A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Fiction

The Hall family is pretty screwed up. Daughter Katie is marrying Ray, her second marriage, but isn't sure if she loves him or is just happy to have a place for her and her son to day. Son Jaime is gay and his boyfriend has just broken up with him, because he didn't want to invite him to the disastrous wedding. Mom Jean is having an affair and Father George is convinced that his eczema is cancer and he is going to die. George is the focus of this novel, as he slowly starts to go crazy. George can't handle the wedding, his son, his wife's affair, and now his seemingly imminent death. He slowly comes off the chains, though he tries to do it as nicely as possible, while interestingly enough, he family go from being a mess to bringing themselves together.

My first Mark Haddon book was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime which I really enjoyed. This book isn't as good, though it still holds your attention and makes you wonder whether George is going to get the treatment he needs and feel better or if he really is sick.

I do have a couple of complaints about this book. At the beginning I found it difficult to keep all the characters straight and Haddon didn't seem to do much to try to introduce them to you so you could remember them. I also found that in parts the book moved rather slowly. These issues won't keep me from reading another Mark Haddon book.

First Line: "It began when George was trying on a black suit in Allders the week before Bob Green's funeral."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

One Hundred Million Hearts

One Hundred Million Hearts by Kerri Sakamoto
Literature

Miyo is a young Japanese Canadian who has been cared for by her distant but devoted father. She was born to a Hiroshima survivor who dies prematurely. Miyo has a disfigurement and relies on her father even for rides to work. One day when he is unable to give her a ride she travels by subway, only to be caught in the closing doors. A man rescues her and they fall in love and eventually move in together.

Miyo grows increasingly distant from her father and he fades until she receives the sad news of his death. She starts to find out more about her father and his past. His girlfriend is really his wife and she has a step-sister (Hana) who was raised in Japan. Miyo decides to travel to Japan to meet Hana. Hana is resentful of her treatment and very very strange. Miyo also finds out her father is considered one of the shameful ones for being a kamikazi pilot and not following through.

The premise of this book is indeed an interesting one and I truly wanted to love it but it was too strange for me. There was a lot of running around to no purpose, a lot of teeth-gnashing and just weirdness


First Line: "During the war my father learned to shoot a rifle, lunge with his bayonet and march the perimeter of Okayama Second Middle School, knees high and arms swinging."

Rating:
(3.0/5)

The Eskimo Hunts in Miami

The Eskimo Hunts in Miami by Stefan Kanfer
Mystery

Jordan Gulok is now in Miami.  Jordan is an Inuit but not just any Eskimo.  He is ex-SEAL and has a direct line to the Admiral.  He is a special force all on his own.  Just what is happening down in Miami?

Jordan starts off in a indoor gun range.  After wowing the management he gets an offer to teach at the facility.  He starts to notice some anomalies like the street address and the number on the curb being different.  The number 417 continues to pop up in all sorts of strange places.

 

As Jordan starts to look into these things people start to die as if due to a voodoo rite.

Jordan goes to a popular Haitian nightclub and talks to the beautiful singer with the silver tongue who explains how all the voodoo symbols are 'wrong'   What is this 417 and how can he find out what is means?  Eventually Jordan finds out that 417 refers to when Castro took over Cuba and there are plans afoot to take it back.  The big brass want proof and Jordan can not furnish that and now must stop them all on his own.

Jordan is a loner and the reader can not help but feel sorry his romantic plans will never pan out.  I loved the story and am now off to the Twin Cities.

First Line: "The place had opened in November"

Rating:
(4.0/5)

Born in Death by J.D. Robb

Born in Death by J.D. Robb
Mystery

A young accountant and her fiance are tortured and murdered when Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called in. They worked for the same company and Dallas figures there must be a connection through their work that caused this to happen. The couple must have come across something at work that was worth killing for and Dallas needs to figure out what it is.

Meanwhile, Mavis still hasn't had her baby so Dallas and Roarke attend birthing classes so they can help Mavis through it, which they both find rather disturbing. One of Mavis' pregnant friends becomes connected in this book when she goes missing and Dallas also becomes responsible for finding her.

There were two stories in this book that made a rather forced connection at the end. I didn't like how the two were brought together and found it all very unrealistic. This is my 8th In Death book read this year and I think I need a break. There is such a thing as too much Eve and Roarke.

First Line: "The ways and means of friendship were murderous"

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich

Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
Mystery

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has had enough of being hit, stalked, and almost murdered so she hands in her bounty hunter hat and tries out some new jobs. Typical to Stephanie style, she screws up the new jobs spectacularly. She starts getting threatening notes in her apartment and in her car and then people start getting blown up. Eventually, Stephanie starts working for Rangeman which actually suits her quite well. I wouldn't mind seeing her continue that job in future books, it works well for her and provides expected comedic relief.

I enjoyed this book more than some of the previous because Stephanie is doing something different with her time. My complaint, which would be the same for the past two books, is that once we find out who has been stalking Stephanie, the book pretty much ends right away.

First Line: "My name is Stephanie Plum."

Rating:
(4/5)

The Painted Girls

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Historical Fiction

It is Paris in the last 1880s, the van Goethem sisters have just lost their fasther and their mother spends her laundress money disappearing into an absinthe bottle.  This means that eviction and starvation are just around the corner.

Antoinette finds several odd jobs as a walk-on at the theater where she meets her boyfriend and lover.  Marie, aged fourteen and Charlotte, age ten join the ballet and the hard work that entails to earn a paltry sum of three francs per day.  They both study arduously to go up the ranks in order to earn more.  For Marie she is chosen to model for Degas as one of his ballerinas and nudes.  As she progresses she attracts a sponsor and becomes little more than a prostitute.  She feels so conflicted by this and can not approach her older sister as Antoinette is having problems of her own.

Antoinette's boyfriend has been charged with murder and the choices are either the guillotine or transport to New Caledonia.  

This story is a wonderful story about sister helping sister and the sordid world of Degas' ballerinas.  Loved this story

First Line: "Monsieur LeBlanc leans against the doorframe, his arms folded over a belly grown round on pork crackling."

Rating:
(4.0/5)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fiction

It's sometime in the future (year 2500 or so) and humans are manufactured in an assembly line, a la Henry Ford. No one has a mother or father, everyone has a specific role in society, and everyone has been conditioned to believe certain things and understand how they should act for the greater good of society. There is no art, everything is about instant gratification, which mostly involves taking a drug soma and having sex. Everyone belongs to each other, which creates a rather different society than what we currently have. Bernard and Lenina are both higher up in society and have, I'd like to say have a relationship with each other but no one really does that in this society. Bernard decides to take Lenina to a compound in the US that has people from the old way of life. He finds a savage, John, and decides to bring him back to the UK for studying. John can't understand how or why people live the way they do. He wants more from life, including relationships, art, and meaning. The struggle between superficial and sincere drives the discovery for John.

I hadn't heard good things about this book but I was surprised that I enjoyed it. You can't really like any of the characters because they are so shallow, with the exception of John, but the way Huxley set up society is intriguing. How would someone from today's time fit with that culture, which is what Huxley explored. The fact that this was written in 1932 and God pretty much equals Henry Ford I found rather interesting. Ford came out with the T model in 1908, which means that less than 15 years after, Huxley had decided that Ford and the assembly line was his inspiration for what the future would look like.

There were a lot of Shakespeare references, which unfortunately I didn't get all of them because I've never read The Tempest. Despite that, I'm not sure it was a good comparison for Huxley. Hamlet was mentioned a couple of times, which was based of pure revenge, and how is that any better than blind following with no relationships?

This book really made me think, though this is partially because at the same time I was trying to figure out how this has become a book that English students read in high school. I don't think I would have appreciated it in high school but I enjoyed it now.

First Line: "A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys."

Rating:
(4/5)

The Right Attitude to Rain

The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith
Mystery

Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher, has her American cousins, Joe and Mimi as guests this summer.  They introduce her to Texas millionaire, Tom.  Tom is newly engaged to a gold-digger and Isabel , of course over-thinks the situation but also finds an 'out' for Tom.  Also Isabel is questioning her feelings for Jamie and ends up in an affair with him.  

This book is billed as a mystery, but it is not your garden variety of mystery.  It is more of the philosophical type.  Why do we do what we do? Why do we say what we say? 

I find these books make you think of your own answers to these questions. 

First Line: "To take an interest in the affairs of others is entirely natural; so natural, in fact, that even a cat, lying cat-napping on top of a wall, will watch with half an eye the people walking below."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Undead and Unworthy

Undead and Unworthy by Mary Janice Davidson
Paranormal

Betsy, Queen of the vampires has some fiends that want to kill her. Why? Cause she saved their butts and started feeding them cow blood instead of the real stuff. Really!

At the same time her dead step-mother has decided to haunt Betsy. Why? We don't know.

This is the weakest plot I have ever seen with even weaker dialogue. I hate giving up on a series but why bother.


First Line: "Bored, I crossed the carpet in five steps, climbed up on Sinclair's desk, and kissed him."

Rating:
(2.0/5)

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Fiction/Literature

Social classes in modern-day Bombay are wildly different between each class. This book gives us the story of middle class Sera and her long-time servant Bhima. The two have become quite close over the years, despite the fact that they shouldn't be according to social customs. They each were married and both had troubled marriages in different ways. They each had children and either have or are about to welcome grandchildren to the world. It seems that despite the troubles they have experienced, they are still close. This novel explores their past and the recent pregnancies of Maya, Bhima's grandaughter and Dinaz, Sera's daughter.

Despite the different classes, both women have experienced more than their share of heartbreak and grief during their lives. It makes for a rather depressing story, though very elegantly written. The characters and their stories draw you in and there are knots in your stomach as they are treated with such injustice.

The only flaw in this book is the ending. There is just no way, given the years of misery that the characters had to endure, that this ending could ever have happened.

First Line: "Although it is dawn, inside Bhima's heart it is dusk."

Rating:
(4/5)

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Bibliography

The author, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, was an MBA student at Harvard Business School, when she decided to do some research into women in war-torn countries and their entreprenurial spirit. This brought her to war-torn Rwanda, Bosnia and Afghanistan

 Kamila Sidiqi's life changes when the Taliban seizes power in Afghanistan and she is cut off from the education and enlightened life her father provides for her and her five sisters.  Further the men of the family are under serious threat and the older ones must leave for safer territories.  This leaves the sisters almost destitute and no way of earning more money.

Kamila starts a dressmaking and seamstress operation in her house.  The threats are enormous as she must still try to sell their wares.  She is a very resourceful young lady with lots of bravery to do as she did to support her family.

This is a story of hope, bravery and fantastic human spirit.  The only inconsistency I just didn't quite understand is whose was buying these garments if everyone was so badly off?


First Line: "I touched down in Afghanistan for the first time on a raw winter morning in 2005 after two days of travel that took me from Boston to Dubai via London."

Rating:
(4.0/5)