Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster (2006)

My sister told me about this author that made her laugh non-stop while she quickly read through her books. After reading Pillars of the Earth this past summer (and its 900+ pages) I found myself in the Book World store on Bridge Street in Charlevoix looking for a good summer laugh. I had passed this store many times on walks into town and noticed the one copy of Lancaster’s book displayed prominently in the front window. Figuring this was my “fun summer-make you want to laugh-easy read” book I plucked the novel from the window, paid my “not-so-Costco-discounted” full price and headed home!

Yes, it is March and I am just now blogging this story, but I really did finish it in February! This was an easy read and one that I read on and off as more Ken Follett passed through my hands. Lancaster is hilarious. She’s got a witty way of analyzing people, expressing her opinion and telling you through the use of footnotes, how she really feels. Going from a six-digit paying job to unemployment we watch Lancaster transform into someone who is bound and determined not to let society ruin her life. She explores the complexities of large corporate businesses and their lack of concern for those who apply for their job openings. She finds that many times she is too qualified for positions and is refused at the first interview. Anyone that says they will be in touch with her for a second interview is sure not to call back. Even her husband, Fletch, ends up in the unemployment line with her and falls into a great depression as they move from their “dream” apartment into one in a mixed neighborhood (I say that lightly… Surely Lancaster would have a better way of describing the crowd!).

I have to say, this was probably the funniest book I have read in a very, very long time. It was amusing, clever and well written. I now follow Jen Lancaster on Twitter (@altgeldshrugged) and am planning on purchasing the next book as soon as my birthday present iPad arrives! If you are looking for a good laugh in the ‘chick-lit’ category, check out Jen Lancaster.

Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Triology – Ken Follet’s (2010)

After completing Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth I moved right along to this huge, hardcover copy of Follet’s book, Fall of Giants (September 2010) that I had picked up at Costco this past fall. It was daunting to carry this nearly 1,000-page book with me to Florida for vacation in December! (My Dad even asked if the book had an “ON” switch and was safe to read outside). Little did I know that I would fall in love once more with a collection of the stories of five families during World War I in Russia, England, France, Germany, Wales, and America.

 I will be the first to admit that prior to this book I knew very little about World War I, and I have learned more from this book than any textbook in my high school history class!

The story begins with the story of Billy Williams, a young boy growing up in a mining community under the authority of Earl Fitzherbert. We learn of the Fitzherbert’s through Billy’s older sister Ethel as she works for the Earl at Ty Gywn (the largest private estate in Wales with 200 bedrooms) despite the protest of her father (a character who gets limited attention but represents the mining union workers and has a major role and influence in his family). Ethel and the Earl (who is married to a Russian princess named Bea) fall hard for one another and the result is a pregnant Ethel being disowned from her family and her being shipped by the Earl to London to raise their child alone. While feeling for Ethel, we learn of a feminist movement brewing in London as men are being drafted and put into military ranks for the oncoming war. We learn of Fitz’s sister, Maud, who is working with his Aunt Herm to bring equal rights and voting privileges into power for women across England. 

Readers are also introduced to the Peshkov brothers, Lev and Grigori. Having grown up in a lower class society in Russia, the brothers have grown accustomed to living meal to meal as Grigori worked to provide for his younger brother. Both of their parents are killed early in their childhood as the result of clashes with authoritative figures from the controlling Russian government.  Grigori works hard to save some money for a ticket to America and his hopes of leaving Russia are dashed with Lev gets into legal trouble and must take Grigori’s passport and ship ticket out of Russia, leaving Grigori behind with Lev’s pregnant girlfriend Katerina. Keep in mind that Russia as well is now heading to war and will soon face its own revolutionary war later in the book!

Then there is Gus Dewar, an American born son of a Senator, working for President Woodrow Wilson in the White House in Washington D.C.. Dewar is a character who gives the reader insight about the President’s actions, his participation in the war, rallies at home and the peace treaty Wilson creates with 14 points of pride to help end World War I after over four years of fighting. We hear from Dewar about the League of Nations that forms while he is in the trenches fighting with the allies for an end to the war.

The last story is that of Walter von Ulrich, the son of a powerful German diplomat. Romance and love grows between Walter and Lady Maud prior to the War when the Germans and the English could travel between the countries easily. Fearing separation from one another as the two countries would go to War, Walter and Maud are married secretly and spend only one night together before Walter goes off to battle for Germany and Lady Maud is left to wonder in England about the safety of her beloved.

There is so much more I could tell about this story, but then you would not need to read it. Amazon readers only give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I loved the story, I loved the romance, I loved the mental images Follett creates of the men at war. The only fault I could find to this story is its length. There were times when the book seemed “long” yet I found it hard to put down. In a time when life has been busy, there was always time for some Fall of Giants at night. This book gets a solid five out of five stars from me!

The second in this trilogy will be published in 2012 as it chronicles the stories from the kids of the characters in Fall of Giants through the Depression and World War II. Below is a link to author Ken Follett’s web page.

http://www.ken-follett.com/home/index.html

This second link provides useful background information about World War I. This helped me to connect to the book and to better understand the historical information Follett explains with precision and detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

I picked up Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth while at Costco this past summer. 973 Pages of action adventure set in the 12^th Century seemed way out of my standard reading genre, so I jumped in, head first!  A fellow friend of mine as well as her husband had both read the book a few summers prior (when I had my head stuck in the vampire drama unfolding in Forks, Washington) and were constantly talking and citing this book as one of their favorites.

I was instantly engaged in the story of Tom Builder and his family setting out with nothing on their backs, in search of a cathedral looking for a master builder and later in awe of the series of events that would unfold over four decades that were filled with love, hardship, politics and jaw-dropping twists and turn of events! This was the first of Follet’s books that I had read and I was amazed at how easy it was to keep the story straight between the characters of Prior Phillip, Aliena, Richard, Jack, William Hamleigh, Ellen, Remigus, Bishop Waleran and more. I was more impressed with the detail in the text used to describe the events within the story. From Aliena’s rape, to William’s attempted destruction of Kingsbridge and the market to the completion of the cathedral in Kingsbridge, the picture Follet creates is so detailed, you feel as though you are actually there, and will feel a mix of satisfaction and loss as the tale winds down at the very end.

This book will surprise you... You will want to celebrate victorious battles, drop your jaw at the treachery and rape while shedding a tear when favorite characters come to meet their fate!

I would highly suggest this book and throw in a disclaimer that Starz has done a remarkable job with the “Pillars of the Earth” series (Fall 2010) however, nothing can replace the attention to detail that Follet has provided for his readers within this novel.

My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

My Sister’s Keeper… What a book! I had to type this blog entry exactly 35 minutes after finishing this book because once more, Jodi Picoult has stunned me. Is it funny that I will not just buy her books on my own, but tend to have them loaned to me? This time I made a swap with a good friend giving up my Steig Larsson trilogy for two of her Picoult books she had read over this past summer. Why did it take me so long to read this book? Why did it take me until now, the end of December, to sit down and read? I will tell you why…

Jodi Picoult has a way of letting her readers into the minds of all of her characters. You hear the story told from many perspectives so that you are able to form your own opinions about the characters, as you hear from them each in first person narration. It can take some time to get used to as a reader, as most novels are told from one perspective, yet as each story unfolds you find a certain character you can relate to and sympathize with on many levels. My Sister’s Keeper is a book that tugs at your heart and makes you wonder, what really is the right decision for Anna?

You have the story of a family, the Fitzgeralds, who spend the course of 14 years in and out of hospitals as their eldest daughter, Kate, battles a rare form of leukemia, depending heavily on her younger sister Anna, a genetically engineered sibling, with the exact DNA as Kate. Just as you begin to side with Anna, you feel for Kate and long for her to lead a “normal, healthy” life. Furthermore you question Campbell Alexander, the attorney Anna has chosen to help her receive medical emancipation, allowing her to make all decisions regarding her health and medical care, as he totes around a service dog, but for what reason? You read about an ever growing divide between Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, the legal guardians and parents of the children. Not to mention, you watch Jesse, the Fitzgerald’s son, self-destruct as he searches to find a meaning for his life and existence in a family where most actions revolve around Kate’s health.

I can’t recommend this book, because I know that it will rip at the heart of anyone who reads it. I can tell you, it is a well written book (slow at times, but that seems common in Picoult books as the plot has to thicken first) and you will need to be certain to set aside time to be engrossed in this book, taking only a few breaks when Kleenex is necessary.

Will I watch this movie? That has yet to be determined… Perhaps on a day when I feel like having a good, cleansing cry! Here's the trailer that came out in 2009 via YouTube.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

After finishing the first of Larsson’s trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was eager to start reading the second book while enjoying our honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Vacationing with Dan was the perfect setting for starting the second book (while enjoying the sun, frozen drinks and cool waters of Palomino Island). Fanatics of Larsson’s first work will find that the sequel is more thrilling, addictive and filled with the same intriguing lead characters from the first book.

The sequel pairs up the trilogy’s lead figure, Lisbeth Salander, once more with journalist Mikael Blomkvist as the two work to investigate Sweden’s sex trafficking ring of young women by abusive men (many who hold respectable jobs in the police, security or political fields). Blomkvist is made aware of such dealings by Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, who plans on publishing a story for Blomkvist that will expose many of the important Sweden participants. Svensson and girlfriend Mia Johansson, have spent many months researching into the abusive and sickening ways young women, many still considered “girls”, had been forced into sexual activity and then brutally murdered and disposed of. Weeks before the story is published Svensson and Johansson are found brutally murdered in their home and the fingerprints on the weapon? They match those of Lisbeth Salander.

This second of the three books was probably my favorite. You will want to keep reading as this book moves at a faster pace than the first. Now that the background is known about all of the characters (minus Lisbeth… that’s still to come), you will find as a reader that it is easy to get into this book and want to keep reading until the very end. I found that the end of this book did not satisfy me completing, as it left me WANTING, and IMPATIENTLY DESIRING the third book.

My advice? When you buy the second book, buy the third one as well! If you are checking them out from the library, burrow them both! You will HAVE to keep reading!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Be prepared to be addicted to this book. In fact, if you read the first book, you might as well purchase The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest because you will shortly after reading the first book pick up the second book and continue the saga. Conclusion? I found the book series I was DESPERATELY searching for. The downside? The Introduction to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008) reads:

Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the third novel in the series.

Looks like there will NEVER be a fourth in the series. Here's to enjoying these three thrilling works of art in my literary world!

You will wonder what the story is about, begin reading, get used to the names of the towns and cities of Sweden and constantly wonder just what the girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, will do next. “She’s an extraordinary character you’ll fall for,” a lady told me at the hair salon upon seeing me reading this book. At that point, I was only about 20-25 pages in and had just begun to see the developing plot consume my interest and curiosity.

The story unfolds around the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, a relative of one of the most prestigious families in Sweden, over 40 years ago. Mikael Blomkvist is hired by Harriet’s uncle, Henrik Vanger, to do undercover work and investigate the case of his missing niece. Blomkvist is to tell the many Vanger relatives and curious citizens he meets of the small island-town of Hedeby that he has been hired to spend the year there to write a biography of Henrik’s life for him, and of course, one of those chapters will have to deal with Harriet’s disappearance. While many of the Vanger relatives feel that Henrik is often obsessed and suffering from a compulsive disorder because of his fascination with this case, Blomkvist comes to quickly agree with Vanger that there are details surrounding the disappearance that are missing and must be identified before finding Harriet’s whereabouts, presuming worse-case, that she has been murdered.

Lisbeth Salander’s story is intertwined in the complex plot as readers learn some, but not all, of the story behind her childhood and her current status in Sweden of being “incompetent” and by having this title, having to have a guardian at the age of 26. She has little family to depend on and many who meet her find her reserved and quiet, yet her outward appearance is more of a tattooed, punk rocker teenager. She stands under 5 feet tall and weighs only 90 pounds. Salander is a prodigy in many ways and her talents will come in to play when helping Blomkvist to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Harriet.

I would HIGHLY recommend this book – I loved it! I am not typically a reader who picks up a mystery book filled with suspense and drama, yet I read this book and the second book in less than 10 days. I probably could have had the third book read as well except I was on my Honeymoon in the Caribbean and could NOT find the book anywhere on the islands we visited by cruise ship!

Tomorrow, I will have to pick up a copy of the DVD and see if it is HALF as GOOD as this book!

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

As a huge Harry Potter fan, I have often wondered, so what will be the next young-adult series that I will read, LOVE, re-read, see the movies the day they come out and still enjoy watching them on television. Then I discovered the Twilight Series (2005) where I was transformed into a vampire and werewolf loving teenage reader falling madly for Stephenie Meyer’s characters. Lately I had begun to wonder, what next? I can read Jodi Picoult books (but they are not a series) and I can read other popular best-sellers, but what I really love is a good book series. Over Spring Break my best friend’s daughter was glued to Percy Jackson books and knowing her daughter to also be a lover of Harry Potter, I was curious as to what Percy Jackson was all about.

Now let’s be honest here, there were countless similarities between The Lightning Thief and the Harry Potter Series (1998) as I often found myself stopping, laughing, and being reminded of something or some event I had enjoyed in Rowling’s works. Will I read the rest of the books in this series someday? Yes. Tomorrow? No.

Percy Jackson is different than other kids and not just because he suffers from severe dyslexia, but because he is the son of a Greek god. Unaware of his mythological connections he finds that he has been kicked out of several different schools in the New York City area including the latest, a boarding school. He has behavior problems, very few friends and begins to have illusions or dreams with mythological monsters. His Mom, who becomes a major part of Percy’s quest (yes, this action hero also goes on a quest like Potter and the vampires in Twilight), seems at times to be the only person to truly care and love for Percy. She attempts to take Percy away for a weekend and thus the action begins as mythological characters, both gods and monsters make appearances in an attempt to get Percy. Percy begins to connect the characters to those right out of the pages of his Greek Mythology textbook and classroom lectures.

Percy arrives at Yancy Academy where he meets many of the half-bloods (does this sound Rowling-esque as well?) like himself, children of the Greek gods. At the Academy Percy begins to settle in and adjust to his new life just in time to be given a quest. Along with his friends Annabeth and Grover (part boy – part donkey) they attempt to return Zeus’ stolen master lightning bolt while dealing with a father who has abandoned him (Poseidon – Greek God of Seas, Storms and Earthquakes), solving the riddle of the Oracle and rescuing his Mom from the underworld.

This story starts out exciting right from the beginning, but as a reader, I would suggest this book only for being who are interested in reading fantasy where Greek gods and monsters are discussed in detail, their lives and their importance.

The movie comes out on June 29, 2010. You better believe I’ll be this one at the top of my queue on Netflix!