Orgies

Of reading, obviously.

I plowed through a ton of books this week/end, at least that's what it feels like.

Started Justice Sotomayor's memoir, but I was taking cold medicine for most of the last week, so I didn't want to really get into it, excited as I was to get my hands on it. So more on that later, when I really read it.

What I DID read, and is perfect for when you're not feeling great and spending a lot of time curled up in bed, was the latest Agent Pendergast book, Two Graves. It's pretty much what you'd expect - actually, it's exactly what you'd expect - but that's just fine - it's what I wanted. I will say, I give Preston & Child credit for not recapping the first two books in the trilogy (to say nothing of the entire Pendergast series), and basically just jumping into this particular story. It was schlocky, belief-stretching fun, although way over the top, of course. But who doesn't love when a Nazi hive gets blown up?

After Two Graves I continued on in the same vein with The Third Gate, by half of the same duo, in this case Lincoln Child. It was...fine? It's set at an Egyptian archaeological dig site, so maybe I was extra harsh, given my childhood love for the subject, but I felt like there were a lot of flaws. like the Preston & Child books, a LOT was crammed in - lots of different plot strands, random comments about cars and guns and machines that are maybe boy-brain-action-porn, but weren't doing it for me, and waaaay too much description of the man-made physical setting. Now, about that last maybe part of that is how I read. I generally don't "see" what's being described in my mind's eye, at least not always at the level of detail given, so when you go on and on about how the joists of a particular platform are connected, I get bored. But I think most people would have in this case.

The biggest problem was the huge twist at the end, or at least what I suppose was meant to be a huge twist, was super obvious and I saw it coming right away. Then again, I saw it coming because of clues in the text, so maybe we were supposed to get it, and then saying "you idiots! Don't you see?" to the characters would have ramped up the tension. But instead I just said "you idiots" and then was mildly annoyed when the revelation hit them, because I had been waiting for so long.

The end of the book, too, just seemed very abrupt and unsatisfying. Well, not unsatisfying, because I didn't want anything more, but not satisfying either.

Finished that yesterday, Saturday late afternoon, then started a book called The Apothecary's House (Adrian Mathews) - fine, about art stolen by the Nazis, but it was sloooooow going, so I gave it up, since I started it around 11 p.m. (stayed in last night, long story), and wanted something fast and easy.

So then I flew through another book with NO twist (although, again, when it's that obvious, is it even meant to be a twist?) and a really abrupt and in this case very unsatisfying ending, The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood (and inspired by, or something, the work of the Duchess of Northumberland). It's a slim YA book about a girl in eighteenth century England whose father is an herbalist who keeps a locked garden of poisonous plants and about a mysterious young man (heh, I feel cheesy just writing that, but there's no other way) - who's also hot, obviously - who comes to live with them. The main character, even the two main characters, are appealing, and there's so much room in the plot to really explore, but virtually nothing happens and what does happen is incredibly obvious.

And, maybe this is a YA thing, but much like when I watch The Vampire Diaries or Pretty Little Liars on TV, I just want to scream/scold "you stupid adolescent idiot - just TALK to him/her/them and you'll get this all figured out a million times sooner than if you run around trying to do everything on your own and secretly." I guess wisdom comes with age.

Then the end is just like "okay, and now we're done. The end." Dunno. Found myself wishing a better author had taken the same story and made an adult novel out of it.

So then it was 1:30 a.m. (I read it in under 90 minutes), and I had napped from 5:30-7 p.m., so I was awake, so I sped through Lauren Willig's The Mischief of the Mistletoe, which is just such a sweet, adorable little thing (well, almost 400 pages, so maybe not that little...but they are small pages), and then I was happy again, so I went to bed. 

N.B. - looked up The Poison Diaries to the author, and it looks like it's the first in a series. So that may account for the abrupt ending.

Sometimes I make myself laugh...

At the utterly random reading I do. Case in point, the varied assortment of books that were waiting for me when I got back from my long weekend in D.C. (WHOO! Amazing as always!)



Lincoln Child, The Third Gate - I am sure I had requested this one because going on plane trips always makes me think of / want an Preston-Child (Agent Pendergast) book, and the latest one must not have been available. So I settled for a just-Child one. (Thanks for the picture, Amazon!)





Karen Engelmann, The Stockholm Octavo - I have no idea what this book is, much less why I requested it. Times review, maybe?





 




Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild - this is supposed to be excellent, I am so excited.
   




Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn - I think this was something that was mentioned when I went to a talk by book review editors, and someone asked what was one of the books that they really loved this year...
 




Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru - came across this somewhere, and I just always love books on the history/complexity of racial definitions.
 




Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - this one I just want to re-read so that I'll remember the first half of the story when I finally get Bring Up the Bodies in my hands.




Jane, Duchess of Northumberland (hilarious - really??) and Colin Stimpson, illustrator, The Poison Diaries
As best I can tell, an illustrated fiction story about a poisoner, based on the research of an actual poison-gardener? It's confusing, but I can figure it out later...looks cool for now!