Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
There is so much to love about this book. The characters are vibrant, the language is rich and there are good life's lessons throughout--but it's not preachy. This is a story told with lots of humor although it does have it's tear-jerker moments. Young Will Tweedy is 14 at the turn of the century and is living in the town of Cold Sassy, Georgia. His grandfather causes an uproar in this sleepy little town by eloping with the beautiful young employee in his store. That's bad enough but what really sets the tongues to wagging is that Grandpa's first wife just passed three weeks ago and is barely cold in the grave. The events subsequent to this scandalous event changes Will's outlook on life forever. He has an "old" grandpa who is made young again by the pretty young wife and he himself begins to grow up as he romanticizes about women, kisses someone for the first time, and drives around town in his grandfather's new automobile. Thumbs both up!


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Gump and Company by Winston Groom

Gump & Co. by Winston Groom

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I absolutely loved the movie "Forrest Gump" so when I saw this book at a library sale, I had to have it. It picks up where the movie left off but I have to say that the first book and the movie must have been quite different. For instance, Forrest's shrimp company apparently went bankrupt and he was left flat broke. His true love Jenny didn't die as she did in the movie although she was pretty quickly dispatched in this sequel. Forrest got into plenty of adventures in this book as well, including Iran-Contra, the first Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin War, and other historical events from the 1980s. Forrest even met Tom Hanks who suggested that a movie should be made from Forrest's life. Heh. It was an amusing book, very light and easy to read.


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Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key by Stephen King

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I just finished reading the book and while I liked it, I don't consider it to be one of his best. My favorite is and always will be The Stand, I guess. T



Edgar Freemantle was a happily married, middle aged owner of a construction firm when a horrible accident severely injured him physically and mentally. In the aftermath of such traumatic injuries, he's changed and as a result, his life takes some dramatic changes. His therapist suggests a change of scenery and Edgar chooses to relocate from Minnesota to Duma Key, FL.



Edgar had already begun sketching by the time he moves to the house he renames "Big Pink". Suddenly, he is a prolific artist, moving on from pencil drawings to oils.



There is a chilling mystery on Duma Island. Why is the southern part overgrown with trees and plants not really native to the area? Why does no one live on that part of the island? Edgar's only neighbors are an elderly patron of the arts struggling with Alzheimer's and her caretaker. As Edgar becomes friends with them and learns more about them, his artwork takes a dark turn.



I don't want to go any further and include spoilers. I enjoyed the book but felt it was too long. That's been an issue with some King books I've read, particularly the ones since his accident. His writing has changed and while I haven't read everything he's written since then, I haven't been a big fan of the stuff I have read. The story could have ended a lot sooner. Part of the ending reminded me of something that happened in one of his other stories and I didn't think it was necessary to have it happen in this book.



I love Stephen King and will continue to read whatever he writes, including going back and re-reading the old stuff.


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Two Mysteries

I've finally managed to finish not one but two books! I'd switched to large print books because I'm having such trouble focusing on regular print. It's really driving me crazy because I have hundreds of books I want to read but am not able to do so. I have an appointment to see my eye doctor tomorrow and if there's nothing wrong with my eyes, the next step is to isolate the medicinal culprit--and I'm pretty sure I know which one(s) it is!

First I read Black Ice by Michael Connelly. Another blogger recommended him to me and I'm glad he did. The only drawback is that my blogger friend said it didn't matter in which order I read the books but I believe it does. There were references in this book made to an earlier story. It didn't detract except that I was then curious to know what the earlier book was about. Luckily, I missed only the first in the series and I now have a list of the books in chronological order.

Harry Bosch is a troubled maverick detective who becomes involved in what originally appeared to be the suicide of a cop gone bad. Although his superiors would like to cover the whole thing up, Harry just can't stay out of it especially when the autopsy results come back "inconclusive". His investigation takes him down into Mexico and involves him in the seedy dealings of drug dealers introducing a new form of dope to this country--"black ice": a mix of heroin, cocaine, and PCP.

I won't go into all the particulars and will just say that it was an enjoyable book. It's not great literature but I did get hooked and was unable to put the book down for a while. The only down side was that it seemed to drag a little in some places but that's okay.

I was very disappointed with The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. He wrote the book especially for "Hard Case Crime", a series of books by classic mystery writers and new ones that were supposed to have a 1940s/1950s old time mystery feel to them. I was expecting a hard boiled crime story and what I got was two old geezers in Maine telling their wide-eyed intern about some guy from Colorado who may or may not have choked to death on a steak sandwich. I kept waiting for the book to get better and it was charming but that is about all. Waste of time.

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

This is the story of the last empress of China, Tzu Hsi. In this book she's known as Orchid, fourth wife (or concubine) of the emperor of China. Orchid sells herself to raise enough money for her mother, brother and sister to live on. At first, she's excited about being in the Forbidden City but soon loneliness and doubt make her life miserable. The emperor, who is supposed to visit different wives every night, is not inclined to do that and Orchid spends months alone and ignored until she finds a way to attract his majesty's attention. There is jealousy and intrigue within and without the courts and this is actually the first book of two. It's very interesting and a good book but I must admit I found it moved slowly. It's great for those who enjoy historical fiction and who are curious about other countries and cultures.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I enjoyed this book even though it creeped me out quite a bit. It's creepy in the way the true Grimm's Fairy Tales are creepy.

David is a 12 year old English boy during WWII who loses his mother to a debilitating illness--cancer, I think. She'd infused him with a love of books, telling him that they were alive and he takes great solace in them especially when his father eventually remarries.

Not only does his father remarry, the new little family relocates to Rose (the stepmother)'s home outside of London. Rose tries her best to be friends with the resentful David, who rebuffs her at every turn. Then, to add insult to injury, Rose has a baby and David feels even more isolated and alienated.

It's in that spirit that strange things begin to happen. He begins to have episodes where he passes out. Books "speak" to him. He begins to see a crooked man. After a particularly unpleasantly argument with Rose and his father, he runs out to the garden and a portal opens up into another world. He thinks he hears his mother calling to him and he feels compelled to go to her.

David enters an alternate world that is more nightmare than dream. There are all manners of evil creatures and weird beasts inhabiting the place as well as a few good guys sprinkled here and there. Worst of all is the crooked man, who has some really foul and evil plan for David.

So what happens to David? Read the book and find out! It's a great story!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

As Harry Potter has gotten older, I've liked his character less and less. Maybe it's just me, but I think Rowling made a mistake by having her books become so dark. Harry became a whinier, more bitter sort of kid -- with good reason, I suppose -- and an almost thoroughly unlikeable sort of hero. He's moody, doubts his friends, and nurses this big rage against his mentor, Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, who originally seemed to be a kindly caring teacher-man, was portrayed as a manipulative, calculating and power hungry old man who withheld important information from people and used them without feeling much guilt about it. I didn't like him in this book either.

A character I did enjoy wondering about, Severus Snape, made only brief appearances in the book and I was very disappointed about that. I'd wondered throughout the previous book whether he was a truly bad guy or a truly good guy in disguise. I found out but not until the end and he was so shockingly killed even before the secret came out I was totally turned off.

That brings me to the killings and the darkness of the book. So many of the deaths seemed designed just to shock. Voldemort is evil, soulless and remorseless. Let's kill some Weaseleys, house elves, and other popular characters just to make that point. That's what happened to Snape and so Harry had to find out after the fact that his old enemy was actually a sort of hero.

It all worked out in the end. Harry realized that Dumbledore wasn't so bad, just human, and that Snape also wasn't so bad, just human. The man had been in love with Harry's mother, how awful could he be?

I think I would have liked the books better if Rowling had kept to a lighter tone but that's just me.

On the other hand, the 19 years later afterward was just too smarmy for me.

I guess you just can't win.