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. . .