So, I am not so good at  daily posting.  Just haven’t had much to say, but it is definitely time to do a “Read” commentary.  It may have taken me so long to get around to it because I just haven’t read anything that has been wonderful.  I received 2 books from the Early Reader Program to review  and sadly, both were miserable, so it has taken a long time to wade through them.  I feel an obligation to actually read them since they were nice enough to send them to me, but wow…….tough.

First, SMOKE  by Jeremy Chester:   Is about a man in the Federal Witness Protection Program whose identity has been compromised and he is being blackmailed to kidnap a business man.  A good synopsis on the cover made me think it would be a better read than it is.

I admit up front that I haven’t finished this book.  I have been trying for over a month to get “into” it. It may not happen. I am from Miami, loved the premise…..I lived through the Colombian Drug Wars there and thought it had the basis for a great plot. We actually avoided our closest mall because there were drug related murders committed there.  But someone needed to tell Chester that he had too many characters with too little clarification and they were soooo confusing. Between the Witness Protection Program, the CIA it was too hard to tell  who was a victim or bad guy, I understand suspense and mystery, but this was just sloppy characterization that made it very hard to stay involved. It could be a good story……just need to simplify and grab the reader a little earlier. I am determined to finish. I owe it to the Early Reader Program. But, it isn’t easy. And a good book needs to be engrossing enough to make multiple character confusion worth figuring out.  This one isn’t yet.

The second book I received was RICH AGAIN by Anna Maxted.  She has a very successful collection of “Chick Lit” and the cover and title certainly looked like this would be more along that line.  Nope.

I really tried to like it. It even had some good moments (very brief moments)…..but on the whole, it was just a scrambled mess about at deeply unlikeable family with obscene amounts of money and no redeeming values. Add an unbelievable plot with a pathalogically evil villain who was just so soulless, that I started laughing everytime he appeared in the story.
I’m all for using time as a plot device, but Maxted (or some editors who were much better than I at keeping dates straight) kept jumping back and forth in time, so sometimes the whole thing didn’t make sense.
Now, I am pretty sure my daughter will like this better than me……she’s smarter and may not be so put off by the time shifts. But there really is no romance…..every one is so mean and shallow; I need at least one character to have a nice evening, a good kiss, a little sex.
I would have trouble recommending it to anyone.

On a more positive note……my book group is reading SWIMMING by Nicola Keegan.  Here’s the Amazon description:

A spectacular debut about the rise of an Olympic champion — a novel about competition, obsession, the hunger for victory, and a young girl with an unsinkable spirit struggling to stay afloat in the only way she can.

When we first meet Pip, the extraordinary heroine of Nicola Keegan’s first novel, she is landlocked in a small town in the center of Kansas, literally swimming for her life. Pip is tall and flat and smart and funny and supernaturally buoyant. On land, she has her share of troubles: an agoraphobic mother, a lost father, a drug-addled sister, and a Catholic education dominated by a group of high-energy nuns. But in the water, Pip is unstoppable. In the water, her suffering and rage are transmuted into grace and speed and beauty.

Swimming is the story of Pip’s journey from a small Midwestern swim team to her first state meet, her brutal professional training, and the final, record-breaking swims that lead to her dizzying ascent to the Olympic podium in Barcelona. It’s the story of a girl who discovers, in the loneliness of adolescence, in the family tragedies that threaten to engulf her, the resilience of the human spirit and the spectacular power of her own body.

I really liked this book……….I didn’t find it all that “uplifting” but I loved Pip’s voice.  Pip’s internal conversations were very entertaining.

Finally,  I am reading 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD  A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.  This one may be over my head.  I took one Psychology course in College and we all know that was a long time ago.  And I never studied any kind of Philosophy.  Words like existential make me twitch.  But I am increasingly interested in the direction religion is taking in this world and I have lately found myself questioning some very fundamental beliefs.  While this is a work of fiction, it’s characters defend their faith while asserting that faith alone does not promise moral integrity.  From the cover:  “36  Arguments for hte Existence of God plunges into the great debate of our day: the clash between faith and reason.  World events are being shaped by fervent believers at hoe and abroad, while a new atheism is asserting itself in the public sphere.  On purely intellectual grounds the skeptics would seem to have everything on their side.  Yet people refuse to accept their seemingly irrefutable arguments and continue to embrace faith in God as their source of meaning, purpose and comfort.”

Here’s a link to a great review….http://tinyurl.com/y9tq35t

I am only on page 58, and it is slow reading.  Lots of looking up words and theories and wishing I had paid more attention in that one sad little course I took.  But I think it will make for some fascinating discussion and it does have a plot with some romance.  I will keep you posted on my progress.  I really like what I have read so far.

Coming soon, The State of the Stitch.  Still working on Emmy’s stocking.  I took a break and stitched a little name tag for Bernie’s Easter Basket.