October Book Review

First of all, I’m sad to report that I won’t be reviewing this book for you:

Though the title and cover photo were intriguing, the pile of books next to my bed is piled too high.  Maybe I will get to it for you someday.  Ahem.  Or maybe not.

So to begin:

Confessions of a Prairie B*tch by Alison Arngrim-  Okay, I mostly loved this, but then, I am a sucker for celebrity autobiographies.  (In case you’re wondering, my favorites are Julie Andrews’ book,  Home:  A Memoir of My Early Years; Carol Burnett’s This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection; and Melissa Gilbert’s A Prairie Tale.)  Arngrim led an interesting life, the child of unorthodox parenting (little tidbit for you:  her mother was the voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost, Gumby, and Polly Purebred), she was the victim of years of physical and sexual abuse by her older brother, and of course, she is best known as the evil Nellie on Little House on the Prairie.  Arngrim gives us lots of LHOTP details, which was awesome, but even better, Arngrim can write pretty darn well!  Many (most?) of these celebrity memoirs sound like the celebrity’s voice, you can almost imagine them telling the story into a recording device and then having some peon type it all up for them.  I didn’t feel that way about this book.  I highly recommend it, especially if you are a LHOTP fan.

The First Husband by Laura Dave-  I was looking forward to reading this one, because it was recommended to me by Jen Lancaster herself!  Well. She didn’t recommend it to me personally, but she did overwhelmingly recommend it to her readers, so same thing almost.  I borrowed this one from my friend Maria who also really liked the book, so I felt kind of bad when I gave the book back to Maria and admitted I really didn’t like it.  It wasn’t that it was poorly written, because I think it was very well written.  I guess I found the plot both jaded and yet slightly unbelievable at the same time (newly dumped wife goes on journey to find herself…yet falls in love with cute restaurant owner after a single one night stand and they build a life together with slight wrinkles from first husband and her feelings of not quite knowing who she is yet).  Eh. 

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta-  I mentioned to you in my last book review how much I was looking forward to this novel, as the premise really seemed to grab me:  the title refers to the people left behind after the rapture, or as the leftover people in the book call it, “The Sudden Departure”.  The reason they don’t refer to it as the rapture is that the leftovers are not who you think they should be.  Sure, there are some criminals and miscreants left behind, but there are also children, and pastors, and preschool teachers, etc.  They question if God really did take the good souls or if it was just some weird metaphysical thing that happened.  The ones who vanished into thin air also left behind a bunch of people who had to figure out how to live without them.  Was life still worth living if your husband and children vanish and you’re the only one left?  Do you return to college and make your way through life knowing just how tenuous your hold on life really is?  My only disappointment was that the novel started after The Sudden Departure.  Although the characters in the book discuss it at times (kind of in a “where were you on 9/11” sort of way), I was really hoping that would be part of the novel.  The ending makes up for it though.  It isn’t fireworks and sparkles, but it is a cool, thought provoking way to end.  I absolutely love a good ending and think it may be one of the hardest things to write.  Perrotta aces it here.

Bossypants by Tina Fey- so here I go again with a celebrity memoir.  I mostly liked Tina Fey’s book, though I think some of her jokes fall a bit flat without a studio audience to laugh at them.  Her early years were funny and interesting enough, but I really zipped through her Second City/SNL/30 Rock chapters.  Good, fairly quick read if you like Tina Fey.  Tara at Taradactyl also read Bossypants.  Click here to read her review and a bunch of other books she has reviewed (I am reading one of her recommendations right now --I Capture the Castle).

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley-  This mystery was given to me by my friend Shelley (hi Shelley!)  I didn’t realize when Shelley loaned it to me that it was a mystery.  I must admit that I can take or leave mysteries.  I went through a Mary Higgins Clark streak in my twenties and then read most of “The CatWho…” books (also in my twenties), but find I don’t have the patience for true mysteries as much anymore.  The heroine of this book, set in the 1950’s in the countryside of England, is eleven year old Flavia de Luce.  She is a smart, verbal child who hopes to solve the mystery of the almost dead man (he dies after saying his last words to her) she finds in her family’s cucumber patch before the police do.  Flavia was very likeable, and I enjoyed the interactions between she and her sisters (she does not like them), but I will admit that this one took me a long time to read as I kept falling asleep every other page. If you are a mystery fan, though, you will probably love it.  Thank you for thinking of me, Shelley!

 

Happy reading!