Do you have a book you read in school that you swore was the worst book ever? Have you ever thought that maybe your teachers weren't out to torture you, and there may have been a method to their madness after all? Then the July Challenge is for you!

Details on the challenge can be found here...check it out, and join us!

I really enjoyed reading this book. It looks long (544 pages), but many (most?) of them are drawings that look like camera work - panning across a scene or starting further away and moving closer and closer like they do in movies. It works well because it's about movies (and a retired movie maker and an automaton and some other things).
The title character, Hugo, keeps the clocks in a Paris train station running after his uncle's disappearance. He also has a secret - a marvelous clockwork automaton that was destroyed in the fire that killed his father. I love stories about automatons, so it made me happy.
It did take a little getting used to, though; it takes awhile to get to any text and then the main plot doesn't start until later than that. Once you get into the swing of things, however, it's a quick, enjoyable read with an interesting presentation. (It reminded me of a silent film which, of course, was exactly the point of doing it the way it's done.)

38. Slim to None - Taylor Smith - 411 pages. A woman formerly a sheriff takes on international security jobs to try to get enough money to regain custody of her child. A killer crosses her path. International military intrigue, hostages, violence and a frame job all occur in this interesting thriller.

39. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings - S.M. Stirling - 304 pages. This book posits that life on Mars and Venus was discovered in mid-twentieth century. An archaeologist is sent out to the "wildlands" to search for relics. Interesting developed Martian history and culture.

40. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon - 850 pages. Another time travel book featuring Scotland. This time a WWII nurse gets pulled through a circle of stones to the 1700's where she has to adapt to the realities of life there. Aside from the time travel bit at the beginning and the fact that she brings her "modern" skills, it's pretty much a historically accurate novel. I've got the rest of the series on hold with the library.

40 / 100 books read and 14,412 / 30,000 pages read

I haven't had a chance to post in quite a while. Here's what I've read since I last posted in April.

19 - ( Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas )

20 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer #13: Wolves at the Gate pt 2
21 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer #14: Wolves at the Gate pt 3 (I'll post about these after #4)

22 - ( Angel #5: After the Fall pt 5 )

23 - ( I Heard that Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark )

24 - ( Grief by Andrew Holleran )

25 - ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer #15: Wolves at the Gate pt 4 )

26 - ( A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice )

27 - ( Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley )

28 - ( Us Ones in Between by Blair Mastbaum )

29 - ( The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger )

30 - ( The Year of Ice by Brian Malloy )

31 - ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer #16 - Time of Your Life pt 1 )

32 - ( A Secret Edge by Robin Reardon )

33 - ( Spike #1 - After the Fall pt 1 )

34 - ( The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold )

This is the sequel to my previous read, Queenmaker. That book showed tremendous promise but was hampered by the first-person viewpoint of a woman confined to a palace and removed from all action. It felt like one long dialog and very much like the author's first novel. Still, I owned the sequel already and I liked the premise, so I decided to give Wisdom's Daughter a chance. I'm so glad I did!

This book was exquisite. It corrected the problems of the first book in a huge way - there were multiple characters to follow, each with a distinct view on the same events. There are several different settings, and in this volume they are fully realized. Most of all, it is enlightening, witty, and sparkling with chemistry. The book begins with Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, journeying north to the land of the acclaimed Solomon the Wise to find a female heir for Sheba. The heir turns out to be Baalit, Solomon's own beloved daughter of his true love first wife. Bilquis and Solomon have incredible chemistry,and I don't mean in a sexual sort; they are two intelligent, lonely adults who have found their match. Baalit is a delightful main character, too, who feels confined by the male-dominant Hebrew society and obviously is looking back on her 14-year-old self and shaking her head at her youthful errors. Wisdom's Daughter even manages to build on the main character of the previous book, Queen Michal, and makes her feel more real and genuine, even though she is dead.

Another quirk I loved about this book - King Solomon's queens. As I recall from my Sunday School days, Solomon was maligned for taking brides from pagan lands and letting them continue their believes in Jerusalem, which was then blamed for the fall of the kingdom. That is all covered here, but it includes some of the perspectives of the queens themselves and shows them as sad, lonely figures. They are far from home, married against their will, and all they have to cling to of their home is the old gods - and for some, those are even exaggerated to provide them some comfort and refuge. It provides an enlightening, more feminist view of these women who are voiceless and blamed.

This is an excellent work of historical fiction, and I highly recommend it for those who would love to explore a mostly-ignored period of time. This isn't a romance, and it's definitely not Christian in focus. It's just plain good. It will be joining The Red Tent on my shelf.

Books 1-4; Books 5-8; Books 9-12; Books 13-16; Books 17-19; Books 20-22; Books 23-26; Books 27 and 28; Books 29-32; Books 33-37; Books 38-41; Books 42-44

45. The Interpretation of Murder – Jed Rubenfeld

This book belongs to a subgenre of historical fiction that I have taken a fancy to: Take any historical person you want and let him stumble upon a murder which makes him take on the role of a sleuth. In the case of Rubenfeld’s novel this historical person happens to be, the title gives it away, Siegmund Freud. Shortly after the famous psychoanalyst arrives in America in order to give a couple of lectures at an University, he is asked by the New York mayor for assistance in the case of the beautiful Nora Acton who has been wounded and left tied-up and half-naked by an unknown assaulter. Traumatized by this experience, she has now lost her speech as well as her memory, and that is were Freud joins the game. ( Mild Spoilers ahead. )

46. Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran - Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Eleven year old Momo suffers from the coldness of his distant father. His mother has left them when he was an infant, together with his elder brother Popol, a boy in every way more perfect than Momo (as his father assures him in every possible situation). That would be pretty worse if it wasn't for Monsieur Ibrahim, the only Muslim grocer in a Jewish street. Having stolen from him for quite some time, Momo must realize that Monsieur Ibrahim has seen through it all. The two of them become friends, and when his father too leaves one day, Monsieur Ibrahim is the only one who cares about Momo.

A cute, but somewhat disappointing book. Which doesn't mean that it is bad in that case, just that I think the story works better performed on stage or in the theatres. It's more about gestures and facial expressions, about watching, listening, smelling, than about words. I wanted to see Momo's father lonely hunched over his books, the hookers on the street, Monsieur Ibrahim's little shop, smell the various food crammed into it, watch the changing, colourful landscape on their way from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea or the dervishes dancing. Reading Monsieur Ibrahim I felt there was a whole world of visual experiences lacking, something that a small narrative or this narrative can never cover. I know that there is a movie adaption, and I hope I will get around to watching it someday.

47.-49. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman

As I already said, I like books that work on many levels; that entertains you and yet stimulate you on an intellectual level. A book that keeps my eyes glued to the pages until the very end, that makes me love its characters and suffer with them, that is rich in language, visuality, originality and fantasy, that toys with ideas and thoughts, that's full of hidden references to literature, philosophy and science - that is the perfect book for me. Now I wouldn't say that His Dark Materials is the perfect book, but it was pretty damn good. References? Check. Ideas and thoughts? Check. Originality and fantasy? Check, to the point where I found it bizarrely abstract. ( And yet, ... )

Ta-da! I'm halfway there, but lagging behind a bit. I ought to spend less time online and more time reading! (*determined*) I guess I'd be more caught up if I counted the manga I was re-reading, but ...

Anywho~ I just (literally, just) finished reading The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party. It was good ... not at all what I was expecting, but good. Octavian is a "prince," the son of an African "princess" taken to America shortly before the American Revolution. The College of Lucidity keeps him for their own strange purposes, &c. It's really hard to say anything about it without giving anything away. I loved Evidence Goring and was sad when his part was over. I hope he's in the second one in the series, which I plan to read.
It's worth mentioning that the author (M.T. Anderson) is the same man who wrote Feed. I feel like the whole meaning and substance of the story shifted when I found that out. They're not at all alike, but they are. Very strange.

Also, I finally got to read Saiyuki Reload volume 8 awhile ago. Series continues to be good, cliffhangers continue to hang (though the current arc seems to be reaching a climax soon). The short at the end was adorable and funny. Can't wait for more, &c.

41. The Lost Constitution, by William Martin. 752 pages. (2007)

Grade: B+

This is a novel, with murders, about the second amendment, and about several searches for a "lost" constitution - a draft copy annotated by several Founding Fathers as to what they REALLY meant.

A fun ride, and a paean to New England.

39) Queenmaker by India Edgehill
This is a work of biblical historical fiction, and I bought it solely because the cover blurb said it was on the same level as The Red Tent, one of my favorite books of recent years. Unfortunately, it's not anywhere near as good as that book.

The story is a first-person account of Michal, daughter of King Saul and first wife of David. At heart, it's a story about the power of men and how they abuse that power, and how even repressed women can earn power in their own right. This involves a lot of talking. A lot. Michal is entirely removed from ongoing wars and conflicts, being secluded in the palace; there isn't even much court intrigue except for one other wife who gets snippy on occasion. It ends up being David or Bathsheba talking to Michal while she spins in the garden. That's pretty much it. The material is very interesting, but there was no suspense or conflict. Michal bides her time, waiting to pwn King David the Jerk. I pushed myself through the last half of the book just because I wanted to get it over with before I got too bored.

That said, I have the sequel to this (found it at a thrift store months ago) and I'm still going to give it a shot. Maybe part of the problem is that Queenmaker feels like a first novel. Like the author has some great ideas but is still honing her craft. Therefore, I'll give her one more chance and hope it's a better book. Or maybe I'm just masochistic.

37) Wildflower Brides: Four Romances Blossom Along the Oregon Trail by Andrea Boeshaar, Cathy Marie Hake, Sally Laity, & Pamela Kaye Tracy
This is a fluffy Christian historical romance I was given for free. I used to love reading pioneer stories but I probably would have found this too light for my tastes even when I was 12. The book has four stories about four young women all on the same wagon train going to Oregon. The historical research is nice, especially in the first story when it talks about what they needed to pack and what books they used as resources. As far as the women... meh. To paraphrase one of the romantic conversations from one of the better stories:

Woman: I'd love to be a doctor but there are so few women doctors. And all the good schools are back east, and we're going to Oregon!
Man: Maybe that's not God's will.
Woman: What is His will?
Man: Marry me.
Woman: Okay.

One of the stories involved a Pinkerton agent, and that was the worst one of the lot. It had so much potential, too. The names and situations were confusing and the romance was totally unbelievable.

I would never have read this if it hadn't been given to me. Mind you, I liked this more than some of the other romances I've forced myself through this year, mainly because I love the historical aspect. It sure made me wince at times (see above conversation), but maybe that's a reflection of my own fallout with faith.

Wow, I haven't posted in a long time. Here's my (rather long) list.

1001 Books:

15. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson. 1168 pages.
This book blew my mind, in a good way. Of all the books I've actually enjoyed reading, I think this was the most difficult to get through. It also seemed to take forever, and not just because of the length. There's so much going on that it's hard to wrap your mind around it. Plus, I was a math major in college, and even though all the cryptography stuff was way over my head, I still tried to figure out what they were doing, which made the going even slower.

16. The Shining, Stephen King. 683 pages.
This was the first book by King that I've ever read. Honestly, I only read it because it was on the 1001 Books list; I'm not a huge fan of the horror genre. I liked it more than I thought I would, but I still don't think I'll read any more books by him. I can see his talent; but, really, the genre's just not for me.

17. The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett. 223 pages.
Ah, the legendary Nick and Nora Charles. Honestly, they weren't as great as I've heard them built up to be. I am curious to see the movie, though, to see if they come off better on screen. Still an enjoyable, quick read, though.

Other Books

20. Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon. 1088 pages.
Not as good as the first three, but still a good read. I hear that the fifth book is the worst in the series, but it picks up again with the sixth. Now that I'm back in the United States with access to a library with a large selection of English-language books, I'm hoping that I can finish the series this summer. Well, the books that have been published already, that is.

21. Twilight, Stephanie Meyer. 544 pages.
22. New Moon, Stephanie Meyer. 608 pages.
23. Eclipse, Stephanie Meyer. 640 pages.
I finally broke down and read this series, partially because my cousin was begging me, and partially to see what all the hype was about. I'll give her credit, Meyer has a knack for coming up with engaging plots. Unfortunately, her writing and characterization skills don't live up to her plotting skill. The book, especially the dialogue, was poorly written. And the characters were not very fleshed out, and when they were, they were disturbing - and not in a good way. Bella seems to exist just to get into trouble and have the men in her life tell her what to do. Her main ambition in life is to die. Edward is possessive, controlling, and borderline abusive, if not crossing the line into being actually abusive. (Girls: if your boyfriend kidnaps you to ensure that you don't see one of your friends, get out of the relationship ASAP. That is NOT a good thing.) I liked Jacob more, but he really wasn't much better. In my opinion, Bella should drop both of them, go to college, find a normal boyfriend, and try to live a normal life. It truly pains me that there are so many young girls out there who want to be like Bella and who want a boyfriend like Edward. Bella's no role model, and she and Edward do not have a healthy relationship.

24. Coraline, Neil Gaiman. 194 pages.
Wow, Gaiman's kids' books really are a lot creepier than his adult books. A really quick, but thoroughly enjoyable read.

25. The 158-Pound Marriage, John Irving. 255 pages.
This book is about wrestling and swingers. There's not really a whole lot else to say about it. I didn't particularly like or dislike it.

1001 Books:
17/25 - 68%

Total Books:
42/75 - 56%

Total Pages:
18,720/22,500 - 83.2%

Days Passed:
191/366 - 52.2%

This little update was a little while coming because I was working on finishing The Stand before I posted. I need to be more than just a weekend reader ~_~ But at least I've passed the halfway point.

22. Squee Jhonen Vasquez [5/5]
Pure awesome. Though I wish more of the book was actually about Squee, because nearly half of it is a collective of random comics. At least with JTHM, the majority was actually JTHM with the odd page or two of other stuff, such as Happy Noodle Boy. But still, it was all good ^_^

23. Dominion Steven Savile [4/10]
I really am not enjoying this trilogy. I read this book because it was a gift from a friend. If he gives me the third and final, I will read it because a) it was a gift, and b) because it ends the trilogy. But I'm in no rush. No rush at all. They are poorly written, choppy and they get pretty boring. They can be pretty pointless at times, actually.

24. Vampire Hunter D: Vol. 4; Tale of the Dead Town Hideyuki Kikuchi [9/10]
Another excellent edition to the series. My only problem was that it was a touch short, but I don't mind so much. I was pretty surprise by the twist in the plot too! I never suspected the bad guy :P And I was very happy with the book connections this one made. Most of the books so far could pretty much be stand alone, but in this one, there was another character who connected back to the first novel. The whole story takes place in a floating city and for some silly reason, this exerpt really amused me:
Squinting, the mayor replied, "Last death would be two years ago, missing person would go three or four months back. Exact cause of death isn't known, but most likely they got drunk and fell off the town. I'll make you a list of names and addresses."

25. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë [4/10]
No. This book bored me out of my skull. I really don't understand why it was so popular and why it's considered a classic. I mean, I can understand the value of a published female writer in her time, but that's it.

26. The Stand Stephen King [7/10]
This book was really good. I've only ever read one other book by King, and that was In the Eyes of the Dragon, which is totally unlike his usual books, and I read that about six or seven years ago. I docked this one points because the climax of the plot line was really really disappointing. Like in all 823 pages [I have the original print of this book], I think the climax last all of... 10 pages. Maybe. The characters were all really well developped though, and I really liked some of the character combinations he played with.

26 / 50 (52.0%)

Reading:
Vampire Hunter D: Vol 5; The Stuff of Dreams
Mayyyybe I'll try finishing Dune haha
Other than that, I've got nothing. I need more books >_>


ps. I rate books and graphic novels on different scales.

EDIT:

I was just reading over my entry from April and I realized I forgot a book! Silly me. It's not in order, but I'll add it just the same.

27. I Am Legend Richard Matheson [4/10]
This book was a huge disappointment. It could have been so much better. The novel I had was 330-ish pages, so I expected something a lot better than the 170 page story it actually was. The additional 160 pages were poorly written short stories. I honestly do not understand how Matheson can be compared to the likes of Stoker. It irks me.

27 / 50 (54.0%)

39. Company of Liars: A Novel of the Plague, by Karen Maitland. 548 pages. (2008)

Grade: B+

It is England in 1348. The Black Death has arrived, and seemly endless rain has come with it. A company of people gathered from the edges of society (to use the cover's description: "a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjurer, a musician and his apprentice, a deformed storyteller, an adolescent couple on the run, a midwife, and a rune-reading girl") travel across England fleeing the plague, and in search of open towns, food, and shelter.

I liked this book - it had a great period atmosphere. It is important to remember the title when reading it - they are ALL liars, in one way or another.

Book #69 -- Elizabeth Redfern, The Music of the Spheres, 484 pages.

A murder mystery/political thriller set in London in the years following the French Revolution. A government official, intent on finding his daughter's killer long after the police have stopped looking, stumbles upon clues that lead him to believe the man who killed his daughter has taken the lives of other girls as well, and that he is being protected at the highest levels as an intelligence agent. But the more he digs, the more he begins to suspect that there is more than murder being covered up, and that his government may be harbouring a spy. One with powerful connections who will do anything to keep from being discovered.

The book starts out slow, but picks up about a third of the way through. The first time I tried to read it I lost interest, but now I'm glad I went back and finished it. There's also quite a bit about early astronomy that's very interesting.

( Spoilers )

Progress toward goals: 188/366 = 51.4%

Books: 69/150 = 46.0%

Pages: 19275/50000 = 38.6%

2008 Book List

cross-posted to 15000pages, 50bookchallenge, and gwynraven

The Virgin and the Gipsy by D.H. Lawrence

From the back of the book:

The Virgin and the Gipsy affirms the powers of instinct and intuition in their struggle against the constraints of civilisation and anticipates Lady Chatterley's Lover in its theme. In it Lawrence tells the reverent tale of a young girl's emotional awakening in the elemental presence of a gipsy.

My thoughts:

I found this an interesting read. It is a window into another world, a bygone age. I felt as if I were listening to an aged relative telling me a tale of their life when they were young, a tale of the strictures of society, of one young woman who yearns for more than the life she sees before her. It has a rather fairytale-ish quality. There is a downtrodden daughter, a wicked aunt and granny, a disconnected and troubled father, a home that becomes a prison and, of course, a handsome prince who sets the heroine's heart aflutter. It's not a story for children though; it's not that there's any adult content as such, it's that Lawrence does not pull his punches when it comes to his characters' dark sides. I found I had little sympathy with any of the characters as they were all portrayed rather negatively, even the heroine. That made a refreshing change though, to find characters with 'real' flaws such as selfishness, intolerance and prejudice.

There is not much in the way of action until the very end of the story, but when it arrives it is gripping and thrilling. Lawrence uses some wonderful metaphors and similes throughout the book that I felt compelled to jot down for future reference. He also uses an omniscient narrator, which is probably my least favourite way of narrating a story, but after I pushed on through the first two chapters (which seemed rambling) I became used to it and rather enjoyed it. I am left wondering who this narrator is though. Is it Lawrence himself, or is it another character of his creation?

This is a short story (90 pages), so it's worth a read just to get a taste of D. H. Lawrence. It's tale is by no means unique, but it's a little bit of history. I shall probably read it again if only to look in more detail at his style.

Fiction list

3 / 50 books. 6% done!

Next book: Serenity: Those They Left Behind by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Excellent book. I enjoy books with first person narrators, and ones which give insight into different cultures, and this story has both these things. Very well written, it draws the reader into Sayuri's world very effectively.

When a book opens with a single cinematic sweep, moving from Sir Richard Burton death through the reluctant giving of last rites, to a sharp focus on a burning photograph of the 22-year-old Richard Burton that pulls you into his 1840's Bombay, you know you are in for a treat. This book is The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov just published in the UK translated by William Hobson but originally published in Germany in 2006. The book is not a Biography, History or a novel but a biographical fiction meaning as the author says that the live and works of Sir Richard Burton inspired him because all

…individual lives are mysterious, particularly those of people one had never met. This Novel is intended as personal approach to a mystery rather than as an attempt at definitive revelation.

This approach shapes the unusual structure of the novel. It is divided into three sections: first is Burton's service in India in 1842-49, second is his travels in disguise to Mecca and Medina as a pilgrim on the hajj (1851-53)and concludes with his journey from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika in 1858 as he attempted to discover with a fellow explorer the source of the Nile. So we don't know his life before or after this period or even during this period when away from waving the Flag.

In each section, Burton’s reveals his thoughts through a third-person monologue whilst other narrators offer context or even contrasting views. Burton acts as the antagonist to these characters where as his is the culture or landscape of India, Arabia and Africa. In the Indian section, these others are Lahiya, a professional letter-writer, to whom Burton's one-time servant Naukaram goes to have his story written up, in the hope of gaining further employment. It’s soon clear to Lahiya that Naukaram is not telling the whole truth and as we see neither is Burton. In the Arabian section, a script like exchange between various Islamic officials, suggests that he spied on military positions. Perhaps he did, or perhaps they fear the loss of rich pickings as the long slow decline of the Ottoman Empire gave opportunities for the politically unscrupulous. The African section narrator is another historical character Sidi Mubarak Bombay, we meet him as a old man telling stories to his friends and relatives. He was a slave working in India before gaining his freedom and returning to Madagascar and becoming a key figure in most of the big exploratory expeditions of the time into East Africa. Through him, we explore the conflicting motives and styles for the Speke and Burton expedition to find the source of the Nile.

The language is poetic with scene after scene evoked with powerful physical detail and a constant parade of realistic characters from a long faded 19^th Century that engage us in both Burton’s life as well as the other narrators. Together each section reveal a complex ambiguous man who loved language, disguises, adventure, learned to love sex, and wanted to understand cultures for the wider benefit of the Empire without perhaps realising the irony that Empires once they see the worth of other cultures the right to rule begins to crumble.

I strongly recommend the book for a highly enjoyable read and an introduction to a man well worth reading and in many ways a man ahead of his time.

I have moved all my 50 word random short stories to their own blog as they cross over into writing rather then reflections on reading and books. Please drop by and give me some feedback and feel free to suggest what could happen next in the comment section

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006)

When his parents are killed in an accident, Jacob Jankowksi is forced to abandon his studies in veterinary science. He jumps aboard a passing train at random one night, and finds himself in a travelling circus. He becomes the company's vet, falls for a married woman, and discovers how harsh circus life can be. (The cover blurb ends, 'Where falling in love is the most dangerous act of all...' -- which got some gentle mocking from the members of my reading group.) Seventy years later, in the present day, an old Jacob reflects on those days to escape the drudgery of life in the nursing home -- and another circus comes to town.

Well, I quite enjoyed this: it goes through a range of tones -- it's a romp in some places, very serious in others -- yet is always engaging. I lost track of some of the (numerous) minor characters, but that was by no means a problem; and the ending, which made me chuckle, was just right.

Here's a strange thing, though: the Author's Note at the end reveals that many of the incidents in the novel are based on real events -- and I found them more interesting when Gruen wrote about them as anecdotes in her afterword than when I encountered the same incidents in the story. Why this should be, I'm not sure; perhaps I'll put it down to one of my quirks as a reader...

1. The Boleyn Inheritance- B+
    Phillipa Gregory

    An interesting look at life of the Tudor court through the marriages of King Henry VIII to Anne and Cleves and Katharine Howard. The writing is fantastic but the book is a little bit over-long and the characters are a bit too one-note. However, Gregory commands them and her setting with great writing style and narrative power. Good read!

2.Atonement- A
    Ian McEwan

    A fantastic novel about love, jealously, lies, absolution, war, and redemption. His writing is spare and beautiful, he describes seen with great power and images. The central love story between Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis will make you fall in love with them; the war scenes will astound you with one of the best portraits of the horrors of war, and the Briony scenes will make you think and then stop- just to read more of his amazing writing. Fantastic read!

3. Before I Die- A-
    Jenny Downham
    Another great novel, this one about a young girl who is diagnosed with cancer. The characters are so believable and the writing is so good, it makes you believe in people again and in writing again. Great read!

For longer, more detailed reviews, see the posts at fai_reviews. Thanks!