two beach books, one serious book
Jul. 18th, 2006 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyI wasn't actually on the beach, but I did read Second Sight by Jayne Anne Krentz writing as Amanda Quick and Thunderbird Falls by CE Murphy.
To balance things out, I also read the deep and serious The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
It's been a long time since I read anything by Jayne Anne Krentz. I ran across something of hers in the sci fi paperback section of the main branch of the Cambridge Public Library three or four years ago. It was this odd romantic sci fi novel about an archeologist studying the remains of an alien civilization. (Anyone else know the book I'm talking about?) I almost put it down when I realized it was by a romance writer, but I stuck with it and was very glad I did. It was a very good book. Anyway, her name came up on a bestseller's list with this new series featuring the Arcane Society, occult stuff with mystery and romance set in Victorian times, and I thought, "Why not?" I thought this was pretty good. It did not have the qualities that many romances have that make me want to throw them across the room, like egregiously stupid heroines and love interests who are jerks. It was light and funny, although not intensely historically accurate. Three stars, and I look forward to seeing the other books in the series.
Thunderbird Falls was the second full book in the Walker Papers series. The first book was Urban Shaman and there was a novella in between featured in the Luna anthology Winter Moon. This did, unfortunately, have the quality of the heroine being egregiously stupid, lacking in both common sense and forethought and never reality-checking her actions with people she trusted. That made it a real departure from the previous two books. There was an implication that she was doing it because she was fighting who she was, which is... possibly plausible. But even when she realizes her error, she just goes, "Oh, this is all my fault, I'm such a bad person," rather than learning from her mistake or saying, "Maybe I should've done a little more research on this..." That bugged me.
Book 86, The Year of Magical Thinking, took me a while to get through. This book is getting a lot of good reviews right now. Basically, it is a memoir of the year after the author's husband died of a sudden heart attack. It was a good book to read in the summer, because nice weather kept it from getting too depressing. It wasn't a perfect book. Certain sentences get repeated over and over again: "The question of self-pity." "Why do you always have to be right." "You're eating dinner and life as you know it ends." without the full exploration of what they mean that would have helped make sense of the choices. But it was interesting and it had interesting things to say about grief. I don't think you should read it if you've just had someone close to you die, though, I think it would hit a little too close to home.
To balance things out, I also read the deep and serious The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.
It's been a long time since I read anything by Jayne Anne Krentz. I ran across something of hers in the sci fi paperback section of the main branch of the Cambridge Public Library three or four years ago. It was this odd romantic sci fi novel about an archeologist studying the remains of an alien civilization. (Anyone else know the book I'm talking about?) I almost put it down when I realized it was by a romance writer, but I stuck with it and was very glad I did. It was a very good book. Anyway, her name came up on a bestseller's list with this new series featuring the Arcane Society, occult stuff with mystery and romance set in Victorian times, and I thought, "Why not?" I thought this was pretty good. It did not have the qualities that many romances have that make me want to throw them across the room, like egregiously stupid heroines and love interests who are jerks. It was light and funny, although not intensely historically accurate. Three stars, and I look forward to seeing the other books in the series.
Thunderbird Falls was the second full book in the Walker Papers series. The first book was Urban Shaman and there was a novella in between featured in the Luna anthology Winter Moon. This did, unfortunately, have the quality of the heroine being egregiously stupid, lacking in both common sense and forethought and never reality-checking her actions with people she trusted. That made it a real departure from the previous two books. There was an implication that she was doing it because she was fighting who she was, which is... possibly plausible. But even when she realizes her error, she just goes, "Oh, this is all my fault, I'm such a bad person," rather than learning from her mistake or saying, "Maybe I should've done a little more research on this..." That bugged me.
Book 86, The Year of Magical Thinking, took me a while to get through. This book is getting a lot of good reviews right now. Basically, it is a memoir of the year after the author's husband died of a sudden heart attack. It was a good book to read in the summer, because nice weather kept it from getting too depressing. It wasn't a perfect book. Certain sentences get repeated over and over again: "The question of self-pity." "Why do you always have to be right." "You're eating dinner and life as you know it ends." without the full exploration of what they mean that would have helped make sense of the choices. But it was interesting and it had interesting things to say about grief. I don't think you should read it if you've just had someone close to you die, though, I think it would hit a little too close to home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 04:03 pm (UTC)Of course, I can see where it might be hard to write a sequel after having vanquished Cernunnos and healed Herne. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 04:11 pm (UTC)