Buncha Books, issue 3 [EDITED BECAUSE I AM A MORON]

It's time for another issue of Buncha Books. In this issue, I'll cover the last 12 books I've read. I've finished one more and am in the middle of another, but they are related so I'm going to wait until the next issue to talk about them.

As I was traveling back and forth to Amazon collecting my book images, I realized that I read so much that I often can't remember enough about a book to review it, however briefly. So I have to refer to the summaries on the back covers or inside the jackets (much less often inside the jackets, since I tend to read paperbacks) to give my brain the tweak it needs to remember. Then I say to myself, "Oh, yeah. I DO remember reading this, but I have NO CLUE what happens." So then I should flip through the book a little to refresh my memory, but I'm too lazy to actually do that. Instead I think about it a little or start to type out the brief review with the little I do remember and the rest will USUALLY come back to me. The downside of this method is that occasionally the part that comes back to me is from a DIFFERENT book. So basically this paragraph is a disclaimer in case you read one of my reviews, think, "Oh, that sounds good. I think I'll read it," read the book and then think, "This has NOTHING to do with what Fiona Picklebottom said. She SUCKS and I'm never believing anything she says EVER again." You've been warned. Now on to the reviews:

Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky was about a white couple who have a baby. The baby looks distinctly African American. [Quick (or not so quick) aside: I knew some white people who were from Africa, who are now American. Are THEY called African Americans as well? If so, wouldn't they be able to falsely benefit from affirmative action type stuff (the white men anyway), since they could legitimately check the "African American" box on forms? If not, what are they called? Oh, and also? I am IN NO WAY asking for anyone's opinions on affirmative action. I'm not giving mine and I'm not asking for yours, this whole aside is just a thought that popped into my head as I was typing. So back to the review...] How could this have happened? The husband is from a prominent family whose ancestry can be traced back to the Mayflower. They are adamant that the "blame" lies with the wife, who does not know anything about her father. The couple begins the quest to find out more about the wife's family history so that they will be able to answer their child's questions as she grows. The husband also begins to learn more about his family. What they find is (supposed to be) shocking, but it isn't, because this book, while interesting, is very very PREDICTABLE. Oh, and did I mention that the next-door neighbor/husband's best friend is African American? AND had been married to a white woman and had a bi-racial child? No? Well, that too. And you can probably figure out the things THAT added to the plot, because like I said - PREDICTABLE. And yet, still interesting.

Next up is The Woods by Harlan Coben. [By the way, these reviews are in NO PARTICULAR ORDER. They are not in the order I read them, they are not in any sort of alphabetical order, whether by title or author, they are not in order by publication date. Nothing. No order at all. Much like my life. As a matter of fact, when I get my cease and desist letter from the producers of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," I may rename my blog, "Crap from my head. In no particular order. Using poor English and punctuation."] Harlan Coben is a relatively new author for me, in that I just discovered him about a year or two ago. I really enjoy his work. He sucks you right in and his novels are fast-paced and enjoyable. This was no exception. The novel is about a widowed prosecutor, Paul (I think), who is planning to run for office. (Which office I don't remember, but it's not important.) His parents were Russian Jews who got out of Russia back when there was that big movement to get persecuted Jews out of Russia. When he was a teen, his sister had been brutally murdered at a summer camp owned by his girlfriend's father. Or HAD she? What HAD happened in those woods? As bits and pieces from his past begin to haunt him, his old girlfriend, now a professor, is also being taunted by someone. They find each other and try to figure out what happened so many years ago. It's an interesting story interwoven with several subplots. Definitely worth a read.

Blood Orange by Drusilla Campbell sounded like an interesting read. I was disappointed. The crux of the story is that a couple's daughter is kidnapped. Could something the wife, Dana, had done be behind the kidnapping? The novel looks back to shortly before the kidnapping, when the wife had gone to Italy to presumably work on her art dissertation. We meet her best friend, a gorgeous woman who became an Episcopal priest and the priest's brother, a tortured yet charming soul. The book has a lot of promise, but it just doesn't deliver. None of the characters are very sympathetic, and I found that I really didn't care about them one way or the other. I don't really recommend this novel.

I enjoyed Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs. This is one of her Temperance Brennan novels, Tempe Brennan being the character on which the television series Bones is based. I've enjoyed the Temperance Brennan novels that I have read, and I've read a few. This one was no different, with the added bonus of taking place in the South Carolina Lowcountry, where I grew up. In this novel, Tempe has taken on the assignment of overseeing students on an archaeological dig on one of the Lowcountry islands that is slated for development. They uncover a skeleton, but it is not very old. The archaeological site becomes a crime scene, which pisses off the developer. Another victim is discovered in a barrel in the marsh. The identity of the second (and maybe the first, I don't recall) leads to a medical clinic where the indigent population is cared for. Corruption is suspected, but what kind and who is behind it? An enjoyable read.

Sleep No More by Greg Iles is not your typical Isles work, though Penn Cage, one of Isles' likable regular characters, makes a peripheral appearance. I love Greg Isles' novels. This one, however, I did not find as good as his others. This is the only one of his novels that has a supernatural aspect. Since I don't expect this in his work like I do in, say, Dean Koontz's, it distracted me a bit and I didn't enjoy the novel as much as I might have otherwise. Though I'm not sure how he could have approached writing this novel WITHOUT including the supernatural. Anyway, this work isn't what I want from Isles. It wasn't as compelling as I think the same storyline would have been in Koontz's hands (I know some of you are wondering why I'm only mentioning Dean Koontz and not Stephen King, but *fun fact* I've NEVER read a Stephen King novel. *gasp* The only experience I have with a Stephen King is a kid named Stephen King I babysat when I was in high school. So I have no frame of reference there.) and it lacked whatever it is that I like so much about Isles' other novels that I've read. So, while it was a decent read, it wasn't of the caliber I had gotten used to from Isles. I'll still recommend it, but not as highly as his other books. [EDITED: Okay, so then what is this novel ABOUT? It seems I was so busy telling you what I thought was wrong that I didn't tell you ANYTHING about the basic plot. There's this geologist guy who is watching his daughter's soccer game one day when a new woman in town makes a pass at him. She has an uncanny resemblance to a past obsessive girlfriend who is dead. She tells him that she IS his girlfriend. It goes from there. Remembering that his girlfriend was a crazy obsessive WACKO that can now apparently POSSESS people and that he is married (to a wife who he loves but who is withdrawn sexually because of a miscarriage) and has a child, you can kind of guess how things will go. Really, it was pretty good, just not in my top Isles recommendations.]

Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons is another novel I've included in this issue that takes place in the South Carolina Lowcountry. In this case, the story takes place mainly at a plantation that raises and trains Boykin Spaniels, the state dog of South Carolina, a breed with which I am familiar because I had two of them growing up, one of which I raised and trained myself. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel because I could relate to so many of the descriptions of the people and places. The main character in the story is Emily, a 12-year-old girl whose oldest brother suffered from a degenerative disease but who instilled in Emily a love of poetry and literature before killing himself with an heirloom shotgun, whose mother left when she was very young, leaving Emily and her older twin brothers with her father, who is emotionally distant. A troubled young woman from an old Lowcountry family comes to stay with Emily's family, and the novel centers on the effects this young woman and Emily have on one another, both positive and negative. While I liked this novel, I did feel that Emily was written as a much older character. I found it difficult to believe that she was supposed to be only twelve. It would have been more realistic had she been about fifteen, I think. Overall, though, it's definitely worth a read, especially if you enjoy southern fiction. [Which, if you do, Beach Music by Pat Conroy is the best ever written.]

Whew! Well, I lied back at the beginning when I said I was going to cover 12 books. I've been typing off and on all morning and now it's 2:15pm. I have OTHER THINGS I NEED TO DO. So you get only six today. I'll give you another issue next week with the other six originally slated for this issue plus the two I mentioned that were slated for the next issue.

Barfy Mother's Day post

Tessie mentioned that she had not read ONE barfy^** Mother's Day post today and was concerned that the sheer number of them on Monday could be a little OVERWHELMING in the nausea department, so in the interest of her keeping her breakfast down on Monday, I'll post one NOW rather than then. Of course she may not read it until Monday, but hey, I did what I could. Also, as it is not yet Mother's Day, I suppose another barf-inducing incident could occur here, which I may or may not report to you on Monday, thus rendering my act of kindness here today moot.

Today was SB's Mother's Day thing (there's got to be a better name than Mother's Day THING, but for the life I've me I can't come up with it) at her pre-school. We mothers showed up and, with our children, decorated tongue-depressor picture frames and planted pumpkin seeds in little styrofoam cups that we also decorated with Sharpies. Ooh, wait, I can take a picture:


Sorry I don't have the picture frame, but it was left at school so that SB can put a picture in it that a teacher took of us today. Before we got into the crafty projects, though, we sat around a circle and one of the teachers showed pictures that the children had drawn of their mothers and reasons why they loved them. Here's mine:


I should probably address that rather large bald spot I have on the top of my head. A combover or something. Anyway, after the teacher read the description and was getting ready to show the next picture, SB said, "Aw, I forgot to say, 'And she's funny.'" I mention that because I probably don't come across that way here, but really? In real life? I'm a freaking laugh-a-minute. Seriously. But I digress. After the circle time and our crafty projects, the kids sang songs to us and then we had monkey bread and apple juice on placemats the kids had made. There were also "cookbooks" with recipes straight from the noggins of our little ones, so I wouldn't recommend actually MAKING any of them. Then it was time to go home, but not before we were each presented with a plaster replica of our child's hand.

Now, inside the cover of the "cookbook" I brought home was a "Recipe for a Mother." SB decided she wanted to make it. So she drew pictures to represent the ingredients (things like "love" and "laughter" and such) and cut them out, got a mixing bowl and a spoon and went to work making mothers.


She made mothers off and on all afternoon, and then she decided that we should make a mother or two together tonight before bed. So we did.

After we were done...

Me: What are we going to do with all these extra mothers running around?

SB: I don't know.

Me: They could clean and cook and do the laundry. And chauffeur you guys around.

SB (laughing): And they could do our chores!

SB (gets serious): But YOU have to come to Mother's Day at school.

Me: Definitely.

SB: I wonder how you make a FATHER?


^**For any HATERS out there (though I really have yet to come across one HERE, I'm just covering my bases), I do not actually think any of this is BARFY. No, I save all my puking for those "you're such a wonderful friend" email forwards. Obviously, you don't know me AT ALL if you're sending me this drivel. Unless of course, you're sending to me so we can make mean-spirited fun of it together.

Almond Roca

Ever have one of those days where you read something a blogger wrote and it SO totally reminds you that "YES! I, TOO, LOVE THAT STUFF!" and so you buy a big canister of it and eat half a canister on the ride home from the store and then the next day you have the other half of the canister for lunch? And half a canister is like WAY WAY too much and may even leave you ever so slightly queasy, but you don't care because holy heck it's GOOD! No? Never mind, then.

Let's talk about FOOD, ba-by

Yeah, I know the song says "Let's talk about s.e.x, baby," but frankly food is more interesting. You know I'm right, even if you won't admit it. Also, my oldest daughter reads this occasionally, as does, I have recently been informed, one of her friends. So, as they are learning everything there is to know about sex from their 13-year-old peers, as is the right and proper way of the world, I will not further educate them here. Also, I should consider moving to a secret blog.

Anyway, the first order of business here is bittersweet. Not chocolate. Coffee. I love and adore some of the creamer flavors that International Delight produces. Their chocolate caramel flavored creamer is a staple in my house. But what really turns me on (still talking about food, stay with me here) is the Limited Edition flavors they come out with. A few months ago they had Vanilla Caramel Brownie. Holy moly, that was to die for. Now they have this:



In case you can't read the label, it says "White Chocolate MUDSLIDE." And the party in your mouth it provides along with your morning dose of caffeine is better than that subject we're not discussing right now. But, BUT. Those flavors are Limited Editions. So while they give great pleasure, they only do so for a short time (STILL food, people!). Thus the bittersweetness.

---

On to other food. I made Tamale Pie, originally brought to us by Partners in Dine, for the second time last night. The first time I didn't take pictures, so I didn't post about it. Anyway, as our good friends Brett and Caroline told us, it is EXTREMELY EASY to make. Except the part where they say to shred the cheese. SURELY THEY JEST. What they MEANT TO SAY was buy a bag of shredded cheese and use that. So being able to read their minds like that, that is what I did. Anyway, here is a photo record of the process (for the actual recipe go here):

Brown the meat:



Drain the meat and add the beans and salsa. By the way, I couldn't find ranchero beans, so I assumed that ranchero=pinto, and used pinto beans:



Pour in pan and sprinkle cheese on top:



Pour cornbread batter over top and spread out (I just used 2 8 oz. boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix because I couldn't find a 12 oz. box of cornbread mix that was called for.) Bake. I forgot to take a picture until after it had been in the oven for a couple minutes.:



Done.:



Serve it up with a dollop of sour cream. If you want to be healthy about it, have a side salad as well (for this I highly recommend buying a salad in a bag for the ease factor). It's easy and delicious.

Let's go bat for the other team, Michelle!!

I made Garlic Cheddar Chicken for dinner last night. If this is representative of the things Michelle makes when she cooks, then I will divorce my husband, become a lesbian, convince her that she is also a lesbian, marry her (okay, CIVILLY COMMIT to her) and completely support her so that the only thing she has to do is cook. Holy moly!! That was some AWESOME chicken!

I served it with Creamy Parmesan Chicken Rice-a-Roni (Yeah, I kept a couple boxes. It's my fault there's no more Journeyman.) and steamed broccoli. Look how yummy:



Also, in a turn of events that had me clapping and cheering, Amy LOVED the entire meal. You may recall that my two middle kids are horribly picky, so seeing Amy eat her weight in broccoli before moving on to the rice and chicken warmed the cockles of my heart. (Also, exactly what part of your heart are the cockles? Anyone know?). Check it out and let your cockles be warmed too:







Indeed, the fork IS totally superfluous. She's working on about her 7th stalk (? - Is that what you call a piece of broccoli?) in these pics, and yes, Virginia, that IS a file cabinet in my dining room piled with a couple weeks worth of mail and a hairbrush. And plastic drawers where I keep the three school kids' recent papers that may or may not need attention. Who knows, since I rarely actually OPEN the drawers. But ignore that. Aren't your cockles all warm and tingly?

Buncha books, issue 2

Back in January, I decided that writing a review for each book I read is a lofty goal. A goal so lofty, in fact, that I would never be able to meet it what with my procrastination issues and whatnot. I knew I would just end up with a big pile of books next to the computer waiting to be reviewed, the pressure to review them would become overwhelming and so I would just continually tell myself that I would write one tomorrow, which of course would never come. We know that because there is a movie. One which I have never seen, so don't ask me if it is good.

Anyway, I decided that the only way to keep up with my reading would be to post several mini-reviews at a time. Which I did. I fully intended to keep doing this. Guess what? I now have a big pile of books (not next to the computer, but a pile nonetheless) waiting to be reviewed, the pressure to review them is starting to build and I keep telling myself that I will cover several of the books tomorrow, which, as we discussed above, never comes.

But today, yes today, that being YESTERDAY'S tomorrow, has arrived, and while it is not tomorrow EXACTLY (because tomorrow NEVER comes, since when it gets here it is no longer tomorrow but today), it will do. I've decided to cover ten novels in this post. There are at least that many more, and of course I'm still reading. Ten will at least put a good sized dent in my pending reviews. Oh, if I am totally wrong in my description of what a particular book is about, or I get an important detail wrong, please correct me in the comments. It's been a while since I've read some of these, and I read so much that I sometimes forget something or get things mixed up.

Over the last couple of months, my reading included a couple novels written by Iris Johansen. The two I read were Killer Dreams and The Ugly Duckling. Her novels are generally quick reads and I've found they all pretty much follow the same format. That format being, hot girl has someone close to her wronged and/or killed, hot girl wants revenge, enter hot bad boy with a good heart who coincidentally knew someone either wronged and/or killed by same person or group. Bad boy helps girl prepare her revenge. They start out not liking one another, but of course cannot deny the other's hotness. They begin to like each other a little, or at least enough to give in to the sexual tension, and end up in love. Oh, and in the meantime they get their revenge.

Because of this format predictability, Johansen's novels can get old, but I still keep picking them up. My favorite ones by her are the ones with Eve Duncan as a recurring character. Speaking of recurring characters, most, if not all, of Johansen's good bad boys are from the same group of guys and various ones crop up from novel to novel. That group is tied in to the Eve Duncan novels as well, so it's all a very intricate web of characters. I'd say her novels are as close to the romance genre as I get. In any case, Killer Dreams is about a woman whose father kills her mother and himself after trying to kill her and her son. Of course it was due to brainwashing, and the brainwashers MUST BE ELIMINATED. The Ugly Duckling is about a woman who is attacked by a killer but manages to survive, only to find that the killer murdered her daughter. He and the person behind the hit MUST BE ELIMINATED. Enter smokin' hot bad boys with good hearts, yada, yada, yada.

Next up is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. I LOVED this book. I am fascinated by the thought processes in people with autism, particularly Asperger's Syndrome, and this novel gave a look into just that. It was stream of consciousness from a teenage boy with Asperger's. The novel begins with the killing of a neighbor's dog. The boy decides he will solve the crime, and it goes from there. I think you'll either love this book or not like it at all because of the stream of consciousness style, but I am firmly in the "love it" camp.

Another book with autism as a theme is Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach. Because the novel was supposedly about an autistic child, I thought I would really enjoy it. It was okay, but overall I was disappointed. The story revolves around the mother figuring out that something is wrong with her son, her husband not wanting to hear it, the subsequent discovery that her husband is, in fact, a prick, but the desire to still be a happy family causing emotional turmoil until she finally makes a decision. Ultimately, I found it somewhat boring, as the child's autism was used more as the catalyst for what happens (which is totally predictable) rather than the main story.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler was a quick entertaining read. It is a young adult novel about the journey of self-discovery of an overweight girl. I really enjoyed it for its insightfulness when it came to showing how other people respond to a person's appearance and how those responses affect how a person looks at him or herself. This is a book I would recommend for any teenager, but particularly girls. I've also got to say that by the end of the novel, when the main character has become sure of herself and comfortable and happy with who she is, it reminded me of our blogging buddy Jess, who has shared her feelings of being overweight as a teenager with us all and now comes across as one of the most together and happy with herself and her life individuals as anyone I've met (though I haven't met HER), and I think I actually had Jess's picture in my head as I read the book. Hope that's okay, Jess; it put a familiar face on the main character, even though the book kept screwing with my head by saying she was blonde.

I thoroughly enjoyed I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. It was just wonderful. It's about a young man whose life is going nowhere. He begins to receive playing cards in the mail with addresses written on them. When he visits the addresses, he finds that there is something that needs to be done, and that he has been chosen to do it by someone unknown. It's a great read with a surprising twist at the end. I will definitely seek out another book by this author for which I've read good reviews, and that is The Book Thief.

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz is the third novel in the Odd Thomas novels. It USED to be the Odd Thomas TRILOGY, but now there is a fourth, so it's been changed. I really like the Odd Thomas character, and this novel did nothing to change my opinion. In this book, Odd has moved into an abbey to live among monks. He is trying to give himself a breather from the trouble that follows him, but of course it follows him right into the abbey in the form of a brother that supposedly committed suicide. Odd's trusty friend Elvis also follows him to the abbey, and takes a big step forward, a step Odd has been hoping he'd take since the first novel.

Year Zero by Jeff Long was an interesting novel. It begins with tomb raiding what was possibly the tomb of Jesus's family, followed by a pandemic disease and some cloning using DNA from artifacts found in the tombs as well as a frozen Neanderthal. Throw in a clone who claims to be Jesus Himself, and you've got a fascinating tale. I read this book on Tessie's recommendation and I'm glad I took her advice.

The 5th Horseman by James Patterson is the fifth book in the Women's Murder Club series, which Patterson co-writes with other authors. This particular one was co-written by Maxine Paetro. A new woman joins the club, replacing one of the main characters who was killed in an earlier novel in the series. The new character is named Yuki something-I-don't-remember. Her mother collapses and is rushed to the hospital, where all are told she will be fine. On the day Yuki is to take her mother home, she unexpectedly dies. Yuki is convinced she was murdered and our main main character, Lieutenant (or Detective, can't remember that either) Lindsay Boxer agrees to investigate to put her friend's mind at ease. What she discovers is disturbing. This is a typical James Patterson - an easy, fast, satisfying read.

Lastly, for this issue of Buncha books, is Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman. This is one of his Alex Delaware novels, which I really enjoy. I've read all of them that are in paperback, which means all but the one that just came out (Compulsion). I enjoyed this one as well. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who is currently working primarily as a consultant for the police. An old OCD patient of his contacts him because of something her mother said on her deathbed, leading Alex to discuss the case with his friend Milo, the gay detective. The deathbed statement leads to some old cold cases and then some present-day crimes, ultimately leading, as these novels are wont to do, to Milo and/or Alex being in mortal danger. Good solid read.

So there are 10 mini-reviews. More to follow...

U-PICK dandelion greens

I noticed at the grocery store a few days ago (By the way, do you say "grocery store," "supermarket," "market" or something else?) that they sell dandelion greens in the produce department. What the hell?!?! I know they're edible, but I thought that was only as a last resort, like on "Survivor" or something. Or if you find yourself stranded in the middle of a giant trailer park after a nuclear bomb has eliminated every other living thing on the planet, and it's just you, cockroaches and dandelions. And you have to choose: cockroaches or dandelion greens. Hmmm... I guess I'll eat the dandelion greens.

But I guess I'm wrong. There are apparently people who PAY to eat the weeds that grow copiously throughout my yard, which I'm now thinking should be a U-PICK farm.