sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

The Sister by Poppy Adams 2008 (273 pgs)

Two sisters, inseparable in childhood, reunite for the first time in fifty years. Ginny has stayed in the family home, pursuing the multi-generational vocation of moth collection and study. Vivian escaped as soon as possible to a freeing life in London. They’ve pursued completely separate lives for decades, never speaking to each other. As the book opens, Ginny awaits Vivian homecoming. And as she waits, she thinks back on their childhood and the secrets, shared and solitary, that bind and separate them.

A riveting book with exceptional writing and masterful grasp of the slow reveal. I devoured it in two sittings.

win one for the ripper

Broken  by Kelley Armstrong (480 pgs) 2006 (Women of the Otherworld #6)

This latest entry returns the focus to Elena, the werewolf who began the series.  She takes a seemingly simple job stealing a letter supposedly written by Jack the Ripper.  Things turn quickly when a drop of blood opens a portal.  A couple of murdering zombies fall out, as well as various plagues from the Ripper’s time.  It’s up to Elena and her pack to piece things back together and close the portal before the rest of hell breaks loose.

meme this

The 100 Novels Meme

(Swiped this off a co-worker’s page.  Looked interesting.  Try it, you might like it.)

Instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you have read a bit from but never finished, italicize the ones you might/want to read in the future, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10-foot pole, and do not do anything to the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride And Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkein)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkein)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkein)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (C Brontë)
21. The Hobbitt (Tolkein)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (E Brontë)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Gift & Award Bible NIV (Various)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brahares)
67. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

why me

72 Hour Hold by Bebe Moore Campbell (321 pgs/read 20) 2005

Picked up this book thinking it would be my next I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. They have similar subject matter (dealing with the breakdown of a mentally ill family member) and the Lamb book is in my top 25. I was underwhelmed. Campbell writes fine, but the “I’ve led a perfect life, so God, why would you plague me with an imperfect daughter” thing grates on me. I’d recommend it to fans of faith-affirming novels.

annoying afterlife

Everlost by Neal Schusterman (313 pgs) 2006

Writers who have no idea how teenagers think or talk should not be allowed to write YA.  An interesting premise: kids under 17 are stranded in a no man’s land afterlife if they get distracted and miss the white light at the end of the tunnel.  The author does build the world in interesting ways: if you stop moving anywhere but a ‘dead spot’ you start sinking, kids who forget what they look like alter their bodies, if you have the talent you can ‘skin-jack’ the living.  Disappointingly, the dialogue is literally eye-rolling.   I’d recommend it to kids looking for a cool adventure or with an interest in the afterlife.  While definitely not for the critical or ‘literate’ (hate that word) reader, the story was interesting enough for me to skim-read.

what is the what

Intent o’ this blog is to make up for my lack of memory.  I’m gonna keep track of what I’ve read here, so I don’t have to count on myself or scribbled notes or the oft new-years-intentioned reading journal.  I also plan to make mini-reviews periodically that can do double duty on work blogs/newsletters/etc (me work in a library.)  So that’s the scoop.  Exciting, no?