Courageous, just like the captain

Just to list them, because I didn't do that in here at all.

1. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
2. The Deep End of the Ocean - Jacquelyn Mitchard
3. Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom
4. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
5. Me and Emma - Elizabeth Flock
6. The World Social Forum - Jose Correa Leite
7. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
8. The Bright Forever - Lee Martin
9. Hard Work - Rick Fantasia & Kim Voss
10. While I was Gone - Sue Miller
11. My Friend Leonard - James Frey
12. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
13. The Last Time They Met - Anita Shreve
14. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
15. One True Thing - Anna Quindlen
16. The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
17. Suburban Sweatshops - Jennifer Gordon
18. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
19. The Bridges of Madison County - Robert James Walker
20. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day - Pearl Cleage
21. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
22. The Book of Ruth - Jane Hamilton
23. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
24. The Rapture of Canaan - Sheri Reynolds
25. A Virtuous Woman - Kaye Gibbons
26. A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest J. Gaines
27. Sybil - Flora Rheta Schreiber
28. Wifey - Judy Blume
29. Lucky - Alice Sebold
30. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
31. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
32. Midwives - Chris Bohjalian
33. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
34. At Risk - Alice Hoffman
35. Be Honest, You're Not That Into Him Either - Ian Kerner
36. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
37. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
38. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
39. Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult
40. We Were the Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates
41. Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
42. Strange Fits of Passion - Anita Shreve
43. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
44. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger
45. The United States of WalMart - John Dicker
46. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
47. The Giver - Lois Lowry
48. Icy Sparks - Gwyn Hyman Rubio
49. She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb
50. The Other Boelyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
51. Power and Powerlessness - John Gaventa
52. Good Harbor - Anita Diamant
53. Broken for You - Stephanie Kallos
54. Little Children - Tom Perotta
55. The New Imperialism - David Harvey
56. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
57. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
58. Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
59. Moral Politics - George Lakoff
60. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
61. The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank
62. Talking Politics - William Gamson
63. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brascheres
64. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
65. Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld
66. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
67. The Pact - Jodi Picoult
68. Daughter of Fortune - Isabelle Allende
69. But Inside I'm Screaming - Elizabeth Flock
70. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
71. The Abortionist's Daughter - Elisabeth Hyde
72. Waiting:  The True Confessions of a Waitress - Debra Ginsberg
73. The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
74. Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue

10. Losing the Race - Self Sabotage in Black America by John McWhorter.  McWhorter's analysis of this issue is excellent.  His opinions are incredibly controversial, but his arguments are almost flawless and he really does a solid job building up to his conclusions.  This book was also really easy to read, personally I flew through it like I was reading a novel.

11. Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.  What can I say, I really like this author.  Fun, mostly mindless, chick-lit... but good chick-lit, in my opinion.  This one was about four different characters, so it didn't go into as much detail about the characters as her other books had, but I still really enjoyed it.

12. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.  Wow, I can't believe I've gone 23 years without reading this book.  It really touched me.  I'm sure most of you have read this one,  but if you haven't, definitely go out and get it.  It's short, but very, very sweet.

Title: Prep
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Genre: fiction
Summary: Curtis Sittenfeld's poignant and occassionally angst-ridden debut novel Prep is the story of Lee Fiora, a South Bend, Indiana, teenager who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Ault school, an East Coast institution where "money was everywhere on campus, but it was usually invisible." As we follow Lee through boarding school, we witness firsthand the triumphs and tragedies that shape our heroine's coming-of-age. Yet while Sittenfeld may be a skilled storyteller, her real gift lies in her ability to expertly give voice to what is often described as the most alienating period in a young person's life: high school. True to its genre, Prep is filled with boarding school stereotypes--from the alienated gay student to the picture perfect blond girl; the achingly earnest first-year English teacher and the dreamy star basketball player who never mentions the fact that he's Jewish. Lee's status as an outsider is further affirmed after her parents drive 18 hours in their beat-up Datsun to attend Parent's Weekend, where most of the kids "got trashed and ended up skinny-dipping in the indoor pool" at their parents' fancy hotel. Yet even as the weekend deteriorates into disaster and ends with a heartbreaking slap across the face, Sittenfeld never blames or excuses anyone; rather, she simply incorporates the experience into Lee's sense of self. ("How was I supposed to understand, when I applied at the age of thirteen, that you have your whole life to leave your family?") By the time Lee graduates from Ault, some readers may tire of her constant worrying and self-doubting obsessions. However, every time we feel close to giving up on her, Sittenfeld reels us back in and makes us root for Lee. In doing so, perhaps we are rooting for every high school student who's ever wanted nothing more than to belong.
My thoughts: What an excellent read. I had heard from a lot of people that they hated the main character, Lee, and therefore did not like the book.  Well I LOVED the main character! Not because she was likeable, but because she seemed so real... I could definitely relate to the things she said and what she was going through - not in all the situations (not the stuff with the guy she got involved with) - but especially in how socially awkward she felt most of the time, I was definitely that way in high school and still think I am most of the time. This book was really, really sad, but in a weird way.  Nothing majorly huge happened, but it was like the insignificant things that in reality make up someone's life... those were just written so well.  I just felt like the book was written so true to how people really think and feel, especially teenagers. I remember what I was like at that age, and interestingly, I can still relate to some of the stuff now, even being 5 years out of high school.
My rating: 10/10

Title:  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Author:  Maya Angelou
Genre:  autobiography
Summary:  In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant." 
My thoughts:  I didn't really enjoy this as much as I had expected that I would.  Actually I found myself skipping a lot of parts because I kept getting bored.  Oh well... not for everyone, I guess.
My rating: 5/10

Title: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Author: Ann Brashares 
Genre: YA fiction
Summary: They were just a soft, ordinary pair of thrift-shop jeans until the four girls took turns trying them on--four girls, that is, who are close friends, about to be parted for the summer, with very different sizes and builds, not to mention backgrounds and personalities. Yet the pants settle on each girl's hips perfectly, making her look sexy and long-legged and feel confident as a teenager can feel. "These are magical Pants!" they realize, and so they make a pact to share them equally, to mail them back and forth over the summer from wherever they are. Beautiful, distant Lena is going to Greece to be with her grandparents; strong, athletic Bridget is off to soccer camp in Baja, California; hot-tempered Carmen plans to have her divorced father all to herself in South Carolina; and Tibby the rebel will be left at home to slave for minimum wage at Wallman's. Over the summer the Pants come to represent the support of the sisterhood, but they also lead each girl into bruising and ultimately healing confrontations with love and courage, dying and forgiveness. Lena finds her identity in Greece and the courage not to reject love; Bridget gets in over her head with an older camp coach; Carmen finds her father ensconced with a new fiancée and family; and Tibby unwillingly takes on a filmmaking apprentice who is dying of leukemia. Each girl's story is distinct and engrossing, told in a brightly contemporary style. Like the Pants, the reader bounces back and forth among the four unfolding adventures, and the melange is spiced with letters and witty quotes. Ann Brashares has here created four captivating characters and seamlessly interwoven their stories for a young adult novel that is fresh and absorbing. 
My thoughts: What a cute story.  I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would, probably because it reminded me of the IC a lot. :) Not sure if I'll continue on with the series, but I might.  It was definitely an adorable story, one that I could relate to.
My rating: 8/10

Title: Talking Politics
Author: William Gamson
Genre: non-fiction
Summary: Those who analyze public opinion have long contended that the average citizen is incapable of recounting consistently even the most rudimentary facts about current politics; that the little the average person does know is taken at face value from the media reports, and that the consequence is a polity that is ill-prepared for democratic governance. Yet social movements, comprised by and large of average citizens who have become exercised about particular issues, have been a prominent feature of the American political scene throughout American history and they are experiencing a resurgence in recent years. William Gamson asks the question, how is it that so many people become active in movements if people are so generally uninterested and badly informed about issues? The conclusion he reaches in this book is a striking refutation of the common wisdom about the public's ability to reason about politics. Rather than relying on survey data, as so many studies of public opinion do, Gamson reports on his analysis of discussions among small groups of working-class people on four controversial issues: affirmative action, nuclear power, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the troubles in American industry. Excerpts from many of these discussions are transcribed in the book. Gamson analyzes how these same issues have been treated in a range of media material, from editorial opinion columns to political cartoons and network news programs, in order to determine how closely the group discussions mimic media discourse. He finds that the process of opinion formation is more complex than it has usually been depicted and that people condition media information with reflection on their own experience or that of people they know. The discussions transcribed in this book demonstrate that people are quite capable of conducting informed and well-reasoned discussions about issues and that although most people are not inclined to become actively involved in politics, the seeds of political action are present in the minds of many. With the appropriate stimulation, this latent political consciousness can be activated, which accounts for the continual creation of social movements. 
My thoughts: Interesting research question....blah book.  I definitely did not love it, not at all. I think Gamson handled the research well, and his conclusions are really interesting and important.  But, in reality, it was really just a boring book.  There's so much more I think he could have done with it, but it just dragged on (and it wasn't even that long!).  I had a hard time sticking with it and wish I didn't have to.  It's a classic text in the field though, so I guess that says something.
My rating: 6/10

Title: The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Author: Melissa Bank
Genre: Fiction
Summary: Banks's debut short story collection about the mixed-up dating life of Jane Rosenal was a hit on the beach-reading circuit this summer. Hearing the author's conviction while she reads her work proves why: there is an uncanny likeness between the writer and her feisty-but-neurotic heroine. Banks plays up this mood by narrating in a quiet, seductive voice, one that nonetheless manages to convey a sense of sustained desperation. The episodes move chronologically, starting with Jane's girl's-eye view of her older brother, Henry, in bumbling action as he dates an older, more sophisticated woman. At age 16, Jane moves in with a great-aunt in her Manhattan apartment, then sees the world through her host's jaded eyes. Later, as a lowly assistant in publishing, she is seduced by an older editor, a super-macho alcoholic who suffers impotence. Banks's gifts of distanced objectivity, as author and reader, dovetail here with stylish panache.
My thoughts: This book was good, not great. Cute, fun, easy read that I enjoyed. Not one of my faves, but as far as "chick-lit" is concerned, it wasn't bad at all.
My rating: 7/10

Title: The Sparrow
Author: Mary Doria Russell
Genre: science fiction/fantasy
Summary: In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer. 
My thoughts: Amazing. I absolutely loved this book. Now, normally I'm not a major sci-fi fan but this one really wasn't your typical science fiction book. The characters were complex but incredibly real, even the "alien" characters were so well done that I fell in love with them. The book is a little slow at first, but after the first 25 pages or so it really picks up and I couldn't put it down. The suspense was great - you found out things little by little and at the very end it was such a sad, horrifying, but relieving feeling to finally know what happened to the mission. There is a sequel which I hope to read soon.
My rating: 10/10

Title: Moral Politics - How Liberals and Conservatives Think
Author: George Lakoff
Genre: Nonfiction
Summary: In Moral Politics, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious worldviews of liberals and conservatives, explaining why they are at odds over so many seemingly unrelated issues-like taxes, abortion, regulation, and social programs. The differences, Lakoff argues, are not mere matters of partisanship, but arise from radically different conceptions of morality and ideal family life-meaning that family and morality are at the heart of American politics, in ways that are far from obvious. For this edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword explaining how "moral politics" makes sense of events like the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the 2000 presidential election.
My thoughts: First book for this class that I have really liked.  I think everyone who is interested in politics and/or feels passionately about either conservatism or liberalism or anything in between absolutely NEEDS to read this book.  It is an excellent theory that I think really conceptualizes the ways that people think about the world, and consequently the ways that people think about their politics.  LOVE it.  Read it.
My rating: 9/10

Title: Running With Scissors
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Genre: Memoir
Summary: There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist, and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription meds and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a pedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorizes it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a capella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward. Burroughs's perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs's survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all. 
My thoughts: Perhaps I had built this book up too much before reading it.  I was really excited to read it, I had heard so many wonderful things about Burroughs' story...and I was pretty disappointed.  While his story was at times funny and at other times crazy/terrifying, it just never grabbed me in the way that I thought it would.  I felt like I wanted him to be serious about writing it, and sometimes he was, but it was all told in such a light manner that I didn't absorb the seriousness of his childhood.  I don't know, just not for me I guess.
My rating: 5/10

Title: The Secret History
Author: Donna Tartt
summary: Narrator Richard Papen comes from a lower-class family and a loveless California home to the "hermetic, overheated atmosphere" of Vermont's Hampden College. Almost too easily, he is accepted into a clique of five socially sophisticated students who study Classics with an idiosyncratic, morally fraudulent professor. Despite their demanding curriculum (they quote Greek classics to each other at every opportunity) the friends spend most of their time drinking and taking pills. Finally they reveal to Richard that they accidentally killed a man during a bacchanalian frenzy; when one of their number seems ready to spill the secret, the group--now including Richard--must kill him, too. The best parts of the book occur after the second murder, when Tartt describes the effect of the death on a small community, the behavior of the victim's family and the conspirators' emotional disintegration. Here her gifts for social satire and character analysis are shown to good advantage and her writing is powerful and evocative. On the other hand, the plot's many inconsistencies, the self-indulgent, high-flown references to classic literature and the reliance on melodrama make one wish this had been a tauter, more focused novel. In the final analysis, however, readers may enjoy the pull of a mysterious, richly detailed story told by a talented writer. 
My thoughts: Wow, I really liked this book. A LOT. Actually I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a while. Although I guess the label psychological thriller is the most appropriate, it doesn't really do this novel justice.  The writing is spectacular, I was sucked in from the writing style alone within the first page. I also fell in love with the characters... I really liked all of them, for all their "fatal flaws" as the narrator describes in the first paragraph. They seemed so human, even though the plot was so incredibly improbable.  I just can't say enough... read this book!
My rating: 9/10

Title:  To Kill A Mockingbird
Author:  Harper Lee
Summary (from amazon.com): Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up. 
My thoughts: Who doesn't love this book?  I hadn't read it for a LONG time, since elementary school or something, and it was really nice to pick it back up again.  If you have never read this book, it is definitely a must-read.

Title:  The New Imperialism
Author:  David Harvey
Summary (from amazon.com):   People around the world are confused and concerned. Is it a sign of strength or of weakness that the US has suddenly shifted from a politics of consensus to one of coercion on the world stage? What was really at stake in the war on Iraq? Was it all about oil and, if not, what else was involved? What role has a sagging economy played in pushing the US into foreign adventurism? What exactly is the relationship between US militarism abroad and domestic politics? These are the questions taken up in this compelling and original book. In this closely argued and clearly written book, David Harvey, one of the leading social theorists of his generation, builds a conceptual framework to expose the underlying forces at work behind these momentous shifts in US policies and politics. The compulsions behind the projection of US power on the world as a "new imperialism" are here, for the first time, laid bare for all to see. 
My thoughts: ahhh! I want to tear my hair out, no joke.  Yes, I had to read this book for school.  Yes, I thought it sounded pretty interesting, compelling, and definitely thought-provoking.  No, I did NOT enjoy it!  He spends three quarters of the book on economic theory and it did not make ANY sense.  I am well aware that he wrote this for a scholarly audience, but I think that he would do a service by being slightly more accessible.  I mean, I consider myself somewhat smart and I just could not get what the heck he was saying half the time.  I get his main points, and they are interesting ones, but overall, nI would not suggest reading this book.

So I've decided to start reviewing books (again).  Perhaps I'll be able to keep up with it this time.

Title: Broken For You
Author:  Stephanie Kallos
Summary (from amazon.com):  "The dead, Margaret thought. They can be so loud." So muses the protagonist of this dreamy, powerful tale of familial warring, secrets and redemption. When elderly Margaret Hughes discovers that she has a malignant brain tumor, she refuses treatment and decides to take a nice young tenant into her huge, lonely Seattle mansion for company. What she gets is Wanda Schultz, a tough-as-nails stage manager who is secretly seeking the man who left her and prone to inexplicable weeping breakdowns. Wanda, ignorant of Margaret's illness, is intrigued by the museum-like house and its eccentric owner—so when Margaret unexpectedly invites her to a drink-champagne-and-break-the-priceless-antique-china party for two, she's delighted. But a dark history lurks; the houseful of gorgeous antique porcelain comes from Margaret's father's WWII pilfering of European Jewish homes. Meanwhile, Wanda's father, who deserted her years ago, is on the road trying to heal, and Margaret's mother's ghost is haunting the Seattle mansion, lounging about in expensive peignoirs and criticizing her only daughter. Wrestling to keep the dead and the ghosts of their pasts at bay, the two women slowly build an extraordinary friendship, and when Wanda discovers a talent for mosaics, the past begins to quiet. Though it takes a while to get started, this haunting and memorable debut is reminiscent of early Atwood, peopled by lovably imperfect and eccentric characters.
My thoughts: Well, I thought this book was ok.  I couldn't decide how I felt about it until halfway through, when I figured out that it wasn't going to be all that wonderful.  But it was a sweet story, although it did have a few too many coincidences, and I enjoyed the last 50 or so pages a lot.  Overall though I wouldn't recommend it too highly, I think the idea was great but maybe Kallos just didn't write it the way it seems it could have been written. Eh.

Wow its only been about a billion years since I've updated this thing. Sorry about that folks. There's been a lot of stuff going on lately but nothing I've really wanted to write about. Especially when there's someone who I don't want reading this ... anyways.

Well I went to San Francisco to visit my family and it was awesome. I mean, really, just so gorgeous. My aunt and uncle basically live on a mountain... well to me its a mountain, to them I suppose its just another hill. But wow, the scenery is just amazing. The bay against the mountains with all the pretty houses... unbelievable. Also I got to see Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf, Berkeley and Stanford Universities, tons of shopping districts, and all kinds of fun stuff. It was a really great vacation, and I definitely want to go back next summer... hopefully I'll get to travel down to LA next time too.

And now I'm back to normal... literally. Its so blah here, but whatever. In May I'll be out. I just got a new job at Ned Kelly's... Lone Star is just not allowing me to pay for my life. So far it seems like the money and clientele are both better at Ned's. And plus I am reunited with Brittny, which is obvoiusly awesome!

Other than that I'm just putzing around, not doing too much. When Bob is here the weekends are great, but when he isn't I don't do too much. I'm really ok with that though, because I get so tired after working so much... actually I'm ready for school to start, believe it or not. Something more to do, and the sooner it starts the sooner the year will be over and I can move back home.

Ok, can someone help me realize what all the fuss is about with this book? I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye (read it 5 or 6 years ago) but I just am not getting into F&Z. Seriously, I'm almost done with it and don't get what is so wonderful about it... for those of you that like it, why do you? Thanks for the help!

This is the second Alice Hoffman book I've read and the second I've really liked.  This story was about an 11 year old girl diagnosed with AIDS, which she got from a blood transfusion (it was set in the early 80s). Very moving story, and I LOVED the way she ended the book - although I won't give anything away. My only problem with it was that I felt like it was too short; I feel that the characters could have been developed more which would have made for an even better story.  All around, a great book, and now I'm excited that I've found another author I'm really a fan of!

So I can't really figure out why people rave about this book.  First of all, it's written in letter format which I don't think I like too much. Also, it's written in slang (eubonics, if you will) which I also have a hard time with. Third of all, I just didn't find the story to be all that compelling or interesting. Basically, just not my cup of tea... some love it, I particiularly didn't.

Midwives was an excellent book.  The basic story is a midwife who has been practicing (home births) for over ten years ends up in a situation where the mother is in trouble and they have no way of getting to a hospital.  The mother ends up dying, and so Sibyl (the midwife) performs an emergency cesearean section with a kitchen knife and saves the life of the baby boy inside.  When all is said and done, the state begins to question whether the mother was actually dead when the c-section was performed, and they end up putting Sibyl on trial for involuntary manslaughter, saying she killed the mother.  The entire story is told from the point of view of Sibyl's daugher, age 14 at the time of the trial. I loved the way this story was told, such quick reading but very intriguing as well. And it was interesting reading material; midwifery is something I've never read about or thought about at all. The only reason I know that people still do home births today is because of "A Baby Story" on TLC (haha). So, needless to say, this was a wonderful book and I'd highly recommend it.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer - really good read. I have to make myself get into books like this, that are not written the way books typically are, (Such as The History of Love) and this one was totally worth it.  It was about this kid named Oskar who is 9 years old, and his dad died in september 11th.  His dad left him this key and he wants to find out what it goes to.  It was cool to read it because it was written from Oskar's point of view, and he was a very smart and precocious 9 year old.  Reminded me of myself sometimes - like when he would say a word but pronounce it totally wrong, b/c he only knows the word from reading it... yeah I totally did that a lot when I was younger.  The ending wasn't my favorite - I wanted there to be something a little more - but it did tie up the book well, which is always nice.  Overall, I'm really glad I read this one and am putting Everything Is Illuminated (his other work) on my wishlist right now.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant - AWESOME! Now it is not a secret that I don't know too much about the Bible and am not religious at ALL, but who doesn't know the story of Jacob and his sons? I mean, if anything, the musical "Joseph" probably tells most people what they need to know about that story (myself included).  But this was a retelling of that story from the perspective of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter. It started by telling about her four mothers - Jacob's four wives, who were also sisters - Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Billah. Then it went on to tell everything about Dinah's life from her perspective.  It was a very insightful look at how the women of that time probably lived.  And it definitely caused me to look at the story of Jaocb and his sons in a completely different way.  I'd highly, highly recommend this book, even if you aren't into religion at all (I'm totally not), it is a really awesome story and is written very well.

Wow.  What an awesome, yet horrifying book.  It is a memoir about her rape as a college freshman and the aftermath of it.  It is just crazy how one event can change someones life so drastically.  She literally became a different person because of the rape.  I thought this book was written very well.  I previously read The Lovely Bones and this one was very different, but her writing style is still pretty much the same.  It's hard to reveiew a memoir, since it was her own story and everything, but she truly told it well.  I'm glad I read it, and I really hope she publishes another book soon.