The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Okay, I may just be the last person to have read The Help, but it's done. I did it. And it was indeed a very good book. But I'm not sure it was as great as all the hype I heard about it. But that right there may be the problem:  I really prefer watching a movie or reading a book with NO previous outside influence. If I hear something is really good, it really does subliminally set a bar that the real experience never quite meets. That's why I don't read book reviews before I read a book or check out blurbs about movies. Going in blind works for me.



That said, The Help really was a good book. I liked the story within a story or book within the book concept and think that was done very well.

I'll read more of Stockett's books if she writes them. So get busy, girl.

Book Read:  The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
ISBN: 978-0-399-15534-5

So Much for That by Lionel Shriver

Well, well, well. After a long dry spell of book duds, I finally found a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entire time, and the real clincher, I didn't want it to end.

So Much for That is Lionel Shriver's latest book, and it's fabulous! Not fabulous in a sweet, isn't-life-wonderful kind of way. No, I'm not a lover of Pollyanna crap, and this ain't that.

The premise of So Much for That:  Hard-working, plays-by-the-rules New Yorker, Shep Knacker, wants to accumulate enough money for the Afterlife, what he calls his dream of leaving it all to move to the island of Pemba in Africa. But as life does, he's thrown a curve ball in the ninth inning. And so the story unfolds. This book contains a fabulous take on health care in America and the dilemma of hard-working, tax-paying citizens that often feel screwed to the wall for following the rules. It's tough and honest and so well written.

Shriver's writing is up to snuff in So Much for That just like the other two books of hers I've read:  We Need to Talk About Kevin (it won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005) and The Post-Birthday World. Wanna-be fiction writers should read her books for a lesson in the use of foreboding. She is a wonderful writer. Read it!

Book Read:  So Much for That
Author: Lionel Shriver
ISBN: 978-0-06-145858-3

Something Blue

I was out of library books so pulled a book from my Amazon shelf (books I sell on Amazon) to read. The winner? Something Blue by Emily Giffin. Not sure if I'd actually call it a winner. It was okay. Didn't read her first book Something Borrowed. Probably won't.

This is chick lit at its best? best representation? whatever, it's chick lit, which I read sparingly but do admit to getting sucked in to while reading it. In fact, I turned off the TV Saturday night because I couldn't find anything to grab my attention and my daughter and grandson where here and already asleep by 9 p.m. (how weird is that?) so it was a different weekend to begin with, and I finished the book.

If you love those Shopaholic books (I don't), you'll love this.

Book Read:  Something Blue
Author: Emily Giffin
ISBN: 978-0-312-32385-1