Thirtieth Book

I had looked at A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick a number of times in the bookstore, but never ventured to pick it up. When Mum found out she was getting a kobo this summer, she bought a few books online, including this one. So I reaped the benefits of her purchase! The story is about a lonely, very wealth man living in rural Wisconsin who places an ad in the paper looking for a companion. Catherine responds and comes to live with him and be his wife. She plans to murder him. The story follows unfolds detailing each of their sordid pasts and describing them as terribly sad people who have had a really rough go at life. The reader learns of the complex web being woven around the main characters and around the midway mark of the book I had no idea how it would end. It's a dark book, but I very much enjoyed it and would recommend it.
I had bought Home by Shayna Krishnasamy for a couple of dollars on the kobo website. The story sounded somewhat reminiscent of the movie the Village by M. Night Shamalan, which I enjoyed, so I figured it was a pretty safe gamble. It was a great fantasy-type story about a young blind woman who lives in a secluded village in the woods. One day a young boy appears in the village and the villagers decide he is a threat to their peace and he must go, so the young blind woman offers to take him back to his home. As the story progresses we learn the woods they live in are dying and things are taking a terrible evil turn. I really enjoyed the story and it was a nice easy read. It also reminded me somewhat of the Book of Lost Things by John Connolly in that it was an eerie fantasy where the natural world has gone off.

After that, I read a tangible book (ie, not on the kobo). I found David Sedaris' new book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk at Walmart for 30% off. I bought the tangible book because it had some pictures. :) Sedaris has a very twisted sense of humour and this book intrigued me. It's written as a series of little stories about animals, much like Aesop's Fables, but the animals are jerks, liars, backstabbers and really kind of awful. Some of the stories made me grin, but none made me laugh out loud, and the vast majority were so bizarre and gruesome that I was left thinking that maybe reading this book wasn't benefiting me at all. When I asked Mum if she wanted to read it I warned her that if she did and she reached a point where it was too bizarre and gruesome but thought that maybe it would get better, she should know that it does not. The stories get weirder and more grotesque with each passing tale. I finished it in an evening and have been thinking of donating it to a used bookstore or the salvation army or something, but I'm a little afraid that someone might pick it up unknowingly and be horrified by the stories. I'm not sure what to do with it now.
And that makes 30 books this year. I'm certainly not going to be able to read 52 as I had hoped (one a week), but we'll see how many more I can get under my hat before the year is up.

In Series

After reading Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness, I started trying to track down a copy of the second book in an e-version. I looked and looked and couldn't find it so I when I finally stumbled upon it on the sony site (yay sony!) I started right into Dawn On A Distant Shore. Erin had told me that she started reading the series midway through and then read the first books afterwards and that the first one wasn't nearly as good as the later ones. She was totally right. The second book was much more interesting and a much better read. I found myself tearing through it. I had the third book all lined up and ready to go and was very interested in going right into it but decided to read something else in between.

I picked up Kiwis Might Fly by Polly Evans. The true story of a girl who goes to New Zealand to find a "realy Kiwi Bloke" who hadn't gotten soft with evolution, it sounded like a fun read. I still haven't finished it. I liked the writing style for the most part, but it just got boring. I think it would have been a hoot to read as a daily blog, but as a novel...meh. I finally gave up when I realized I wasn't reading because I wasn't interested. So I moved onto other things.

When I heard that Diana Gabaldon was creating a graphic novel of the first Outlander book I was nervous but somewhat intriqued. Then I saw some of the drawings that would come and I was mildly horrified and my anxiety was not alleviated in the least. The drawings were not only NOT what I had pictured the characters to look like, but they were so far from what I had pictured that I wasn't sure it was the same story. So when the graphic novel came out, what did I do? I went out and bought The Exile in hardcover right away! I read the story cover to cover and probably had a frown on my face through most of it. The story was ok, I guess, but I think the thing that worked best about Outlander (on which this book is told from one of the other characters and involves something of a side story) is the description and the emotion and the thoughts and internal dialogue of Claire. In a graphic novel that's pretty much non existent. For the most part Claire just looked annoyed and kept saying "Jesus H Roosevelt Christ". Sigh. It was suggested that I return the book as no one would know I had read it, but I do have the whole series and I think I want to give it one more try and study things a little more. But I certainly won't be expecting much.

After I gave up on Kiwis I decided to go for something that would most likely be a hit: the third in the Wilderness Series Lake In the Clouds. The second book in the series was better than the first and this was better than the second. I ripped through it in just over a week and in the times that I wasn't reading I found myself wishing I could be. That's the sign of a good story as far as I'm concerned. I was a bit confused to start with as the story started out several years after the second book ended and the author eluded to some pretty major events that happened between books but I double checked online and sure enough I hadn't missed a book in between. The story broadened and followed different characters who had grown up since the second book, making it a more varied story and more interesting. Plus, the move away from some of the main characters from the first two books was a good change as I wasn't terribly attached to them. I'm excited for the next book, though I've decided to take another break before starting it. I do have rather a lot of other books to read and I can see this series becoming fairly consuming.