Reading Update

I have completed several books in the past month.There are so many stories swimming around in my head and my opinion along with them. So here goes my attempt to evaluate them all.


The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis - An Oprah selection for her digital book club.

The book tells the story of Hattie by first telling the story of her children. I can't say that I adore the novel the way so many other people do. I appreciate the different characters (Hattie's children) but each character's story begs to be completed. All the issues that each of Hattie's children bring forward are never resolved. By the end of the book, I am left feeling UNRESOLVED. Like, whatever happens to Hattie's daughter that she gave to her sister? What about Hattie's bisexual son, Floyd the musician? And Six? What of him? There are a million other tales that could be told. So in my opinion the book comes off as being very...... DISJOINTED. There are no epiphanies just a ton of short stories weaved together. The book left me wanting more but not in a good way.


The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice - I have a thing for werewolves and vampire movies. Total infatuation with the Underworld movies!

Anne Rice is quite gifted at creating conflict in the reader. This book is no exception. Is the werewolf something we should be deathly afraid of or is it something to be revered and honored? The book certainly forces the reader to evaluate the traditional perception of a ravenous werewolf. The story takes place in the modern day with northern California as its backdrop. The story is fast paced with lots of interesting twists.


The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King - I have always been a Stephen King fan.... since Jack Nicholson chanted "redruM" on the big screen.

This story is centered around one girl's descent into the forest or maybe its a story about her ascent out of the forest. Her beacon of hope is the pitcher for the Red Sox, Tom Gordon. Her visions of him keeps her grounded in this world and trudging way off the beaten path. The reader can decide what the true value of the story is. It could be the little girl's triumph or the beautiful landscape in the northeastern U.S. **shrugs** I love Stephen King's writing. He's the guy that brought us Shawshank Redemption and IT and a host of other freakish tales. This book left me feeling very hopeful about life by the end of its pages.

Buried in a Phone/Book

Sorry for my absence... my head has been LITERALLY buried in a book (phone).

I don't know what took me so long but I have fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with KINDLE. I have always loved reading but the thought of carrying around a book used to make me cringe and it still does. Also, the logistics of reading in bed before drifting off to sleep requires a light source, which is just too cumbersome. Those clip-on lights are handy but makes the book even heavier than it already is.

Enter my Samsung Cell Phone... I think I have the very outdated Galaxy S phone. I downloaded the Kindle App and have just fallen in love with reading again. I have put down so many books in the past month. The latest read was completed yesterday is Beautiful Ruins. I'm still digesting the book. I'm in that funny space between liking it and feeling like it was an utter waste of time. I'm not sure yet.

So pardon me if I have become such a book/phone-worm... I just can't get enough of the library at my fingertips.

The Post About Books

I am on the search for a new book to read. As I mentioned in the past couple of posts, I just completed WILD by Cheryl Strayed. It was pretty good. It definitely put me in a different state of mind, contemplating what I would do if I ever embarked on an 1100 mile hike. I guess we all have some kind of insurmountable "hike" like that. I actually have several journeys to travel to overcome all of my "hikes". God-willing, I will accomplish them all in this lifetime while I'm relatively young enough to enjoy the triumph. That is all beside the point though because this post is about books.

I am on a search for a book to read. My biggest problem is that I am unable to commit to one particular book or an author to read. I absolutely love Stephen King and Dean Koontz. I have probably read more of their books than any other authors out there. However, I am not really looking for that type of book.

I kind of want to read a really good love story. When I was fresh out of high school, I picked up Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree. This was in the era when Waiting to Exhale came out and the genre of "Urban Romance" came forward. Though I could not identify with how the characters were portrayed, I love being able to peer into another persons world. I suppose that's the best thing about reading... being a fly on the wall, observing everything, and contemplating how I relate to the story.

Every now and again I really love a historical novel. A novel that weaves history and fiction and the complexity of life into a beautiful story. Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport really did a number on me. I was so moved by the issues that the author focused on while still telling a fantastic story. It chronicles the life of several women whom are all related and all deal with their island heritage differently. The story is heartbreaking more than a story of triumph but sometimes the stories that hit closest to home are the ones that illuminates the reality of grief.

The book I have settled on for now or at least til Oprah releases the next book for her Book Club is...
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. I didn't read all of the reviews because I hate SPOILERS but I did read enough to pique my interest. Love, a little bit of history. Let's do this!