Finished audio 2-11-12, rating 4/5, mystery, pub. 1923

Unabridged audio 6 hours. Read by Hugh Fraser.

Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are off to France to answer a letter from a man in trouble, but they are too late.  Paul Renauld has been murdered and left in a shallow grave.  His wife is overwrought and his son is suspect, and what about his supposed mistress and her daughter?  There’s no shortage of suspects.

This is Christie’s third book and second with Poirot and narrated by Hastings.  Poirot grew on me a bit in this one.  I like smart guys and he wasn’t quite the insufferable know-it-all he was in the first (The Mysterious Affair at Styles).  This time around he had to outsolve the French Detective Geraud.

Hastings had a love interest and I wasn’t that crazy about his infatuation with the mysterious Cinderella.  The only other complaint I will make it about this cover and the title, really.  Renauld was found on the border of a golf course, but that is the only connection to golf.  Seems a bit misleading to me.

I thought the mystery was good and even though I had my suspicions about certain characters, the truth was so much better!  This was a fun audio book with a solid narration.

I read this for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, where I am reading all of her books in order.

Finished 1-26-12, rating 4/5, scrapbook novel?, 240 pages, pub. 2011

In 1920 Frankie graduates from high school and she is given a scrapbook and her dead father’s old typewriter.  That scrapbook is this novel. Using vintage postcards, letters, swatches, etc., Frankie is able to document her story as she attends Vassar, moves to New York and then to Paris.  She is also able to use captions to tell of her many relationships and make us care about her story.

I liked Frankie immensely and over the few years this novel covered she had many stories to tell.  She came in contact with the wealthy families at Vassar (she was there on scholarship) as well as self-proclaimed spinsters looking for adventure.  She also met the likes of Edna St. Vincent Millay and James Joyce.  Frankie was a girl living in up in the 1920’s.

I was so impressed with the creativity of this book.  I love the fact that Preston thought outside the box and found a new way to tell a story.  The pages were beautiful and fun to look at.  I was surprised at how easily I was drawn in and captivated by the scrapbook.  At the beginning I was taking my time looking over each page but as the story progressed I found myself turning the pages faster and I had to force myself to slow down.

I loved this charming book and think it would be one that you would pick up from time to time to look at the memorabilia that Preston has collected.

I don’t usually watch book trailers but I thought this unique book was served well by it.

I borrowed this from my library.

Finished audio 1-7-12, rating 4/5, humor, pub. 2011

Unabridged audio 5.5 hours. Read by Tina Fey.

What’s not to love about Tina Fey?  I loved her on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, her parody of Sarah Palin and still laugh during every 30 Rock episode.  She is one smart cookie.  It was a no-brainer that I would read this book and when I heard so much praise for the audio I thought I’d give it a try.  The book is so well served by Fey’s own delivery that I’m not even interested in reading the actual book because I don’t think it could be as entertaining.

Tina’s childhood was much like many of ours, only seemingly funnier.  Her Clint Eastwood-like Dad sounded like a riot and I could totally relate to a dad with a strong personality.  As she moved into high school I kept thinking that she seemed just as awkward, but so much older than I ever felt.

My favorite part of the book was the second half when she talked about SNL and 30 Rock. I loved the behind the scenes look at how things worked there and liked seeing the emergence of women comedians during her time on the show.  SNL is not the same without them.  My favorite part was being able to listen to the first Sarah Palin skit she did with Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton.  I laughed through the whole thing.  I liked the balance of personal and professional.

My final assessment?  Tina Fey is smart and funny and so is her book.

I checked this audio out of the library.

Finished 1-6-12, rating 4.25/5, mystery, 299 pages, pub. 2010

Book 2 of the Tatoo Shop Mystery series (Book 1)

Vegas tattoo artist and shop owner Brett is back!  She and her co-workers ink drag queens for a new show and on opening night one of them ends up dead.  Brett saw the killer and finds herself once again in the crosshairs of some dangerous dudes.  That doesn’t mean that there isn’t time to meet some hunky guy, but when that hunky guy is observing you for ricin poisoning it does take some of the romance out of it.

I loved the first book so much and this has the same fast pace, strong heroine, and complicated yet compelling mystery.  I couldn’t figure out who was killing people or harassing Brett, but that was almost beside the point.  I just loved hanging out with her and her friends for a few days.

I am a little worried about Brett, though.  I mentioned after I read the first book that I am not a huge fan of tattoos.  Between the last book and this one Brett has acquired quite a bit of ink.  She has Napoleon on her leg!  I mean really, that is not something I like to picture when reading.  And if you are uncomfortable with drag queens, be prepared to be uncomfortable, there are lots of them.  I don’t know any drag queens so some of it I found interesting and some of it seemed a little creepy (like those babies in the E-Trade commercials – they creep me out too).  I’m pretty sure if I ever had a friend who dressed in drag or met a baby who traded stock during nap time I would embrace both.

Anyway, I loved the book and can’t wait to read the next one.

This book is from my personal library.

Finished 12-19-11, rating 4/5, fiction, 323 pages, pub.2011

Michael and Julia had a marriage that started with love and turned into indifference.  They had started out West Virginia poor, but ended up Washington DC millionaires.  When Michael died for four minutes his whole life turned on its head.  Now, he wanted a real relationship with Julia and she wasn’t sold on the idea, but that wasn’t Julia’s biggest problem.  Michael wanted to give away everything.  He wanted to make amends for the years of lying and neglect his power had caused.

The premise is fascinating.  I love books about marriages because each one is complex, unique.  This was no exception.  The chilliness in the marriage happened over time and it is only after a gradual reveal of their past that I totally got them as a couple. I thought the timing of the story and the way that it went from past to present was perfect.

In this story Michael wants to give everything away and Julia has fallen in love with all the amenities of the rich.  I get Julia not wanting to give up heated tiles or a jacuzzi, (who would once you had them?) but her repeated rejection of Michael got to be too much for me.  She was not a nice person and even when I read her backstory I never really got past the problem of her superficiality.  She made progress and grew as a person and the end of the book could have helped me feel better about her growth, but I think it was a cop out in that regard. The complexity of the book was lost in the sad, but pat, conclusion.

It may see that I didn’t like it and that’s not true.  It’s just that the distance I felt from Julia kept the whole story at arm’s length for me.  I loved Julia’s friend, Isabelle and was really invested in her story more than Julia’s.  Even with my complaints I still shed a tear, which I found surprising, so I must have been at least somewhat invested!   I think I’m in the minority for not loving this one.  A good read for fans of stories about complex relationships.

I checked this out of the library.

Finished audio 12-12-11, rating 4/5, pub. 2004

Unabridged audio.  6 hours.  Read by Dick Hill.

An orphan and a bastard, Jamie grew up tough enough to handle almost anything. He survived foreign prisons, smugglers, pirates, gunrunners, and shark attacks. But what he finds in the quote town of Hawkes Harbor, Delaware, was enough to drive him almost insane—and change his life forever.

This is a shortened overview from the paperback version of the book and it is bland enough to be true.  I wish I could include the one from the audio version because then you’d understand the few issues I had while listening to this one, but I can’t because I already returned it to the library.

Jamie was orphaned at 8, and on his own for a long while, having only his friend, Kell, to watch his back.  He was crude and always looking for the easy way, for the big payoff.  When Jamie ended up in Hawkes Harbor he found the shock of his life, and that’s saying a lot given all that Jamie had been through.  He ends up staying in Hawkes Hall, working for Grenville Hawke.  Until he gets sent to state hospital for the mentally ill.

The book is supposed to have a bit of mystery attached to it, I guess, since none of the descriptions really give Jamie’s shock away, so I won’t either.  I was surprised that by the end of the book I found it to be a rather charming story of an unlikely friendship.

I assumed that a book by SE Hinton would be teen friendly, but I was wrong.  This is definitely an adult book, with frank and bawdy sex talk and situations, but it does have the popular teen themes of the day.  I liked it quite a bit, but wouldn’t have read it if I’d known what happened to Jamie.  Are you curious yet?

I checked this audio out from the library.  Thanks for the recommendation, Jill.

Finished 11-27-11, rating 4/5, fiction, 295 pages, pub. 2011

Toni owns her own business planning celebrations, but on the night she expects a wedding proposal, she is disappointed.  To make the night worse she also receives news that her mother has had a stroke and is in a coma back in Blue Hills, Missouri.  Toni heads home to be with her emotionally distant mother and finds questions about her mother and family she’s never known.

The chapters alternate between Toni and her mother’s life.  Anna grew up with family drama of her own, drama that led to the discovery of a little black dress that showed visions of the future.  When Toni finds the dress and discovers its magic she needs her mother’s counsel.

I loved Anna’s story.  It unfolded at just the right pace and there was enough mystery there to keep me interested.  The dress itself was an interesting character- showing up in various scenes, mysterious and sexy.  I actually found the dress a more compelling character than Toni, who was fine, but a bit bland compared to Anna and the dress.

I thought this was a fun read.

I won this during October’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon 🙂

So, if you had a little black dress that gave you visions of the future would you keep it in your closet or get the temptatation out of your house?

Finished 11- 8-11, rating 4/5, YA, 280 pages, pub. 2001

Book 1 Jessica Darling series

Jessica Darling is facing a crisis of major proportion.  Her best friend, Hope, has moved away and left her alone with the rest of their brainless clique.  Jessica herself is the top student in her junior class and is known as a goody-goody.  Jessica, can’t sleep or stop thinking of Marcus Flutie, the druggie she surprisingly kept from jail.  Jessica is a mess, but aren’t most teens at some point?

I don’t read many young adult books even though so many of them look good.  For the most part I usually feel removed from the teen experience and this book was no exception.  I liked Jessica and her snarky take on high school, but only to a point.  She captured the heartbreak of being a teen, but her obsession with losing Hope gave her an excuse to consider everyone else beneath her. I know feeling smarter than everyone else is a high school rite of passage, but Jessica put me off a little with her attitude.  The distance I felt from her character may be age related, but it may also be that I never hung around with a Jess in high school so I didn’t quite get her.

Anyway, I thought this book was good and I’d recommend it to older teens.  There was swearing, drugs, sex talk and masturbation so I can’t recommend it to younger teens or even older ones who are not mature, I don’t think Jessica is necessarily a good influence.

High school is a hard place to navigate and McCafferty does a great job if capturing that universal experience, which I appreciated even if I had some problems with Jessica.

This was from my personal library.  I picked it up (and way too many other books from my wish list) from Border’s for practically nothing.

Finished audio 11-2-11, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2010

Unabridged 10 hours.  Reader-Tavia Gilbert

Rose, a small Kansas town, was shocked when one of their most respected families endured a double tragedy.  When Jody Linder learns that her dad’s murderer, Billy Crosby, will be released from prison after 20 years she is in shock.  Jody has been protected and loved by her grandparents and three uncles all her life and the town, too, has treated her with respect and pity.

Bill was the drunken, animal  and wife abusing loser of Rose.  There were no tears shed when he was carted off to jail.  Even his son, Collin, disliked him.  But Collin still wanted justice done so he went to law school and then fought to have his father released.

Jody grew up without her parents.  She and everyone in her family believed that Billy is guilty.  Only a few in town harbored doubts and those few begin to make Jody wonder about what really happened the night her dad was murdered and her mom disappeared.

The story starts with Billy being released from prison and then the most of the majority of the book is step back in time to show the reader why we should care about Billy’s release.  Most of the time I only like this plot device if the flashback is only part of the book.  While I really liked the story itself I didn’t like the fact that the flashback was the majority of the book.  I kept waiting to move on and get to what was going on now, not past history.

I liked it.  Jody was the main character and yet she wasn’t.  The whole cast of characters had their moment in the spotlight as the story was re-told. There was one thing about the end that I hated, but it wasn’t the reveal of what had really happened, I thought that was nicely done.

Overall this was a nice story and my first experience using a Playaway from the library.  I loved the format and how easy it was to use.  I’ve already checked out several others.  It makes cleaning up the kitchen at night so much easier to bear 🙂