books 41, 42, 43

wow, summer flies when you are an idiot, idiotically working too much!

i did take a few days of vacation last week, and here's what i have to show for it:

vacation reading!

sacred and profane, faye kellerman

these days all i want to do is read mysteries/thrillers. i mean, i'm technically in the middle of suite francaise, but i'm just too tired at night to think about world wars, etc. i just want murder! and detectives! and a little police procedure thrown in! this is the second peter decker/rina lazarus mystery (i read the first, the ritual bath, earlier in the year), and it was a lot more gruesome than the first. let's just say: snuff porn. but a really fast read, and it reminded me of being thirteen and staying up really late reading mysteries and then having to sleep with my light on because i'd gotten myself all worked up and scared.

body of a girl, leah stewart

another mystery, and really quite different from stewart's second novel, the myth of you and me, which i read at some point in my life, and which has a very nice cover. this was good, a kind of creepy-feeling mystery in which a memphis crime reporter becomes obsessed with a murder victim she's said to resemble. super creepy: the relationship this reporter, olivia dale, forms with the dead woman's teenaged brother. also, i met leah stewart once, and she's a really nice person, with great hair, so she wins in my book.

the madam, julianna baggott

i love julianna baggot. she's a really great novelist and her poetry doesn't make me want to vomit, which is a pretty big deal. girl talk? loved it. the miss america family? loved it more. but, the madam? only sort of liked it. there are a lot of nice scenes, and of course, nice writing, but the whole thing fell flat for me. the main character is closely based on the author's grandmother, who went to florida with her husband in the 1920s to try to make some money and ended up going back to west virginia alone and opening up a brothel. there are lots of colorful characters: an opium-addicted prostitute named delphine, a giantess named roxy, and more, but this book isn't as funny as baggott's first two novels. it seemed like the dysfunction was just too sad to be humorous, even in a darker way. but, all that said, this is a fast read, and a pretty interesting look at life in 1920s west virginia.