The Fortune Teller's Daughter

by Lila Shaara

About page 200 I cheated and snuck a peek at Amazon and the reviews. There were about five of them and not very flattering. Two said they did not like the book until page 200 when the plot began to develope and gel. One quite reading around pg. 200. Not the best reviews.

Not that I think people are snobs when they decide to tear a book apart. I am more likely to tear a movie apart rather than a book.

I like this book and read it in two days, spending most the day yesterday waiting for the phone to ring regarding the job search and then quietly finished it up this morning after getting a job offer that is laughable, but I will take it because frankly I need the money desperately.

I will continue to look for more "suitable" work, but this will have to do in the short run.

Back to the book. It was a lot of characters that I was able to keep track of. And I liked the tone and rythm of the story. I like the old lady offing the really bad guy at the end and I had a hard time trying to figure out who the floating corspe was in the sink hole. It did not suprise me when he was identified, but kind of saddened by the realization of the why.

And what happened to the old lady? I hope she was whisked away by aliens. I loved th fortune teller, though I wish she had not been drunk when she was offed, maybe thinking more clearly and on her toes (maybe a peep hole in the doors would have helped)...

I just liked it, it fit my mood. I was able to breeze through it and not have to wrestle with plot twists, it was all pretty black and white.

Lulu in Marrakech

Diane Johnson has been writing terrific best seller, nominations for the Pulitzer, winner of the National Book Award and I imagine dozens of other accolades yet it took me until today to finish a book written by her.

And I truly enjoyed it. I read the book flap afterwards and they mentioned she wrote in the vein of bring naive American into the European world..and I thought, yes that is the world for Lulu, naive.

The second book I read with dealt with the Arab world and not totally realizing it. I must think that the world of literature is immersed in the mystic of the Arabic world.

Book was good and I read it in about two sittings. I am interested in reading some of her other works, Le Divorce (which I believe I have in storage) and Le Marriage which I could have also.

The Garden of Last Days - by Andre Dubus

Finally, a book I could not put down. Took about four days to read, because I can not read on week-ends when my husband is around, as he does not like me to be distracted from him (hahaha) (sad but true, he once told me he thinks it is insulting for me to ignor him by reading. If we are watching tv and I am uninterested in the show and try to read, he begins to talk - about the tv show - so I give up).

I digress.

I had read 150 pages before I could pull myself away. The story was about a woman who worked in a strip club because she was obsessed with making enough money to buy real estate, not one house, but many. She has a three year old daughter who is taken care of by her landlady while Mom strips. Land lady has a major panic attack and lands in hospital. Does Mom call in sick? Of course not, what type of book would this be if she did? No, she takes kid to the strip club with her and has the "house Mom" watch over the kid.

Does House Mom watch over kid? Hell no, this is a strip club!

As disgusting a plot as this is, I could not stop reading. Once again, a cast of characters that begin interesting and then wear on me. The guy AJ who takes the child, whom he found wandering in the back lot at the restaurant entrance, dumpster etc. AJ with the broken wrist, broken by the bouncer b/c he was touching, holding hands with one of the "girls" thinking "this one is different"...

The real kicker was the Egyptians who took up 1/4 of the book. When I had figured out (which i did about 50 pages in) that these three guys were some the hijackers from 911, I began to skip the pages devoted to them.

Lot of inconsequential characters whoes lives and memories I could care less about. I imagine it was to give us some feeling, some understanding of the complications of their lives, motivations....

The book was 535 pages, I skipped about 100 of them...could have been 300 pages and still a good book.