Wait I thought I had more

Oh wait I remember now. I knew I had more than one book to blog about but I just could not remember and now I do.

Firstly, I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran. It picked up a bit, but still dragged the majority of the time. But enough.

Next was Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier. I like Tracy Chevalier, she writes nice historical fiction that is usually sad, which is usually my style. But this novel just totally fell short of what I normally expect. First of all, it really should be more marketed towards teenagers. The protagonist is twelve. And I mean, yes, there can be adult books about twelve year olds, but this is not one of them. It's like she just added little snippets of sex and language to make it inappropriate for younger people and I just do not think it worked. I was disappointed. And it also had that little title tie-in that Jesi hates so much. Some random paragraph about the fireworks that were "burning bright", which really had nothing to do with the story. I will say though that it did give a nice pictures of the lower class in 18th century London. But other than that, not much going for it. One of the first books I've read so far that I have not liked. Ah well, it is not like I wasted that much time on it.

After that I read The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. I really enjoy her work. She also wrote Prep which I read in the library at DU when I locked myself out of my room. I think what she writes is very honest and believable. Nothing really ever works out for the main character. Their relationships are usually fucked up and never satisfying. And she's a really excellent writer... but she is just marketed completely wrong. Her covers are white and very chicklitish, nevermind the titles. The Man of My Dreams? I mean seriously. Any woman who picked it up hoping for a nice, light story is going to be pretty disappointed. Otherwise, most excellent.

Now I have started on Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss. It is her first novel, I believe. It is about a woman whose husband disappears and when he returns he has amnesia and cannot remember her. It is really heartbreaking actually. Apparently Jesi's friend said it was not that good, but I beg to differ. I have not finished it yet but the writing is really quite good. Reminds me a lot of Jesi's writing actually. But so far it is really good. She does a good job at capturing what it would be like for the person with amnesia and their emotions, but also those of the people he knew.

I think that is all. I am on my tenth book for the month which is pretty good I must say. And I've got the new Anita Shreve and the new Ian McEwan on hold at the library so things are looking up.