16. 'Coronado' - Dennis Lehane

I find it incredibly difficult to be disappointed with anything that Dennis Lehane writes. I'm not going to lie and say that I've read all of his books yet because that would be pointless. The truth is that I haven't... have only finished two... but if the rest are anything like the ones that I HAVE sat through, they're nothing short of fantastic views into the lives of people that genuinely could exist somewhere in the world. Coronado, a group of short stories, could not lose my attention no matter how many outside forces attempted work against me in the short time that I read it. I found myself wanting to get done work on my flights as quickly as possible just to devour the next story in line because they each provided little pictures into some of the darkest moments of the characters' lives.

There is nothing happy about this book. Lehane talks a lot about hope from the various points-of-view of the characters, but the truth is that most have nothing left to hope for. Their loves are gone or their lives as they knew it are entirely over. It starts with the tragedy of Elgin Bern and the war and death that would tear all the women he loved (or might have) away from him. From there the novel moved on through several other people and tragedies until it reached Coronado, a play that elaborates on the lives of two characters in Until Gwen and throws a few others into the mix. It, of course, is equally as tragic. This is not the kind of novel that you read to feel good about yourself or your life. It's the kind that shows you just how horrible people can be to each other and that there is nothing that some people won't do to get what they want. It's the truth about humanity... cold and bitter, but beautifully written in a way that few can master.

It's unlikely that I'll ever have much to say that's not even remotely positive about Lehane's writing. He truly has become one of my favorite authors already and I'm looking forward to starting the Kenzie/Gennaro series when I pick up the first one from the library tomorrow. I'll keep the blog posted on how much I adore this man and his works... I promise.

Rating: 4/5

15. 'The Trials of the Honorable F. Darcy' - Sara Angelini

So, one day a tiny brunette walks into the library and stumbles around with her arms laden with books. Overflowing would perhaps be the best term for it. Her eyes are caught by a brightly colored book on a table by the library desk... because she's kind of like a ferret... in that she's attracted to shiny things anyway... and she sees that there's a book claiming to be a modern Pride & Prejudice sitting on the stand. Though she feels like a horrendous nerd, she rushes over and snatches up a copy because Jane Austen might just be one of her favorite authors ever. She starts the book while flying around the better part of the northeastern United States only to discover that she's basically picked up a porn novel. Yes, she's just read Snuff, but this is something else entirely. Snuff, for being about the porn industry, didn't go into nearly as many details as this waste of trees. Yeah, that's right... she said it. WASTE OF TREES.

All right, so I guess my little picture of a day in the life of Kristi wasn't entirely necessary... or that interesting... but to say that I wasn't pleased to discover that the book I had invested several hours in turned out to be much less than I expected. The beginning showed promise. Had it not, I would have stopped reading it a lot sooner than when I finally considered that option. The premises... Darcy as a judge and Lizzy Bennett as a lawyer was an interesting way to modernize one of my favorite stories ever. Had the author actually continued on in that vein and run with the obvious tension that they felt, it would have been a better book for it. Instead, she resorted to about a hundred pages of sex. Seriously, once they made it to England on the vacation that neither were aware the other was going on all they did was hook up. The plot took a major hit at that point and the rest of the book was alternating between them continuously making each other miserable, pondering sex with the other, or finally actually accomplishing the act. I don't like romance novels... not in the modern sense where all they do is sleep together. That's my mother's territory, really. My romance novels are true Austen works... with plots and without the graphic sex scenes. I get enough of that in movies... I don't want them in my literature too.

The only benefit... in my mind anyway... was that I got to picture Colin Firth naked a lot. As far as I'm concerned, he IS Fitzwilliam Darcy... or Mark Darcy if we're Bridget Jones-ing it at the moment. He's pretty much my favorite British actor aside from Alan Rickman (for entirely different reasons) and I just love him to pieces. The BBC edition of P&P is the only one I bother with even if it is six hours long... mostly because he's in it. The only thing that might have made it better is if Emma Thompson had played Elizabeth... but I'm getting off the point now. This was not a good novel... plain and simple. The dialogue was too contrived and the descriptions were repetitious. Angelini really could have used other adjectives here and there instead of seeing the same one two sentences down on the page. I found myself replacing some words with others that just would have made more sense or flowed better. It read like fanfiction of an NC-17 variety.

I think that I'll probably avoid most modernizations of Austen's work from now on. This is the first one that I've bothered with and it was a complete disappointment. I do have a book that focuses on Darcy's point of view during the events of P&P which I'll read pretty soon (I think), but if that's as bad I don't think I'll be reading anything based on Austen's novels again. They're simply too fantastic for me to suffer through them being ruined by the poor writing of someone that's just looking to make a few dollars.

Rating: 1.5/5

14. 'The Time Traveler's Wife' - Audrey Niffenegger

Though I'm very well accustomed to books that change voices off and on throughout its entirety,The Time Traveler's Wife definitely took some time for me to adjusted. I think that it was the fact that it changed back and forth between Henry and Clare's point-of-views ever few paragraphs at times while in other sections it would carry on with one or the other for a pretty extended amount of time. Once I was able to work through the issue of getting a feel for the individual character's thoughts and emotions, this was actually a pretty enjoyable read. The overall plot was just beautifully tragic. To have found such an intense love and to have nourished it through almost a decade and a half of stolen moments before the true relationship could begin is almost heartbreaking. It's hard to imagine knowing very well that you're going to go months and then even years without seeing the person that you love and then to finally meet up with them in the present only to discover that they haven't a clue as to who you are was almost a painful thing to read. I do think I would have been a little more impressed with Henry had they not ended up sleeping together on the first date... but what can you do? It's better than the next book I read, anyway.

It's all just a very sad affair throughout... whether it was when they were trying to conceive a child with continuously devastating consequences or the moment when Henry realized that his time was almost up, this is a love story that actually kept me glued to it wondering how it all would end when his obvious demise was inching closer on the horizon. It was made very clear through the majority of the novel that Clare had never seen Henry beyond about his early forties... so you were left watching the years tick by at the top of each header and wondering if perhaps the doctor had finally found a cure for him... hoping that it's true... because you don't want Henry to die. It's hard not to fall in love with him yourself as you're reading through his trials and adventures shifting back and forth between the now and the then and occasionally even the later.

Though it was rough starting out because of the differences between this and everything else that I've read lately, I'm glad that I followed through on this recommendation. Niffenegger painted a beautiful picture of how love truly can conquer all sometimes... whether it's life, death, or something in between. I'm usually not one for romances, but this is one that I would actually encourage others to read. Just don't substitute watching the movie for experiencing the book. It's one of the few films that just feels too short for all that it should have covered... too many important things were left out... and I found myself barely paying attention to the screen as I continued thumbing through the pages of the actual novel instead. The only benefit? Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams are just gorgeous. Feel free to wrinkle your nose at Gomez, though. Apparently it was too hard for them to find a blonde actor in the world willing to play the part.

Rating: 4/5

13. 'Snuff' - Chuck Palahniuk

Okay, so this book wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but it was pretty close. It's about the porn industry and one woman's quest to beat the record number of sex acts in a single session. So, there are 599 dudes just chilling out waiting to have sex with this woman... plus one that thinks he's the sex goddess's long lost son. Him? He's there to save her. The truth eventually comes out, though... because it turns out that her long lost son is actually a daughter... the woman that signed her on to the project that was supposed to end in her demise in the first place. Cassie, said porn star, knew all along.

I'm not going to do a synopsis because there's really no point. Nothing incredibly noteworthy happened because the book is really about the character development and if you want to know what happens just read the book yourself. It's not like it's hard. I finished in in the span of two days and only because I didn't start it until late in the evening. Palahniuk's novel is more of a short story than an actual book and is easy to devour all at once.

Truthfully, I have no strong feelings about this either way. It is what it is and it didn't bother pretending to be anything different. All I can say is that it's hard not to like some of the characters, though it's equally difficult to feel close to any of them since most are rarely referred to by name if they ever are at all... and even the ones that are... their names are stage names, so you never truly get to know any of them beyond the facade that they put on. I want to read Fight Club and maybe Choke, but aside from that, I really have little interest in exploring any of Palahniuk's other works.

Rating: 2.5/5

12. 'The Woods' - Harlan Coben

This is another one that was borrowed from the roommate library. I'm considerably more pleased with this decision than I was with the previous one, however. Coben is actually a very good author, if this book can be an accurate method by which to judge him, and his characters are far more compelling and interesting than some others I've run into recently. Spoilers follow... as usual.

See, Paul Copeland has been living a lie without even realizing it. Sure, so he knew that he lied about the fact that he was on guard the night that his sister and three of their friends were supposedly murdered. He lied about the fact that he was alone instead of with Lucy Silverstein, the daughter of the camp owner. He didn't realize, however, that almost everything was a lie. His sister wasn't really dead. His father killed his mother. His former girlfriend was sort of an accessory to murder. His life pretty much sucks. The only thing he has going for him is his daughter and the fact that he's kind of a rocking prosecutor.

Right, so that's really not much of a synopsis, but I neither have the time nor wish to make the effort to say much more. It was actually a very good book and I really enjoyed it, but I've just written three other reviews and I'm way too tired to care. I'll write more later. I swear. I really will.

Rating: 4.5/5

11. 'Dear John' - Nicholas Sparks

I hate Nicholas Sparks books. That's the most important statement that I can make at this moment. I hate his books with a passion and I really am not entirely sure why I bother to read them in the first place. A Walk to Remember I polished off in the span of a few hours at work one day. Dear John really wasn't any better. I have a very hard time enjoying books that don't require any thought to get into them. That's the experience that I had as far as this particular novel goes.

It tells the story of a young man that returns from leave in the Army one summer and meets a beautiful college student that he immediately falls madly in love with. Lo and behold, she falls head over heels for him too and the pair swear that they're going to get married someday and live happily ever after. Then, a number of obstacles throw themselves in the mix... including his father's heart attack and the fact that he reupped when the events of September 11th occurred. So, rather than be the steadfast rock in John's turbulent sea, Savannah ends up falling in love and eventually marrying her childhood friend and neighbor, Tim.

Some other stuff happens here and there, but none of it is truly that important and none of it could possibly make you like such shallow and ill-conceived characters. Savannah, borrowing a term from fanfiction circles, is the worst kind of Mary-Sue imaginable. She's pretty, perfect, and perky... oh yeah... and she was almost raped which is only one of the most overused plot devices in the world. Yes, I realize that it happens a lot. Yes, it has happened to people that I know. No, I do not think that it makes it acceptable to throw into any drama involving college students just to cause tension and make the main characters' 'first time' seem more interesting, heart-wrenching and/or magical. John, himself, was just boring. His father was infinitely more endearing and I was actually happy that Savannah ended up marrying Tim in the end. Though... go figure... she still thought about cheating on her poor husband while he's in the hospital dying of cancer. I know this shit happens, but I just don't know how I feel about seeing that much stereotypical role-playing website drama thrown into one book that's supposed to be a bestseller.

I'm sure romance fans across the world would burn me at the stake if anyone but my sister actually read this, but seriously... I hated it. I will never read anything by Sparks again... and I would gladly burn it if it were mine to do as I pleased with. Sadly, this waste of paper belongs to my roommate, so back to her shelf it must go.

2 out of 5 stars

10. 'Flashforward' - Robert J. Sawyer

To be entirely honest, I have very little to say about Flashforward. It was a relatively quick read, though I had a very difficult time staying interested in it. I was never interested in science while I was in school... didn't even bother taking physics since my high school offered me the opportunity to take college biology instead and that might have hindered my ability to actually understand Sawyer's work. I generally adore sci-fi... but in this case, there was just too much sci going on for me to stay involved.

There were some interesting characters, so I'll give him that much. I really found myself worrying about the fate of Theo, the younger lab assistant that helped to bring about the phenomena in the first place. He didn't receive a vision and then discovered that he was going to be murdered... so I spent the better portion of the book wondering if he was going to find a way to save himself. I didn't truly care about any of the other characters which tends to be a problem when you're reading fiction. The story just didn't stay with me. Generally, my memory tends to be exceptional when it comes to things that I've read, but I just didn't care enough to bother committing any of it to mind. I've heard the television show is decent and very loosely based on the novel, so I might give that a chance. I'd actually prefer a little mystery since it was all explained a little too quickly for my taste... and it was hard to be interested in mysteries that were going to span two decades anyway. I like the neat little six month package the television show offers.

It's a quick read overall, but nothing that I would actually recommend. There are better sci-fi novels out there to spend time on. Thankfully, this was just a library rental anyway.

Rating: 2.5/5

9. 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' - Zora Neale Hurston

There are very few books that I can claim made much of an impact on my life. It seems that there is an incredible lack of quality literature these days... sure, there are plenty of things to read, but how much of it will you really take away with you? This is the reason why I was so moved by Hurston's novel.

Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford, initially a young woman who is simply trying to discover her path in the world. She is forced into marrying someone she doesn't love by her grandmother, the woman who raised her. Their marriage, however, was absolutely not built to last and Janie ends up running off with someone that meets and woos her with the promise of a new life away from all that she has known. She runs off and marries him and lives the next twenty years in a town that he more or less builds from the ground up. She's a middle-aged woman by the time she meets 'Tea Cake'. Despite the fact that he's considerably younger than her, the two fall in love and she moves down to the Everglades with him. Over the span of their marriage, Janie learns more about love and life than in all the years before. More importantly, she learns that despite what people might say, love knows no boundaries.

The book itself, in some places, seems like absolute poetry. The manner in which Hurston describes the world before Janie's eyes is beautiful and lyrical, something that is so rare to find in most novels these days. She makes me feel like perhaps it is, in fact, all right for me to love, in a most ridiculous way, someone that others deem entirely wrong for me. Hurston makes me feel like perhaps I might not be making a mistake in feeling so strongly about a person that is a little unorthodox. Enough reflection has since made it obvious to me that despite Hurston's words, there are some things that while I would love to justify them, cannot be so easily disregarded. Some relationships are simply not meant to last. Some men are not meant to be a part of youre life no matter how you feel about them. It doesn't mean that you cannot wish and long for something better for yourself when it seems that nothing is in your favor. Her novel gave me the gift of hope... hope for something dazzling in my future like the love that she felt for her last husband... or the happiness that simply being alone can provide.

There were so many things that I wanted to say about this and I wish that I wouldn't have waited so long to review it. I'll include more thoughts as they come, but all in all, I have to say that I would absolutely recommend this book to any woman that I know. Men... not so much.

Rating: 4/5

8. '2001: A Space Odyssey' - Arthur C. Clarke

So, I totally picked this book up on a whim. I think I was actually looking for a book by Douglas Adams when I stumbled upon the 'C's instead. I'd heard of the movie, but never seen it, so I figured why not pick up the book? I already had an armful and it looked like it would be a pretty quick read. While this turned out to be the case, it doesn't make the book any less enjoyable.

TO BE CONTINUED WHEN I'M NOT UNCONSCIOUS, THANKS.

Rating: 4/5

7. 'Under the Dome' - Stephen King

The first thing that I have to say about this book is that it's long. Truthfully, I think that at almost 1,100 pages, it's longer than all the other ones that I've read this year combined. With that being said, it doesn't actually feel that way. I've been told that Stephen King has gotten difficult to read with time because most of his books seem incredibly formulaic. One of my co-workers told me that he can typically guess what the next line is going to be before he actually reads it. I don't know if that's the case with Under the Dome because I would never claim to be a loyal King fan. As a matter of fact, I think I've only read two of his other novels in the past and one barely counts since it's technically a short story. Perhaps that influenced how much I enjoyed this book and perhaps it didn't. It's hard to say, but either way, I do think that it was mostly worth the effort put in to reading it.

The basics of the book involve the quiet little town of Chester's Mill, Maine and the trials and tribulations of the populace within when a massive dome inexplicably drops down from the sky and cuts them off from the rest of the world. It does not take long at all for their lives to change completely when the Chief of Police is killed upon his arrival at the newly formed barrier and chaos ensues with the takeover of Big Jim Rennie, the true villain of the novel. While it closely follows the lives of many of the town's residents at one point or another, a good deal of focus is placed on Dale 'Barbie' Barbara, a former member of the United States military that was attempting to abandon the Mill after a run-in with the local gang of worthless degenerates. The problem is that it gives you enough face time with the other locals to make you ache just a little inside when another one bites the dust.

Let me promise you, there will be a lot of dust biting involved in this read. In fact, by the end of the book, the town population will have gone from several thousand to just about twenty-five. While many die in the first few hours of the dome's existence, more are murdered here and there throughout the novel. It seems that when the threat of punishment disappears, the truth of human nature becomes entirely evident. That truth? There's a little piece inside all of us that is inclined to cruelty and it seems that only the moral codes of society are holding the majority of us back from turning into heathens once again. It happened to a good portion of the town, it seems, with volunteers to join the police force that would eventually become Big Jim's personal army.

I think the death that honestly effected me the most, even if it likely wasn't meant to, was that of Carolyn 'Caro' Sturges. I don't know if it was the penchant for older men that she and I both seem to share or if it was just the fact that she seemed so purely full of hope for her future when everything around her was falling apart, but to witness her being shot in the head while protecting one of the children she had taken in was just a painful experience. She was such a minor character, but I think I saw enough of myself in her to feel like it was just unfair. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her older lover, Thurston Marshall, and the two children that she had become a temporary mother to. Then to have two of the remaining three in the makeshift family die just before the dome lifted seemed to add even more to the little tragedy. That's the only word that can truly be used to describe the majority of this novel... tragic. There just too many senseless deaths and yet it all seems fitting and makes sense. It needed to happen because this is a comment on the state of the world and there's nothing truer than the fact that too many people have been dying for nothing in the past ten years.

The only complaint that I have is that it ended too abruptly. I usually hate epilogues, but after spending over a thousand pages getting to know these characters and developing attachments, I was not satisfied with the fact that the book concluded just about three pages after the dome was finally dragged off into the sky by whatever force (the leatherheads... whomever they might be) that had placed it there in the first place. Sure, I wanted to know what happened between Barbie and Julia once they were no longer trapped together... did their relationship continue or did they go their separate ways to avoid the painful memories of what had happened while they were being played with by children from another world? More importantly, I want to know what happened to Ollie Dinsmore, the little boy who lost his brother to an accident and both his parents to suicide in the span of a week. The little boy that buried himself in the potato cellar with his grandfather's oxygen tanks and befriended the Army private from South Carolina that called him 'cow-kid'. Did he have other relatives to live with or did Private Ames take him in afterward? I think I'd like the latter better. The unquestionable love that seemed to be present between the two... the fact that Private Ames refused to leave the side of the dome when they discovered that the boy was still alive... that he wanted to be the last one there if Ollie did finally pass away... it was just one of the most touching sections of the book and the only part that came close to moving me to tears.

So, there are parts that I question and things that I would have liked to see more of, but overall, I actually did enjoy this experience. I felt a little rushed reading it since I have to turn it back in to the library by the fifth and all... but I'm not sure that more time would have necessarily changed my feelings. It was easy to absorb and follow, despite the length, and it was hard to forget what had already occurred, likely because of the intensity of the descriptions, despite the fact that I was reading another book simultaneously. Just don't read parts of it while you're eating. Some of the deaths are very vividly described and if your stomach is weaker than mine, you might be in for a little surprise.

Rating: 3.5/5