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When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde: Book Review

Nathan is in the woods early one October morning, heading out with his faithful dog to go duck hunting. Sadie bounds away from him and starts scratching at the leaves on the forest floor. Sadie is a good dog and this is totally unlike her, so Nathan goes to check out what she's found. It's a newborn, obviously abandoned to die in the woods. Nathan realizes the infant is actually still alive and rushes him to the hospital. He feels compelled to adopt the child, but a grandmother comes forward to take him in instead. Fifteen years later, Nat (named for the man who found him) has become more trouble than his grandmother can handle. He just seems angry at the world. Nathan steps in to care for the teen, who is puzzled by this stranger who does so much for him. I find Catherine Ryan Hyde's books refreshing in that they are ultimately about hope and the innate goodness we humans do have. There is some darkness in the story, but I love that she chooses to portray people at their best. And she does this without getting all sappy. I love me some hope; I gag over sugary sweetness. Nat is a little a lot difficult to like for the most part. He is so angry and defensive. He has reason to be. Just look at his entrance to the world. But he just keeps lashing out, over and over again. Luckily, he does have a softer side, and it shows up just often enough that I didn't wash my hands of him. He's not someone who learns his lessons easily. He does everything the hardest way possible, making his own life more difficult than it has to be. I loved Nathan. He's quiet and reserved and probably…

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Book Review

In this classic tale of growing up in the Jim Crow South, Scout Finch captures readers' hearts as she plays her games and begins to lose her innocence as she watches the adults in her town. A trial that has been defined by race is making everyone show his or her true colors and it's an eye-opening experience for Scout. I've read this probably 4 or 5 times by now, but I've never actually reviewed it. I really want to say, "I love this book. Not a passing love, but a deep and abiding, down to the soul love. Read it." And leave it at that. But I won't let myself do that. I love everything about this book. The biggest thing for me are the characters, especially Atticus and Scout. I love Atticus. No, really. I do. He's such a good man. As several other characters point out, he's the same on the street as he is in his house. He tries to live a life that permits him to look his children in the eyes. As someone else points out, he's the town's conscience. They trust him to do the right thing, often in spite of them. He never lets them down. I noticed this time how much it costs him. Scout is such a little motherless tomboy, I just have to love her too. She's pretty passionate about everything and she's still so innocent. This time around, I actually noticed Jem. I've overlooked him in the past, but I can see that he's going to follow in his father's footsteps. The story is such a well-done contrast. There are the carefree, almost idyllic days of Scout and Jem's childhoods painted against a background of racism and pettiness and revenge. Harper Lee makes her point about race issues…

Duma Key by Stephen King: Book Review

Edgar Freemantle is a building contractor in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Then he is involved in a terrible workplace accident that leaves him with a brain injury and an amputated right arm. His therapist suggests that Edgar should get away from everything and get a fresh start. He tells Edgar to do something that makes him happy because he "[needs] hedges against the night." Edgar moves to Duma Key on the Gulf coast of Florida and takes up sketching. His only neighbors are an old lady and an eccentric ex-lawyer. Edgar takes up sketching and with amazing rapidity becomes a painter. The therapy is good for him, but strange things are happening on Duma Key. Do Edgar's paintings hold a clue to Duma Key's past and present? Really, this was 3 and a half stars. I tore through it, just like I tear through every Stephen King book I read. I liked the characters, especially Wireman, but it felt weird to read a Stephen King novel set in Florida. I'm no expert, but it seems like--if they're set in this world at all--his novels are always in Maine, or at least New England. Also, I sort of felt like this had been done before. The plot wasn't the same, but the same sorts of ideas show up in Charles de Lint's Memory and Dream (which I prefer to this one, by the way). I really hate to write this, but I'll be glad when Stephen King gets his accident written out of his system. I know, I know! That's easy for me to say. That's a life-changing, maybe even a life-shattering, event and I'm pretty much wishing that the guy would just "Get over it, already!" I feel heartless. But there it is. I do wish it would stop…

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore: Book Review

I have mostly been able to follow Christopher Moore into his craziness with success. He makes a joke and I laugh. It might be the weirdest thing ever (Humpback whales with "Bite Me" on their tails?), but I get it. But then there was Fool. And now there is Sacre Bleu. I got so tired of having absolutely no freaking idea what on earth was going on. I mean, zero idea. You probably have a better idea what's going on than I did. Notice that I didn't write a synopsis? There's a reason. Individual elements worked well for me. I liked coming across all these painters and seeing them...misbehave. Especially Monet. I read a book about him once. I liked Lucien and Henri a lot. They had been left a little broken by the women in their lives, but they were still young painters (Or bakers. Or counts.) out on the town having a little fun. And sex. And alcohol. Paris is always a good location to read about. I'm not sure how much I really want to go, but reading a book set in the city always has me ready to pack my bags. And then I think that I would stand out like a sore thumb in chic Paris. And I mentally unpack them again. I loved that the ink of the book is blue and that so many prints of paintings were included. In color no less! I hate reading a book that talks about a real work of art and there's no print in the book. Call it laziness. It just seems like it should always be included. I really appreciated that there is a section at the end explaining what is fact and what is fiction. I was a little surprised by what bits fell…

Fool by Christopher Moore: Book Review

A re-telling of King Lear as only Christopher Moore could write it, as told by the fool, Pocket. I don't know if I actually needed to know something about King Lear to really get this, but somehow it fell flat. Maybe it's due to my ignorance of the original. I don't know. But I never had a very good idea of what was going on, what the devious plots involved, and who was trying to take over the kingdom and how. I was just confused. So maybe my confusion dampened my sense of humor, but I really didn't even find it all that funny. It definitely had its moments, but they were pretty few and far between. I hate footnotes. There weren't a lot of them, and some of them were actually pretty funny, but most of them were just straight up definitions of medieval terms. Maybe I've read too much historical fiction, but a footnote definition of portcullis just irritated me to no end. Why break the flow of the story for that? My favorite parts involved the servants behind the scenes in the castles. They were light-hearted, normal people, who added most of the humor to the book. That was a nice change from how they're normally portrayed as boring, scared mice that hide in the background. I enjoyed A Dirty Job much more, but die-hard Moore fans will like this one. Definitely stay away if you're easily offended. By anything. He skewers pretty much everything in this book. Reviewed May 10, 2009 Read an excerpt. Find author Christopher Moore on his website, his blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Buy Fool at Malaprop’s | Better World Books Friday Flashback Reviews are a weekly feature here on The Introverted Reader. These are old reviews I wrote on GoodReads. Thanks to…

The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver: Book Review

Kathryn Dance is an investigator working for the California Bureau of Investigation. Her specialty is kinesics, a fancy word for body language. She's one of the top in her field, so when new evidence emerges in a cold case suggesting that imprisoned cult leader and murderer Daniel Pell may have one more homicide to his name, she's called in to interrogate. But Pell escapes and she's left leading a manhunt, trying to catch the "Son of Manson," as he was called, before he can either kill again or persuade someone else to kill for him. Let's get the cliche out of the way first: I couldn't put it down. My eyes felt like sandpaper and I had a headache, but I just had to find out what happened next. The action just kept coming. The plot was full of surprises for me, right up until practically the last page. The book was well-written and seemed to be well-researched. Kathryn was a great female protagonist, strong, quirky, funny, likeable, but not too perfect. The other characters were maybe not quite so well-drawn, but I still liked them or hated them. There were two things keeping me from giving this five stars. First, the ending dragged out too long for me. I always use the comparision, "You know, it's like that movie 'Speed.'" The story was over for me but more surprises kept popping up. I get frustrated when that happens. The big thing that kept this from being a five star book was the constant explanation of kinesics. There's a pretty extensive explanation of what Kathryn looks for when she's interrogating in the first chapter of the book. I'm a smart girl--assume I got it. Instead, we get quite a bit of repetition like how "I swear" inevitably signals that someone…

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese: Book Review

Twins Marion and Shiva Stone are orphaned when their mother, a nun, dies in childbirth and their father denies them. They are blessed to be taken in and raised by an Indian woman who loves them with every fiber of her being. Cutting for Stone primarily follows Marion as he grows up in Ethiopia and then immigrates to the US. That's a pretty weak synopsis, but it's hard to capture this book in just a few sentences. It started off just a little slow, which is why I'm only giving it 4.5 stars. I could see the potential for a fantastic story so I kept reading, but the entire first part--131 pages--is technically only one day with a lot of flashbacks and back story thrown in. I started to feel like, at this rate, the twins might be a week old by the time I finished this 658 page book. But then it picked up and I never looked back. In fact, I sat down to read for just a few minutes while I was eating dinner one night and I finished the last 150 pages of the book. I just could not put it down. I was fully invested in what happened with Marion by then, and that's about the point where I really and truly started to worry for him. I liked reading about Addis Ababa and Ethiopia. I hate to admit it, but before reading this, I couldn't have even told you which country Addis Ababa was located in. I would have taken a guess at somewhere in the Middle East and been completely wrong. And who knew that it's at an elevation of about 8000 feet and it's cool and misty? That doesn't fit my "We Are the World" image of Africa. As soon as I…

I’ll Be Watching You by Charles de Lint: Book Review

Rachel Sorenson has just escaped an abusive marriage, but she's still not free of her ex-husband. Frank comes along every few nights, talks his way past the security guard at her apartment building, and goes upstairs to beat on her door and demand that she take him back. Police say they just don't have the manpower to guard her around the clock, so she's dealing with this largely on her own. Little does she know that someone is watching her. Harry Landon is a photographer obsessed with Beauty. Not subjective beauty in its many forms, but perfect, unblemished, divine Beauty. He thinks he's found his goddess in Rachel. He watches her through his telescope at all hours of the day and night. He takes pictures of her. He knows that the goddess resides within Rachel, and when he cuts her, Beauty will burst forth in a blaze of light. This is one of Charles de Lint's pseudonym books--the books he wrote openly as Samuel Key as a signal that this book is darker than his normal fare. I didn't care for From a Whisper to a Scream, so I've never been too interested in picking this one up. I finally gave in and read it in my attempt to read the Newford books in order. I was pleasantly surprised for the most part. This was a straight-up thriller that was rocketing along and ratcheting up the tension. It seems a little unlikely that one woman would have two stalkers at the same time, but once you let go of that, this was a genuine page-turner. Frank is a textbook study of the abusive husband. Harry is terrifying in his convoluted, violent logic. Events just keep snowballing until the tension is almost unbearable. And then. Oh, and then. It fell apart…

On Writing by Stephen King: Book Review

Stephen King sits down to share his thoughts on the writing process. No matter what you think of his books personally, you have to admit that he's a master at drawing in legions of fans. He prefaces his work with an explanation of what prompted him to write it. He was talking with author Amy Tan when he asked her what one question she wishes somebody actually would ask her at an author Q-and-A. "Amy paused, thinking it over very carefully, and then said: 'No one ever asks about the language.'....But Amy was right: nobody ever asks about the language. They ask the DeLillos and the Updikes and the Styrons, but they don't ask popular novelists. Yet many of us proles also care about the language, in our humble way, and care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper. What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it's done. It's about the day job; it's about the language." Divided into three main sections, King actually covers a lot of ground in this short book. The first section is a mini-memoir of his life and the events that influenced his writing. The second part is the mechanics, and the third is about his life-changing accident (which happened in the middle of writing this book). I enjoyed the section about his life. I would never claim to be King's "Number One Fan," but I do enjoy reading his work. I can't say that I know anything about his life. He was run over about 10 years ago, Joe Hill is his son, and Tabitha King is his wife. That's about it. Oh, and that he was pretty strung out on drugs…

Watchers by Dean Koontz: Book Review

Travis Cornell is a man for whom life has lost all meaning. But on a hike one day, he runs into a golden retriever, somewhat battered, obviously friendly, but determined to protect him from something. Travis, a former member of the elite Delta Force, finds himself running in a blind panic with the dog. He takes the dog in and, after the dog displays absolutely amazing intelligence, names him Einstein. The two eventually become three when Travis meets lonely Nora Devon through Einstein. She joins with Travis in trying to protect Einstein from the mysterious being known as The Outsider. Unfortunately, The Outsider isn't the only one looking for the group. Can they all protect each other? Okay, this was Dean Koontz, so it almost naturally follows that I couldn't put it down. I fell in love with Einstein. The humans? Honestly, I could take them or leave them. But a dog with a sense of humor and a clear way to express it? Sign me up. Koontz usually does a good job with this, but I really liked the way that not everything was black and white in this novel. As scary as The Outsider is, he's not always the villain. In fact, he's postively heart-breaking in some scenes. Probably the only thing keeping me from giving this five stars was the huge amount of coincidence involved in Einstein managing to find an independently wealty Delta Force guy to live with. Aren't the odds better that he would find just a regular joe who would lack the knowledge, money and experience to protect him? Really, that's just a small thing, but it did periodically bug me. Overall, I recommend this for all Koontz fans, and really, for dog lovers who have ever wondered what their companions would say given…