My summer of "reading:" Books Thirty-nine through Forty-two

Thirty-nine: The Sugar Queen
Finished: July 23
Pages: 294
A sweet (pun intended) story of a young woman who lives everyday with the specter of the horrible child that she was, and her unlikely friendship with two other women: a washed out waitress named Della Lee, who lives in her closet; and Chloe, a young woman haunted by her lover's infidelity. I didn't like this book as much as I did the other Allen books that I've read, and I can't really put my finger on why. Maybe it's that I can't associate a ski resort with the Carolinas, maybe because I found the twists more transparent than before. I'm not sure, but whatever it was, it didn't keep me from at least enjoying this book a bit.

Forty: Infidel
Finished: August 15
Pages: 350

Oh lord, I don't even want to tell you the horror and pain that this book put me through. There came a point when I just wanted to put the dumb thing down, and never pick it up again, but no, I had to win against the book. Two months after beginning it, I finally finished. It wasn't particularly that the narrator was overly self-important, or that the narrative was slow, because usually I can look beyond that. I can't really tell you. Maybe it was just the horror of what Ms. Hirsi Ali went through, and the unemotional way that she was able to talk about the awful things that happened to her that kept me from being overly emotionally involved.

Forty-one: Archangel
Finished: August ?
Pages: 390

So, I have this habit. If I find an author, and like a couple of their books, I then feel obligated to track down everything they have ever written on the hopes that I will like those other books just as much. Sometimes this works out really well for me, like Geraldine Brooks, or Sarah Addison Allen. Sometimes, like this time, I'm so disappointed that I am surprised that it's the same author.
This was an interesting concept, where angels take the prayers of the people they protect and sing them to god themselves, but I thought the religion a bit heavy handed, and at times I kept wondering, since the cover was so science fiction-y if the god they were praying to wasn't really god at all.

Forty-two: The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Finished: August 21
Pages: 269

This book reminded me of Big Fish: the small town, the magical pieces that fit into the Southern town without any trouble at all, the physical eccentricities. I love the imaginative touches that the author added, that I never would have thought of, like changing wallpaper. I can't decide if I like this one or Garden Spells more, but I think Garden Spells only because it was the first one I read. I like the Southern sensibility of young men in seersucker suits, and boater hats, and this particular story made me feel like sitting on a front porch in a rocking chair drinking an ice cold Coca-Cola in a glass bottle and watching fireflies though Spanish Moss.

Good Reading,
Caitlin