Super Bloom

Finished December 3

Super Bloom by Megan Tady

This debut novel has a lot going for it, from an interesting main character and plotline to touches of humour and hope. The main character is massage therapist Joan Johnston, who works at a luxury hotel spa in Vermont. She chose massage therapy because a good friend of hers did, and began a relationship with another massage therapist, Samuel. Unfortunately, Samuel died in an accident several months ago, and Joan is still grieving him. 

Joan is on thin ice in her job, and her manager assigning a problematic customer to her as a last test goes in a different direction than Joan expects. The customer, bestselling romance author Carmen Bronze has a writing block, and wants Joan to dish inside spa secrets and stories for a fee, and a great review. Joan agrees, and finds herself coming up with lots of ideas, until she realizes that she wants to write them herself, not share them for Carmen to use. 

As Joan works through her grief, makes new connections with her coworkers, and learns to stand up for herself with her friends and in her job, she also deals with a mother who seems to be going through a Swedish death cleaning phase, a stalker in a van, and hope for a more promising future. 

I really enjoyed this read, and the way that Joan found this opportunity to be a way forward for herself.

The Book Club Hotel

Finished March 3

The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan

This novel is a book about female friendship with a touch of romance. Erica, Claudia, and Anna have been friends since college, which was nearly twenty years ago. Once a year they meet for a week at a hotel, and discuss a book that they've all read. Usually it is in the summer, but a personal crisis for one of the women delayed it, and they made tentative plans to go in mid-December instead. 

Erica has made a satisfying career as a crisis consultant, in demand all around the world. For the last few years, she's met a man Jack on a regular basis for intimacy, but says that she isn't interested in a relationship.

Claudia was dumped suddenly by her partner of ten years a few months ago, when he left her for someone younger. She's an accomplished chef, but has become tired of the negativity and grandstanding that often part of high-end restaurant kitchens. Now she's lost her job and is considering whether a career change might be in her future. 

Anna married Pete and has created a comfortable and loving home for him and their twins. Now that the twins are in their senior year of high school, Anna is focused on the loss of her purpose as a hands-on mom, already missing them. She can't see the possibilities for her and Pete as empty nesters. 

It is Erica's turn to plan their book club meeting, and she's chosen a charming hotel in small town Vermont. This is totally unlike her normal choices of luxury city hotels, and the other two know that there must be a reason for this choice.

There is a second storyline involving Hattie, the owner of the Vermont hotel who was widowed shortly after the hotel opened. She's been struggling to fulfil the vision her husband Brent had for hotel, and being a mom to her young daughter. She has a lot of support from the community, which is great. Some of the hotel staff that Brent hired have been causing her headaches though, and she isn't sure how to deal with them. 

As the two storylines meet, the characters become involved in each other's lives, and find new connections, new dreams, and a more promising and meaningful future. 

This is a feel-good story, with lots of Christmas cheer. I enjoyed seeing the four women grow and become more comfortable in their own choices. 

The Starless Sea

Finished September 24

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This enthralling novel is split into sections: Sweet Sorrows, Fortunes and Fables, The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor, Written in the Stars, The Owl King, The Secret Diary of Katrina Hawkins, and an Afterward called Something New and Something Next. Some of these are books within the novel, some are elements within tales. 

The novel starts with three tales from Sweet Sorrows, and then moves to a university library in Vermont, where the central character of the novel, Zachary Ezra Rawlins is engaged in a regular activity of browsing the shelves for a fiction book or two to read for pleasure. He comes across the book Sweet Sorrows, a book with some missing pages and that he finds is not in the system. Zachary is almost twenty-five and a graduate student at the university working on a thesis on video-game design with a focus on psychology and gender issues. Zachary is the son of a fortune-teller, and grew up in New Orleans and upstate New York.

As he begins to read the book, he reads the chapters that we've already read, and is shaken by the third chapter, one which he is sure is about him as a boy, although the book appears much older than he is. As he looks at the book more closely, he notices a series of symbols, a sword, a key and a bee. 

As the novel continues, the events of Zachary's life are given in some of the chapters, interspersed with chapters from the book he reads. After reading the book a few times, he decides to get out of room and on a winter walk meets Kat, an undergrad that he has become friendly with. She runs a video-game-themed cooking blog. She also runs a couple of classes, one that is a discussion oriented one called Innovation in Storytelling and asks for his help for that week's class which is focused on gaming. This discussion is quite interesting, including multiple possible endings, collaborative storytelling, and what makes a story compelling. All of those relate to this novel in important ways. He also encounters Elena, the librarian that helped him check out the book and she has done some sleuthing to where the book came from and leads him down a path that reappears later in the novel. As his search leads him to a masquerade party on New Year's Eve, an attractive woman who dances with him, an unseen man who tells him a story in the dark, an invitation to a meeting later that night, and a stranger who asks a big favour of him, he finds himself entering that strange world that he read about, or a version of it that is lonelier. 

As the novel unfolds, other books within this novel are introduced, as are the characters attached to them. There are also interludes that tell of other times and events, and words from folded papers. All of these move the story forward, as we watch Zachary and other characters make choices that lead them to each other and to endings and new beginnings. 

I found this book fascinating, a superb example of innovative storytelling in itself. 

Ten Thousand Saints

Finished August 25

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

This engrossing novel is set in the 1980s around three young people. I would consider Jude Kerry-Horn, sixteen when the book begins, as the central character. Jude was adopted by Harriet and Les when he was a baby, and they subsequently had another child, Prudence. Harriet and Les are divorced. Harriet lives in small town Vermont and is a glass artist and has a studio in her yard where she blows glass, with a lot of her work comprised of bongs. Jude and Prudence live with her. Les now lives in New York City where he continues his business of growing and selling marijuana. He has a girlfriend who has a daughter similar in age to Jude, Eliza. Eliza's mom has money and they live in a nice apartment in New York City, with a maid. Eliza goes to private school, but has been kicked out of a few schools recently. 

Jude's best friend is Teddy, and the book opens as they are celebrating Teddy's sixteenth birthday. When they return to Teddy's house they find it nearly empty, and it seems that Teddy's mom, Queen Bea, has up and left. Teddy is naturally upset and decides to try to get enough money to get a train into New York City, where his older half-brother Johnny lives. Johnny had lived in Vermont until recently when he went to the city to live with his father. Johnny had been part of a band in Vermont, with two of his friends, Delph and Kram, who are still friendly with Jude and Teddy. 

The weekend of Teddy's birthday also has Eliza coming through their town, and Les has asked Jude to meet her at the train and spend some time with her. The three teens hang out and then crash a party at Tony Ventura's large house, where there is a lot of alcohol and drugs present. Some key things happen there, and after dropping Eliza back at her train, Teddy and Jude go to Jude's house. Harriet finds them outside the next morning, both suffering from hypothermia and the effects of the drugs they'd consumed. This is a turning point for Jude, and things go downhill for a while until he is sent to live with his father. He soon meets up with Johnny and begins hanging out with his group of friends who belong to a sect closely related to the Hare Krishnas, and advocate no drugs, no alcohol, and no sex. Eliza soon joins them, and the males form a new band that begins touring the East Coast. The band is a metal band and soon gains a loyal following. 

This book is a clash of generations, kids coming of age in a time of great change, and music being a force that drives them. The main characters, as well as others in their friend group, are searching for their identity, separate from their parents, but still connected to them in a search for belonging and love. This book took me a while to get into, but then I hard a hard time putting it down. Captivating and beautifully written, this book had me reflecting in new ways. 

Small Spaces

Finished March 11

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

I've enjoyed this author's adult novels and thought I would try one of her children's novels. Small Spaces is the first book in a series of novels featuring paranormal elements in our world. The story is centered on 11 year old Ollie, who is still grieving the loss of her mother. She loves books and wandering in the woods near her Vermont home. One day, when she's going to her secret forest reading spot, she finds someone already there, a woman who seems distraught and who is about to throw a book into the river. Ollie grabs the book from her hands and takes off. When she examines the book later, she finds it is a sort of diary told by a woman whose husband made an agreement with "the smiling man" to find his brother again. 

A few days later, when Ollie's class goes on a field trip to a nearby farm, she finds several things unsettling, from the substitute bus driver, to the presence of the woman she'd seen earlier. There are also numerous scarecrows on the farm who give off an eerie vibe to Ollie. 

When their bus back to school breaks down and leaves them on the side of a deserted road near the forest, Ollie and two other students who follow her, try to make their way to safety, using the words that Ollie found in the book about keeping to small spaces, and the guidance that she gets from her mother through a device.

This is a creepy story with suspenseful and tense moments. Ollie is a girl who cares about others, and also one who is able to find calmness in a crisis. I read the book in one sitting, eager to know what happened. 

The pace is fast and the main characters of Ollie, Brian, and Coco have some depth to them. I'm interested in seeing how this series continues. 

Before and Again

Finished August 21

Before and Again by Barbara Delinsky

This novel begins with a scene in the past that is life-changing. Taking her eyes from the road briefly to check her GPS as she drives her daughter to a playdate, Mackenzie Cooper misses a sign and ends up in a tragic car accident. 

The main storyline is nearly five years later, when Cooper, now living as Maggie Reid, is divorced and living in a resort town in Vermont. In her previous life, she was a successful sculptor. Now she is a makeup artist, working at a luxury spa. She has created a life where only a couple of people know about her past. She has a small rural home, and pets that she loves. We gradually see over the course of the book how she has created a new life for herself here, and has friends that truly support her as she does them. 

But things are suddenly getting shaken up, and Maggie must make choices. First her friend Grace's son Chris is arrested for hacking computers, and one of the victims is turning it into a media circus. Her friend Grace has reasons to be scared that go beyond her son's alleged crime.

Then she finds someone from her own past is involved in the new ownership of the spa, and her secrets may be in danger of being revealed. 

As we gradually get to see the people from her past and how they've struggled as well, this story becomes richer and more nuanced. 

This is a story of a woman struggling with grief and guilt, and trying to figure out how to move forward with her life, which she can't fully do without dealing with the past.

As usual with Delinsky, this novel explores relationships both with others and with oneself. 

The Invited

Finished July 1

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon

This novel set in a rural area near a small town in Vermont, has a couple, Helen and Nate, who have quit their jobs, bought a property, and are building their own house there. Helen was a history teacher and she is fascinated by the history of their property, particularly a previous owner, Hattie Breckenridge, who lived there many decades earlier. Hattie was suspected of witchcraft and was hanged by the townspeople. 

As Helen looks for historical artifacts that connect Hattie and her descendants to the home she and Nate are building, she begins to see things, and gets drawn to certain places and things. 

Nate, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with an unusual animal that he has seen in the marshes near their home, spending time tracking and trying to capture images of it. 

A teenage girl who lives nearby is mourning the loss of her mother, who disappeared recently. Olive's father is struggling with the unexplained disappearance of his wife and seems focused on remaking their home to draw her back. Olive herself is drawn to Helen and Nate, the stories of Hattie, and the mysterious activities of her mother before she disappeared. 

This story has a lot going on, that gradually comes together around the story of Hattie and her descendants. 

A Merry Little Meet Cute

Finished December 5

A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

This holiday romance has a few interesting twists to it. They all made it more interesting. 

Teddy Fletcher is the producer of an upcoming movie, Duke the Halls, who discovers in the opening pages that many of his crew as well as his leading lady have been injured in a freak accident. He must come up with replacements for the crew as well as the star on a very, very tight timeline. 

This is Teddy's first movie for Hopeflix, a well-known producer of holiday romance movies. Teddy has a deep background in producing, but not one Hopeflix is aware of, because it is in the adult movie industry. Teddy is trying to cross into mainstream movies and this can't go wrong for him. 

He's not the only one depending on this movie. The male star is Nolan Shaw, former member of the boy bank INK. He has his own past to overcome. The turning moment for him was being photographed carrying an unconscious Olympic skater out of her hotel room, with two naked speedskaters in the background. It ended both his and her careers. He's been working in local theatre recently, but needs more money to support his mom and younger sister. 

When Teddy grabs his files to meet with his director Gretchen Young to look over possibilities for replacements for the female lead, he grabs a file from his adult movie business by mistake, and when Gretchen sees the picture of Bianca von Honey (the adult industry stage name of Bee Hobbes), she picks her. 

Bee had always wanted to be an actress, but her plus size body wasn't accepted as star material during her school years, and a personal crisis had her revealing parts of her body to the public at a young age, leading her to her current career. She started with an account on Closed Doors, a subscriber only site for many adult stars, and then segued that success into a movie career in the adult industry. She only works for Teddy, as his reputation is good for treating stars and crew with respect. 

This chance to be in a mainstream film is both scary and enticing, but she will have to keep her adult star persona hidden to make it through. 

Unfortunately, when the two leads meet up, Nolan quickly realizes that Bee is the woman that he has ardently watched as a subscriber, and things start to heat up very quickly. 

I liked the humour that pervaded this novel, as well as the depth of many of the issues the book brought up. Things like body image, slut shaming, the nastiness of social media, the financial realities of the US healthcare system, and tabloid-style journalism to name a few.

I'd read Julie Murphy before and liked her style and this new team-up with Sierra Simone is a definite winner and kept surprising me as it flowed along. 

Wandering Home

Finished January 16
Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape by Bill McKibben

This memoir covers a short period in the the author's life, a couple of weeks one summer where he walked from his home in Vermont (very near one of Robert Frost's homes) to a previous home in the New York state Adirondacks.
Along the way, he walks some of the time alone, and some of the time with friends from the area. He writes about the landscape he is moving through, the weather, the environmental issues, the social issues, the history of these places, and his own connections, memories, and impressions of these places.
There is a map at the front, showing his path for this trip. The people he visits and travels with include other authors, other environmentalists, historians, farmers, gardeners, vintners, beekeepers, river rafters, and historians. All the them have connections to the last themselves, and are in touch with nature and its wonder.
A book to savour, and one that makes you both hopeful and eager to go out and explore nature yourself.

Maybe a Fox

Finished February 13
Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee

This children's novel is aimed at the 10-14 age group. 12-year-old Sylvie and 11-year-old Jules grow up at the edge of the forest, living with their dad after the mother died when Jules was just five. Their best friend is Sam, who lives nearby. Sam is 11 and a half. The two girls are close, and play a lot of games together include a game that imagines what happens when you die that they use to imagine whether their mother went with the wind, or became a star. Jules is a rock hound, always looking for interesting rocks. Sylvie is a runner, always trying to become faster, but without explaining why to her younger sister.
At the end of a path through the woods is a river. The river disappears into an underground cavern and reemerges beyond into a more placid pool before resuming its journey. The girls have been warned against going to the river at its more dangerous point, but are drawn by the stories associated with it, the promises of wishes fulfilled when wishing stones are dropped in.
Sam is glad that his older brother Elk has returned from Afghanistan, but his brother is different and seems to have left part of himself behind. Also left behind is his best friend Zeke, the son of another neighbour. Elk had asked Jules to look for the mysterious stone Grotto that legends spoke of, and leave two agates there for him and Zeke if they didn't return, and Jules still searches for this lost place.
When Sylvie goes out for a run one morning against her sister's wishes and doesn't return, the changes to Jules and her father's lives are massive. Meanwhile, nearby, a mother fox gives birth to three young cubs, knowing that one of them is different, tied to the spirit world in a way she recognizes but doesn't understand. The stories of the young fox Senna, and Jules are tied together along with other lost souls.

Another story of loss for children is Beautiful Goodbye by Nancy Runstedler.

The Eye of the Day

Finished August 31
The Eye of the Day by Dennison Smith

This book begins in 1938 with an accidental explosion at Greensboro, a rural railway station in Vermont. At the station, Amos Cobb is a handyman with various employers and as the book begins is on a ladder stoking adding fuel for the engine. Aubrey Brown, age 11, is waiting on the platform with his father Everett for his mother who is expected on a passenger train shortly.
The explosion sends a spike from the train's body through Amos' head, entering his jaw, exiting through the top of his head and blinding one of his eyes. Aubrey gets a couple of small cuts from exploding light bulbs, but his thoughts immediately go to Amos, a man he likes and looks up to, and who worked as a handyman at his grandmother's summer home nearby. Aubrey's grandmother is a grand, opinionated lady who runs the lives of her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson as much as she is able to. Her daughter, Aubrey's mother Ruth, is delicate, having an enlarged heart, but a way of observing and listening that endears her to those around her. Aubrey's father Everett is an archeology professor, academic, absent-minded, but totally in love with his wife.
The following summer Ruth insists on hiring Amos despite his disfigurement, and the family is his sole employer that year. That summer Everett has a new camera that has caught the interest of Aubrey, and when he finds that Greta Garbo is staying on the lake that summer, he is determined to get a shot of her. He gets more than he bargained for, and his summer is derailed shortly thereafter.
We continue with Aubrey's story as he enters the orbit of his uncle, Jack Shaw of Standard Oil, and comes under the fascination of Jack's wife Ethyl.
Jack's orbit is large and high, and one of his close associates is Irénée du Pont, a man with much power and influence. With Jack, Aubrey goes to Mexico, Nazi Germany, Cuba, and the oil fields of Alberta, using his camera to capture the lives he comes across along the way.
Meanwhile Amos flees his home to avoid committing violence against his wife Donna and, unbeknownst to him gets accused of just what he hoped to avoid. He wanders, with some purpose, north and then west, finding a companion, Kona, along the way that understands him as no one else has, even Aubrey. But when his path crosses Jack's, his life is spun in another direction from what he wants, and he ends up in the war.
When Aubrey and Amos meet again near the end of World War II in Italy, they must understand each other in new ways, and find that they get along well. When one saves the other's life, the story changes again, and only one returns to the mountains of Vermont to try to find a life again in the ruins of his life.
The writing in the book is wonderful, and I found myself reading portions aloud to whoever would listen to me. I loved the imagery, the dialogue, the characters, the plot, everything about this book.
Here is a small example from Amos:
"I don't got a picture of Kona, but I figure those paintings of hell in the churches are there to make you think of Heaven, so I carry Donna around."
This is my favourite read this year so far, and I can't say enough good things about it.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Finished April 27
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian, read by Grace Blewer

This novel is told by a young woman looking back at her recent past, Emily Shepard is a homeless teenager struggling to survive after her life has fallen apart. A nuclear powerplant in Vermont had a reactor go into meltdown and a large area of the state had to be evacuated, with many people losing their homes, their jobs, and many plant workers dying. Emily tells her story in fits and starts, jumping from the June that the meltdown occurred to the next spring when things completely fall apart for her. Part of Emily's situation is that her father was the chief engineer at the plant, and her mother was the communications representative. She feels that she must hide her identity as people are angry with her when they find out who her parents were.
Long before the meltdown, Emily was fascinated with her poet namesake Emily Dickinson, knowing many of her poems by heart, and writing her own poetry. Emily was a bit of a rebellious teenager, not doing as well in school as she could have, engaging in some risky behaviour and criticizing her parents for their own weaknesses. But she was still not fully an adult and her innocence shows even as she loses it. Among her many losses is that of her beloved dog Maggie, who was left in the house during the sudden evacuation, and whose unknown fate haunts Emily.
When she comes across Cameron, a young boy fleeing from a series of bad foster homes, she takes him under her wing, trying to convince him to get more help than she can offer, but also protecting him as much as she is able. In some ways, his presence also keeps her alive.
Emily struggles with many of the issues homeless teens struggling with self-hatred, depression, and general anxiety struggle with. She engages in far riskier behaviour than she would ever have thought herself capable of, but also finds herself reaching out to others as she tries to survive any way she can.
Emily is strong, but also overwhelmed by her circumstances. As she leads us through her story, referring back to events in her life before the meltdown, we see her loneliness, her dreams, and her regrets.
The interview with the author and narrator included here added another element to the story. Grace is Chris's daughter and the inspiration for some of the characteristics of Emily, as well as the source for some of the language particular to teens.

Year of No Sugar

Finished November 3
Year of No Sugar: a Memoir by Eve O. Schaub

This book came out of a blog that Eve wrote over the course of the year that she and her family tried to nearly eliminate sugar from their diet. She starts with information about how she was introduced to information about the dark side of sugar, and how it affects our bodies. She talks about how she and her husband planned ahead for the year, and how they introduced the concept to their two daughters.
The main body of the book deals with the experiences of the family over the year. Her older daughter Greta also kept a journal and some of her entries are included in the book as are a couple of thoughtful pieces by her husband. Eve talks about the difficulties of the task of eliminating sugar, discussing the pervasiveness of sugar in prepared foods, even those as basic as bread. She exposes the existence of sugar in foods one wouldn't have associated with the ingredient.
She talks about the interesting effects of nearly eliminating sugar on her and her family's bodies, their digestive systems, their sense of taste, and their reaction to sugar on those rare occasions when it is allowed. She particularly deals with the reactions of her children, eleven and six to this change in their diets, showing how they came up with a set of rules to follow, giving the children some slack, and the ability to make their own decisions in certain situations.
She also provides some recipes, learned through the trials and errors of finding new foods to fill the gaps left by sugar.
I found myself cleaning out my cupboards of those foods harbouring hidden sugar, of looking harder at labels when shopping for food, and finding that things in a large city a few years after her experience were somewhat easier. I easily found appetizing bread that didn't have sugar, pasta sauces, cereals, and canned soups. But sadly, even the organic, no preservatives bacon have sugar, and I do like the occasional glass of wine. So I don't think I will go to the extremes of her year, and even she didn't stay at that level after those first twelve months. But I will make more food from scratch, using healthy and local ingredients, and I will look more closely at labels, choosing those without sugar whenever I can.
This was an eye-opening book and provides a lot of useful information for those wishing to make a change for healthier eating.

The Winter People

Finished March 10
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, read by Cassandra Campbell and Käthe Mazur

This novel is set in and near the small town of West Hall, Vermont. The voice moves back and forth between several characters. In the present day we have Ruthie Washburne, seventeen years old and aching to leave West Hall to go to college. She lives on a farm with her mother Alice and younger sister Fawn. Her father died suddenly a few months ago and her parents live very simply with no computers and as little contact as possible with government and other authority. Ruthie comes home late one night to find the lights on but no sign of her mother. When the next morning finds Alice still missing, Ruthie and Fawn start looking for clues, finding disturbing evidence of a hidden past and dangerous circumstances. Included in their find is an published diary of a previous resident of the farm, Sara Harrison Shea.
Also in the present day is Katherine a woman mourning the sudden loss of her husband in a car accident a couple of years after the loss of their young son to leukemia. As she retraces her husband's last movements, they lead her to West Hall, and include the diary of Sara Harrison Shea.
The past includes entries from Sara's diary as well as the voice of Sara's husband Martin, as he watches his wife lose herself in grief over the loss of their only living child, Gertie, in what seems like a horrible accident.
Ruthie can't help but wonder if Alice's disappearance is related to the diary and the circumstances laid out in it, and when others find their way to the farm following similar clues, she is forced to go to the nearby rocky outcropping known as the Devil's Hand to see if the diary is based on more than a mother's grief-stricken delusions.
Sara's description of "sleepers", the dead brought back to life temporarily, and Ruthie's own dreams of places and people unfamiliar to her also provide clues to the true situation. This is a disturbing book of magic and it's effects.

The Law of Similars

Finished February 21
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian, read by Tim Jerome
Set in Vermont, this story has homeopathy as a main subject. Leland Fowler is a state prosecutor for Vermont and a single father. Two years ago, his wife Elizabeth was killed in a car accident and he is very close to his 4-year-old daughter Abby. For the last several months Leland has been fighting a cold that never seems to let go. He has tried any number of remedies and seen his doctor, but nothing works. In the local health food store, a clerk recommends her aunt, a homeopath. Leland Fowler goes to Carissa Lake, the homeopath and she prescribes him a remedy. Leland also finds himself interested in her romantically and mounts a campaign to persuade her in that regard.
At the same time, another patient of Carissa's doesn't fare so well. He has gone to Carissa for help with his dependency on drugs for asthma and dermititis. Carissa makes an offhand comment that is taken seriously and he ends up in a coma. And Carissa is the target of his wife's anger and frustration.
Given Leland's job, he is in a bad position of divided loyalties and finds himself making decisions and taking actions that he would just as soon not have anyone know.
There is a lot of information around the history and practice of homeopathy here, perhaps too much for me. The main substance of the plot is around moral and ethical dilemmas and the actions a person might take and the outcomes around that. To me, Leland is a weak character, and his attitude at the end of the book, to me, is a sad one. He is, as he puts it 'living for the future', and that is a sad state of mind. The story was interesting and the plot unique, but I felt unsatisfied at the end of the novel.

Novel of Recollection

Finished December 2
Testimony by Anita Shreve, performed by a full cast
This is one of Shreve's best and the performance did justice to it. The novel is centered around a private school in Vermont that has both boarding students and day students. The headmaster is given a videotape that shows sexual acts performed at the school by students. The girl involved in the acts is only fourteen. As the events unfold, they bring shame, retribution, punishment and loss to those involved.
The story is told by many characters talking about the event in the past, some as much as two years later. We see the aftermath first, and the actions that led to what happened later. How one moment can affect the futures of so many and forever transform their lives is something that comes through clearly by the end.
The voices ring true, perhaps because of the cast giving individual nuances to the characters. I wept with the characters, and found myself truly involved in the story.

Very Different Mystery

Finished April 15
Go With Me by Castle Freeman Jr.
This is a very odd, but engaging book. It is short, only 160 pages, filled with dark humour, and gave me a sense of the existential. Set in the New England backwoods, it begins with a young woman asleep in her car, armed with a paring knife, waiting for the sheriff to arrive at work.
She is being stalked by a local man, and is afraid for her life. The sheriff tells her that he can't help her, but directs her to a group of men who congregate at a nearby factory. There, she is joined by two men, one young and one old in her uncertain cause. As the three roam the area searching for her victimizer, we move back and forth between the three searchers and the men at the factory. The odd, disjointed conversations and reminiscences of the men add to the strange atmosphere present throughout the tale. The actions and attitudes of Lester and Nate, the two men who are searching for Blackway are both offhand and deliberate. This book is different from any other book I can think of, but I couldn't put it down!