Where has the time gone?

Wow! Where has the time gone? It can't have been a year since I last posted! I have been very busy with my new duties. I have read a lot of books, so I will just hit the highlights.

The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo

This book is about a young Japanese girl who supports her family by diving for pearls. One day (just at the end of WWII) she discovers that she has leprosy, so she is sent to a "leprosarium" or a leper colony on a small island. There, the residents have created their own society, with guards to watch over them. There is terrible consequences for misbehavior and breaking the rules. The saddest thing is that she spent almost her entire life on this island. A heartbreaking but enthralling read!

Another book we read was Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear.

The evil and sadistic killer, the Gingerbreadman has escaped from the insane asylum. Jack Spratt, of the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department, is searching for both him and a missing reporter Goldilocks. Along the way, he has to deal with exploding extreme-cucumber-growers, an alien detective, a domestically violent couple Punch and Judy (who are also marriage counselors), and bears who illegally deal in porridge (think 7 foot tall drug dealers). This book was a pure delight, silly, and a great bit of light reading.

One last book that I would like to mention is The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy.

What a great book! We had a long discussion trying to identify parts in the book that correlated with the fairy tale. The story starts with a Jewish family in the ghetto during WWII. The father manages to escape with his whole family, but the Nazis are not far behind. To protect the children, the stepmother tells the children to run deep into the forest and to change their names to more German sounding names (Hansel and Gretel). An old woman (the witch) who lives deep in the woods catches Hansel eating the bread she hangs on nails driven into the side of her house. She takes them in and tells everyone that they are her grandchildren. Soon Nazis come to the village, and it is harder and harder for her to protect the children. Can anyone guess where the oven that the "witch" is thrown into comes into the picture? Another great book, that is a heartbreaker. Read it! It is well worth it!

Well, that is it for now! My book clubs have lined up to read The Shack, Chicago Haunts, Vanish, and other exciting reads!

The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty

Last night at my book discussion group, we discussed Laura Moriarty's book The Rest of Her Life.

Eighteen year-old Kara is driving with her best friend Willow when she notices a stray dog running across a busy street. Worried that the dog might get hurt, Kara pulls into a parking lot and tries to get the dog to come to her. She succeeds, and both she and Willow drive off to take him to a local animal shelter. While Kara is calling the shelter, she runs a stop sign, killing Bethany, a sixteen year-old girl crossing the street. What follows is how both families, and the small community, comes to grip with the tragic accident, and how it will affect Kara "the rest of her life."

We had a very interesting discussion. Many people didn't like Kara's mother, Leigh. She seemed to be more concerned about how Bethany's mother is dealing with the accident, rather than how her daughter is coping. Towards the end of the story, Leigh begins following (we decided stalking was a better word) Bethany's mother every Thursday and several evenings during the week. When Bethany's mother finally confronts her, Leigh's comment is that she was worried about how she (Bethany's mother) was coping with her daughter's death. Hmmmmm......

Several people were disappointed with the book's ending. I, however, didn't mind the ending. There were several people and things that were just thrown in. Almost as if the author was going to write more about it, but forgot to.