A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Some children hover adoringly forever, others want nothing from you but their freedom. I know that. I've been watching mothers with their children all my life. I've never thought it would be easy, but I also never pictured heartbreak like this: estrangement, mental illness, love that grows an edge and expresses itself only in the pain it inflicts from page 103 It didn't take long to finish this book (as compared to the one I read right after this: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake from which I took a break of several days before I decided to finish reading the last half in one night). I've never read anything by Cammie McGovern, but I think I'll try some of her other books. This particular novel, I think, will have a special place in every librarian's heart because the narrator is a former librarian who goes away for a murder she believes she committed but didn't really. That's right. And no, the murder victim was not a patron from her library....

It may have been a long while since my last post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Recently for a couple days I was reading three books at once which doesn't usually bode well for me--this often means one or two get pushed aside in favor of finishing the one that sucks me in, never to return to the other two. However, I did finish one of the three: Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake ; I made a push one evening to finish reading the entire last half of the book. I thought maybe the ending would make it worth it. I was wrong. It has an interesting concept: a girl discovers on her ninth birthday that she can taste in the food she eats the emotions of the person who prepared it. There is also her brother and his mysterious secret that was not resolved to my satisfaction and her father's avoidance of hospitals at all costs issue that was kind of pointless. I've also been reading a book about royalty and their salacious scandals....