204/300

One Day by David Nicholls

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Wow, what a downer. It took me 200 pages to even get into this book because I hated Dexter so much and didn't really understand why Emma was keeping him around. Then they FINALLY get together, which I knew would happen since I saw someone review that the ending is predictable. That part of the ending maybe, but all of a sudden, BAM! Emma gets hit by a car and she is dead. What the heck?? What a downer.

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203/300

Night of Many Dreams: A Novel by Gail Tsukiyama

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book was the story of two sisters, their mother, their aunt, and their cook and involves forceful immigration and immigration by choice. I thought it was just ok. I didn't find myself caring about the characters too much, and just found most of it boring.

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202/300

Fly Away Home: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love Jennifer Weiner, and this book is no exception. I liked it far more than Best Friends Forever. In fact, I began reading this in a bookstore and didn't want to stop. Sylvie used to be a lawyer, and now she is merely a politician's wife. When she finds out on the news that her husband has been cheating on her, her world is turned upside down and she needs to find a new normal. The narration rotates between her and her two daughters: Diana, a cold ER nurse with a secret of her own and Lizzie, a recovering addict.Some of the characters frustrated me at times (Lizzie, in her relationship for one), and I never really wound up liking Diana but by book's end I felt I could understand her a little more. Overall, I am glad to see Weiner is back.

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201/300

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


As I have mentioned before, any story about the Holocaust really interests me. It is amazing to see what disgusting travesties people are capable of, but also how people will risk it all for human kind.

The story is about a zoo in Poland that is destroyed in World War II. The zookeeper and his wife hide refugees they call "guests" in the zoos many cages, houses, etc., to keep them safe from the Nazis. While a great story of what people are willing to do for others, I found the book to be dreadfully boring. I really got in to the last 75 or so pages, probably because I was excited to almost be done with it, but also because I thought it got a little more interesting.

I don't know if I have an early copy of the book or something, but I was SO turned off that when I went to read the jacket (I had already picked up a copy somewhere along the way) the very first word of the second paragraph is "drawinag" instead of drawing. I mean, really? On the book jacket?!

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200/200

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I liked this book more than I thought I would. I am not a memoir person at all, but it did keep me interested. However, the problem I had with the book was the main character/author herself. For some reason, she drove me nuts! Maybe it was within the first couple pages as she complained about only making $82,000 (in 1990's dollars) to write about free fancy meals. In those same pages she talks about the all the reasons she does not want the job at the NY Times. Even though she sabotages her interview, she is just SO good that they hire her anyway. Poor you.So her family moves to NY and she begins to be her own person by going against the grain of old critics and the Times and weathers complaints. In order to remain incognito, she disguises herself with wigs, makeup, clothes, etc. But that's not all. When she dresses up as someone, she also takes on their personalities. To me, this seemed like a thinly veiled excuse to act like a complete bitch (or insert other adjective depending on the persona). The fact that she just morphed into this new person was so cheesy to me. I also found her son to be extremely precocious, saying things like, 'I wouldn't want to eat at a super expensive restaurant every day. Then it wouldn't be special anymore. 'In the end, it was interesting and she was a good storyteller. But I was left wondering how many times one can eat a sexually described serving of foie gras without becoming morbidly obese.

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199/200

Secrets to Happiness: A Novel by Sarah Dunn

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book is full of shallow, annoying characters that you just don't even want to see succeed. Throw in a needy dog and a few BJ's and you've got yourself a novel. I was disappointed.

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198/200

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I'm still not entirely sure whether I should give this book 2 stars or 3. I listened to it as an audiobook, and the one main impression that I got from that was that the female had a really melifilous (sp?) voice that I truly enjoyed listening to. I wish she spoke more. I think the title of the book is rather misleading. Although Oscar (whose last name is not even Wao) does have a short life, I think it was far from wondrous. In fact, nothing really happened to him at all except for his tragic end. The meat and potatoes of the story is actually Oscar's family. The problem may have been with me because it was through an audio book but I had a hard time keeping track of time periods and characters since Diaz jumps through time several times. Oscar's mom is an extremely unlikeable character, although in time you begin to understand her a little. I still don't really get why she was so awful to her kids. I liked Oscar's sister, Lola, the most, although that isn't really saying much as none of the character's were all that likable. The narrator himself seemed like a jerk. The language of the book was really harsh, and I found it frustrating to have so many things said in Spanish without a translation. Worst of all, I thought Oscar's demise was pathetic. Truly pathetic. I don't know what he was attempting to accomplish at the end, and the way he died was just silly. The way he was threatening the goons, I thought he had some kind of plan when really it was just an anti-climactic stall tactic.

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