This week’s trip to the library was pleasantly surprising.  The library system here isn’t as good as our one back in Colorado, but it is far better than some other libraries I’ve been to.  I would give it a rating of above average, but not excellent.  They don’t have children’s librarians, so when my kids are on the hunt for new titles, the librarians vary between slightly helpful and downright snotty to my kids.  While my bigger kids are on the prowl for more books, I take my littler ones to the picture book section and try to find a stack to enjoy.  I miss our old library’s highlighted sections, like books for Mo Willems lovers, that sort of thing.  There is nothing like that here and we end up with quite a few duds.  Sometimes we don’t check out anything at all since we have a decent collection of books at home to enjoy.  A few weeks ago I discovered a new books display in the children’s section and we picked it clean.  I read all of them to my kids before we checked them out and only liked one.  This week we did the same, cleaning out the new books display and found three that were excellent.  Jackpot!  This is our highest success rate so far!

I love retellings of fables and fairy tales.  The reason why those stories are classic and retold over and over again is because they ring true to each generation and become part of our cultural DNA.  My family had these hardback books that were compilations of fairy tales with illustrations.  I devoured them and read them so many times that between my reading and my siblings’, we wore the cover off and lost pages.  I especially loved stories of clever people getting out of trouble or finding their ways up the social ladders using their wits, like The Brave Little Tailor or Clever Gretel.  We have a copy of Andrew Lang’s The Blue Fairy Book that I’m picking through to find my favorites to read to my kids.  I own all of Lang’s fairy books on Kindle, but that’s years worth of reading, so I’m pacing myself.  So yes, my point is that I love fairy tales, tall tales and fables and I love when people do their own twists on them.  It’s fun.

The first book we found isn’t a retelling of a classic fairy tale, but it was so perfectly told in that same style, that I’m lumping it in with the other books.  The King Who Wouldn’t Sleep by Debbie Singleton is about a king who refuses to sleep until he finds the perfect prince for his daughter to marry.  Princes come and go, but none are satisfactory to the king and all their efforts to get the king to sleep so they can talk to the princess fail.  While all this goes on, there is a clever farmer who comes up with a way to get the king to sleep so he can woo the princess.  It was just super cute and clever and unexpected.  Those are pretty much the top three reasons why I like my favorite picture books.

The second book is a version of Jack and the Beanstalk that became more of a tall tale than a fairy tale.  Jack’s mother hasn’t made barbecue since his father died in Jack and the Giant Barbecue by Eric A. Kimmel.  His father’s barbecue was legendary, the best in West Texas, but when a giant stole his recipe book, his heart failed him.  Jack seeks out to find the giant and retrieve the cookbook, or else he vows to never eat barbecue again.  His trip up the mountain into the clouds leads him to the giant’s greasy barbecue shack where he meets a heartbroken jukebox.  When the giant shows up and does the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum routine, Kimmel’s version had me snorting with laughter.  I was hooked.  I did my very best Texas accent as I read it to my kids, which only made it more awesome for them, I’m sure.  When I looked in the back cover and saw that Kimmel had written other southwestern takes on classic stories, I knew we had to try them out.  Oh, and I super duper loved John Manders’ illustrations.  Just such fun.

The last book was pretty much a straight-up telling of Aesop’s fable The Ant and the Grasshopper, but it was done in such a tender, compassionate way that I had to add it.  Luli Gray’s Ant and Grasshopper depicts a more complicated relationship between the two insects than just a hardworking ant and a careless and foolish grasshopper.  Ant is miserly, taking careful stock of his food and constantly counting what he has, ignoring Grasshopper’s pleas to enjoy the summer.  He angrily shuts Grasshopper out into the cold when winter comes and Grasshopper isn’t prepared.  But Ant has a terrible dream that leads him back out into the snow and saves Grasshopper’s life.  He comes to appreciate Grasshopper for his talents and the books ends on such a lovely note.  Sounds preachy doesn’t it?  It doesn’t feel that way when I read it to my kids.  What is funny is that my daughter kept railing against the lazy Grasshopper during the book, up until Ant has his change of heart.  Then I could see her softening too.

On a hopefully not-too-tangential note, I was going to see the new Spiderman movie with my husband a month or so ago and laughing over seeing yet another reboot of a not-very-old movie franchise.  I told my daughter to give it a decade and they’ll start to redo all her favorite movies too.  ”Even Harry Potter?” she cried, incredulously.  ”Why would anyone ever redo the Harry Potter movies?!”   “To make it their own, of course,” I told her.  I explained how some stories are so lasting and important to people that they can’t help but retell those stories over and over again, in whatever medium strikes their fancy.  These book selections remind me of that conversation and I’m glad that people are still retelling Aesop or the Brothers Grimm.  I like it that people are making those stories their own.  It makes me want to do the same.

Where the Abhorsen trilogy was fantasy/steam punk (before steam punk was actually a thing), A Confusion of Princes is straight up science fiction.  All these years I’ve been waiting for another Garth Nix book that was outside the realm of the Abhorsen world and I never suspected that Nix had this up his sleeve.  One thing that Nix does well is world-building.  This universe he crafts is one full of oppressed people, dominated by a omniscent emperor and his millions of “princes” who are essentially the military of the empire.  Young men and women are taken as babies and given physical and mental alterations and enhancements to create them into the nearly indestructible fighting force needed to maintain an empire this large and threatened by rebels.  Whoa, sounds kinda like Star Wars if the storm troopers weren’t just clones, but also genetically and mechanically enhanced superior beings.  That’s where I’ll stop comparing this book to Star Wars, I promise.

The story is told from Prince Khemri’s point of view.  He is ready to leave his home planet, having finished his training and surgeries and implants and all that good stuff.  His vision of his life after leaving the sanctity of his home is based on stories he has read since he was a boy about a fictional prince who had grand adventures in space.  Khemri has no idea that the world of the princes is full of political intrigue, assassination attempts, and the constant grind of being under the boot of higher-level princes and the emperor.  Khemri, with the help of Master Haddad, his chief assassin and spy (sort of like a really amazing ninja who’s got your back), he barely makes it to the safety of a nearby planet with a Navy base.  He unwillingly joins the Navy and begins his military career.

Princes have always been given great privileges and prestige, but they are asked to do horrendous things once they reach those upper levels of command.  I should say if they reach upper levels of command because princes spend a great deal of their time trying to kill each other off.  Less competition for those top spots.  When Khemri is hand-picked by the priests of the emperor for a special assignment, he jumps at the chance, even when the opportunity requires that he leave behind all the enhancements he has become so dependent on.

Khemri is dumped into a remote star system and given the task of infiltrating a planet full of people who have had little to nothing to do with the Empire for a long time.  Right after he arrives, he finds the remains of a battle and one survivor of an attack on these people by another Prince and her army.  Here is where the book starts to get predictable.  Of course he falls in love with a simple human, of course he learns that these people are real and sees the importance of families and human connections, of course he has to go back to being a normal prince after betraying the people who have taken him in.  None of these things are original.  But there was just enough originality to keep me going, especially with the amazing universe Nix creates.

The story is all told in first-person and the problem with that is when you’re telling your own story and you’re the hero of that story, there is the danger of coming across as a braggart or a jerk.  Nix makes a huge jerk out of Khemri from the get-go, but then it got fun to be in there with his thoughts while he navigates each scenario he gets tossed into or scrambles out of.  How Khemri makes his decisions and works his way through the echelons of the princely system was fascinating.

There’s probably not a ton of you lovely readers who are dying to get your hands on some great science fiction, but regardless, I can recommend this one.  It’s marketed as a young adult novel, but I found enough adult content to consider it at the upper end of my threshold.  The story was fast-paced and exciting and I forgave a lot of the faults for rating high on the coolness factor.  Not too bad of an endorsement, I don’t think.  It’s safe to say that Nix can write science fiction well.

With the third Mysterious Benedict book ending on such a final note, I wondered what Stewart would do next.  With any other author, I would have thought a prequel to be a desperate plumbing of the money well.  With The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, I thought, “Yes, please!  Tell me all about how the wonderful Mr. Benedict grew up!”  If you don’t remember, or if you’ve never read any of these books and are just curious, the children in the original series are mentored, protected, educated and guided by the kindly and slightly mysterious Mr. Nicholas Benedict.  He suffers from narcolepsy, which is often triggered by strong emotions.  He has an evil twin, Ledopthra Curtain, who is out to thwart him at every turn.  He is a genius himself and often sees through the tough facades of certain prickly children.  He also has a large, bulbous nose and a terribly squeaky laugh.  Hey, he can’t be perfect.

In Extraordinary Education, it shows off nine-year-old Nicholas’ uncanny ability to notice and deduce things, his photographic memory, and his incredible skill at fixing and inventing things.  The book begins with his arrival at a new orphanage.  He has been shuffled from one to another since the death of his aunt.  His narcolepsy makes him difficult to manage, owing to the horrendous nightmares he suffers from and sudden and dangerous naps he will periodically take.  Honestly though, what kind of story would have Nicholas as a happy little boy, surrounded by family?  Then his name would be Encyclopedia Brown, and as much as I loved those books as a girl, Nicholas Benedict is far more interesting.

The orphanage is in dire straights, due to the previous director’s wanton ways and the current director, Mr. Collum, is desperate to cut any costs to save it from folding.  The manor that doubles as the orphanage was once owned by the Rothchilds, wealthy, childless benefactors who left their fortune to take care of orphans, only to have it squandered by poor management.  Over the years, a journal of Mr. Rothchild’s was discovered, describing a great treasure that is on the property and Mr. Collum is determined to find it and save the orphanage’s finances.  When Nicholas gets his hands on it, he joins the search, though secretly and with his own agenda.

Poor Nicholas has every obstacle in his way.  He is locked into his tiny attic room every night to save the other children from hearing his screams when he has nightmares.  A trio of bullies has it out for him since he constantly outwits and humiliates them.  Mr. Collum is a cold, unfeeling man who refuses to see that he has a genius on his hands.  The one friend Nicholas has is John, but it even takes him a while to sacrifice his own safety and social standing for the sake of Nicholas’ friendship.  The hope of finding the treasure gives Nicholas purpose, along with a new friend who shows up.  He remains so positive despite his trials, but as he examines his own motivations, he begins to realize that he wasn’t as altruistic as he thought he was.

I don’t want to give too much away here.  It really is terribly exciting, though the middle drags a bit as they slog along, trying to find more clues to the treasure.  The possibility of finding the treasure remains remote through most of the book, until the snowballing excitement of the last fifty pages.  Some passages had me feeling misty-eyed, especially when he recognizes his mistakes and sees true kindness in its most honest form.

Here’s the thing.  I don’t own books unless I really want them.  I see no point in paying money for a book I may or may not like.  If they belong in my family, I buy them.  We own all three Mysterious Benedict Society books, plus we have all the audiobooks, including for Extraordinary Education.  That’s a lot of money and love we’ve invested in these books.  I just recently found out that my second daughter has never finished the third book due to some distracting silly fairy something-or-other and that will simply not do.  No sir.  These are required reading at our house.  I have recommended these books to countless people, including my proudest achievement, when after a particularly passionate speech on the merits of these books to a woman in a bookstore in Denver, she purchased all three and left with a smile on her face.  That’s how strongly I feel about them.  And you will too.

Pretty soon I was subscribed to the Crash Course channel, then the Vlog Brothers channel, also done by John and Hank Green, then The Lizzie Bennet diaries, which is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice via vlogging (a hoot), also a Hank Green production. I’m obviously overdosing on the Green family, but I don’t mind a bit. Whether or not I agree with every political bent, they are at least super funny about it. And I’m a sucker for super funny! And nerdy funny! They had me at the invented word “nerdfighter”.

John Green’s newest book, The Fault In Our Stars, just came out in January and since I was overdosing myself with Green brothers genius, I decided to give that a read too. I was not prepared for this book. I knew it had something to do with teenagers and cancer, but I was not ready for loving these characters as quickly and thoroughly as I did, so having the subject matter be so serious ate away at me. Sixteen-year-old Hazel Lancaster and seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters meet at a cancer support group for kids. Hazel’s thyroid cancer is held at bay for the indeterminate future by a miracle drug, while Augustus is in remission from bone cancer, after having had his leg amputated. Augustus is shockingly handsome and interested in Hazel, much to her shock and surprise. Hazel is tethered to an oxygen tank for the rest of her life since no miracle drug can undo the damage already done to her lungs, and has spent the last several years at home, doing school with her mom and obsessing over her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction by the fictional Peter Van Houten. The book is about another girl with cancer and ends tauntingly mid-sentence. The book torments Hazel and after she and Augustus bond over the book, they end up in Amsterdam to hunt down its reclusive author.

Van Houten wasn’t what they expected or hoped for and they return home. Life begins to unravel, though. Hazel and Augustus ask so much of each other and hang on so tightly that I could almost physically feel it. They both learn so much about what it means to be sick or healthy and what defines them. Cancer is this huge, looming shadow over both their lives, taking up every inch of space and yet, they find ways to be happy and see other people as they truly are. What’s wonderful is that Green was able to thread humor throughout, never making it feel forced. And that’s life, right? Tragedy and comedy all rolled up together.

This book made my heart ache. I felt consumed by it when I reached the end and in fact, I think I told a friend that the book ate me alive. It was so beautiful and agonizing that I felt empty when I finished, like it sucked out every last emotion I was capable of feeling. Hopefully this paragraph isn’t going to keep anyone from reading the book, but if you’re looking for something light, this shouldn’t be your choice. If you’re looking for something that will make you cry, this is a sure bet. But I hate crying needlessly and wouldn’t recommend a book that wasn’t worth the tears. This one is worth every drop.

For some more blurbs of reviews, check out John Green’s website. Those snippets say it even better than I can.

On an additional side note, this a young adult novel that leans more to the adult in regards to language and content. I’d say give your teenager some time before recommending it to them.

Did anyone read this article, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” by Amy Chua, back when it was circulating around in the social networks six months ago? Please tell me you were just as astonished by it as I was. When my book group recommended we read Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, I was all for it. I knew there had to be more to the story than just that article, which is an excerpt from her book. If you haven’t read the article, you might want to give it a quick once-over before you read my review. If I were a tiger mother, I’d quiz you on it when you’re done.

There is a generalization that Asian children are smarter than their western counterparts. If not smarter, then let’s say instead that they are higher-achieving, and higher-scoring. Amy Chua writes in her book that you can find the answer in Chinese parenting and then she goes on to describe exactly how a Chinese mother parents. Four or five hours a day of practicing an instrument, or drilling math facts, after the hours of homework have been finished to perfection is a typical day for an Asian child. No playing outside with friends or watching tv for these kids. I’m massively skimming the surface here, but just know that it’s an intense lifestyle, demanding on both parents and children. Though I have to admit, it’s obvious that it does produce very successful children.

The book is less an justification of Chua’s parenting than a description of her journey through trying to parent one child who complies and one who fights. Those fights are nasty, too. The whole situation with Chua and her second daughter, Louisa, is stomach-churningly awful. Not that I agree that parents have to keep the waters still at all times and never deal with tough situations head on, but their fights nearly gave me an ulcer just from reading about it. The more Louisa fought against her mother’s demands, the more her mother dug in and demanded more. It was so ugly.

Surprisingly, the further I got into Chua’s book, the more I agreed with her on certain points. She wrote:

Western parents worry a lot about their children’s self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there’s nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t.

That rang true in my mind. I often push my kids past the point where they would have just naturally given up, but I think that most parents do that, otherwise no child would ever learn to read, swim, ride a bike, do long-division, etc. But I would never scream at my kids, threaten to burn their toys, or call them garbage to get them to succeed. Of course, I don’t make my kids practice piano for four hours a day either so maybe that’s what it takes to get those results.

Here’s the thing that bugs me: success in these families is only measured by whether or not they are the top student in their class, what piece they are able to play on the violin, or whether not they made it to the National Spelling Bee. And there is zero tolerance for failure. I look at this kind of life and wonder, what’s the point? Sure, you can get into any college to study whatever you want (which would only really end up being law, medicine or music if you’re fulfilling your parents’ expectations), but then what? Hard work at a hard job and repeating the cycle with your own kids? Why? Are Asian children happier from all this success?

After reading this, I started to examine my own parenting and realized that I am a watered-down tiger mother. I just spent part of an afternoon writing down all my tiger mothering, and then I deleted every sentence of it. I’m not apologetic about it, but I don’t want everybody to know every gory detail of my tenacious parenting. Before you start to worry, I’m no Amy Chua, but I do expect a lot from my kids. That said, I still believe in play dates and swimming all summer long and letting my kids watch Phineas and Ferb. Chua would think I’m a terrible, western mother, but if I’m not a tiger like her, I’m at least a lynx or something. There are times that I wish I was as easy-going as some of my friends and not ask as much of my kids just so I could have less demands on my time, but I believe I’m doing what is ultimately best for them. Just like Chua for her girls, I guess.

The book ends on a good note, which made me glad. It seems a bit premature for Chua to write her story when her girls are still teenagers, though. I’d love to see what happens with each of these girls’ families and if those parenting styles carry on to the next generation. How long is that sustainable? Will eventually enough generations of western-born kids become more like their peers? It’d be interesting to read her children’s memoirs in another fifty years.

The man who killed Pluto’s planetary status is Mike Brown, author of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming which is the nerdiest and most fascinating book I’ve read all year.  Brown is an astronomer whose original goal was to find another planet, not to disprove Pluto’s status.  Essentially what happened (and this is a VERY watered down version) was that Brown discovered an object bigger than Pluto, which proved that Pluto is actually part of the Kuiper belt and not a planet after all.  Or a dwarf planet, if you hate to leave ol’ Pluto out of the game.  The science explaining all this is very approachable and easy to understand, which is good since the sum total of my knowledge of astronomy is the acronym to remember the names and order of the planets, which is now incorrect since Pluto isn’t a planet.

What was riveting (since I’m not as virtuous as to proclaim that I’m motivated by science all on its own) was the drama.  The competition to find new objects between astronomers, the undermining and backbiting that can happen, the tension of worldwide astronomer associations haggling over details, and even the outright fraud had me on the edge of my seat.  I already know what happened since I didn’t live under a rock in 2005, but it was just so darn exciting to get the inside scoop.  I read this book months ago and I can still remember details over how the whole Pluto-not-a-planet shenanigan occurred.  If this is what nerd soap operas would be like, then let me put on my fuzzy slippers and bathrobe and sit in my easy chair because I’m on board.

If you’re in the mood for some great non-fiction, this is the book for you.  If you’re still mad about Pluto not being a planet, this will give you the real story.  If you need something that’ll work your brain harder than your other beach reads, give it a try.  What I’m saying here is that pretty much everybody will like it.  If you don’t, come back and tell me.  It won’t make Pluto become a planet again, but it’ll probably make you feel better to vent a bit.

I’m lazy, so I’m going to rip off the description of this book from Goodreads.  Don’t judge me too harshly.

“On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down’s Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this story that unfolds over a quarter of a century – in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night. Norah Henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can, in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own.”

Notice how it says that this grief weighs heavily on Norah up there?  Yeah, so she turns into a cheating cheater-pants.  Sure, her husband is emotionally distant, but she could have attempted to TALK TO HIM.  I spent the entirety of this novel saying, “Somebody just start talking!  You’re all driving me nuts!!!”  Three exclamation points nuts, my friends.  That’s a lot of nuts.  I kept reading because I wanted to see how it ended and, thankfully, it wasn’t a terrible ending, just still so darn sad.

I liked Caroline, the nurse, and her experiences in raising Phoebe.  That’s about it.  If you’re in the mood for a sad book, go for it.

Do you like how I’m completely glossing over the fact that no reviewing has been done on RHE for quite
some time?  Isn’t that nice of me to save you the groveling and sniveling and begging for forgiveness?  It’s so unattractive anyway.

From my local library, I requested Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs so many months before I actually received the book that I completely forgot why I requested it in the first place.  It’s fun when that happens because then the book is completely unknown to me.  It sat on my nightstand for a week before I picked it up because, well, it looked weird.  Take a look at that cover.  Weird, right?  When I finally opened it up, it caught me in the first few paragraphs and didn’t let go.  I was consumed by this book.  The narrator, sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman, has been traumatized by the gruesome death of his grandfather.  He was close to his grandpa, remembering stories he told to him of peculiar children on an island near Ireland, where he had been sent to during WWII to escape internment camps.  Jacob spends months in therapy, trying to deal with the trauma he underwent the night of his grandfather’s death, when his therapist suggests that he go to the island he’s been hearing stories about his entire life and see if that doesn’t help his fears.  When Jacob and his father arrive on the island, things do get better, but because Jacob finds out that all the stories are true.

You know that phrase, “spine tingling”?  It describes this book fairly well.  The story by itself was creepy, suspenseful and borderline terrifying, but then it was interspersed with photographs that only made it even more intense.  I’m sure Riggs wrote his story around these rare and bizarre photographs, but instead it feels like he had photographic evidence that these peculiar children existed.  Ooh, there goes my spine again.  The peculiar children aren’t even the scary part, either.  Categorized as a young adult novel, I would venture to say that it’s more like 15 and up, if your particular young adult isn’t going to end up with nightmares.

Right off the bat, I need to tell you that if you haven’t read a single book in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, this whole paragraph will be meaningless.  Feel free to skip down.  Shadows in Flight is the latest installment of this epic saga, specifically the Shadow side story that has nearly outpaced the originally four books in scope.  Bean and his three children afflicted with his mutant gene have taken to space, letting relativity take its course and allowing advances in science to speed by while zero gravity allows Bean to outlast his giantism and impending death.  His children, Ender, Carlotta and Cinncinatus (nicknamed Sergeant) are just as brilliant and precocious as Bean was at the age of six, making a name for himself at Battle School and becoming Ender’s (the original) right hand man, er, boy.  Each of the children’s unique skills are needed when they come across an alien ship, orbiting a planet that is a likely candidate for colonization.

This was an emotional book for me to read.  I feel like I know Bean so well that I was invested in his children finding a cure that would save their lives, even if it was too late for Bean.  His inward pain at having to prepare his kids for their uncertain future made my mothering tear ducts well up.  Card uses his standard quick-witted repartee and gunfire quick dialog to propel the story on and I found myself reading faster and faster because I could feel that sense of urgency his characters were feeling, desperate to find a cure.  And the ending of this book.  Oh my.  I can’t talk about it.  I’m overwhelmed.

Every time I start to think that Card is just pumping a dry well for more stories and bigger paydays, I am proven wrong.  It isn’t that he is writing more books about Ender and Bean’s universe just because people buy the books, though I’m sure that is nice, but because there are just so many stories that need to be told.  It’s like saying that you only need two or three books about the Civil War.  There are thousands of stories that need to be told about the Civil War, including fictional ones.  The universe that Card created with Ender’s Game and tangentially with Ender’s Shadow have so many stories that need to be told and I’m more than happy to read them.

Speaking of book series that go on for decades, Sue Grafton’s alphabetical mystery novels recently got a new addition with V is for Vengeance.  It’s a hokey idea, this alphabet business, one that I’m sure Grafton didn’t take too seriously when she started out.  Now that Kinsey Millhone, private investigaor, is this fully fleshed character, it seems cheap that she has to star in books with gimmicky titles.  Too late to change it now.  Kinsey starts her story with talking about her broken nose and necessary plastic surgery, which of course we don’t find out about until the end of the book, but it’s an opener that kept me interested.  This time organized crime is at the core and the story itself is a page-turner, but what I’ve been enjoying is Grafton’s shift from first person of Kinsey, to third person with other characters.  She only started doing this in the last few books and it really changes the story.  At first I thought it would mean that I’d figure out the mystery faster, but in V is for Vengeance, Grafton laid enough traps and held back just enough details that when the curtain was lifted, I was left speechless.  I love when that happens.

Here’s the deal with Grafton’s books: I never remember how graphic they can be.  It’s like my brain erases it after the fact because I love the story so much and just can’t get enough of Kinsey Millhone.  She is so complicated, such a contrast of tough, nervy, and stubborn and yet fragile and tender.  But man, the language.  Ugh, the bedroom scenes.  It’s too much, even though it’s really not that much.  My tolerance level is very low, though.  Be forewarned, is what I’m saying here.

It feels so nice to have good books to write about!  When I was stuck in the midst of David Copperfield, I was worried I’d never see the other side.  I think I’ll stick with his books that are under 1000 pages.

I know I might be sending this out in to the void, since many readers probably have long since abandoned our empty site for more fertile and frequent writers, but I’d love to know what books you love.  Ones that you’d recommend to people you like.  Ones that you’d want in your house in case zombies invade your town and you can’t leave except for scavenging trips to the landfill.  Ones that made you realize that you love to read.  Or just give me the highlights of your book clubs latest choices.  Give me something.  I need to be reminded that there are other book lovers out there and that it’s worth writing about.  It might motivate me to get off my lazy bum and write something.