Monday, September 22, 2008

I would be remiss


if I didn't offer a review of the books that I read on my trip. They were not spectacular works of literature to be sure. When I go on trips I like to read fluff, things to distract me from the fact that I tend to get airsick. Bus sick, car sick, motion sick when ever I get on anything that moves. Hell I can't even watch video games over the dh's shoulder when he plays on the computer. So when I travel I read easy books. Mind you the dh and I are readers. Serious readers. I can read 1000 word novel in a night. Paperback books can be read easily in the timespan when your average person watches a sitcom. I can read faster then the dh but he tends to retain more detail than I do, no great surprise there. We mostly read sci fi but I tend to lean more towards fiction than he does and sometimes I bore him into reading the occasional fiction novel. I had him listen to a book on cd once during a long drive we did and he (grudgingly) enjoyed it Lord John and the Private Matter. Funny though, he didn't like any of the other series that the author wrote. Whatever.

Anyway I read 2 books on the trip, the one I finished on the way there and I managed to finish on the first flight before the connecting flight and was mightily irritated because that was the shorter flight so I was bored senseless for the second, longer flight before arriving at SFO. The book was Sweet Life by Mia King, a story of a busy New York couple with a young daughter that have a chance to move to Hawaii and become an at home wife with a working husband and basically live the country life (they do have that in Hawaii). I know, many people don't know that Hawaii is not all city and beaches but there are cows and ranches and country there and not every one can deal with that kind of life. It is isolated in a way that country life on the main land is not. Isolated on an island, yeah that hella isolated. Especially for some high society busy business woman from New York City. What I love about it is that it showed a couple that was exactly what you would be horrified to be as parents, they had a kid, bought a nanny, and then passed the kid off and paid for every one else to take care of her while they lived their lives around her. How horrifying is that? OK I won't give up any more than that, it's a good book. It even has the heroine fall in love with a cute cowboy. There, a very well rounded book, no?

So the other one, now this author seems to be very prolific and popular and so I went with that since I had very little time to choose and was feeling lazy and didn't want to spend a bunch of time picking out a book. My bad. It was a good book, don't get me wrong, it was just a little too...deep? No, sad. It was sad. If you are a mom, or really an emotional parent, for the love of God don't read this book. It questions your parental choices. Well written but not a light read. Thoughtful, yes, what you want to think about, probably not. The book, My sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Not a for the weak. I would like to read another of the author's books, one not so thought provoking maybe, one not so heavily weighted so that I may get a better idea of her writing style with out all the stressful undertones. Does that make sense?

So if you would like an opinion I would say read the first, if you feel the morbid need and can handle the little synopsis that the link sends you to, read the second. They are both great books. I won't let the hubby read the second, he'd get all upset. FWIW, I won't give away the ending of the second by telling ya'll this, the second book has a very sad sad ending that is a surprise ending. I didn't expect it but I saw it coming when it did come. She tried to make it subtle but when it said BMW I thought oh yeah I see what she's doing, nice twist. She's going to be all sick and ironic. Nice twisted woman.

If you're a parent stick with the first book, shine the second.

4 comments:

Trailboss said...

Alas, I am not a reader. I think I have ADD, seriously. I have to read and re-read paragraphs in order to retain. I can't read anything in a moving vehicle. I have been that way since I can remember. It makes me queasy.

MichelleSG said...

Oh I can't read in the car, oh noway. Insta puke for me. Nope, only on planes. I can barely even ride on boats at all.

BITR Country Girl said...

Great reviews! I LOVE LOVE to read, I'm mostly into fiction to but I've found a couple non-ficiton books that i like.

summer said...

Michelle - I highly recommend Shantaram. Best book I've read in years. Read it and get back to me. :o)