2012 Books

1- 11/22/63
2- The Paris Wife
3- The Midnight Palace
4- The House at Tyneford
5- Cutting for Stone
6- Billy the Kid and the Vampyres of Vegas
7- My Sweet Audrina
8- Seeds of Yesterday
9- Petal on the Wind
10- If there be Thorns
11- Flowers in the Attic
12- The Warlock
13- The Necromancer
14-The Sorceress
15- The Magician
16- The Alchemyst
17- The Death of Joan of Arc
18- Arena One- Slaverunners
19- The Mill River Recluse
20- In Leah's Wake
21- The Baker's Daughter
22- The Stranger's Child
23- The Sisters
24- The Other Life
25 - HP- The Order of the Phoenix
26- HP- The Half Blood Prince
27- A Watershed Year
28- All That is Bitter and Sweet
29- Dirty Girls Come Clean
30- My Antonia
31- The Good Daughters
32- The Leftovers
33- Rules of Civility
34- The Enchantress
35- The Great Gatsby
36- The Chaperone
37- Ethan Frome
38- One Breath Away
39- Winesburg, Ohio
40- Mrs. Robinsons Disgrace
41- Let's Pretend This Never Happened
42- American Heiress
43- Clair de Lune
44- The Casual Vacancy
45- The Age of Desire
46- Just Do Something
47- The Secret Keeper
48- I See You Everywhere
49- Evolving in Monkey Town
50- Son of a Witch
51- HP- The Sorcerer's Stone
52- HP - The Chamber of Secrets
53 - Graceling
54 - Fire
55 - Bitterblue
56- The Leftovers
57- HP- The Prisoner of Azkaban

Book List

Rather than review every book as I read them, which I found quite mundane (I'm...not a reviewer). I thought I'd list out the books I read with links and a general good, great, couldn't put it down, or couldn't finish it.

Here's the books I read in 2011:

1- Vanishing and Other Stories: Loved the first handful of stories than petered out and couldn't finish. But they were all kind of depressing stories and I was kind of depressed which wasn't a good combination. Mix between good and couldn't finish it.

2- Every Last One: Loved it. Couldn't put it down. Which was unfortunate last one night when I realized I had just read about a home invasion and triple homicide right before I was supposed to lay down and go to sleep.

3- Blessings: Loved it. Couldn't put it down and couldn't quite figure out what what going to happen when.

4- The Improper Life of Bezelia Grove: As soon as I read about this one over at The Lost Entwife I knew that like her it was a book for me. Hellllo improper life! It was amazing. I couldn't put it down and read it in two days. So amazing.

5- Putting Away Childish Things- I thought it was a good book. It was a bit academic in it's discussion of faith, but it was a discussion of faith in an academic setting so I wouldn't really have expected less.

6- Girl In Translation - Very good. Inspiring story of a girl growing up straddling the old world and the new world.

7- Room - AMAZING. Could not put it down.

8- Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Only ok. Compilation of short stories, some of which were actually small novellas.

9- Unbearable Lightness - Very good, read 1/2 of it one day and finished it the next

10- Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1 -I wanted to like this, I really really did. Since he had put a ban on publishing it for 100 years after his death I thought there would be salacious things in it. It read more like a land survey and political meet and greet. It might have gotten better, but it was a brick of a book and I only made it a few hundred pages in.

11- Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - Couldn't put it down. So swoony and lovely

12- The Distant Hours - So juicily suspenseful and a little creepy. LOVE Kate Morton and am sad that I have finished her last book (there are only 3). READ these books. They are AMAZING.

13- The Weight of Silence - Amazing. Couldn't put it down and read it late in the night and at stoplights

14- These Things Hidden - Same author as #13, also couldn't put it down and gasped audibly at one point (or 4)

15. Little Bird of Heaven -Good, I read it while reading 3 other non-fictions books so it took a bit to get through it but it was worth it by the end

16. Don't Breathe a Word - Couldn't put it down. I read it in about 6 hours straight with a break for making pasta salad for a cookout. Deliciously creepy, I had to finish it in one sitting because I needed to find the logical ending to make sure the creepy other worldly stuff didn't keep me up tonight.

17. Place of Yes -I have a massive slight obsession with Bethenny Frankel. So I bought this book because it was about her and her journey and I loved it. Not everything was my bag, but that's ok, I still think she's amazeballs

18- Alice, I Have Been - SO GOOD. I read it in a weekend. So juicy and historically swoony

19- The Help - I really didn't want to like this book because it was so popular..but I really really loved it and couldn't put it down for the most part. I also talked like domestic help in rural 60's Mississippi which was fun for Pete.

20- The Art of Forgetting- I stayed up way to late reading this book, like 2am when I had to be up at 6am book. Interesting story involving the dynamics of when the more dominant friend changes because of traumatic brain injury. Very..coming into her own story from the point of view of the more submissive friend

21- Heaven- Ok, I know they're garbage. I just got a wild hair to read the series again. So I did.

22- Dark Angel - 2nd in the Heaven series. The more I read them the more appalled I am that I read them before I was even a teenager. But now, they're just campy fun.

23- Fallen Hearts- 3rd in the Heaven series, again...so appalled that I read them so young but can't put them down...again

24- Gates of Paradise- 4th in the Heaven series

25- Web of Dreams- 5th and final installment of the Casteel family drama

25- Last Letter from Your Lover - Very good, a little confusing with all the flashbacks but it all sorted out deliciously.

26 - If I Stay - This and book 27 ago together. So good and compelling.

27- Where She Went - Quick read, but still very compelling and good. Reminder of all the collateral damage that trauma to people you love but aren't technically your "family" can cause and how hard it is to recover from all the fractures.

28- Once Was Lost - Very compelling and I didn't guess who did it which is a big plus

29- Sisters in Sanity - So good, the same author of books 26 & 27

30- The Legacy - Creepily good and a nice twist at the end

Puff

I read this in Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen and this is exactly how I am sometimes (ok, most of the time).  The speaker is referring to Puff Ball, an Angora kitten she and her sister received from their Aunt and Uncle who they were living with. After the first part she switches to talk about how her sister (Meghan) is just like Puff Ball.

Despite her name, and her appearance, Puff turned out to be one of those cats who never met another animal that didn't look like dinner. With a grating, high-pitched yowl, she set slain moles, birds, mice, chipmunks, even frogs, on the kitchen floor. But sometimes she took on a possum, a raccoon, a neighbor's boxer, and the result was a deep puncture wound or a gash from ear to ear. We discovered what had happened only after the fact, too late for the vet, because when Puff was wounded, Puff went under the porch and nursed her injuries until the bleeding stopped and the healing began.
Whether it was when her best friend ran off with another group of girls in eighth grade, when she was unfairly denied the English prize at her high school graduation, when she was passed over for the weekend anchor spot, or when the doctors told her she would never carry another pregnancy to term, Meghan did precisely the same. She licked her wounds alone and in isolation, until only the sharpest eyes could see the scars. And then she went on as if nothing had happened. Once I had cried to my aunt, "Why can't she talk to me about it when she's really upset?"
"It's not in her nature," Maureen had replied.

Wishin' and Hopin'

Wishin' and Hopin' is another stellar book by Wally Lamb
I just really enjoy his books. So much I can even overlook the shame I feel for having discovered him through Oprah's book club.

This book was hilarious and a great pre-Christmas read. It tells the story from a 10 year old Catholic school boys perspective and I love the gray incomplete knowledge that perspective brings to the story. If kids don't know the answer to something they will often fill in the blanks themselves and it's almost always wrong.
A Russian girl joins the class during the height of the Cold War and I had a ton of fun pronouncing the botched English language with a Russian accent whenever that character would speak.

This book also cemented in me a desire to see New England, which should be happening next fall!

From GoodReads:

It's 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget.
LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello
Back in his beloved fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut, with a new cast of endearing characters, Wally Lamb takes his readers straight into the halls of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School—where Mother Filomina's word is law and goody-two-shoes Rosalie Twerski is sure to be minding everyone's business. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from QuÉbec, and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.
From the Funicello family's bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin' and Hopin' is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we've been—and how far we've come

Rise and Shine

I know, 2 posts in one day...what?!
But I'm running out of days to post in 2010 and have a few more books to check off my 52 in 52 list. I'm not making it to 52 books, but I put a good dent in it! I'll try again next year.

Rise and Shine is a book about a woman that believes her own hype. She's a morning anchorwoman and makes an error and life just sort of implodes from there. It's told from the story of the sister which I kind of like. I like the way the sister starts defining herself more and more apart from her overwhelmingly famous sister during and after the implosion.

From Good Reads:

It’s an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice’s perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country’s highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike.

In an instant, it’s the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan’s long shadow. The effect of Meghan’s on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan’s son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget’s perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

The Summer We Fell Apart

I'm finding myself drawn to these books about relationships, both familial, romantic and platonic, that hit crisis points and either completely implode or keep hiccuping along. The Summer We Fell Apart is the story of a family starting with the summer the dad officially and permanently left them all and how the kids were almost totally neglected by the mother growing up and had to fend for themselves.
I've read stories like this before, and the siblings usually are very close. But in this one, they all were as far apart as 4 people raised in the same house could be.

From the cover:

The children of a once-brilliant playwright and a struggling actress, the four Haas siblings grew up in chaos- raised in an environment composed of neglect and glamor in equal measure. When their father dies, they must depend on their intense but fragile bond to remember what it means to be family despite years of anger and hurt. These brothers and sisters are painfully human, sometimes selfish, and almost always making the wrong decisions, but their endearing struggles provide laughter through tears- something anyone who's ever had a sibling can relate to.

The House at Riverton

I freakin LOVE Kate Morton. If I could read nothing but her books from now on I'd probably be ok.
This book was just so lovely, and I had no idea what the "secret" was until the very very end. So so so so good. Read Kate Morton. Like now.

From the cover:

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline.
In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the House, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline, and only they -and Grace- know the truth.
The novel opens in 1999 when Grace is ninety-eight years old, living out her last days in a nursing home. She is visited by a young director who is making a film about the events of that summer in 1924. She takes Grace back to Riverton House and reawaknes her memories. Told in flashback, this is the story of Grace's youth during the last days of Edwardian aristocratic privilege shatter by war, of the vibrant 1920s and of the changes she witnessed as an entire way of life vanished forever.

Second Nature

Another in the line up of Alice Hoffman books. Second Nature was a weird but sweet at the same time. The way sometimes relationships get all messed up before you even notice they're falling apart and you get so far away from someone you have no idea how to get back.

From the cover:

Robin Moore never wanted to be anyone's savior. But when she sees a beautiful and innocent man mistaken for a beast, she does something she never thought she'd do: she rescues him and takes him home with her. Only there, on the tiny island where people are trying to lead a perfect suburban life, close -but not too close- to nature, does Robin begin to realize the intricacy of what it means to be human.

The Story Sisters

The Story Sisters is another Alice Hoffman book. They're like drugs. I feel so enveloped in the characters and stories trying to figure out what is going to happen. Sometimes I catch myself holding my breath while I read.

From the cover:

The Story Sisters charts the lives of three sisters- Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart's desire, and a demon who will not let go.
What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks.
At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of longing, The Story Sisters sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally redeem them.

This was darker than the others so far. More fantastical with the talk of the Arnish World and the demons residing there. But it was still good. I was caught up in the redemption story of the sisters relationships with each other and their mother, wondering how to keep on believing in someone even when all the hope seems wrung clear out of them.
I also found myself repeating the Arnish words because, well they were weird and I needed to see how they felt when you said them if that makes any sense at all.

Here on Earth

After reading The Blue Diary I knew I needed to locate and devour all the books by Alice Hoffman. Next on the list was Here on Earth.
I was not disappointed.

From the cover:

After nearly twenty years of living in California, March Murray, along with her fifteen-year-old daughter, Gwen, returns to the small Massachusetts town where she grew up, to attend the funeral of Judith Dale, the beloved housekeeper who raised her. Thrust into the world of her past, March slowly realizes the complexity of the choices made by those around her, including Mrs. Dale, who knew more of love than March could have ever suspected; Alan, the brother whose tragic history has left him grief-stricken, with alcohol his only solace; and Hollis, the boy she loved, the man she can't seem to stay away from.

I couldn't quite figure out what it was about the story of March and Hollis that disturbed me so much. It was dreadful (as in full of dread) because it was so consuming. It consumed everything and everyone in it's path. It reminded me a lot of Twilight honestly, except without the whole vampire coven...
I was quite disturbed by that book series as well.
The book is good, the writing is well done but I remain disturbed by a relationship so obsessive and compulsive it leaves no oxygen for the rest of the world.

The Blue Diary

I pretty much want to read everything Alice Hoffman wrote after reading The Blue Diary.

I wrote earlier about the quotes pulled from the book and how they really resonated with me but the overall themes did as well, plus the book was hypnotizing. I just kept reading and reading and the rest of the world faded away. I love books like that.

From the back cover:

When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbors would guess that for more than thirteen years he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan's history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.
Now, the police are at the door. Ethan Ford's life as an irreproachable family man and heroic volunteer fireman has come to an end - and Jorie Ford's life is coming apart. Some of the residents of Monroe are rallying behind Ethan. But others, including his wife and son, are wondering what remains true when so much is shown to be false- and how capable we really are of change.

The idea that someone could go so long masquerading as an upstanding and honorable person while concealing such deceit is not a new one for me. I have to fight hard to trust that people are who they say they are and that even while flawed they aren't a completely different person than they are actually saying/showing they are. Because I have wondered for many years what could possibly remain true when so much is shown to be false.

Double Bind

I went to the library to pick up my audio books on hold and decided I needed some new fiction. I was in the middle of reading some intense non-fiction and was sick so I couldn't really process it.

So I started at the A's in fiction and when I got to the B's I found a book I'd read before and really enjoyed: Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian. Since I couldn't really think at all I just grabbed two more of his books the first of which was Double Bind.

From the book jacket:

When college sophomore Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont's back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography and begins to work at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won't let anyone see.
When Bobbie dies suddenly, Laurel discovers that he was telling the truth: before he was homeless, Bobbie Crocker was a successful photographer who had indeed worked with such legens as Chuck Berry, Robert Frost, and Eartha Kitt.
As Laurel's fascination with Bobbie's former life begins to merge into obsession, she becomes convinced that some of his photographs reveal a deeply hidden, dark family secret. Her search for the truth will lead her further from her old life- and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.
In this spellbinding literary thriller, rick with complex and compelling characters-including Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan- Chris Bohjalian takes readers on his most intriguing, most haunting, and most unforgettable journey yet. 

I did not see the end of this book coming. Not until about 20 pages from the end. It was intriguing and confusing and the layers were placed so thinly I had a hard time discerning which characters story line was which, but in a good way.

Jesus Land

I read about 30 pages of this book a few years ago and then it languished on my bookshelf. I picked it up again and read it in a day. I guess some books you just need to read at certain times.

From the back cover:

Julia and her adopted brother, David, are sixteen years old. Julia is white. David is black. It is the mid-1980s and their family has just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees, trailer parks, and an all-encompassing racism. At home are a distant mother-more involved with her church's missionaries than her own children- and a violent father. In this riveting and heartrending memoir Jula Scheeres takes us from the Midwest to a place beyond imagining: surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe- a religious reform school in the Dominican Republic- is characterized by a disciplinary regime that extracts repentance from its students by any means necessary. Julia and David strive to make it through these ordeals and their tale is relayed here with startling immediacy, extreme candor, and wry humor.

This book was so disturbing in so many ways. The way the parents were only marginally involved in their kids lives except to punish them and force them to attend a church more interested in appearing pious than actually following Jesus, the way Julia and David were so close and through the course of the book retreated from each other for their own self preservation and the way this divorced them from any desire to be in any relationship with God.

It was good, it was disturbing but it was good. 

Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows

Reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the 2nd time really made me love the book even more. Actually, reading the entire series again made me love it even more.

I love the way Harry comes into his own throughout the series but especially in this book. I love the dynamics between he, Ron and Hermione. Even knowing what happened I was once again on the edge of my seat throughout the book breathlessly awaiting what would happen next.

From GoodReads:

The heart of Book 7 is a hero's mission--not just in Harry's quest for the Horcruxes, but in his journey from boy to man--and Harry faces more danger than that found in all six books combined, from the direct threat of the Death Eaters and you-know-who, to the subtle perils of losing faith in himself.

I can't wait for the last book's movies to come out and I've now taken to listening to the books on audio book again as well. 

The Forgotten Garden

I LOVED The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. From almost the first few pages I was pulled into unraveling the mystery of Nell's origins. After reading through Harry Potter it was nice to be back in England as Cassandra searched for the final clues after Nell revealed her secret only once she was gone.

From the back cover:

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book-a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dock master and his wife and raised as their own. One her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled.

It felt a little as if Kate Morton pulled out the mystery a chapter longer than needed (or at least I had figured out what had happened by then) there was still a great satisfaction in being alongside Cassandra as she figured out her true heritage.
The only thing is, I wish the would have made one other connection, but I don't know that was ever actually a connection, I just thought it would have been a lovely coincidental bow on the top of an already spectacular book.

Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince

I liked this book so much I ended up downloading the audio book and immediately listened to it right after reading it.
Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince is the 6th book in the series. It's the year that Harry learns more and more about what his purpose is and the path he will need to take forward.

From the back cover:

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.
And yet...
As in all wars, life goes on. The Weasley twins expand their business. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate - and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.
So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort - and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability. 

I love that the super serious hunting for Horcruxes rests side by side with snogging and relationships forming and falling apart.

Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix

I've written a few times recently about Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix. I didn't really care for it the first time through, it was my least favorite of the series. But I'm finding that I'm enjoying it much more this time around.

From the back cover:

There is a door at the end of a silent corridor. And it's haunting Harry Potter's dreams. Why else would he be waking in the middle of the night, screaming in terror?
Harry has a lot on his mind for this, his fifth year at Hogwarts: a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with a personality like poisoned honey; a big surprise on the Gryffindor Quidditch team; and the looming terror of the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams. But all these things pale next to the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named - a threat that neither the magical government nor the authorities at Hogwarts can stop.
As the grasp of darkness tightens Harry must discover the true depth and strength of his friends, the importance of boundless loyalty, and the shocking price of unbearable sacrifice.
His fate depends on them all.

Harry and his friends have formed their own teen version of the very grown up Order of the Phoenix, at least that's what I considered it. They are subverting the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and learning how to protect themselves against Voldemort and his followers.

It was interesting this time around to pick up on different things seeing as I was mostly annoyed with Harry the first time I read this book. This time around I'm sympathizing with him for not being sure if he can count on anyone but himself.

Soft Place to Land

A Soft Place the Land is the story of two sisters. It weaves the story through the years following their parents death in a plane crash. 
The cover says:

For more than ten years, Naomi and Phil Harrison enjoyed a marriage of heady romance, tempered only by the needs of their children. But on a vacation alone, the couple perishes in a flight over the Grand Canyon. After the funeral, their daughters, Ruthie and Julia, are shocked by the provisions in their will. Spanning nearly two decades, the sisters journeys take them from their familiar home in Atlanta to sophisticated bohemian San Francisco, a mountain town in Virginia, the campus of Berkeley, and lofts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As they heal from loss, search for love, and begin careers, their sisterhood, once an oasis, becomes complicated by resentment, anger, and jealousy. It seems as though the echoes of their parents deaths will never stop reverberating until another shocking accident changes everything once again.

I know all to well the ripples that are caused by single events and how the repercussions can last for decades. It was a good book, but I was often frustrated by the sisters. Why they didn't just talk about things or ask each other about things. But then I remembered that when people are traumatized sometimes they just shut down and can't say anything because what is there to say...

Her Fearful Symmetry

I'd been ogling Her Fearful Symmetry at the book stores for a few months. It's by the woman that wrote the Time Travelers Wife, which I didn't like all that much.

I really enjoyed this book much better, it was way less creepy in the grown man traveling through time to flirt with his wife as a child type of way.

Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There were two conditions for this inheritance; that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the girls' aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.

The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including - perhaps - their aunt.

It was interesting the dynamics of the twins in this book, the obsessive nature of their relationships and how they allowed or didn't allow people to enter into their relationships. It reminded me how destructive those obsessions can be. But it was intriguing, wondering what the twist was and when it was going to be revealed.

Catching Fire

Catching Fire is the 2nd book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I read it originally the day after Christmas 2009 in like 6 hours or something. It was amazing.

After scarfing down Mockingjay in 5 1/2 hours a few weeks back I decided to re-read the whole trilogy one after the other.

I just like them all equally. It would be lovely to say that I liked one better than the other but I just didn't. They were so similar and different at the same time.

From the inside flap:

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol--a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

As I read through this book I was talking through Mockingjay and the entire series with some friends and I think that the thing I like the most, which is most evident to me at least in the 2nd book, is that Katniss is just a girl. There are holes throughout the story and they are there because Katniss doesn't know everything about the situation, which kids don't. So to me it would seem odd if she was an all knowing protagonist because kids rarely know everything. Now, Katniss gets it wrong a lot and to me that's a true thing. Because when kids only know a little bit, they fill the rest in with their imagination and she did in a lot of places.

Have I mentioned I love this series? Go read it already so I don't have to keep telling you!