Eventide

by Evan Haruf

Did not read his first book Plainsong which this book is a continuation of the town and the caharacters....I suspect that only the outlines and smoke shadows of the characters of the last book are here.

A very sad book. One that I read hoping for an ending that would be satisfying and give hope for the lives of those who begin to matter to us.

But, like real life, there are no truly happy endings. People do not learn from their mistakes and children get raw deals.

My heart broke and every time the chapters were about the two children of the seemingly mentally challenged parents I held my breath. Nothing good ever happened for them. They ended up in a foster home, maybe with better haircuts, but with nothing.

How empty and sad.

I realize a whole lot of people compare this type/style of writing with Hemingway...sparce bare boned. But the hoplesness of the children left me empty at the end.

Bastard out of Carolina

by Dorothy Allison

It seems I am reading a certain kind of formula book these days. Or perhaps I am just seeing the pattern finally. Have a protagonist and then then have one hateful character the reader can focus on. The villain. It's the perfect formula.

I have read two books with similar themes, the sexual abuse of children, incest and out and out child abuse. It makes my stomach ball up in a knot and I want to choke the stupid characters who allow this kind of cruelty to go on.

The Bastard out of Carolina did not satisfy in a way that made the ride worthwhile. I wanted justice and justice was not given. I want to know what happened to the mother, why the mother did not pick up the butter knife after witnessing the step father raping her 12 year old daughter. I don't care. I just don't care. I would have killed him. I just don't care.

I did not find it sitting well with me that he was not beat within an inch of his life for what he did. The uncles beat the hell out of him when he beat her, why not kill him for raping her?

the mother should have gone to jail for her part of it.

I read it with anxiety building hoping that I would feel redeemed in the end, but it just made me sad.

A Parchment of Leaves

by Silas House

Beautiful prose that wind around you like a spiders web spinning the story. This was his second novel...I did not read the first, but have read one after this. I love any novels about Kentucky. The especially good ones are always written by and about Eastern KY and the mountains.

Just gives itself to stories of ghosts, the supernatural, family, unspoken secrets.

Long live Silas House.

Fall on your knees - by ann-marie macdonald

This book became a little ponderous at times. Yet, it was an Oprah Book club choice. As all Oprah's book seem to have a particular theme, so does this one and that theme is children.

Three "sister" and then a fourth. The book winds it's way through the tale of the Piper's and the ytragic life of the Mom. It was easy to hate the father, and the sister Kathleen - on man, I did not warm to that character at all. Was I suppose to? And the final chapters when all is revealed, yawn yawn. Another character introduced, Rose. And then another, Anthony. The "diary" of Kathleen brings it all together, but it sits like an unbaked lump dough in the mouth. Why are we suppose to care?

I would have like the "child" Lily to have ended up differently, exepted by the "other" side of the family.

Oh well, most of Oprahs books hit the mark.

Will I stop reading them? Hell no. Thought it took me all week to read the 500 pages and at times I fell asleep, it was a good story.

The patience of Rivers

by Joseph Freda

It took me about 10 days to finish this book. I was excited to read it at the beginning because of the subject material. The summer of 1969. Viet nam War. Walking on the Moon. Woodstock. The protagonist was a teenage, just graduated from high school and facing the draft, college, going to Woodstock...

But I could never ever warm to the characters and just plugged along. Woodstock was a back drop, the Moon walk was a paragraph that was also a setting for sitting on some canoes and some moon watching, the Viet Nam war was thrown in as sort of an afterthought another back story that really made little to no substance to the story. It just sat there like an elephant in the room.

And the heart of the story just made my teeth ache. His parents go into business with a real shit head. He puts up nothing, but they put up the family farm!! It made not one iota of sense to me that these people could be so daft! And int he end, the grand parents loose their land and their home. But his family comes out smelling like a rose...

An interesting angle was the mafia coming in and putting the squeeze on the shit heads son....

Drinking at a bar at all ages???WTF!! Even in 1969 this seems a far stretch. I remember my swimming coach taking us into a bar (what was he thinking!!!) and we got thrown out. That would have been around that time...

An okay book, Really wanted much much more out of it. Written too much like an adult remembering his childhood than a book written from the view point of a kid.

Just went to Amazon for the review and I am trulyin the minority. Every reviewer loved the book. Oh well...

The Divide

I have to admit, it took me a long time to get into the swing of things with this book. I did not care for any of the characters for a long time. I could have done without all the sympathy for poor Ben. His wife Sarah seemed an ice queen for most the novel.

Yet, as it progressed I became more interested and wanted to learn how the daughters body was found at the bottom of a mountain frozen forever in youth and pregnancy to be found by two skiers who also almost met their demise at the bottom of a long fall..

Anyway, an okay book. I have read all of Nicholas Evans' books and I think I enjoyed this one the least. For some reason - because I do not remember much of the story lines - the vast outdoors played more of a character than in this book. The Rocky Mountains were just a back drop, like necessary for the frozen grave rather than any other purpose.

Finished with a marathon read this morning, had to find out who killed her and every thing fell into place easily, except how he found them, in the dark, in a place he had never been before in a cabin that was totally unassociated with any of them.

Go figure, but it had to end that way.

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.