Saturday – 2/28/09

Well again this week, hubby went to the library without me.  I was feeling under the weather so he went to pick up things from the library.   But I did take it easy all weekend and read alot!!!  I finished 2 books over the weekend.

From Last Weeks Loot – I finished reading Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand (3/5)- This book took me a while to get through.  It wasn’t overly exciting and it was another book about a person with cancer.  I have read a number of books lately about cancer victims/survivors.  

From Publishers Weekly
Hilderbrand’s sixth novel heaps on the trauma as a substitute for realistic connection in this heady mix of beach house, cancer, affair and mom lit. Connecticut housewife Vicki, diagnosed with lung cancer, has packed up her two kids for a chemo-commuting summer at the family’s Nantucket cabin; sister Brenda, a newly minted high-powered assistant professor, has just been fired for having an affair with one of her students; Vicki’s best friend, Melanie, newly pregnant, has discovered her husband is cheating. The three hit the tarmac of the tiny island airport, where they run into home-for-the-summer Middlebury senior Josh Flynn, who has a summer job there that he hates. Hardened cliché Brenda pines for her stereotypically weathered Australian lover. Melanie is a chronic complainer until she romances grim aspiring writer Josh, whom she has run into again and brought on as the house babysitter. (Josh thinks his old girlfriend should “locate her center” and “operate from a place of security.”) Of the three women, only the suffering, stubborn Vicki, who keeps a list of “Things That No Longer Mattered” and cries when she can’t seduce her visiting husband, draws readerly sympathy. There are some tender moments in Hilderbrand’s latest beacher, but others are as irritating as sand in your swimsuit. (July)

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I also started and finished The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle (4.5/5)   Last night before bed I started this book.  I read until after midnight and dreamed about this book all night.  I woke up and finished the book before noon.  It was a disturbing subject matter, but very well written.  It kept me wanting to know what happened.   It was the story an abused child and his journey to recovery and his experience with the legal, foster care and social services agencies. 

From Publishers Weekly
Master caterer Sarah Laden is barely holding her life together as a widow with two difficult sons—recalcitrant teen Nate and troubled fifth-grader Danny—when the unthinkable happens. Her best friend and neighbor, Courtney Kendrick, is arrested in a child sex abuse scandal. Courtney’s husband has vanished; their 11-year-old son, Jordan, is in the hospital recovering from a suicide attempt; and across the street Nate is finding, in Jordan’s backpack, evidence of unthinkable abuse. Kittle (Traveling Light; Two Truths and a Lie) crafts a disturbing but compelling story line, as Sarah, Nate and Jordan uncover and come to terms with the horror in alternating chapters. Sarah, for instance, is shocked to learn that she dropped off food for the Kendricks’ sex parties; Jordan must decide whether or not he wants to continue a relationship with his mother—who insists she’s innocent—if and when she gets acquitted. Kittle’s research sits awkwardly in expository dialogue—”One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before their eighteenth birthdays,” intones the detective who will later become Sarah’s love interest—but it doesn’t slow the momentum. Though the movement is toward healing, there are bumpy roads ahead for everybody in this melodramatic but gripping read. (Jan.)

This Weeks Library Loot – 2/28/09

1.  Double Bind – Chris Bohjalian (CD)

2.  Songs of the Missing – Stewart O’Nan

2.  Lies my Teacher Tol Me – Everything Your American History Textbook got Wrong – James Loewen

To see what other bloggers are reading, stop by the weekly Library Loot Event hosted by Eva at The Striped Armchair. 

Currently Reading………..

Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson (audible.com)

A Father’s Affair – Karel Van Loon