Stitches

Okay. So I'm getting desperate here. It's December, and the weight of my goal to read 52 books this year is weighing heavier than a bucket of eggnog. I remember my son and husband laughing at me earlier this year when I told them my goal. Maybe they were right. But I still have four weeks to prove them wrong. Dignity is a huge motivating force in my life.

Reading a graphic memoir might sound like cheating to some. More pictures than words. But the experience of reading such a book is just as rich.

This is the first book-length graphic memoir I've read, and the form delights me. David Small's images are evocative, and force the reader to fill in the blanks, creating his/her own dialogue.

I loved how one earlier image and all the set-up and words that went along with it...









... could be recalled by another later in the book.

Read more about Stitches, David Small, and his work by visiting his site.

The Year of Magical Thinking

The style of writing perfectly reflects the author's delicate state of being in the events described in this book. Certain phrases repeated throughout, like a soothing lullaby, help the reader understand how lost the author was during the year after her husband past away, and in which her daughter faced a near-death experience. It's a gentle love story that will bring more than a few tears to its readers.

The First Rule

Okay, I'm still waaaaaaay behind schedule, and could have gone for a slimmer novel than this one, but as it turns out, this book took no time at all to read. It's got one of those covers that sticks to your fingers.

It's the first of Crais's novels I've read, and I'm hooked. His main protagonist, Joe Pike, is so well painted that you feel like you're in the picture with him, outsmarting and catching bad guys. Pike has a tough shell and a gooey interior, but Crais never dissolves into saccharine to let you see it. You'll find out about Pike through his actions, and Crais is crafty about how he chooses them.

A great action read!

A Perfect Match

The author made some interesting choices in this book. For example, the events of the prologue--events that form the basis of much of the rest of the book--are repeated at the end of the first chapter. I thought it was unusual to have foreshadowed so directly a series of events that are that important to the plot.

Picoult gets her characters into great trouble, which I admired. Relationships that could have been superficial are explored in tremendous depths, and the author lets her flawed characters do what they know is wrong. Somehow, she manages to make their lives whole again, even after all the holes they dig for themselves.

I had two problems with this book: one is that the ending consists of two twists that are both well beyond improbable. There's just no way either one of them could have reasonably happened. And the other problem was an occasional splash of saccharine, lines so precious they undermine the author's otherwise solid writing. An example? The biggest offender for me was a sentence that came at a point in the novel when the protagonist (Nina) faces huge problems in her household, problems that affect her relationship with her husband. It's Hallowe'en, and Nina has been too preoccupied to properly prepare for the event, either for her five-year-old son or for any visiting trick-or-treaters.

Nina tosses him a helpless look; there is no candy in this house. There's nothing left that's sweet.

I could have done without that one.

The book explores with some meaning the love a parent has for a child, and I think it's worth reading for that. Just accept that you might not believe everything you read in this book.

The Front

A quick read -- closer to novella-length than a novel.

The book was written in a style I find irking -- a series of short sentences, and not always complete ones at that.

He's ordering an iced coffee at Starbucks when he feels somebody behind him. Glances around. Cal Tradd.

Much of the dialogue was in the same choppy style. I know of few people who talk that way ordinarily, so it was odd to find almost all the characters speaking like that.

My favorite passage involved a corpulent elderly woman who was offered a ride on the back of a motorcycle by Win, a handsome younger man.

Win puts on his helmet, says, "You want to hop on the back and I'll give you a ride?"

She guffaws. "Don't make me wet my pants! My Lord in heaven. A whale like me on a itty-bitty jet ski."

"Come on." He pats the back of the seat. "Hop on. I'll take you to your car."

Her face goes slack. Then something soft and sad in her eyes, because he means it.

I love that last sentence.

It's a quick beach read, easy enough to keep turning the pages, and is over before you know it. But if you're looking to have your socks knocked off, look elsewhere.

Paths of Glory

I'm definitely behind schedule for finishing 52 books this year, and I'll lay some of the blame on this book.

It wasn't a real page-turner. I admired how Archer took a real-life story and fictionalized it. At times, however, the action screeched to a halt. Here's an example of how that happened, in a scene where George (the protagonist) goes to a meeting with his former boss (Mr. Fletcher), the headmaster at a school:

Mr. Fletcher was a stickler for punctuality, and would no doubt be pleased, and possibly even surprised, that George was five minutes early. George straightened his gown and took off his mortar board before knocking on the door of the outer office.

"Come in," said a voice. George entered the room to find Fletcher's secretary, Miss Sharpe, seated at her desk. Nothing changes, he thought. "Welcome back, Mr. Mallory," she said. "May I say," she added, "how much we've all been looking forward to seeing you again following your triumph on Everest." On Everest, thought George, but not on top of it. "I'll let the headmaster know you're here."

"Thank you, Miss Sharpe," said George as she went into the adjoining room. A moment later the door opened. "The headmaster will see you now," she said.

"Thank you," George repeated, and marched into Mr. Fletcher's study. Miss Sharpe closed the door behind him.

"Good morning, Mallory," said the headmaster as he rose from behind his desk. "Good of you to be so punctual."

What is the point of the encounter with the secretary, who is never seen again? Could we not dispense with her and go straight to the headmaster's office door? To me, this kind of ponderous action makes for difficult reading. Sorry, Mr. Archer.

The Unnamed

I really enjoyed the author's first effort in Then We Came to the End, so didn't hesitate to pick this one up.

The protagonist has an unnamed condition that causes him to walk incessantly. My only quibble with the book is that the condition comes and goes several times, in almost a wishy-washy fashion, as does his wife's illness.

My favorite paragraph comes at the point in the novel when the walker, who has been wandering for several months, calls home and speaks to his daughter, who advises him that her mother (the walker's wife) has gone on vacation to France.

He stood in the snow-patched prairie with the ice-blue brook running toward the rafting centers and trailer parks, far from the south of France, far from Paris, and a wave of death washed over him. Not biological death, which brought relief, but the death that harrows the living by giving them a glimpse of the life they've been denied. Its sorrow was a thousandfold any typical dying.