T is for Terrific (albeit Terrifying)

T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
my sister told me about bookmooch.com and i became a member almost 3 years ago. initially, i gave away a ton of books, and racked up so many points there was no way i would ever recoup them. i decided i might as well try to collect a few things...nancy drew books being the first. then i decided it might be cool to collect hard covers of the sue grafton alphabet series. i'd read almost all of them, and actually, i think kinsey was my first foray into detective fiction. to give credit where it's due, she is probably my adult nancy drew! anyway, i successfully "mooched" all of the sue grafton novels, through S. i think i bought T when it came out last year, but just shelved it along with the others.

i came down with a URI after christmas, and a kinsey tale seemed perfect for the recuperation period. and oh was it ever. T is for Trespass has got to be one of the best of grafton's series. there's not a false note anywhere. i was worried that grafton's writing from a perspective other than kinsey (solana) would be off putting, but once the story grabbed me, it didn't matter. i read T in less than 48 hours. i love kinsey for so many reasons...she's smart, funny, and down to earth...i find myself doing a lot of "oh yeah, i know EXACTLY what she means..." it doesn't matter that she's stuck in the 80s. you truly never notice it.

it becomes a bit personal in T. but kinsey handles it with her usual aplomb. love that girl, she's so awesome. and T is definitely a 5-star read. kudos, sue, kudos. i'll be devastated when you get to Z.


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True Fun

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
i gave "living dead" another try, and i'm glad i did. i like charlaine harris a lot...i like her style...the writing is quick and funny...and I think...has some substance...some thought provoking scenarios...moral dilemmas sookie is presented with...and the vampire world harris has created in bon temps is fascinating. of course, i do think it helps if you can suspend all belief, and if you're remotely interested in anything vampirish.

while i didn't enjoy it as much as "dead until dark," i liked it enough to continue with the series...and if i didn't know that "true blood" came AFTER, i'd have thought harris watched it before writing "living dead." it's pretty racy!!




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2 much in4mation

The Information Officer by Mark Mills


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
i have slogged about halfway through this book, and i'm just giving up. i simply cannot get excited enough about it to find out whodunnit. i don't care about malta, i don't care about the war, i don't care about the characters. i really enjoyed mills' amagansett...loved the characters and thought he did a great job of evoking a sense of place. and the mystery was pretty darn good, too. clearly, mills has done extensive research, but it's not enough (or maybe it's too much) to save "the information officer." there's nothing thrilling about it. it's even difficult to distinguish when he switches characters...the first time he did it, i didn't even realize it until the second switch, and had to go back and read the first switch chapter again. B O R I N G.

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armand for president!

Still Life by Louise Penny


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
ah, this book is SO good. so very good. a mystery wrapped in a character study with lots of good nuggets about human nature. i like my detectives sharp but not perfect, wise but not smug. my friend pw says she'd like to marry armand, and i would, too!

fortunately for me (or maybe not, depending on how you like your mysteries), i wasn't sharp enough to see past all the red herrings penny leaves...and there are a gracious plenty. so i enjoyed trying to figure this one out with every twist and turn. and how cool is it that her title actually gives away the ending...but not 'til the ending.

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endlessly boring

Across the Endless River by Thaddeus Carhart


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
i very much enjoy LT's Early Reviewers program, and i received "across the endless river" through it. i've been in a reading slump for over a month, since finishing "the shadow of the wind." i was hopeful "river" could pull me out of it. unfortunately, it did not.

"river's" subject matter intrigued me, as i know little about sacagawea, other than her association with lewis and clark (and her appearance in the ben stiller flick, night at the museum - sad, i know!). anyway, i also adore historical fiction. while i found "river" to be well written in a technical sense...and apparently, well researched...it was SO boring. the characters were cardboard, one dimensional - they never come alive on the page, and there's little conflict, if any, between them. i just couldn't get excited about them or their lives. perhaps the story would have been more interesting if the author had focused on sacagawea, b/c she was clearly ahead of her time. i feel bad not giving it more than two stars, b/c it's perfectly...serviceable...and that's my problem with it. i want more than that. life's too short for perfectly serviceable!!

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Permanent Collection Entry

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
this is one for the permanent collection. such a wonderful read, full of drama, passion, mystery, bad guys and most importantly, books! so well written. i loved the characters, even the villians! the plot kept me guessing until the end and provided all the things a great book should. i won't forget the shadow of the wind for a long time.

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SO confused....

The Aviary Gate: A Novel by Katie Hickman


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
sigh. i really wanted to like this book of two parallel love affairs - one from the 16th century and the other present day. it had all the right elements...meticulously researched, nicely written, desperate lovers, and a harem? wow...now maybe i could learn something! but it just didn't click for me. i never connected with celia, the young englishwoman sold into slavery after surviving a shipwreck, and paul, her merchantman betrothed, even less. never felt the love, esp. since they do not share one scene in the novel. i was confused by the many characters in the harem - who seemed to all be named the same; in fact, few of the characters in the book are fully realized, save elizabeth, our present day (and sad sack) graduate student. it was just a big "eh" for me. i spent a good part of the novel confused about who was who and who was spying on whom and i reached a point where i just didn't care. i feel guilty about that...but am not sure why. and for a book about a harem, i didn't get why 1) there was rarely any sex (not that there's anything wrong with that!); and 2) our heroine, celia, is only summoned once!

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