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Saturday, July 9, 2011

Belonging to Onself: The Mermaid Chair

The Mermaid Chair is the story of Jessie Dubois Sullivan, a 42-year-old woman who finds herself called back to her childhood home on Egret Island, South Caroline to deal with a crisis with her mother, Nelle. Despite wanting noting more to leave the island when she was younger and being somewhat estranged from her mother for the last several years, Jessie finds herself rushing back to her island home not only to care for her mother but also because she feels not only the need to leave but also relief at leaving her husband Hugh of 20 years.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Tightly Layered Crime Drama: The Black Echo By Michael Connelly

The Black Echo is the first book in Connelly's popular series featuring Harry Bosch, a world-weary detective. Connelly introduces us to Bosch just after he has been transferred to the Hollywood Division, a division that no-one really wants to work in and for many is a career-ending division or the division to simply ride it out in until retirement. Bosch is one of those characters who wants to be a good cop but who sometimes slightly bends the rules or goes against the popular opinion of the "police family"; thus, he often draws more trouble to and for himself. (Bosch, in other words, is not "Dirty Harry-esque" but might remind readers of some of the detectives on the ever popular Law and Order series.) Harry is very much a loner both on the job and in his personal life.


Friday, July 1, 2011

Push: Powerful, Gritty and Well-Worth The Read

Push is the story of Claireece Precious Jones, an overweight, sexually and physically abused, teenager who finds herself pregnant for the second time with her father's child, told from her perspective. Precious is illiterate, and until she is enrolled in an alternative school and meets a passionate teacher, Ms. Blue Rain, Precious feels like she is invisible and has no voice: "I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses. I talk loud but I still don't exist" (31).