Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett March 29, 2006

The reviews of this book which appear on the cover and back state that it is hysterically funny, the kind of book which has you laughing out loud. I don’t think I did, though, not once. It’s a good book, and well written, but I didn’t see it as a comic novel. It just kind of seemed sad to me.

The main character, Dorcas, tells the story of her twin sister, who is awaiting trial for killing her husband. I didn’t find either twin particularly likeable, and that’s where I had trouble with the book. If you don’t like the characters, how can you really care what happens to them? Dorcas was too cold for my taste, and I liked her twin Abigail, at first, because she seemed like a strong person who was comfortable in her own skin. But Abigail did so many things that I don’t think a strong person would do–and wanting to marry a man who treated her like crap was the worst. To me the most interesting character was Abigail’s daughter Anna, and she kept getting left alone by the adults in her life, making me like them even less.

I think that this book was worth reading because it was well-written and interesting, but it didn’t captivate me enough to ever want to read it again.

The Family Tree by Carole Cadwalladr March 24, 2006

In this novel, a woman married to a behavioral geneticist considers if our genes determine who we are. She’s the daughter of a woman who had mental breakdowns and the granddaughter of a woman with a lot of secrets, and she tries to determine whether her own unhappiness is somehow predestined, or if nurture has a role in it as well.

The story goes back and forth between the present-day life of Rebecca, her childhood, and her grandmother’s life as a young adult. The portrayal of Rebecca as a child was the most affecting to me–she was constantly bewildered by the secrets of the adults in her life and revealed what she knew at the least opportune times. She did it out of confusion, not malice.

The book is filled with charts and graphs to illustrate genetics and the theories of the main character’s husband, but I didn’t find them that interesting and tended to skim past them. I also didn’t spend a great deal of time on the pop culture footnotes found throughout the book. I just didn’t find them as intriguing as the story itself or truly vital to the story.

I think footnotes in a novel are a tricky thing. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke used them to great effect. I really felt like I was reading a history of magic in 19th-century England and not a novel written in the present day. But in this book, for me, the footnotes just seemed to get in the way.

This was a good book and definitely kept my attention. I kept reading long after I had planned to because I had to know how the book ended.

Land of the Living by Nicci French March 17, 2006

This is probably the third or fourth Nicci French book I’ve read. I am constantly amazed that these books are written by two people. The action never stops and everything flows from chapter to chapter. My favorite of book of theirs so far is Killing Me Softly, which I inhaled in a day, but I thought this was a good one, too.

I didn’t have much time to read this week, just a half-hour here and there, and this book was perfect for that. It grabbed my attention instantly, but at the same time I wasn’t dying to know how it would end, just satisfied with going along for the ride. The story is about a woman who is kidnapped and held prisoner; she escapes, but no one believes her story, and she’s terrified that her captor will come after her again. Due to a head injury, she can’t remember the week before her attack, so she has to basically investigate her own life to try to remember what happened to her.

I could have done without the really gross thing that happened at the end, but once I realized what was going on, I managed to skim the text so that only a little of the ickiness got into my head.

One thing that bothers me about this type of book–it seems like someone always has a pet that you just know will not make it to the end of the book. That didn’t apply to this book, but it certainly has in other Nicci French books. So I’ll probably continue to read them and hope that their characters embrace the pet-free life.

The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter March 6, 2006

This book was a very different kind of fiction—there wasn’t a major plot or a main storyline, just a focus that changed from person to person. The story begins with the author as a character. Unable to sleep, he goes walking in the middle of the night and runs into his neighbor, Bradley, who is out walking his dog, also named Bradley. Bradley (the person) begins telling the stories of his two ex-wives as well as the stories of Chloé, his employee, and the Ginsbergs, his neighbors. As the book goes on we read the stories of all these people, told in their own voices.

The main character of Bradley is willing to talk and talk about his failed marriages, but reluctant to speak about how happy he is in his new relationship. It’s like happiness has no place in the middle of love stories. There is definitely more of a focus on misery and unhappiness, but at the same time, love finds its way.

The book was so well-written that I had a hard time getting it out of my head. I would put it down and then go cook dinner, realizing that as I cooked I was describing what I was doing in my head as a narrative, using the same kind of voice. I love books with a great deal of description, which this one had. It took a while to finish the book because I didn’t really want it to end.

I’m looking forward to reading more from this author. He seems to be more of a short story writer, but he has written some novels that I’m looking forward to reading.

The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle March 2, 2006

This book was a hard one to read, since it focuses on the sexual abuse of a child. It’s not a subject that I particularly want to read about, but I’d read other books by the author and liked them, so I thought I’d try this one, too. It’s hard to imagine people treating children the way Jordan, the child in this book, is treated, and I think that’s what the book really captures–the shock and horror that’s felt by the community, and the shame felt by the child whose secret is out. Ultimately I felt this book was hopeful, and very well-written.

Adrian Mole and Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend March 2, 2006

I’ve read all of the Adrian Mole books. I just love them. This one was no different. Adrian is still convinced of his own intellectual prowess, though socially clueless. I found a grown-up Adrian more sympathetic than a young one, even as he was buying thousands and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise on his credit cards.

I think my favorite part of the book was Adrian’s life in his apartment building. He was terrorized by swans, unable to play his music or television for fear of annoying his upstairs neighbor, and actually got sued by a friend who slipped on his staircase.

The one thing I found hard to take was Adrian’s complete inability to run his own life. He was just so passive about things, allowing others to tell him what to do, even write his break-up letters. I guess the book is a good example of what life is like when we don’t take control of the wheel.