Summer Book #24

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

I am going to be completely up front here: my biggest complaint with this book is everything from Pride and Prejudice that the author felt necessary to rehash. Presumably,  if you're reading this,  you are already familiar with Austen's work, and therefore,  don't need to constantly revisit the work. Just when you think you have escaped the revisiting,  it raises its ugly head.  Also, one whole  chapter was devoted to background on the Collinses, and they were only mentioned as having sent a letter to Elizabeth.  They weren't even characters in the book!

As to the story itself, it was pretty good.  On the night before a big ball at Pemberley,  Lydia Wickham shows up screaming that her husband has been killed.  Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam and a gentlman who has a thing for Georgianna go into the woods to investigate.  As it turns out, Wickham is not dead, but his friend, Captain Denny is. Wickham is a suspect, and goes to trial. We find out who committed the crime, and the circumstances surrounding it. It was quite intriguing really.

I also liked the allusion to Emma towards the end. That's what I would like to see actually: a book that ties the characters of all Austen's work somehow. It could be epic.

Summer Book #23

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

My fourth foray into the world of John Green, and, admittedly, my least favorite. It's not bad, just not as good as the others for me.

Colin is a child prodigy who has dated nineteen girls named Katherine. He was recently dumped by K-19, and he is having a hard time getting over it. His best pal, Hassan, comes over, and they decide to go on a road trip to soothe Colin's woes. There is no destination in particular, they just drive southeast from Chicago, and see what happens. They see road signs indicating that the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is in Tennessee, so they set out to find it. They end up in this town in the middle of nowhere called Gutshot, and meet Lindsay, the proprietor of the roadside attraction.

Hassan and Colin befriend Lindsay and her mother, who offers the boys a summer job and a place to stay. While there, Colin decides he wants to matter, so he uses his experiences with the Katherines to develop a formula that will predict how long a relationship will last and who will do the dumping. Hassan falls in love, and breaks up with the girl. Lindsay breaks up with her boyfriend. The three friends uncover a secret about their town, and have some good times together.

I think the main reason I didn't like this one as much is because Colin is a bit of a whiny narrator. He pines for this girl who is clearly over him, and can't let himself have fun and be open to other opportunities. I enjoyed Hassan; he made me laugh. Maybe a Hassan book is in order.

Summer Book #22

Paper Towns by John Green

This is the third book by Green I have read. I know I shouldn't, but I will always compare his books to the first I read, The Fault in Our Stars. TFIOS was magic, and nothing Green has written has compared to that for me. That said, I really enjoyed Paper Towns.

In its own way, the premise was the same as Looking for Alaska, also by Green. In both, an average boy is in love with an above average girl, the girl leaves, and the boy searches for her. Where they differ, is that Paper Towns had a happier ending.

Q lives next door to Margo. As previously indicated, he's an average guy. Margo is beautiful and popular. It is the last month of their senior year. One night, Margo, dressed as a ninja, needs Q's help. She is seeking revenge on a cheating boyfriend, and others who wronged her. Against his better judgment, Q helps her out. She shows him what it is like to live close to the edge, and Q finds that he liked it. The next morning, Margo is gone. No one knows where she's gone.

The second part of the book deals with Q's search for Margo. She left some obscure clues, and Q does his damndest to figure them out. His friends, Ben, the obnoxious virgin clarinet player, and Radar, the computer geek, help him. Also, Lacey, Margo's best friend, helps.  On the day of graduation, Q finds the last clue as to where Margo went.

The third and final section involves Q and his friends ditching graduation to drive over 1,000 miles to where they believe Margo went. Ben has to pee a lot, and they almost hit a ginormous cow. Will they find Margo? Does it matter?

This is a book of personal growth and knowing who your friends are. This book makes you laugh, and for me, makes you want to join Q and his friends on an epic adventure. Definitely worth the read.

Summer Book #21

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

What a strange book! Having read some of McCarthy's work, this was not entirely surprising.  What was surprising was the amount of necrophelia in this book.

Our protagonist is one Lester Ballard. He is a mere 27 years old, but I didn't know that until I was more than half way through the book. He seemed much older. Ballard is recently released from prison.  I don't know why he was there; either I missed it or it wasn't mentioned.  Anyway,  Ballard lost his family land while incarcerated,  and he is not happy about this. Strangely, he seems to have befriended the person who bought the land. Since he has no place of his own, Ballard squats in an abandoned house in the woods.

Here's where things get gross... Ballard comes across a car in the woods (the was a lot of backseat action in this book), but the occupants have died in a compromising position.  Ballard pulls the guy corpse off the girl corpse, and has his way with her. As if that isn't enough, he takes the girl corpse back to his squatter paradise to have his way with her more times. Dude even goes into town to buy her clothes! One night after his sexual conquest, his squatter digs burn down.  He then moves his belongings to a cave. He comes across another couple , kills them, has his way with the body, and takes her to the cave. He ends up having to move again, and takes the bodies with him. He is eventually caught, put in a mental hospital and dies. Sometime after his death, the find his final abode, and in it, seven corpses. Ewwww!

I kept hoping Ballard would redeem himself in some way, but he never did. I guess you could say he was the product of his environment: his mother ran off when he was young and his father killed himself. He didn't have anyone to love him and teach him better.

Despite the weirdness,  I did like this book. It was different,  gross, but different.

Summer Book #20

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Not impressed with this one. It's dystopian, which I have learned to love, but this adds nothing to the genre, in my opinion. Hated it. Aggravated by the main character speaking in third person for the majority of the book. I get it, as a collective, no one has an identity, and that's the point. Being someone who lives in a society where individuality is a good thing, I couldn't relate. It was nice, I guess, that he figured out he could live with his Golden One and be happy.

Summer Book #19

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

This is another one of those books I bought and read because I liked the cover. :)

At the beginning of the book, Ezra Faulkner is finishing up his junior year of high school. He is on the varsity tennis team, he's student body president, he's dating a popular girl, and he's wicked popular himself. He goes to a party, and sees his girlfriend hooking up with someone else. He leaves, and gets hit in his car by a hit and run driver in a black suv. In this moment, Ezra's life is changed forever. It was questionable whether he'd ever walk again, and he'd never play tennis competitively again.

At the beginning of his senior year, Ezra has to find himself. He ends up on the debate team, and in love with the new girl. He is also still drawn to his old "friends" sometimes. The new girl, Cassidy, is mysterious, intelligent, and shows Ezra a whole new world-until she breaks his heart.

Cute story, but one told many times, in many ways.

Summer Book #18

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

This is the third and final book in the All Souls trilogy that I started two years ago. As with the predecessors, I was spellbound with this one as well (see what I did there-haha).

Picking up where the last book left off, Diana and Matthew have returned from the past to find the two missing pages from Ashmole 782. She's still pregnant with twins, and now one of Matthew's rogue children is out to cause trouble. He wants Diana because she is capable of bearing a vampire's child, and Benjamin will stop at nothing to possess her.

Meanwhile, a friend of Diana's has joined the research team to find out the secrets of vampire, daemon, and witch dna. It works out rather well on that front.

Unlike most trilogies lately, the need to kill off one of the "good guys" wasn't necessary. Sorry to spoil that for you. In many ways, it ended like a Shakespeare comedy, with all the loose ends tied up.

I have immensely enjoyed reading this trilogy, and will miss the adventures of Diana and Matthew, and their band of misfits.