The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prome number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched and detests the color yellow.

This very well might be the funniest book I've ever read. It's a murder mystery about a dog that Christopher finds one evening in the front yard of one of his neighbors. He decides to write a detective novel and this is his book. Because he is "special needs" his father told him that his mother had died from a heart attack when in fact she ran away with the neighbor's wife (yes, the one whose dog was murdered). Turns out that Chrisopher's father is the one who did the murdering. This comes on the tails of christopher finding letters from his mother that she wrote to him every week since she left.

Christopher decided to go in search of his mother, because his father is a murderer and a liar and can no longer be trusted, and if you know Christopher, traveling is not his thing so he pulls out his Swiss Army Knife on several people on his journey. He finally reaches his mom and she moves back home with him.

He is really good at math and all of the chapters are numbered in prime numbers. I have several favorite quotes but this one is my all time favorite:

People often talk using metaphors. These are examples of metaphors:

I laughed my socks off.

He was the apple of her eye.

They had a skeleton in the cupboard.

We had a real pig of a day.

The dog was stone dead.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another and it comes from two greek words, the first which means from one place to another and thee oother which means to carry, and it is when you descrobe something by using a word for something that isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and poeple do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

Now that's some funny shit. I definitely recommend. And, he has footnotes to explain which of his phrases are metaphors and which are similes.

Nineteen Minutes

Okay, I spoke too soon. Jodi Picoult has failed me. This was a fantastic book, don't get me wrong. There just wasn't a twist and I had anticipated every single way this book could turn out and it just didn't twist. Damn.

This book was about a boy who in 19 minutes shot up his high school, killed 10 people and wounded 19 others.

And, well, that's pretty much it. He gets convicted. The storyline is mostly about him being bullied in school and finally retaliating. Moral of the story children? Violence is never the answer.

You would think after 477 pages, I would at least have one quote. I don't though, other than "don't read this book, it's not her finest work."

Sail

I gave up on the James Patterson series at number 6. When I was in the bookstore today, I see that he's up to number 9. Blech. I don't even know why I bother with him anymore. Especially when his books have a co-author.

This book was about a family who goes on a family trip on their boat. The boat explodes and they end up on a deserted island. The Coast Guard tries to find them but eventually gives up their search. Then, a fisherman catches a giant fish and when it was being weighed, a bottle falls out of its mouth with a letter from the family saying they're still alive. Yay! How convenient.

The husband, who conveniently stayed behind has orchestrated the whole thing so that he can inherit his wife's fortune. Once he finds out that they are still alive, he begins his own search and finds them. He wants them dead so he raises his gun to his sleeping wife and the son strikes him with a log.

He's convicted and everyone lives happily ever after.

Vanishing Acts

Jodi Picoult never seems to fail me as an entertaining read. Her storylines hit home and there's always a twist that you can't predict even though you know there's going to be a twist.

Delia Hopkins has lived with her father sincer her mother died when she was a young child. She works search-and-rescue with her dog and is always being called out to find one lost child or another. She has lived a charmed life with the undying love of her father. THEN, one day while she was visiting her father with her daughter, a police officer knocks on the door and arrests her father for kidnapping. That's right, KIDnapping! Turns out Delia was the one he kidnapped some 30ish years ago.

Her father is brought back to Arizona where the original crime took place. Delia follows and finds out that her mother is still alive and begins to develop a relationship with her and her husband Victor. Her father is now on trial and begins to tell the story of why he kidnapped Delia so many years ago.

Her father and mother were split up. Her mother was a raging alcoholic. When her father, Andrew came to pick up Delia for visitation, her mother was passed out on the couch in her own vomit and there was feces all over the floor. He had also had suspicions that Mom's new boyfriend was being a little too friendly with Delia. All of this combined, let Andrew to take his daughter across the country and raise her without abuse, with constant love and devotion.

Eventually, given the circumstances, Andrew was acquitted and Life returns to normal. They all go back east to their homes and live happily ever after. This was a very compassionate novel. Here's my favorite quote: "You think you k now the world you are living in. If you can feel it, and touch it, and smell it, and taste it, then it must be so. You tell yourself that you would bet your life on the simple fact that the sky is blue. And then one day someone comes along and informs you emphatically that you're wrong."

Great book!

Drop Dead Gorgeous

This was one of those books that you don't realize is part of a series until you're 100 pages invested in it. It was very easy reading but Linda Howard totally wishes she was Janet Evanovich. It's the same type of storyline. Girl continually finds herself in precarious situations and a dude comes to the rescue.

Blair is being stalked by someone and it's not just the kind of stalking I'm used to, it's the kind where someone actually wants to kill her. They do this by running her down in a parking lot, setting her house on fire and finally coming after her with a knife. Wyatt (stupidest name ever) is her fiance who is also a cop and doesn't believe her.

Who is this cunning wanna-be killer? Wyatt's ex girlfriend! No suprise there. I definitely give this book a thumbs down. Maybe if I had realized it was a series before I started reading it, it might have been more interesting. All it makes me want to do is count down the days until the new Janet Evanovich book comes out. 27 days BTW. . .

Change of Heart

Was a fantastic novel. I am so out of my reading "rut" that I haven't even changed the 'what I'm reading now from "I am Charlotte Simmons." If you went to college, got high and had random sex, then you've not only read Charlotte Simmons, you've lived it. I moved on after abour 100 pages. . .

This book is about a woman who has a child and a husband. Her husband was holding her child when they were in a car wreck and her husband was killed. The officer (Kurt) who told her that her husband was dead and extracted her and her daughter from the car, eventually fell in love with her. And vice versa. June found out that she was pregnant with Kurt's baby and they were married and moved in together. They were building a nursery for the baby and Kurt became very involved with his work as an officer/detective.

One day, a man comes to the door and sees that they need work done and offers to help. The next thing you know, June comes home from an OB appointment and finds her daughter and her new husband murdered. It only can be assumed that the Shay (the alleged perpetrator) had murdered the husband and daughter.

A jury convicted him. And he went to jail. Then a sort of 'Green Mile' thing happened where he resurrected a bird of one of the inmates. Then he cured his cell neighbor of AIDS.

Then. June's new daughter, eleven years later needs a heart transplant. Who's a perfect match? Shay. He volunteers his heart and bangs his head against a food tray until he starts seizing. When that doesn't work, he petitions to be sentenced to death by hanging where his vital organs can be salvaged. Eventually, his petitions won.

In the meantime, we find out that Shay had come back to the house to find that June's husband was sexually molesting her daughter. Shay and Kurt engage in a physical altercation and Kurt fires his gun and it his the daughter. Then, Shay steals the gun and kills Kurt.

Ultimately, he is sentanced to death by hanging and June's daughter is given his heart which happens to be a perfect match.

Her daughter is getting ready for some dance at school and notices that her dog is sleeping when he shouldn't be. Weird. Searching for some resemblance between her and her doner, she reaches for the dog and it jumps to life, even though it is listless and cold.

Justice served, I guess. That's the lesson of Change of Heart.

Sea Glass

This was actually a pretty good book. I should pick through the last books of the year before the book sale before I start re-reading what I already know is going to be bad. I generally don't like those books that start with "in 1929. . . ." This is an exception. It was about the recession, but it was more about friendship, love, betrayal and loyalty.

Honora has married Sexton after only dating for a few weeks but that's how it goes in those days. They move into a beach house that is very very very run down but she sees the potential and begins to work on making this house their home. She scrubs the walls, the windows, decorates on their extremely thin budget. And, in her spare time, she scours the beach for sea glass.

Down the beach, Vivian has occupied the residence of her boyfriend because in the crash of the stock market, he has lost it and she buys it so they can have a home. However, her boyfriend cannot live in a house that a woman owns. Obviously. That would make you inferior. Dumbass. Anyhoo. Vivian and Honora become friends.

Sexton was a traveling salesman. He sold typewriters. Because of the depression, he was let go from his job and he worked in the local mill for money to support he and Honora. He was overheard by a radical one day talking about a copiograph that he had, and because mill workers were organizing for fair wages, living conditions, etc. McDermott asked Sexton to join their cause.

He agreed and their home became the new local meeting point for the organizers of this cause. The workers would go to the mill during the week then return to the beach house on the weekends to print paraphenilia and such. The weekends are filled with drinks, food, laughter and good company, all provided by the rich neighbor, Vivian. As the weeks go by, Honora finds that she is not so much in love with her loser husband as she is with the cause organizer, McDermott.

They exchange glances. They talk. Blah Blah Blah.

One day, their operation was intercepted by the union police and everyone was killed except Honora, Vivian and a boy(Alphonse) who had been running back and forth between his own life as a teenager and trying to be part of something radical. It was at Alfonse's house that the "take down" occurred. At which point, his mother was killed.

Sexton was injured. Seriously, he was taken to the hospital and saved. On day 10 of his recovery, he up and left town. He's a traveler, you know. Men and their callings. Ech. After Sexton leaves, Honora finds out that she is pregnant. Alfons is sent to live with his uncle but the doesn't want that so he begs to live with Honora and Vivian. Honora can't afford to keep the beach house so she moves in with Vivian. Honora has her baby and they all live happily ever after.

Daughter's Keeper

I picked up this book last year at the VNSA book sale. At the time I read this book, I was getting ready for the book sale again and my supply was running low. I haven't had much luck with books lately and I aimed for something on the bookshelf that I had never heard of, hoping for satisfaction with the unknown.

I found it! This was a really good book. It was about a girl, Olivia, who traveled to Mexico after taking a couple semesters off of college. She wanted to find herself and instead found herself in love. She thought her summertime affair with Jorge would end with her returning to her home and writing love letters back and forth. . . well, Jorge had a different idea. While Olivia viewed their "affair" as something fun and entertaining, something she could look back on and *sigh*, Jorge spent all of his family's money and payed the coyotes to bring him to Olivia. She couldn't turn him down! Especially after he had traveled all that way just to be with her.

As time goes on, Jorge has a hard time finding work. Olivia pretends to be in love, if for no other reason, than to spite her controlling mother. Because Jorge can't find legitimate work, he enters into a drug deal with one of Olivia's friends. Olivia was furious to find this out and forbid him to do it again or he would leave her (which is what she hoped would happen). Instead, while she was at home, she answers a phone call with instructions for Jorge to carry out the drug deal. She left the message for Jorge and left to go stay with her mom.

Jorge got busted and Olivia was woken up in her sleep as and convicted as an accessory to something-to-do- with-a-drug-deal. While she's living with her mom, she undergoes the trials and tribulations of facing a 10 year sentance. Oh, and did I mention she just found out she's pregnant? Shiiiiit.

The trial goes on and on and on and on and on. Olivia falls in love with her layer, or better, her layer falls in love with her.

Eventually, Olivia is sentenced to 4 years in prison. Jorge, gets 18 months. Awesome. She has her baby and her mom comes through and agrees to take care of it while Olivia is in prison.

This was a great mother/daughter story. Very entertaining and well worth the read.

The Good Guy

Timothy likes to have a beer after work at his friend's tavern. He blends in and is noticed by no one and he likes it that way. One evening a stranger approaches him and gives him an envelope full of cash and a picture of a girl. The other man mistakes him for a hit man who was hired to kill this woman. This ordinary man gets swooped up into a world of murder, chaos and adventure trying to save this woman who was marked for death.

He takes her and races around whatever city they're in and time and time again, saves her from being killed. Eventually, the bad guy is caught and the girl lives. Oh, did I mention they fall in love and live happily ever after?

Blah.