Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson (2006)
My, I'm tired of book and movie and television titles based on quirky town names, aren't you? This book is good enough for me to get over that and move on.
I am a sucker for stories of unexpected pregnancy, surprise delivery, and happy baby adoptions, and so this book is my cup of tea. Throw in twins, a love story, and another happy baby adoption, and I am all yours. Recommended.
Blankets, by Craig Thompson (2003)
This graphic novel starts out a little too distressing for me, but once we get past some sad childhood episodes and into sad teenager relationships, I can handle it. I enjoyed this story of a teenaged relationship, and I enjoyed the drawings.
To Serve Them All My Days, by R. F. Delderfield (1972)
At first I thought I had found the very sort of book I like to read occasionally to sluice out some of the garbage that piles up when I wade through other novels' stories of incest and molestation and nasty divorces. This story of a wounded war veteran who finds new life as a teacher at a boys' school was sweet and interesting and had the kind of innocence you don't see very often in modern novels. (It was published in 1972, but the experiences within are from earlier decades.)
After 400 pages, I'd had enough. I think this book would have been better if about half of it had been cut. Slogging through the twentieth debate about school policy and educational philosophy, or the third relationship in which the woman is eager in bed and yet also eager to give up her entire life to her husband's interests and pursuits, or the hundredth time the schoolteacher (based on the author) is praised for his exceptional talents and skills and character, my interest flagged. I felt as if I'd invested so much, I should keep going until the end--but I couldn't muster the energy.
One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson (2006)
I'd read two books by this author, and loved one and hated one. I was interested to see where this third book would fall.
In books with lots of mysterious coincidences and connections, either I am thinking, "Oo oo oo, I am dying to see how this works out!" or else I am thinking, "Quit screwing with me and tell me what happened already." This book was the latter. I felt manipulated by the twists, as if their only purpose was to keep the momentum going for an otherwise inferior plot. And then the solution wasn't worth all the messing around: instead of a huge amazing intricate master plot revealed, there was a fizzle as things sort of wrapped up and mostly didn't.
The book has construction problems that keep it from holding together or forming a worthwhile structure.
Wickett's Remedy, by Myla Goldberg (2005)
When you read many, many books, it is fun to find one that contains something surprising and new. In this book, there are comments in the margins from The Dead. That is, you will be reading along, taking in the details from Lydia's point of view, and one of Lydia's memories will mention casually in passing a certain food brought to a party, and that it was eaten only after everyone else's foods were gone. And the maker of that food, now deceased, will interject in the margin that she is quite sure her food was eaten along with everyone else's. Very peculiar. Very appealing. After awhile I was happy whenever I saw a new margin comment coming up.
The basic story is the 1918 flu epidemic, and that can be difficult to read about. A girl named Lydia is the one we follow, and so her losses are most painful to us, but all the stories are hard. It's difficult to imagine going through one of these epidemics, with too many dead bodies for the undertakers to be able to take them, and people too sick to take care of their sick families. This isn't the sort of reading material you should take with you on vacation. I also advise against reading it when you are yourself sick in bed.
A secondary story involves a successful businessman who stole a recipe from a widow and made a fortune from it. His half-senile letters to his deceased son show that he never rested easily about this. I thought this storyline could have used a better resolution; it seemed to hang there, unsettled. True, this is the way many such things are in real life: never fully resolved, or no chance for tying up loose ends. But in fiction, I like things taken care of.
I would have enjoyed, too, hearing more about Lydia's life after the book ended. Well, "wanting more" is the kind of feeling an author would be proud to leave a reader feeling, and certainly it is better than the "enough already!" feeling. I recommend the book, but it would be wise to make sure you were in the right frame of mind to read about a deadly epidemic.