While it’s true that about 85% of what I read is fiction, I do tend to jump fictional genres from book to book. Here are my latest wanderings through the genres…
–Marissa
1. Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer I would say is solid contemporary fiction. This is actually two stories loosely connected and both told in alternating voices. Mara is battling Huntington’s Disease, and losing. Scott has been fostering a troubled boy and must soon remand custody. Both stories are heartbreaking and difficult to read, but Mara’s truly spoke to me. Her voice was so authentic and torn and troubled – you really felt the struggles the character was going through. Scott’s story was also sad and heartbreaking, but not to the same degree. This novel definitely has an element of “what’s going to happen?” at the end – and I wasn’t sure until I turned the last page how it would end. Highly recommended for lovers of contemporary women’s fiction.
2. Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton is a suspense novel set in a new location for me – the Falkland Islands. A little boy has gone missing and all is in uproar – because he is not the first child disappearance in the last few years. Two women – former friends – are the center of this dark and brooding novel, and there are a lot more mysteries than just the child’s location, and the reader is constantly trying to put the pieces together. I really hung in there on this novel since it had gotten such good reviews, but by the last third or so, I was skimming. GET ON WITH IT, I wanted to shout to the author. Definitely a cerebral slow-burn mystery, rather than a fast moving page turner.
3. Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin is actually non-fiction! I’ve enjoyed all of Rubin’s reads (she studies happiness!), and this one is another worthy addition to her bookshelf. In this, she identifies different traits of people (who can take a quiz to see where you fit), and how each of those groups struggle with forming and keeping habits. A really interesting, very accessible read on “being better”!
I also have vowed to re-read the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (which I last read in college, before it was finished!), and have just finished the first few (The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and the Dragon Reborn). Only 10 more 1000+ page books to go!
I also read The Children Act by Ian McEwan – definitely literary fiction, and not one I really enjoyed, myself. 😦
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