Posted by Terminus at 3:22pm Feb 23 '09So, what have you read lately? Did you like it, love it, hate it? Why?
The two books I read most recently:
A Sister's Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter. A story about an Amish girl who's about to get married, but she has a big secret from her "running around" days. The plot is promising, but I have many issues with this book and didn't like it much at all. There's a TON of back-and-forth dialogue which wouldn't be so bad but a lot of it is very awkward, and it sounds like it was written by a 7th grader. There's a healthy smattering of dutch-german words in the middle of English sentences, but there's a very formulaic way of presenting them and it gets irritating quickly (Ex. "I am feeling rather [word for nervous] today." Next person: "Why are you feeling nervous?") The word is always immediately followed by the other character rephrasing exactly what was said--makes it easy to understand, but it has a very awkward flow. Also, it's not very hard to figure out the "big secret" pretty early on, it's just a matter of how and when it will be revealed, and it completely takes the steam out of the shock when it finally happens. The only interesting part of the book, the mystery over who is doing various things targeting the family, is never touched on except to give us 4 or 5 different, entirely plausible suspects--and it's never actually answered, even vaguely. This is probably one of my least favorite books I've read, ever, and won't be touching anything else by this author. Blech.
Grace: A Novel by Richard Paul Evans. This book has a fairly simple story.. a teenage boy is struggling after his family moves and hits some tough times financially, and comes across a runaway girl from his school. The rest is what they do from there.. a surprisingly touching story. This tells it better than I do:
From Publishers Weekly
A ninth grader's world is forever changed in Evan's holiday present to his fans. Eric is still adjusting to his family's move from California to Utah when he discovers runaway classmate Grace dumpster diving behind the burger joint where he works. A concerned Eric and his younger brother, Joel, hide Grace in their backyard clubhouse. Meanwhile, the Cuban Missile Crisis looms, and the boys' father is recovering from Guillain-Barr̮̩̉̉ and their mother is overworked, so there are plenty of distractions to keep the grown-ups ignorant of the goings-on. Evans portrays Grace's heartbreaking predicament with sensitivity and also touches on how the political situation affected the era's youth ("The possibility of a nuclear holocaust was just something we always carried around in the back of our minds, like an overdue library book"). Evans knows how to pull on the heartstrings, and the conclusion to this one will have readers reaching for a hankie.
The two books I read most recently:
A Sister's Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter. A story about an Amish girl who's about to get married, but she has a big secret from her "running around" days. The plot is promising, but I have many issues with this book and didn't like it much at all. There's a TON of back-and-forth dialogue which wouldn't be so bad but a lot of it is very awkward, and it sounds like it was written by a 7th grader. There's a healthy smattering of dutch-german words in the middle of English sentences, but there's a very formulaic way of presenting them and it gets irritating quickly (Ex. "I am feeling rather [word for nervous] today." Next person: "Why are you feeling nervous?") The word is always immediately followed by the other character rephrasing exactly what was said--makes it easy to understand, but it has a very awkward flow. Also, it's not very hard to figure out the "big secret" pretty early on, it's just a matter of how and when it will be revealed, and it completely takes the steam out of the shock when it finally happens. The only interesting part of the book, the mystery over who is doing various things targeting the family, is never touched on except to give us 4 or 5 different, entirely plausible suspects--and it's never actually answered, even vaguely. This is probably one of my least favorite books I've read, ever, and won't be touching anything else by this author. Blech.
Grace: A Novel by Richard Paul Evans. This book has a fairly simple story.. a teenage boy is struggling after his family moves and hits some tough times financially, and comes across a runaway girl from his school. The rest is what they do from there.. a surprisingly touching story. This tells it better than I do:
From Publishers Weekly
A ninth grader's world is forever changed in Evan's holiday present to his fans. Eric is still adjusting to his family's move from California to Utah when he discovers runaway classmate Grace dumpster diving behind the burger joint where he works. A concerned Eric and his younger brother, Joel, hide Grace in their backyard clubhouse. Meanwhile, the Cuban Missile Crisis looms, and the boys' father is recovering from Guillain-Barr̮̩̉̉ and their mother is overworked, so there are plenty of distractions to keep the grown-ups ignorant of the goings-on. Evans portrays Grace's heartbreaking predicament with sensitivity and also touches on how the political situation affected the era's youth ("The possibility of a nuclear holocaust was just something we always carried around in the back of our minds, like an overdue library book"). Evans knows how to pull on the heartstrings, and the conclusion to this one will have readers reaching for a hankie.