The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly November 26, 2006

This is an engaging, comfortable novel. Very little in it surprised me, but I devoured it in two days, telling myself “Just one more chapter” over and over again. The characters were interesting and the novel had more than its share of romance, tragedy, and adventure.

Fiona, the main character, experiences far more than her share of hardship. It’s clear from the beginning of the novel when we meet Fiona and her beau Joe that it is not going to be smooth sailing for these two. (Otherwise why read over 700 pages about them?) But as time goes on, Fiona and Joe have their share of miracles as well, and reading about them is a great deal of fun.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly November 26, 2006

This book caught my eye because of the author’s name, which was my uncle’s name. (I always think it’s interesting what brings a reader to a book.)  I read the description of the story and was instantly intrigued, and after reading the book, I have to say that it was a good choice.

A lonely 12-year-old boy discovers a portal to another world, a world in which nightmares come true and fairy tales are real. He goes to this world because he believes that his mother, who is recently deceased, is trapped there and needs him to rescue her. Once in this world, he is trapped there by a trickster he calls the Crooked Man, who is definitely the creepiest part of this novel. Then he is pursued by wolves and wolf/human hybrids who chase him out of hunger and revenge. As David begins a quest to find his mother and the king of this mysterious land, he finds friends along the way who help him and who teach him about his own strength.

This novel was often suspenseful, often scary, and sometimes even funny. I think that if I had any complaint about it, it would be that in explaining all the ways that the Crooked Man wreaked havoc on the world, we learned too much about him, and I found him less scary. The mysteriousness of his character in the beginning of the novel made him so much creepier.

I did love the character of David. He was flawed and angry, but reading about how he found and used his inner strength was wonderful.

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly November 18, 2006

This is a great coming-of-age story about a young woman growing up in 1906. Mattie Gokey is a smart, capable young woman who loves literature and whose fondest desire is to go to college, but she spends most of her time caring for her younger sisters and helping her father with the family farm. Mattie has to choose between caring for her family and friends or going against her father’s wishes and leaving home at a time when women just didn’t do that sort of thing. Add to that a neighbor’s son whom Mattie thinks is far too good looking for her starting to pay attention to her, and Mattie’s choices become far more complicated.

I really felt for Mattie in this novel. I wanted so badly for her to make certain decisions, and when it looked like she wouldn’t, it just drove me crazy and I had to keep reading, even when I had other things I had to do.

A real-life murder mystery is also part of this novel, and I thought that part of the novel was written with great sympathy and compassion.  It always seems so unexpected to me when a novel can make you think about and care about a real person.

I will definitely be reading more by this author.

Last Seen Leaving by Kelly Braffet November 18, 2006

In this novel, a woman who hasn’t spoken to her daughter in three months tries to contact her, only to find that her daughter has gone missing. The story is told from the point of view of Anne, the mother, who travels from Arizona to her daughter’s home in Pittsburg to look for her, and Miranda, the daughter, who took a ride from a stranger after wrecking her car on the highway and now lives in Virginia Beach. There are also a few mysteries in the novel, namely what happened to Miranda’s father and what is the identity of the stranger who gave Miranda a ride and who keeps turning up in her life.

I still think that the plot was an interesting one, but ultimately the novel left me cold. I wasn’t eager to spend time reading it or finding out what happened to the characters. I didn’t really like the characters all that much. I found it hard to believe that Anne wouldn’t work harder at having a relationship with her daughter. Maybe I think this because I’m close to my own mother and I can’t think of what would cause her to not call me for three months. I also felt that Miranda was written to be a little too “cool,” as if the reader was supposed to admire her tattoos and mental detachment. (And I like tattoos, but I don’t really care for mental detachment.)

Maybe part of my not really liking Miranda had to do with the fact that she left her cat when she started a new life. It just seemed totally out of character for her, which I get was part of why her mother would think that something bad had happened to her.

Ultimately I found this novel unsatisfying, particularly where the mysteries involved were concerned. I bought another novel by this author when I bought Last Seen Leaving, so hopefully I’ll like that one better.

The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits November 8, 2006

If I read a description of a book and there is something in it about a missing person, I have to read the book. It’s just something I do. I read the description of this book, which is about a teenage girl who goes missing for about a month in 1985 and how her disappearance affects her family and the people around her, and I instantly knew I wanted to read it. And this is despite the fact that I read a previous novel by this author and absolutely hated it.

This book was a pleasant surprise in comparison to the previous one I read (The Effect of Living Backwards). Mary, the girl who went missing, is the main character of the novel. She has come back to Massachusetts for her mother’s funeral. Everyone in Mary’s life believes that she faked her kidnapping 14 years previously. Her mother believed that most of all, and never got over what she thought her daughter had done, and even refused to see her before she died.

The novel tells the story from Mary’s perspective in her present, from her therapist’s perspective (as he wrote a bestselling book on her), and the story of what might have happened during Mary’s time away. There are so many themes in this book, from teenage girls and their sexuality, to psychotherapy, to people who sacrifice everything for image, including members of their own families.

I liked this book more in the beginning than in the end. At first I liked the dark humor in the characters, but I found it a little exhausting to read about people being so unkind to each other over and over again. Mary’s sisters, for example, make no secret of the fact that they dislike her, and watching her try so hard with them is almost painful. And the mother—she was so much more willing to believe that her daughter was a liar rather than a rape victim, that I just found her so hard to understand.

I think that this author is extremely talented, and I would definitely read another book of hers. I was really fascinated with the story of Mary’s time away and with what really happened.

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King November 4, 2006

I haven’t read many Stephen King novels, basically because I am a wimp when it comes to scary stuff, but I do think he’s a good writer, and I picked up this novel because I’d read so many glowing reviews. Also because I read that it wasn’t really scary.

The novel is the story of Lisey Landon, the widow of a Stephen-King-like author, who finds herself following a trail that her husband left her before he died. Much of the trail he leaves her has to do with a place called Boo’ya Moon, a place he visited at first to escape his abusive father, and a place that both heals and terrorizes him. Lisey is a much more practical sort of person than Scott, but she, too finds herself drawn into this world that he has created.

When I first started reading the book, I found all the terms that Scott used and that Lisey adopted, such as “smucking” and “bool” and “bad-gunky” kind of hokey and irritating, but as the book went on, these words and phrases took on a more sinister feel, and I really started enjoying the language of the book.

This story really kept my interest through all 509 pages. Lisey was a great character, and her relationships with her sisters were especially poignant. I hope Stephen King writes more books like this in the future.