Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is the third novel in Joanne Harris’s Chocolat series, but you really don’t need to read the first two to understand what’s happening here (although I recommend you do!). Like the other two novels, very little happens in the way of plot, but you’ll be so wrapped up in all the French and the food that you won’t really care. “Those people who say that words have no power know nothing of the nature of words. Words, well placed, can end […]
I want my 25 cents back
My best friend introduced me to Robin Cook in sixth grade, and we both loved his medical thrillers. I found some of his books recently for super cheap (a quarter each!) at a rummage sale, and couldn’t resist grabbing them all. I sent her a snap of Abduction when I started it, and she warned me that it doesn’t hold up well — but I’m pretty sure I never read it the first time around (it came out in ’02, and I’d moved on from Cook […]
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
I’m a pretty big horror fan. I graduated from Christopher Pike novels to Stephen King before I hit my teens. Naturally, I’m pretty familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft. So when I came across an author who Lovecraft named as a major influence on his work, I naturally had to give it a read. The similarities are apparent from page one. It has many of the ingredients of classic Lovecraft: cosmic horror, strange locals, unnamed horrors. It’s a must read for anyone who […]
“True love doesn’t always last,” I say. “It doesn’t always have to be for a lifetime”
Taylor Jenkins Reid really only does one thing, but she does it well. She sets up her main character with a wonderful love, does something to totally wreck it, and then helps her back along the path to happiness. Usually there’s a gay best friend (seriously, I think every novel I’ve read by her features a gay best friend) and a loving family member or two. Maybe some professional conflict. Might be formulaic, but One True Loves is the 4th book I’ve read by this author, and she […]
“When she was eight she had fallen in love with Ichimei with all the intensity of childhood passions; with Nathaniel it was the calm love of later years”
I’ve read quite a few Isabel Allende books, but The Japanese Lover is the first I listened to as an audiobook. While it’s certainly not the high-paced story-telling that lends itself well to going for a run/staying awake on my commute, I did find that the way that an audiobook forces you to enjoy every moment of writing really works wonderfully with Allende’s style. “I’m fine here, Lenny. I’m discovering who I am without all my ornaments and accessories. It’s quite a slow process, but a […]
Mary Jane-ing the Pacific Theatre, one atoll at a time
There are good war novels, and there are bad war novels. And occasionally, a well-intentioned reader like myself gets saddled with an excruciating mess like Never Too Old to Cry. This is a fictionalized memoir of D. G. McWilliams, a veteran of the 1st Marine Division, which fought in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. McWilliams’ endeavor was to try to document the war from a very intimate perspective, primarily through the eyes of a small cadre of Marine recruits. Paramount among them […]