Loosely a follow-up to The Long Firm, although the connection is more tenuous than in your average “series”.

Again follows a variety of characters with many different narrators, different motivations. All warped or twisted, all involved in something unsavory despite their best intentions. There’s a little trick at the end I really liked.

The scenes with Billy in the forest, digging out a bunker, meeting up with the gypsy-types, really really reminded me of another book I dug — I know it’s one of the John Madden mysteries by Rennie Airth although I’m not sure which one.

The previous book was a lot more “social commentary” and “criminal biography” in feel. This one’s focus is slightly different, feels more like a combination of “police procedural” and “investigative reporting”.

One more to go (in this trilogy)! Glad I decided to rescue these off the TBR shelf. Enjoying them.

As a teenager, I think I would have LOVED these books. All fate and destiny and romance and ever burning passion and undying love. Isn’t that always the dream of a 17-year-old romantic. To be declaring “I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.”

As an adult, they were still very entertaining, although there are many facile aspects to them. They look big but the print is HUGE and the margins are WIDE and really you can just whip right through these on a crazy emotional rollercoaster.

Which is my way of saying, yes, I then read the follow-ups New Moon and Eclipse to round out that weekend.

Stephanie and I had a long chat about these. She’s right, there are so many things wrong with the 2nd and 3rd installments, including BAD BAD messages to send to teens and what is likely a bowing to the weight of the author’s fellow mormons’ critiques.

On the other hand, if you just give in and go with Bella’s emotions, they seem to “make sense” emotionally, if that sentence itself makes any sense. Basically: the things they do WRONG didn’t make them unreadable to me.

As a child, I was often obsessed with books that my mom just did NOT like the overall messages underneath the themes that were what pulled me in. (Elsie Dinsmore, case in point. Talk about a restrictive horrible view of religion. Not that I want anything to do with even the nonrestrictive kind but that’s another story. I also had an obsession with books about cults and books about people being “debriefed” after they had been rescued from a cult. Too funny, to me now.) But I think she got comfortable with the fact that I was able to really feel the emotional pull of something without necessarily having it change my rational mind.

However, again, Steph is right, you can’t count on a young reader necessarily being able to do that. I found these entertaining in a whirlwind romance, vampire love, perfect soulmate kind of way. But they weren’t great literature. They were an escape.

It kinda cracks me up how every “new” installment to vampire lore needs to put their own tweak on the legends. Oh no, no, it’s not that we burn up and die in the sun, it’s that when we’re in the sun, we’re just SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL. Oh, OK. Sure. 🙂

The story of a Mennonite family in the midst of falling apart. Nomi was a great narrator, brave and bold and honest, questioning not just for the sake of the questions. Not a long book, not a hard read. Very emotionally engaging.

With his new book getting reviewed all over the place and Bookslut wholeheartedly recommending him, thought it was time I checked out Auslander.
Really funny, sarcastic, biting religious humor. Some of the stories were really really hilarious, particularly if you know anything about Judaism. If you don’t, some of the specifics might just go over your head. Some weren’t quite as funny, or perhaps it’s better read not all in a row as it’s a little one-note. If you’re not into mocking religion, then you wouldn’t be interested.

As I may have mentioned, a somewhat philosophical story about a girlhood friendship gone wrong. Cameron is extremely guarded and close with her secrets; she’s also honest and heartbroken and afraid it will happen again. Sonia is exactly the kind of best friend who drives you nuts and makes you crazy while also making you treasure her. As with so many relationships, things get tangled up in insecurities and secrets and lies.
Really inviting tone, easy to get emotionally involved here. I wouldn’t call it chick lit, and I was surprised to see one reviewer on Amazon say “Teens will appreciate…” Teens? I don’t see Teens being interested in this kind of brutal honesty about how things fall apart (it would have hurt too much to read then and think ‘oh no this might happen to my friendship with x or x’), or understand the little lies going on here that turn out to not matter so much in the end. This is a book for adults, if you ask me.