Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Some Book Reviews

I've read some excellent books recently. Real winners.

Winner #1: The Art of Fielding. A pretty perfect novel centered on a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin, specifically on a couple of guys on the baseball team. Also, the college president and his wayward daughter. The only problem with this novel is that the baseball scenes made me so nervous for the players in question that I had to skim some sections. I hated to miss a moment, but I've resolved not to get so emotionally invested in fictional characters.

Winner #2: Where'd You Go, Bernadette?" by Maria Semple. A humorous, mysterious novel about a Seattle mom who is going a little bit bonkers. She relates poorly to the moms at her kid's fancy-ish independent school. She actually relates poorly to most everyone and has hired a virtual assistant in India to handle her day-to-day responsibilities. The book is written as a series of emails, transcripts, faxes, etc. between the characters. Basically, I loved this. Loved it so much that I bought the author's first novel, which I don't like nearly as much.

Winner #3: CHERUB Series: The Recruit by Robert Muchamore. This series is crazy popular at my middle school. It's about a fleet of children spies. This is the first installment and explains how kids get recruited and trained as operatives. I can see why everyone likes it. It's exciting. Someday I'll probably read another one of these. Maybe in the summer.

Winner #4: The Expats by Chris Povone. I only just started this. It's my next audio book, which means it'll take me awhile to finish it, but it's engrossing and mysterious and centers on spies. I like to hear thrilling stories on the treadmill, and it seems this will fit the bill.

That's all I have to report at the moment. Read on!

2 comments:

KK said...

these were all on my to-read list, and now they are at the top. glad to know they are winners!

Liz said...

I loved Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I am going to get The Art of Fielding for spring break -- thank you for the book reviews!