I wasn’t really looking for something to read when I walked through the book aisle at Target Thursday. But it’s difficult to pass them and not look, so there I was, drinking in each title as if I were parched and they precious liquid.
A woman made the space too small when she joined me in the aisle, dragging her cart in backwards, like she thought it would take up less room that way. Barely glancing at me, she asked ‘are you looking for something to read?’ and I replied ‘always’. Beating a path directly to the back wall, she picked up Alice Sebold’s ‘The Lovely Bones’ and held it out for me to take while stating emphatically ‘this is a good book’. How can you argue with that? It’s like she was sent to tell me to read this book. So I did.

As it turns out, The Lovely Bones is a very good book. I love a good storyteller and Sebold is certainly that. Both easy to read and understand… yet she weaves an intricate tale so visually stunning she even makes you feel sorry for a serial killer.
That’s her gift, the balance. The understanding she bestows is a gift and a curse, much like 14 year old Susie’s heaven. Everyone gets their own heaven when they die, you see… and when Susie is raped and killed in a cornfield she goes to her own heaven where she can watch the living if she wants. But even there things are never ‘perfect’. One miraculous afternoon she actually ‘falls back to earth’ but does not, cannot stay.

Now that I’ve finished I can see obscure references, allegories and touchstones everywhere. The snowglobe, the icicle, the suburbs.
Susie’s body is never found, though the reader knows the location. It doesn’t matter, because ‘lovely bones’ are not her remains. Lovely bones [I think] references the framework of man, on a smaller scale the framework of family.

I could write a book about the book, but then you’d not need to read the real thing.

High Noon by Nora Roberts

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Perfect summertime fare. A light read that won’t stay with you once you’ve put it down to grab another mojito.

I became far more wrapped up in the more interesting secondary characters… and though the end unfolded in more than 3 pages, which I appreciate, nothing more was forthcoming after the climax.
Did Essie ever leave the house? Did Ava and Dave get together? And what about that house, which was also a central character.
All those wonderful story lines fell by the wayside as the two main protagonists came together.

And by the way, Phoebe is basically Eve Dallas. Same tough cop, same tragic, violent childhood. And oh, look: same gorgeous, rich man comes along who loves her just for who she is.

Entertaining in spots, mildly suspenseful in others, I would have loved a deeper look into these fictional people’s lives, a la Sue Monk Kidd or Anne Siddons.

Vanished by Karen Robards

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Some books afford more than a glimpse into their heroine’s life, but this is not one of them. This novel is a carefully contained slice of the tortured existence of a mother who lost her daughter to a kidnapper seven years earlier, and her relationship with her best friend, a man who loves her.

I enjoyed the ‘mystery lite’ story and actually found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading, which is unusual… but didn’t appreciate the abrupt ending.

There is nothing remotely fairy tale-ish about the blossoming romance between the two protagonists. Realism is the order of the day, which fits the general tone of the book.

Now I’d like to read more of the author’s work… possibly her early novels.

View all my reviews.

I love C.S. Lewis, so last week I ordered ‘The Screwtape Letters’ and what I thought was a copy of ‘Mere Christianity’. Turns out it was the Shepherd’s Notes and not the book itself. Sort of an expanded Cliff’s Notes, it looks interesting but not what I was after.

Some days everything’s a lesson.