The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Another finished book. Long weekends without any definite plans and a lot of stuff around the house you are trying to avoid doing will give you good reading motivation. Long weekends are great.


But I really don’t have much to say about The Reader. I had seen the movie when it was in the theatres and loved it. A friend lent me the book and it has lived on my shelf for way too long. I’m going through my books and trying to make progress on what I have and what I need to return to people. At least I have one less borrowed book.

As for the book, it was beautifully written. Not a long piece and it gives an interesting perspective of the effect of the war on the German people, even to those in the next generation. Though it was a short read, every chapter felt like a piece of the puzzle that defined that man’s life in three acts to display how one person can become interwoven into the fabric of their character.

That might be a very bad description of what the book was about. I highly recommend the book and the movie. The movie was a faithful representation of the book and you could choose one over the other and not feel cheated out of the story experience.

Now, must find a happy novel to read.

Staked by J.F. Lewis

Vampires are back. Well sort of. You see them all over, especially when a new movie is out but those aren’t real vampires. Vampires are monsters, just like werewolves, sea creatures, goblins, etc. Making your vampires cute and cuddly is an affront to the monster community and they should take a stand for their rights to be seen in an unflattering light. They should garner the respect that only true fear can accomplish. Anything less goes against the monster code.

There. Got that off my chest and I think I should be awarded points for not using the word glitter. It was hard but I suspect everyone knows what I’m talking about anyway so I won’t bore you with that.


As for today’s novel choice, we have a book that I only picked up because I wanted something as ridiculous and schlocky as I could possibly find. I chose Staked because it came with a scantily clad woman on the cover with a gun in her hand. Not to mention a summary on the back that sounded like the guy version of chick-lit: girlfriend pressuring him into turning her into a vampire, business trouble at his co-owned strip club, and after a weird turn of events, the local werewolf pack is after him. Is it every guy’s dream to own a strip club? For the record, I don’t really want an answer to that question but I can’t imagine anything more depressing.

As for the book, it runs pretty much exactly like the back summary describes. The only surprise is that he turns the girlfriend pretty close at the first of the story and it isn’t a pretty sight. Blood and gore and they really should make an informational video on it ‘cause it would make anyone not to want to go through something so gross. Not to mention, character-wise, I can’t imagine why he would want to choose to spend eternity with this person, nor why she with him. Perhaps in that sense, they are made for each other. After the whole turning, they really didn’t spend all that much time together and the story splits off into two directions: Eric dealing with his werewolf issues and Tabitha getting Vampire 101. Basically, I spent a lot of the first half of the book asking myself why I was still reading.

It wasn’t a completely horrible book to read. It was starting to get good when it abruptly ends. I suspect the author wrote a really, really long book and the publisher decides to cut it off there to split it into two books to be more profitable. It included the first chapter to the next book and that little bit of plot really needed to be in the first book. Not sure what happens after that little piece but the ending just seemed awkward to me after finally starting to like the characters a little bit.

If you are willing to invest into a new vampire series and read more than just the first book, then I can recommend. If you like your books more stand-alone so you can move on to other things, I’d leave this one on the shelf. J.F. Lewis gets extra points in my book for making his vampires (or werewolves or whatevers) monsters in the truest sense. They are not nice, they kill, are not to be trusted, and make choices out of personal gain. And that makes them monsters, just as much as humans can be.

Now I’m off to do something productive and perhaps unmonster like. Cross fingers.

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

Rainy Sunday. Perfect for reading and then posting about it.


Certain Girls is the sequel to Jennifer's big hit Good in Bed. Both of which I've borrowed from women at work and they make good pass around books. Also, they are quick reads and perfect for summer. I read Good in Bed before I started this reviewing books for fun thing. That is too bad because I'd have liked to go back and review what I'd felt about that book. Not really sure how I feel about this one.

Let's start with the story, the story centers around Candace and Joy, 12 years after the ending of the first book. Cannie is a stay at home mom who writes professional fanfic based on a sci-fi/fantasy movie under a pen name. She is super mom extraordinaire. Joy is a typical kid trying to break away from her overprotective mom, trying to fit-in with the popular kids at school, and trying to figure out who she is. In a lot of ways, she is a younger version of Cannie and it makes you wonder if you ever do figure it out. Lots of things happen and everyone learns something by the end.

I really do like these books while I'm reading them. They are so light and fluffy and fun and have a sharp wit, you don't want to see them end. They are not books I'd recommend to everyone but they are great to pass around to the girls at work book club or to anyone who enjoys books about mother/daughter relationships. Unfortunately, I do have a little bit of a guilty feeling afterwards. Like eating french fries instead of ordering the salad that was so helpfully offered as a healthy alternative. Oh well, I'll try to find a salad book next time.

Perhaps this conflicted feeling is because of what happened in the book. I really don't want to give that away but it really made me sad. Sad. Sad is such an odd word, like it only belongs to 4 year olds who don't know how to articulate how they really feel but it is an accurate description. I guess, as one of the centers of Cannie's happiness is taken away, it made me just as unhappy in direct proportion to how happy it made me when she found it in Good in Bed.

Bad things happen to people and life goes on. The book does end on a happy note so no worries if you were planning on taking this one to the beach.

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult

I really really really shouldn't be posting about a book I just finished. I really really shouldn't be spending my morning finishing a book. I really really should be going to the market to find food for the upcoming week. I really should be at work, working on my evil project that I'd love to be taken off of so that I can find a new project. I really should be working on my photos so I can get my last PEI trip uploaded. That trip was like a month a ago and I still don't have them up... and one of my friends is likely going to kill me because of it.... life is hard but you know what trumps all the angst written in this paragraph? Schlock by Jodi Picoult!


Oh how I love Jodi... let me count the ways... She is awesome at her little formula. Typical Jodi book has two mothers who are best friends and love each other like sisters but because of the big event of the book, that relationship is destroyed for ALL TIME. Also in this little formula are the children, usually of that age when they finally realize that their parents aren't perfect and start keeping secrets from them. The children are usually the "big event" plot point of the book and one is usually neglected over the needs of the other. The husbands are not usually as interesting except they are excellent fathers despite their typical not perfect characters. Actually, Jodi is very adapt at writing imperfect people which make them much more interesting to read. There might be some MarySue qualities going on here but they aren't annoying ones.

Handle With Care is a story about a family who has a child that was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta. OI is a genetic defect that causes the bones to be extremely brittle and break very easily. They love their daughter Willow no matter how hard life is living with a child with a disability. Problem is, OI is very expensive. Insurance will only over so much, they are very much in debt, and they see the future where Willow will need more and more surgeries, special equipment, and one and on... The mother's gamble on a solution: file a wrongful birth lawsuit against the doctor. Wrongful birth argues that the doctor should have diagnosed the disability in the womb and offered abortion as an option. The big problem, the doctor is her best friend. Bing! Big Event Plot is born.

I know this is coming off as sarcastic but I really do like Picolts books. They are easy reads, usually about controversial subjects that are fun to discuss in a group, and there is something comforting about them. It has been over a year since I've read one but it felt like putting on that warm comfy sweater you keep in the back of the closet for cold winter nights. But in this case, a warm cosy book that you bring out on hot summer days to while away those days that feel too humid to move.

Anyway, iPod is charged and I have no more excuses to prevent the start of my day... too bad that didn't take longer.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Posting two in one day?! I know, that is the real shocker. Basically the last book was just lurking around, waiting to be reviewed and this one, just finished this afternoon, was demanding to be reviewed. Isn’t it weird how some books can be more patient than others?


Did you know that the islands in the English Channel were occupied by Germany during WWII? I had no idea, but then, my knowledge of the war is pretty limited to what I’ve been able to gleam from Hollywood movies. As far as I know, the US had nothing to do with those islands so no HBO special by Tom Hanks will ever give us that story. Not that I’m bitter.

The story starts in London, 1946, and the city is starting to rebuild after the war. Juliet Ashton is the centre of the story, a writer in search of her next novel. She receives a letter from a stranger asking if she might know of any other books by the author Charles Lamb. This kicks off a correspondence between herself and the people of Guernsey whom she finds herself falling in love with. The story is told in the form of letters, telegrams, and in one section, a journal.

The shining thread through out all is the love of books and how reading can help you get through some really terrible times. Or how books can bring people together and help you form unexpected relationships. Even though the subject matter is a little dark and heavy at times, the sharp wit of Juliet’s letters keeps you turning the page for more. It makes you wish you had someone as entertaining to correspond with in the old fashioned world of pen and paper, stamps and envelopes. Yet another book I liked and recommend to pretty much everyone.

Just think, this book didn’t have vampires or magic or any of the many other paranormal things I usually read. And the next one I finish might not either. Sign I’m getting old? A truly scary thought.

Heat Stroke by Rachel Caine

Woohoo! Finished another book in the year 2010. Shocking! I'm hoping to turn this summer into a reading summer but that is yet to be seen. It is so hard to find time to read and be social at the same time.


Heat Stroke is a return to a favourite series of mine. Not sure if I wrote a review of the first one in the series, Ill Wind, but I really should have. Weather Wardens go out and help control the weather. They can ask the sky to rain or lessen the intensity of tornados. In this world, a select group of people have special powers to talk to the elements and help protect people from extreme dangers. Those extremes can be anything from hurricanes to wild fires.

At the start of this book, Joanne Baldwin, has been declared dead and she sort of is... or more like transformed into a whole new being, a Djinn. In this book, we get to see into the world of the Djinn. How they became to be, their role in the weather warden world, and how their darkest fear is to be enslaved by being stuck in a bottle. If you are tied to a bottle, you are under the power of whoever holds that bottle and you have to do everything that person commands no matter how much you don't want to. If your master is not a good guy, things could get really awful.

The best thing about this series is that you never know where the author is going to take you. Just when you think you know what is going on and all is happening as expected, she throws a curve and you are somewhere you never thought possible. Another great feature is her ability to end the book on such a cliff-hanger, you want to jump online and priority order the next book in the series.

Really don't want to give too much away just in the off chance you want to read it. If you are into fantasy popcorn that delivers a plot pace of a hundred miles per hour, this is the book for you.

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

This is mostly just a test, a test to see if I can still post to this blog. It has been forever and there really are no excuses. I wanted to blame my eyes and old age but apparently that isn’t completely the case. Or at least the eye part isn’t the problem, so says the optometrist. So I’m going to blame old age and the brain rotting power of television on my inability to finish books.


Coincidentally, the first book I’ve been able to finish in 2010 is based on the television show Castle. If you are not a fan, let me explain it a little to you. Richard Castle is an author who has used his connections to tag along with New York’s finest detectives as research for his new novel. Here he finds Detective Kate Beckett as his new muse. Each week we get a new weird murder and Castle uses his talents to help the police solve crime. So this brings us to the actual book. Turns out, if someone writes a fictional book based on a book that was fictionally created in a fictional universe…. I MUST HAVE IT. I must buy it, no matter how it makes me hate myself, just a little bit.

The book runs just like the show. Murder, suspect, suspect, interrogation, murder, evidence, suspect, alibis, forensics, action, suspense, etc. All the things you need for a Who-Done-It. Especially one that reads just like it was written as a script for the show except they changed the character names. There are a few things here that you don’t get on tv, like a sex scene and the relationship that seems to have a chance in hell of actually happening in my lifetime. But then, it wouldn’t be tv if they didn’t drag that out as long as possible.

Ultimately, it is the best example ever of a guilty pleasure. Don’t like admitting that I’d read a book like this but it was fun and don’t regret it. I suspect only fans of the show would appreciate the novelty of the book and forgive it for coming off a little over-the-top. Tell me if I’m wrong. Otherwise it was just fun and if you are a fan of the show, you will likely find it was worth the price of admission.

‘Til next time.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

Yeah, I know it is has been forever since I’ve finished anything. I’m sure I feel worse about it than you do but I’m starting to accept the fact that the brain is turning to mush. I just can’t wait for the day when I won’t care.

Perhaps that is why Julie & Julia is a perfect book for summer mush brain. It is another blog turned book chronicling the Julie/Julia project. One unhappy woman, stuck in annoying temp job, decides to learn how to cook French food by working her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1. The real challenge: she will make all 524 recipes in one year. Every last one of them, even the aspics.

Aspics... I never thought I’d find anything more disgusting than calf brains as a culinary delight. The descriptions and the pain and horror Julie went through to complete that section of the cookbook set the bar pretty high. If you are like me and not an experienced French food connoisseur, aspic is where you take ingredients and place them into gelatin made out of meat stock. It’s jelly loaf. For some reason, it is the gelatin part I have a problem with. Why would you do that to perfectly good food? Jell-O should only be cherry flavoured and you should never add stuff to it (other than a dollop of whip cream if you are feeling fancy.) Now that I’ve got off my chest, after reading this book, I can respect the work that would go into a dish like that. If I should ever see one again, I won’t dismiss it out of hand and keep the shivers to a dull minimum.

I started the book about a couple weeks before the movie came out and was having problems getting through it but after seeing the movie this week, it helped encourage me to finish the last half. For the first time in the history of cinema, a movie actually compliments the book it was based on. The movie was great to give us more of Julia Child’s story, her life with Paul, her cooking, and her time in Paris. The book was great because it gave us more of Julie’s story, her life with Eric, her day job, her friends/family, and motivation on why would someone put themselves through something like this. You could read it as a post-September 11th look at New York and a piece of the emotional state of its citizens. Or if that is too deep for a summer read, one woman’s challenge to find her bliss brought on by impending dread of turning 30.

Personally, I’m really not a fan of cooking so I really shouldn’t even be reviewing this book. My general motto: can’t wait until all our nutritional requirements come in pill form. But I do like trying new food and restaurants so it has added to my appreciation in that sense.

Still staying away from aspics. Shiver.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

You’ll have to forgive me; it has been forever since I’ve written up a review of a book. But then, it has been awhile since I’ve read something I thought others might find even slightly interesting. Not that Twilight and the notion of interesting should be combined in the same sentence.

Basic story: girl moves to town to live with her father. Girl goes to school and she seems to be the best thing to hit town since the push-up bra ... She’s like catnip to all the boys. But there is one boy who doesn’t seem to like her at all and of course, he is the one she is most fascinated with. He’s different, his family is different, but she is not afraid of his otherworldly ways. He saves her life from an out-of-control car and thus begins the greatest teen romance of all time.

Sigh! I know that isn’t true. Romeo & Juliet was the greatest teen romance of all time. But there is something about this book that just makes me want to make outlandish statements and think I can get away with it. Granted, that notion is somewhat liberating but still, props to the master, Shakespeare. He knew teen angst like nobody’s business.

Twilight was so girly it freaked me out. Normally I like girly, it usually makes for good brain candy but warning: you will never get those brain cells back. I can forgive it for being girly. What I can’t forgive it for is being boring.

Once those two start having a relationship, it is as if the clock has stopped. I swear to god, there was a meadow scene where they were just sitting and it just went on and on and on. I have a friend that doesn’t like the shopping montage in movies, I personally hate the meadow scenes… I have no idea what they are supposed to represent. The spend forever getting to that damn meadow, you would have thought there would be something cool at the end of the journey… Nope, just vampire show and tell. We get to see Edward’s true nature and he has to be the most boring vampire ever put to print. He can kill grisly bears with his bare hands but we never get a sense of that fierceness. He has to be the safest bad-boy ever.

And Bella, I don’t know where to start with her. One, she is the most perfect teenage daughter of all time. She cooks, she cleans, she does the grocery shopping, and all the while maintaining top grades. If Stepford made children, they would be just like Bella. Two, her reaction to fear is non-reaction. Edward shouldn’t be mad about that, he should fear that his girlfriend has a neurological disorder. And three, she really needs to be less self-sacrificing. That death wish thing she has going on is very disturbing.

Ultimately, these books should not be read by anyone whose age is not ending in the word “teen”. As for everyone else, just don’t go there and pick up some Shakespeare instead.

Serenity, Vol. 2: "Better Days" by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews, Illustrated by Will Conrad

I know, I know... I haven't posted a review in forever and I know for a fact that I read almost 30 books in 2008, thanks to my list in GoodReads. Surely some of them were worthy of the InCoHerEnt book review treatment. (And for the record, all books deserve some kind of book review.)

I'm just lazy.

But 2009 is a fresh start and I'm hopeful that I'll get back into the groove. Not sure if this is the right book to get me there.

I can never resist a graphic novel by Joss Whedon. No matter what it is, I must have. I think it comes from missing his television shows so much. This one was like getting a lost episode from the archive that was never filmed but just story boarded. This volume takes three Serenity comics and binds them together to form the Better Days story arc. The basic story: the gang is hired do a heist, they heist, they deliver, but the guy can't pay. He pays them with information on how to find a stash of currency, they find it and there is a lot of it. Now they have someone even bigger chasing after them.

In a lot of ways, this one reminded me of one of my favourite Firefly episodes, "Ariel", and the fall-out in the episode "War Stories". Because of that, I didn't find this turn really gave us anything new. It pokes at the mysteries that I sometimes feel will never be answered. My other problem was that it takes place before the Serenity movie. It was nice seeing Wash and Shepherd again but I want to know what is going on with characters since the movie. It didn't feel like a progression of the story arc, just a retread of old material. It was an okay story, with some laugh-out-loud dialogue, but I didn't have a wow moment.

It would be remiss not to mention the artist, Will Conrad. He's very good at recreating the facial features of our beloved actors who he got spot on, especially the guys. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, the women might have been harder to render with their softer features. Anyway, I was less annoyed here than I normally am with comics where I can compare the art to an actor's face.

So, I can only recommend this to the die-hard Firefly/Serenity fans who are looking for anything new to add to their encyclopedic knowledge of the series. Otherwise, you might be a little disappointed.