books 63 and 64

Bitter Sweets, Roopa Farooki
rating:


This debut novel has been compared to Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, and I have to say that, beyond the obvious cultural connection, I didn't really see it. This book is so soaked in deceit that I had a hard time relating to many of the characters, and some of the major issues raised are dealt with so neatly that it was difficult to believe. Still, I found Farooki's writing to be smooth and her voice to be very readable.

Last Rituals, Yrsa Sigurdardottir
rating:


The subtitle of this novel is: "An Icelandic Novel of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft, and Modern Murder." Yep, that pretty much says it all. Lawyer Thora is contacted by the family of a murdered German graduate student studying in Iceland. They're unhappy with the outcome of the police investigation and want her to find out more. I'm a fan of Scandinavian crime novels, generally, though this one was a little different b/c the victim was a German national. I figured out who the murderer was pretty early on, but the rest of the novel was still pretty interesting. Witches, torture, creepy stuff, etc.

book 56

last one! I'm all caught up now.

Bangkok 8, John Burdett
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It took me about fifty pages or so to get into Burdett's style, but once I was in, I was in. This novel is about a Thai policeman whose partner is killed in a very strange way early on. It turns out that his death is all wrapped up in this mystery, which drives the remainder of the narrative. I'm not sure if I'd say it's full of twists, really, but I definitely wouldn't have guessed the outcome at the beginning, or even halfway through. I think I'll pick up the sequel soon.

On another note, this is the only book I've ever read entirely in airports/on airplanes.

books 23+

matt and i are living with our respective parents for a month while we get ready for our big move. i've been here for two weeks now, but sheer laziness, coupled with my parents' crappy computer have conspired to keep me from updating. now i'm not sure if i can remember all of the books i've read, but i'll try. i've been keeping it nice and light:

book 23
promise not to tell, jennifer mcmahon
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in some ways, this reminded me of gillian flynn's sharp objects: woman goes back to her hometown and all sorts of weirdness from her childhood comes out. kate returns to a small town in vermont so that she can decide what to do with her ailing mother. the first night she's there, a pretty grisly murder of a young girl occurs, which is eerily similar to the murder of kate's secret best friend when she was a girl. i found it pretty compelling but i had to knock some 'bots off because there was wayyyyy too much supernatural, ghosty stuff. the mystery wasn't too complicated but the story itself was overall pretty satisfying.

book 24
the year of fog, michelle richmond
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my sister had this one at home, and she liked it so i thought i'd give it a shot. abby, a photographer in san francisco, babysits her fiance's daughter, emma, and basically loses her on the beach. over the next year or so, she becomes totally obsessed with the search for the little girl, even leaving the country to look for her. this started out really slowly for me, and finished up in a somewhat pat, cheesy way, though there were some things about the ending that i think richmond really did very well. i was interested in abby as a character, though i was relatively bored by everyone else, including her librarian neighbor who tries to teach her all about the history of memory, her fiance, and the little girl herself.

book 25
a model summer, paulina porizkova
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okay, let me explain this. i saw paulina porizkova on the colbert report and found her to be pretty funny, so when my mom brought this book home from the library last week, i thought i'd give it a shot. i mean: sex, drugs, international modeling - what could go wrong? as it turns out, lots. not terrible, but very slow for a summer read.

book 26
innocent traitor: a novel of lady jane grey, alison weir
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i loooooove historical fiction when i'm on vacation, and the tudors have always fascinated me. this novel is about lady jane grey, great-niece of henry viii, who becomes queen for nine days and becomes embroiled in a great battle for the crown. interesting catholic/protestant stuff, and lots of nice historical detail. weir is a historian, and this is her first attempt at fiction. so the background and context were solid, but the dialogue and the inner monologue of jane didn't sit right with me. especially her obsession with beheadings, which seemed very over the top considering that we know from the beginning that's how she'll meet her earthly end. sorry to ruin it for you, but you can learn as much from wikipedia.

book 27
dead clever, scarlett thomas
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oh, i love scarlett thomas. even when her books are batshit crazy (i.e., the end of mr. y), her writing is really enjoyable. this is the first in a trilogy of mystery novels featuring heroine lily pascale. like the other scarlett thomas leading ladies i've come across, lily is smart, witty and neurotic, and holds a master's degree (just like THIS BLOG'S leading lady. hey, maybe that's why i like these books so much?). in this first installment, lily breaks up with her loser boyfriend and moves away from london to live with her mother and brother in devon, where she takes a position as a literature lecturer at a local university right after a student was brutally murdered. the mystery is convoluted, though i pretty much guessed who did it from the start. but that didn't keep me from really enjoying it. a perfect summer read for mystery lovers.


i've also finished books 28-31, but i'll save those reviews for another day. this is getting ridiculous.

book 18

speak softly, she can hear, pam lewis
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my sister recommended this one, remembering that it had a secret history-esque feel to it. this book has the same take home (take-home?) message as scott smith's simple plan: don't ever keep a big secret. ever. okay: carole, the protagonist, makes a pact with her best friend naomi to each lose her respective virginity before graduating from spence, an elite all-girls school in manhattan. enter eddie, who's such a stand up twenty-six year old that he doesn't mind helping the young ladies out. they all go up to vermont for a weekend and things happen in a way that's more than a little unexpected. the three of them end up sharing a pretty serious secret that haunts carole through the book. very creepy. i was hyper-aware of my surroundings all day. watch your backs, people. TRUST NO ONE.

book 16

hey, i'm actually just where i was at this time last year, so i guess i'm not as behind on my reading as i thought. which is really amazing if you factor in the amount of time i've spent lately not working on my master's paper and opting to watch basketball instead.

the virgin of small plains: a novel of suspense, nancy pickard
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i picked this up randomly from the browsing shelf because the cover looked interesting and it was newish. also, it's spring break and i felt like reading a mystery. pretty much: beautiful naked girl found frozen to death in the middle of a blizzard small plains, kansas in 1987. "no one" knows who she is (except the people who do, and they go to great lengths to hide her identity). fast forward almost twenty years and abby, whose boyfriend mitch mysteriously disappeared the morning after the body was discovered, decides she wants to figure out what's up. she's inspired by a sudden tabloid interest in the anonymous dead woman (who has been nicknamed "the virgin of small plains") after a cancer victim claims that the virgin has miraculous healing powers. i was actually pretty surprised to find out the real deal, and i was really interested the whole time, but sadly, the ending felt rushed and i had to knock a few 'bots off for that.

i've let myself go: books 7, 8, 9

popco, scarlett thomas
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i actually finished this over a week ago so i don't have a lot to say about it now. alice is a creative for a british toy company called popco, and she suddenly starts receiving encoded messages while at a business retreat. i should say that she's really into codes and things... her grandfather was a big cryptanalyst. anyway, very entertaining, though i wasn't a big fan of the end and it also took me forever to read it.

londonstani, gautam malkani
rating:
ABSOLUTELY ZERO ROBOTS.

i am so angry about this book that i can't even really talk about it.

let the northern lights erase your name, vendela vida
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this was a nice, quick read. it helped cleanse my palate a bit after my HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE WITH LONDONSTANI. anyway. clarissa's dad dies, and she finds out that he wasn't her dad after all. uh oh. she decides to find her real father (her mother disappeared when she was a teenager), so she travels to an extra cold region of scandinavia, and things get even more confusing (but there's an ice hotel, so it's all okay). i didn't particularly like or dislike the main character, but i found myself somewhat surprised by the ending, which was pretty refreshing.