Monday, October 11, 2010

Burn

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Burn by Nevada Barr

I LOVE Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon Novels.  LOVE THEM.   Her novel set in Glacier NP was one of the 1st mysteries I ever read, and liked.  I have since read them all and love the adventure, the National Park setting and the fact that they are largely non-romantic. 

This one however, fell short.  It fell very short.  It reminded me too much of Barr’s stand alone novel 13 1/2.  The “character switch” technique she used in Bittersweet, 13 1/2 and now Burn has gotten old, I’m not as wowed by it.  Also the subject matter, child prostitution, was just disturbing.  And, the story line seemed totally implausible. 

100_Reading_Challenge    library-rc

Last Days of the Most Excellent Year

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My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

A few years back I was in a book club with Susan and she selected The Last Days of Summer as her pick.  It is her favorite book of all time.  I definitely enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it the way Susan does (I’m not sure I love ANY book that much!)

This year Susan chose Last Days of Summer as her pick for our book club.  I’m not a fan of re-reading books.  I re-read kids books, but “adult” books I’m just not a fan of re-reading.  Too many books and not enough time to re-read.  I was caught in a big debate over what to do about book club.  Re-read for the good of the group or not. 

I decided to get the book out of the library, even if I just skimmed it.  Well, the library didn’t have it anymore.  But, they did have My Most Excellent Year, a young adult novel that on the surface looked like The Last Days of Summer.  I checked it out. 

As I started reading it, it felt like the same story! In many ways it was and in many ways it wasn’t.  It was a similar coming of age story, but the characters were younger and easier for me to relate to.  There was also a strong homosexual character, which you rarely see in books, much less young adult books. 

At first I liked the story a lot more than Last Days of Summer, but then it really started dragging and the teenage romantic angst started getting to me. 

During book club Steve Kluger called in and in the course of the discussion it came up that My Most Excellent Year was in fact a "cleaned up” version of Last Days of Summer! 

100_Reading_Challenge    library-rc