"Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood," by Julie Gregory

I stayed up late last night just to finish this book. I couldn't put it down. It's the true life story of a child growing up being deliberately sickened by her own mother. Julie Gregory's childhood was a series of doctor's visits, tests, unnecessary surgeries, and gross mistreatment at the hands of her parents.

Interspersed in the book are Gregory's real medical records, with only the names of physicians and hospital officials blacked out.

While it was Gregory's mother who insisted Julie was sick, always in pursuit of some "answer" to her mysterious medical conditions, both parents physically abused their child. But they always presented a united front in public, able to convince the world of a close-knit, loving family. Julie Gregory's love for her family and desperate need to please her mother ensured that no one would ever know about the abuse. In fact, the family eventually came to take in elderly veterans and foster children, all destined to suffer at the hands of Julie's mother.

Not since reading A Child Called It have I been so appalled and horrified at the living conditions and mistreatment of a child. But Gregory's story doesn't end tragically. This book is well worth the read, not only for the content, but for impeccable writing. I had to keep reminding myself that the book wasn't a work of fiction.

5 stars

"Secret Society Girl: An Ivy League Novel," by Diana Peterfreund

"Think The Da Vinci Code meets Bridget Jones."

Need I say more? Okay, if you insist.

Amy Haskel is a junior in a prestigious college, Eli University. She works as an editor at a literary magazine and assumes she'll be joining a not-so-secret literary club. To her immense surprise, she gets "tapped" to join the ultimate boys club, Rose and Grave, the oldest and most powerful secret society on campus. Amy is part of the very first class to have women tapped to join, and soon she's hanging out with senators and CEOs. What could be better? Unfortunately, there are some members who are outraged at women joining, which leads to threats.

Mostly the book was fun and enjoyable. I was a little annoyed with the main character's commitment phobia. It didn't really ring true to me. It felt more like the author was trying to fit more in the novel than just cloak-and-daggers. There is a sequel on its way. I don't know if I'll read it, but for the most part, I did like this book.

4 stars

"Dead Until Dark," by Charlaine Harris

I've been lazy about updating, haven't I? So sorry.

Dead Until Dark is the first in a series of Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. It's the story of a barmaid named Sookie Stackhouse, who has the unusual ability to read minds. The world Harris creates is filled with vampires, who have recently made their presence known to the rest of the world and become legal citizens. They can now exist on artificial blood, so humans have nothing to fear. Or do they?

There are some sort-of good vampires and really evil ones, too. And the first vampire Sookie ever meets becomes her first boyfriend. (It's a little hard to date regular guys since Sookie can read their minds and know exactly what they think about her body and such. Vampires are like a blank canvas.) But being with a vampire has more than the obvious drawbacks (he's dead and drinks blood), such as violence following in his wake. And soon the small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana is spotted with the deaths of women who have all been with vampires.

Sookie is an extremely likeable character. She's only high school educated, but uses things like a word-a-day calendar to educate herself. She's a little back-woods, but she's also sweet and funny and unforgettable.

I have read all of the other books in this series currently out, but I won't be reviewing all of them. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed each one. If you care to check them out as well, I'll leave you with a list of the titles in order.

4.5 stars

Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead (to be released May 1, 2007)

"Blind Submission," by Debra Ginsberg

Angel Robinson, in need of a job after the bookstore she works at closes, is pushed into applying at a literary agency by her (unpublished) boyfriend, Malcolm. She lands the job and dives right into a hellish workplace with a demanding boss, snoopy co-workers, and a never-ending pile of work. She quickly proves herself to be quite invaluable, working with authors to better their manuscripts. Then an anonymous author begins submitting pages of a story that sounds incredibly like Angel's own life. The story soon takes a scary turn when intimate details of Angel's life are revealed.

I have to say that I really liked this book. While I would love to work on authors' manuscripts, the manic pace of the agency and the high demands of the boss genuinely made me nervous. I think Angel was a pretty well developed character, as well as most of the other characters. It would have been nice if she's been a little stronger, but I guess that was rectified in the end.

4 stars

"Rise and Shine," by Anna Quindlen

Bridget is a social worker in New York who has always felt in the shadow of her older sister, Meghan, a morning talk show host. Then Meghan swears at a guest on her show when she thinks her microphone is off, and suddenly her world is falling apart. The FCC launches an investigation, tabloids disregard all of her charity work and focus on the mistake, and Meghan is forced to take a suspended "vacation" from work. And her husband leaves her. She flits away to Jamaica to regain sense of her self, or some crap like that.

Okay, now let me scrape away all the "prose" that critics are harping about and lay it all out the way it really is.

Bridget: I'm a social worker, and I help women who've been abused and mistreated find help and stand up for themselves. I help families in crises. But poor me, my big sister is so popular and beautiful, I can't stand up for myself when she treats me like crap. I'm also dating an old man.

Meghan: Oh, no one understands the pressure I'm under! I'm expected to be beautiful and elegant all the time. My husband doesn't realize that everything I've done has been for him and our son. My mistake is so tragic! I must run away and ignore my son, the one sane person in this crazy world.

Yuck. The only, and I do mean only, sympathetic character in this book is Meghan's son Leo. He's bright, caring, kind, and unselfish. And because the plot is lame, and all the other characters are lousy, what does the author decide to do? Yup. Let's allow Leo to get shot by an inner city thug and become a paraplegic. Even then, the drama is all about the two sisters. It's crap. Also, for every line of dialogue, there are five paragraphs of back story or flashbacks that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Where the hell was this woman's editor???

2 stars, and that's only because of Leo. Poor, crippled Leo.

"Grave Surprise," by Charlaine Harris

Yes, I read the sequel. It did get better, though the sexual current between Harper and Tolliver continues to flow.

In this book, Harper is hired by an anthropology professor to demonstrate her dead body-finding abilities to his class. Confident that he'll prove her to be a phony, the prof is amazed to find Harper can identify every body in an old graveyard. With one shocking discovery. One grave contains an extra body, that of a young missing girl whom Harper had tried to find two years previously. You guessed it, Harper and Tolliver are forced to stick around to be hassled by police and locals until the whodunnit case is solved.

It's an entertaining read. Kind of on the dark side, which is how I like 'em.

4.5 stars

"The Thirteenth Tale," by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale is the story of Margaret Lea, a young biographer hired to tell the true life story of Vida Winter, England's most famous writer. Up until this point, Vida had made up nineteen different versions of her past. Margaret is less than enthusiastic and demands the facts.

Frankly, I don't care to tell you anymore about the plot. It bored me to tears. I don't understand all the hype about this book. It was excruciatingly slow, and then finally, finally, when I thought I'd reached the end, there were two more chapters. I turn the page, and it's the final details wrapped up. I think I'm done. I turn the page, and it's like, "Oh, I know how when I finish reading a book, I wonder what happens to the characters afterwards. So I'm going to tell you what happens next." Seriously.

You know, maybe if this book had kept a better pace, and the main character wasn't so annoying, it would really be decent. There are some good elements to the story. The background and secrets that are revealed are sound. So I guess it's the writing that's to blame for this miss.

3 stars

By a Spider's Thread, by Laura Lippman

Apparently this is Lippman's eighth installment of a crime series. Had no idea before I started the book, but it makes no difference, really. I didn't feel left out. Anything that referred to the past was explained in short detail.

I really liked the first line of the book, which is why I decided to read it. "They were in one of the 'I' states when Zeke told Isaac he had to ride in the trunk for a little while." Sounds interesting, right?

Meh.

Tess Monaghan is a P.I. hired to help an Orthodox Jewish furrier, Mark Ruben, find his wife, who has just disappeared with their three children. It's all, "Oh, I'm super Jewish." "Oh, yeah? Well, I'm Jewish, but I don't care about religion...until someone puts Jews down, then I'm super pissed off and hypocritical." Blah, blah, blah.

Don't bother.

2 stars

"Severance: Stories," by Robert Olen Butler

The human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for 1.5 minutes after decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. So Butler took this information and created stories narrated by the beheaded. Narrators include historical figures, such as John the Baptist, and the imagined, like a dragon beheaded by a knight. My favorite story was that of Nicole Brown Simpson.

I read it in under 2 hours. Definitely worth it.

4.5 stars

"Grave Sight," by Charlaine Harris

Apparently Harris has written many novels, and I've just never heard of them. Anyway, Grave Sight is the first novel in Harris' new series. It features Harper Connelly, who is a lightning-strike survivor. A gift (or curse?) left from the bolt is that she can now sense the dead. In other words, she can find dead bodies, know how they died, and actually see their last moments. She uses this skill as her only source of income, getting paid to travel the country with her step-brother Tolliver.

It was an okay book. Nothing spectacular. But what weirded me out was all this sexual tension between Harper and Tolliver. I wondered if I was crazy. But no, Amazon's review mentions it, too. There were a couple readers who reviewed the book also and claimed that there wasn't any sexual tension. But then, I can't expect everyone who reads to fully comprehend nuances. There'd be fewer people to make fun of.

Oh, and here's a quick quote from Publisher's Weekly. "A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs." Challenge? Dude, I solved it in a minute.

By the way, even though this wasn't the greatest book, I picked up the sequel already. Maybe it's the kind of story that gets better the longer it goes on. Or maybe I'll be wasting my time.

3 stars

"The Shadow Catchers," by Thomas Lakeman

This is a debut novel by Lakeman, and I couldn't put it down. I really have to be in the mood to read thrillers or mysteries, and this one gripped me from the opening pages to the very last paragraph.

FBI Agent Michael Yeager is on suspension after a child kidnapping case goes very, very wrong. He winds up in the Nevada desert (was that redundant?) brawling with a man who attempts to shove a handicapped kid in his truck. When that same man is later found murdered, and his daughter missing, Yeager is the prime suspect. The local sheriff clears him and asks him to unofficially assist in the missing girl's case. So begins a wild ride filled with psychological trauma, buried town secrets, and gore...lots and lots of gore. It was fantastic.

4.5 stars

The Guy Not Taken, by Jennifer Weiner

I liked all of JW's previous work, so it was a no-brainer to try this one out. Plus, I'm a huge fan of short stories. Unfortunately, this read like Intro to Creative Writing. Pretty much every lead character is damaged goods because of her father leaving when she was young. Wah. Oh, and most of them featured swimming in one form another. I know that we're taught, "Write what you know," but don't beat it to death. Not every bad thing in life can be traced back to your father being a bastard. It's time to grow up.

1.5 stars, and I'm being generous.

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

This is one of those cases where I saw someone else at the library getting this book, and I thought, "Hmm...maybe I should get it, too." So glad I did.

Okay, so it's young adult. And about vampires. Think less of me if you will, but I totally loved this book. Bella Swan goes to live with her dad, the police chief, in a tiny town called Forks in Washington. She can't understand why one boy, Edward, seems to hate her so much, even though he doesn't know her. Yet he keeps managing to save her life. Bella finally figures out his secret (shocker, he's the vampire), but she also falls in love with him. I'm not doing the story justice. Why don't you just do us all a favor, and read the freaking book, okay? Excellent writing, interesting characters, villainous villains, and an ending that was pleasing...and led to a sequel. Which brings me to...

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer

Yes, the second book was good, too. Personally, I found the first book to be better written, but this one was also enjoyable. The complex love between Bella and Edward is shattered, with distraught Bella left to make sense of her life. But, oh, the twists and turns that may bring us back to Edward. Sexy, vampiric Edward. Er...anyway. Worth the read, especially since it will eventually bring us Eclipse, due out in the fall of 2007.

Twilight, 5 stars
New Moon, 4 stars

"Calling Out," by Rae Meadows

Moved by depression over a failed relationship and unsatisfactory job, Jane drives away from NYC and lands in Salt Lake City, Utah. There she is hired to answer phones at a Mormon-approved escort service. Working as Roxanne, she tends to mother and worry over the girls who go on "dates" with the clients, always hoping the girls will quit to go on to school or better jobs. But the longer Roxanne works there, the more inevitable it becomes before she, too, decides to be an escort.

Read this book to see how the line between Roxanne and Jane slowly fades, how escorting and sex become the same, and how Jane's past collides with the present.

This book isn't some sleazy foray into adult fantasies or erotica. It isn't Mormon versus non-Mormon, though there is quite a bit of the history and religion. Calling Out is a very moving account of one woman's depression and quest to find something better for herself. It's about making mistakes and moving on.

4.5 stars

"The Slow Moon," by Elizabeth Cox

In a small town in Tennessee, teenage couple Crow and Sophie decide to have sex for the first time on the night of huge party. They sneak off into the woods alone, and halfway into their experience, they realize they don't have a condom. Crow runs just in his underwear back to his car and is waylaid for about 20 minutes while he hides in embarrassment so a group of girls doesn't see him. When he finally makes his way back to Sophie, he sees her beaten and bloody on the ground. At the sound of police on their way, Crow makes the decision to run. A decision that haunts him from then on.

What happened in the 20 minutes he was gone? Why won't Sophie tell the police what she knows? Cox slowly examines all those who surround Sophie, carefully peeling away layers of deception. While Sophie's psychological trauma may be a bit smoothed over, The Slow Moon still remains a relevant novel that reflects todays troubled youths.

4.5 stars

"The Cinderella Pact," by Sarah Strohmeyer

Nola Devlin works at a fashion magazine as an editor, and as all lead female characters are wont to do in chick lit, she wants to be a writer. But since she is overweight and slightly less than fabulous, she is discriminated against. To prove a point, apparently just to herself, she alters a photo of herself from her thinner days, and creates a new persona, Belinda Apple, who is beautiful and British...and instantly hired.

Nola writes advice columns as Belinda Apple, and even her best friends don't know her little secret. In fact, her friends decide to use Belinda's weight loss plan (something purely invented by Nola) as the basis for their own weight loss goals. And, of course, they rope Nola into shedding some pouds, also.

You see where this is going, right? The weight loss. The secrets. And, you guessed it, a handsome mystery man.

Okay, so it's a little predictable. But it was written pretty well, made me laugh several times, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Give it a shot.

4 stars

"The Sixteen Pleasures," by Robert Hellenga

This book was a donation to the library where I work, and the description intrigued me. The story is set in 1966, where Margot Harrington joins hundreds of other volunteers in Florence to save the city's precious books and works of art from massive flood damage. During Margot's stay in a convent, salvaging and rebinding books, a nun discovers a shocking work of pornography. The back-cover synopsis concludes that Margot is then drawn to explore and experience all of the sixteen pleasures with a forbidden lover.

A bit dramatic. The found book turns out to be 17th century (I think) lost erotic poems by Aretino, along with anatomical engravings, that the pope had ordered destroyed. How this one copy survived remains a mystery, though it had escaped notice before because it was bound together inside a hymnal. Sale of this book could bring a great amount of money to the sisters of the convent and their library.

The history and culture of Florence is beautifully detailed, though the character of Margot is a tad dry for my taste. And her "forbidden lover" is simply an older man who has been separated from his wife for many years. The only thing forbidden is a divorce. And though Margot has taken it upon herself to restore the erotic volume with the prayer book, there is no focus or need to experience all of the sixteen pleasures...which, by the way, weren't really explained.

So the book details art, history, food, the minutia of book binding. Blah, blah, blah. It was okay. I forced myself to finish reading.

3 stars

"The Dogs of Babel" by Carolyn Parkhurst

I am absolutely smitten with this book. Honestly, the best book I've read in a very long time.

The story is deeply moving. Paul's wife Lexy has fallen from a tree to her death, and the only witness is their dog, Lorelei. Paul is consumed with grief and confusion. Did Lexy commit suicide, or was her death an accident? Why was she in the tree? There seem to be clues everywhere, with no way of adding them up. So Paul, a linguistics professor, decides to try to teach Lorelei to speak in order to share the answers he desperately seeks.

Obviously, you'll have to suspend your disbelief, but I promise, it won't be a huge stretch. Yes, there are a couple of odd twists, including a telephone psychic. However, the richness of the story, the poetry of the tale, will hold you fast to the end. This book has earned a permanent spot on my bookshelves.

5 stars

My boss highly encouraged me to read this book, so I gave it the old college try.

Cinematherapy lists and categorizes movies according to women's moods. For example, if your mother has done something to once again annoy you, you consult Chapter 4's "I Know She's My Mom, But She's Driving Me Nuts: Mother-Issue Movies." From there you'll know to check out the video store for such titles as The Glass Menagerie, Mommie Dearest, and that old classic Drop Dead Fred.

Speaking of classics.... The majority of the movies listed are from the '30s thru the '50s. Personally, not really interested in tons of movies from back then. But perhaps you are.

Also includes Ten Top Bodice-Ripping Lines, Stupid Guy Quotes, and a Handy Hunk Chart. Funny, though it all seems a little out of date at this point. Perhaps I should try their 2004 book, Cinematherapy for Lovers: The Girl's Guide to Finding True Love One Movie at a Time.

I have only two major gripes about this book:
1) Bridget Jones's Diary isn't mentioned even once. Of course, I then realized that the book came out before the movie, so maybe there's hope that it'll show up in one of their later books.
2) In a section called "Prepubescent Power Pics: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Grrrrl," the writers, describing Anne of Green Gables, say that orphaned Anne is taken in by "Marilla Cuthbert and her husband," meaning dear, sweet Matthew. What the? Everyone who has ever read the book or seen the movie knows that Marilla and Matthew are brother and sister! Appalling! Hmph. Makes me wonder what else these self-proclaimed film fanatics got wrong.

3.75 stars

A young adult novel based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man and his first love, Mary Jane Watson. Except this book is written from Mary Jane's point of view.

Okay, so Mary Jane suffers from Anorexia and is in those "Nobody understands me!" years. It's still a good story. Girl befriends class nerd. Class nerd (Peter Parker) loves girl. Class nerd gets bitten by chemically altered spider, becomes buff, and moonlights as a superhero. Girl can't make up her mind whether she should date popular hottie or friendly nerd.

What's great is that MJ has depth finally. We understand more about who she is and where she comes from. Sure, Peter Parker's story is more unique, but enough about him! At last, MJ has a moment to shine in her own novel.

Disappointments: Peter Parker's sudden buffness in high school makes him popular, and cheerleaders dote on him. Also, Harry Osbourne is just the drippiest rich guy ever. Thank goodness the movie version of Harry isn't such a dweeb. Thank you, James Franco.

Loves: Pencil drawings at the beginning of chapters add definite interest. Reads like a novel, not a comic book.

4.5 stars