Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, By Rhoda Janzen

Loved it!

It's Rhoda's memoir, of sorts. She jumps around A LOT, but mainly it covers a few months to a year after her divorce, when she goes to stay with her Menno parents while she recovers from a nasty car accident. You learn about her family, you learn about her upbringing, and why she has this or that taste in men or friends or whatever. It's great! You learn a tiny bit about Mennonites as well--enough to know that her Mennonites and "my" Mennonites are pretty different.

Tinkers, by Paul Harding

Largely incomprehensible. Lots of passages that are very "trippy", others are merely confusing.

I did learn some intersting stuff about clocks, though.

Basically it's about George, who's dying. He's hallucinating a little bit, and remembering some stuff, and then suddenly you're in his father's head, seeing things from his point of view.

I feel like a lot of stuff was going on that I just wasn't smart enough to understand.

Divine, Part II

This author didn't bother doing any research AT ALL. Mary is rescued from her basement prison and, b/c she can't remember her last name, is placed into foster care. She has absolutely no counselling. She is placed in a temporary home for a few months, where she does actually do some healing, and then she is placed in her "permanent" home, where the father tries to have sex with her. She runs away, steals a car, ends up in juvenile prison. So what happened? Did she not tell anyone about the dude trying to have sex with her? Did they just not believe her? Did they not think that maybe they should have made some plans to make sure she was healing mentally as well as physically? I know the American foster system isn't perfect, and I'm not an expert, but I'm fairly sure they just don't get a chick out of a basement and then put her in society like, "Ok. Go be normal and shit."

And what happened to Jimbo and Lou???? Was there no fucking trial? They pimped an underage girl, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A DAMNED TRIAL. Also, there are no reporters badgering her for interviews. That's also weird. They say many times that her story was broadcast across the nation, and EVERYONE seems to recognize her--but would they really if the only footage they have of her is the rescue itself? No interviews or followups? There's a real-life version of this story--the woman who was abducted at 10 and found recently? She was kept in a series of sheds in her captor's backyard. See, I can't even remember her name, let alone her face, and news outlets talked about that girl for MONTHS. She could knock on my door today, and I wouldn't know her. But Mary Madison from Divine is still recognized ON THE STREET 3 years after her rescue.

OOOHH, that reminds me of another thing that's pissing me off: we are reminded many times how beautiful Mary is. It's annoying, is screams of "Mary Sue". (For explanation of that term, please go here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue) Further evidence of Mary Sue: both Karen Kingsbury and Mary Madison are blondes with blue eyes. Just sayin'.

Divine, By Karen Kingsbury

I haven't finished this audio book. I believe I'm on Chapter 6, though.

Karen Kingsbury is an awful writer. I don't mind the Christian stuff, honestly! But her actual writing technique sucks! She suffers from the same affliction some Harlequin romance writers have--she describes some things in such minute, boring-ass detail. I find myself skipping through entire tracks on the CDs, waiting for the character to stop musing internally so the story will start to progress again.

She also has no idea what a 10-year-old actually sounds like--her version of a 10-year-old girl sounds more like a 5 or 6 year old.

Ok, one gripe about the Christian stuff: the little girl is comforted by the thought that God has a plan for her, and her grandmother tells her that God means for her to do great things. Know what lies on the road to great things? Child sex slavery.

I am going to continue to skip around the story on the CDs, b/c even though it's hard to shut the critical part of my mind down that hates this book, I'd still like to know how it ends.

A Book I Read, A Book I Heard, and Some Books I Didn't Read

The book I read: The Chicken Dance, by Jacques Couvillon

This book almost made me cry, and then it made me angry, but I still love it.

I almost cried when Don, the main character, is trying to show his parents his picture in the paper for winning a prize and his mother belittles it before snapping at him to stop blocking the TV. I got angry when the book ends and she still hasn't gotten told off by Don. She gets told off by the father, but he's a sad sack--he doesn't give the telling off any "oomf". In the end Don even decides to stay with her, when he has TWO other choices! Yeah, he lets a chicken choose, and he has a good reason for doing that, but I still wouldn't stay with her. She deserves to be alone.

I couldn't put the book down, though. It's one of those you have to read until the end, and no stopping!

The book I heard: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis

I've started to listen to audio books in the car--I have book radio on Sirius, but they don't always play books or audio theater that I actually like.

This telling is not just a dude reading the story; it's theater. Every character has his or her own actor, and there's even sound effects. It was a little hard getting used to at first, the background noises were distracting, but after a while I really got into it. The stand-out scene in this had to be Aslan's death. The White Witch lets out a scream that is fucking chilling! I almost turned the CD off, seriously.

Books I didn't read:

"Y" City, by Wade Rivers

I read the first 20 or so pages......it's boring. And he writes in this exaggerated drawl that sounds forced.

Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving

I like two of his other books (Owen Meany and Cider House Rules), so I really thought I'd like this, but I could NOT get into it. I'm going to try again some day when I'm in more a John Irving mood, I guess.