Book Reviews

I read a couple of good books lately and wanted to share.

• An American Wife - This is supposed to be based on Laura Bush. It is a wonderful, gripping and surprising story about a normal girl, from a small town who becomes First Lady of the United States. It's great, just great and I'm an Obama fan.
• The Host - This is by Stephanie Meyer who wrote the ever popular Twilight Saga. I loved the Twilight Saga even though I am not 14 years old. This book was intended for adults and is written at a more sophisticated level than Twilight. (Not much though) It is SO NOT MY NORMAL GENRE of Contemporary American Fiction. It is Science Fiction as in aliens coming to earth and taking over. (You find this out in the first page so I'm not giving anything away) However, even given the unappealing subject matter (to me), the book sucked me in due to a classic story of love, loss, friendship, war and the always engrossing love triangle. It is really good you guys. And I have no experience in even reading ANY scifi. You do not have to like Lord of the Rings, Heroes, Star Trek or any of that crap to like this book. But if you do like those things, you will LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.
• The Winner - David Balducci is one of my favorite authors. However, he came into my life when he wrote his first Camel Club novel (about 4 years ago) I've read all his new releases since. But now I am going back and reading his older stuff. The Winner was his first published novel. It's good but like John Grisham's A Time To Kill, it's an obvious first novel. It's a bit disjointed and sort of all over the place. But the story is compelling about a white trailer park trash single mom who is approached by a criminal that is able to fix the Lottery and she wins and ends up having it all fall apart all over the place.
• Sail- James Patterson. There's a reason Patterson is the Master of Suspense and Sail feels like vintage Patterson. It is non stop, can't put it down, read it until 2am literary candy. It's easy, unimportant and unbelievable in a sadistic fairytale sort of way.
• 19 Minutes- Jodi Piccoult USED to be one of my favorite authors. Plain Truth, Keeping Faith, The Pact...all great reads. Fabulous reads actually. However, her last novel (I forget the name but it was a parallel to Dante's Inferno) and this one...19 Minutes just got really preachy and boring. The characters are still totally compelling and she hooks you from page 1. But she's gotten too political for me. I think her earlier Songs From The Humback Whale is one of the most creative and greatest novels maybe ever written.
• Sundays At Tiffanys: Again, another James Patterson. But this time it's a sweet, romantic, idyllic story about a little girl's imaginary friend who is actually real and with whom she reunites with later in her life. It is sweet and fun and captures the special quality of having imaginary friends as a child. This book made me so happy.
• The Choice - Nicholas Sparks is one of my favorite authors. The Notebook might be my favorite book of all time. Forget the movie. I almost didn't go see it because the book was almost sacred to me. I read it first in hardcover, long before the hatchet job the screen play turned into. Mike and I read it out loud together on a move across the country. We took turns reading to each other from the passenger seat. We had to pull over somewhere in Tennessee for hours because we were crying so hard we couldn't see well enough to drive. We ended up getting a hotel because we were emotionally exhausted and slept, wrapped around each other for like 16 hours. The Choice isn't like The Notebook or like it's sequel The Wedding. But it's the best Nicholas Sparks since A Walk To Remember.

Okay, hope that gives you some books to go out and purchase. Any suggestions for my next read? Don't you just love books? I don't think I could continue to breathe if I had to give up reading. It's been like this since I was in 5th grade. My mom would catch me reading with a flash light and take it away. I'd grab another book and read by the light of my digital alarm clock for as long as I could keep my eyes open. Books and me...we're like BFFs.