Then follows the childhoods and adulthoods of the three children. Pearl spends their childhoods screaming at them, hitting them, and telling them she wishes they were dead. Cody grows up psychotically obsessed with Ezra, always thinking Ezra has the better deal, always trying to get Ezra in trouble or take away what Ezra has, even when both are grown men. Ezra grows up placidly accepting of his lot, which isn't all that great: he never has the wife and children he wants, he lives with his mother, and he runs a middlingly successful restaurant. Jenny goes through several unhappy marriages, struggles with anorexia, and finds herself abusing her own daughter the way Jenny was abused. It's GRIM.
The Men and the Girls, by Joanna Trollope (1992)
I started reading, and one by one I met the characters. I met James, and I thought, "Mm-hm." I met Leonard, and I thought, "Mm-hm." I met Joss--"Mm-hm." I met Kate--"Mm-hm." Hugh and Julia--"Mm-hm." It wasn't until page 27, when I met Mrs. Cheng and Miss Bachelor, that I realized I was going to be a sad girl when the book was over.
James and Hugh are both older guys (60ish) living with younger women (30ish). Both suffer a big upset in their relationships. Then we wait to see how things shake out. But to me, the real plots were the subplots: the relationship between Joss and Miss Bachelor, between Mrs. Cheng and Leonard, between Miss Bachelor and anyone she came in contact with.
Speaking in Tongues, by Jeffery Deaver (2000)
I hadn't realized, until I read a Jeffery Deaver book that DIDN'T feature his two pet detectives Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, how much I depend on them for security. In this book, which has utter amateurs (parents of a kidnapped girl) trying to solve the crime themselves, I was almost too tense to read. I have faith in Lincoln and Amelia and I know they'll solve it in the end; with Tate and Bett, I wasn't confident.
I also noticed that without detectives, there's little reprieve from the suspense. Usually, we might alternate a scary scene of the serial killer in action with a couple of scenes of Lincoln Rhyme considering evidence. In this book, we alternated scary scenes of a killer with scary scenes of the pursuers getting into trouble.
It's a good story of twist-full suspense, but the main psycho guy was so psycho I felt overly scared and upset. If Lincoln Rhyme had been there, things would have been better.
From Here to Maternity, by Kris Webb and Kathy Wilson (2003)
LAME.
The book jacket promised me "outrageously, belly-laugh funny" and "best described as Bridget Jones has a baby." LIES! I suffered through 69 pages of "he threw back his head and laughed" and "obviously decided" and exaggerated "notice that we are trying to be funny, and we must be succeeding because our characters are laughing at our other characters' jokes!" writing, but the final straw was when the narrator brings up what is perhaps my least favorite thing to encounter in a book: the ridiculous remark that pregnancy is 10 months because it's 40 weeks. I suppose these authors live in a universe where a year is 48 weeks long. Is there seriously anyone left who doesn't know that a month averages 4.33 weeks and that the first two weeks of pregnancy occur before conception, so that a typical 40-week pregnancy is actually LESS than 9 months? If you conceive, for example, on October 1st, your due date (the 40-week mark) will be June 22nd. Let's all count together, shall we? Starting October 1st, to November 1st, December 1st, January 1st, February 1st, March 1st, April 1st, May 1st, June 1st, plus 22 days: 8 months and 22 days. When someone comes up with this "10 months" theory, do they not spend a moment THINKING ABOUT IT?? Is it really likely that EVERYONE ELSE has it wrong, and that ONLY they have come up with this remarkable math? Screw this book! I've suffered enough for my craft! Normally I'll give a book 50 pages before I give up on it, and I wish I hadn't given this one the extra 19.
A Habit of the Blood, by Lois Battle (1987)
I read 239 pages, well over half the book. Then I realized I didn't care: I didn't care about any of the characters, I didn't care what happened to any of them, and furthermore I would rather NOT know how it all turned out. The author spent page after page after page on character study: "She was the kind who this, she was the kind who that. She liked this sort of thing, but detested that kind. She was this, and yet not that. If she was this, it was because of that. She believed this was a result of that, and took it as her due"---and yet after all that description and detail, the characters weren't real or believable or interesting.