Deception Point by Dan Brown

I finished this book 2 days ago, at the behest of my lovely mother who wants me to see "Angels and Demons".  I don't see movies about books without having read the book if I can help it, so away to Multnomah County Library's website I went. Not surprisingly, "Angels and Demons" has a waiting list as long as my (fill in appropriate part of human anatomy here), so I decided to take a look at Dan Brown as a younger author... you know, before "The DaVinci Code" made him a bazillion bucks.

All in all, this was not a bad book.  He has a lot of great ideas, and he executes them relatively well.  It definitely had all the elements of what it takes to make a good thriller... almost non-stop action, pulse pounding suspense in the lulls, lots of "insider knowledge" and "who knew what when".  This one had extra layers of political intrigue and loads of scientific and military techno- babble.  I will say one thing for Mr. Brown... he does a good job of explaining techno-speak and complicated scientific concepts so the average person (i.e. me) can understand it. He also does a great job of weaving complicated plot lines into a coherent whole. The sad thing is that he still hasn't quite mastered how to get the exposition out there without making his characters look incredibly stupid.  On several occasions, I wanted to throttle his characters as they were bouncing ideas back and forth about the origins of the meteorite... "You idiots are the smartest minds the world has to offer?!?!  It's obvious, stupid... it's THIS!  Look over there!!"

The good part about that rant is that it means I was engaged with the characters.  :)

I also really enjoyed the way the female characters in the book managed to move the plot forward, and not by playing the stereotypical whore or virgin archetypes.  They were, as much as any of the male characters, as fleshed out and "real" as this type of story allows.

The only other problem I had with this one was the overall predictability of the story.  You *knew* that Michael and Rachel were going to get together.  You *knew* that Gabrielle and Rachel were going to have to meet and "compare notes".  You *knew* that the character with the initials "SS" was going to have to go down... one way or another.  And the one thing that drove me nuts, but could have been just an editing error... the oft repeated androgynous bestowing properties of the CryptTalk communication system.  He was swinging for the cheap seats to convince us of the necessity of that filtering software... that it was important in someway.  After reading it for the third time, all I could think was, "Clarice, doesn't this random scattering of sites seem desperately random, like the elaboration of a bad liar?"  (Yes, I will quote Thomas Harris in a review about Dan Brown's book if I want.  It's my blurbing book blog after all!)  At any rate, I think he mentioned it about 6 times in the book.  It would have been a nice ruse if he just trusted us and went with it maybe twice.  That would have made it much more effective!

He does a great job distilling complicated concepts down into understandable plot points.  He keeps the book moving and it *is* a real page turner.  He just runs into trouble with exposition and with making his characters anything more than one-dimensional good guys or bad guys. Character development is not always the mark of a thriller, though, and you won't get much of it here, either.  What you will get is a fun ride and loads of information about the spying abilities of the US Government.  (Oh yeah, if you are given to flights of paranoia, this is probably not the book for you!)

To sum up, as the primary reviewer for "Sherry's Blurbing Book Blog", I give "Deception Point"...

3 (out of 5) stars!!

This book is a sweet little thriller from an author who got better as he went along.  If you are a fan of his later works, you will probably enjoy this one, too.  Give it a go!

Wishing you the best of books,

Sherry

The Great Eight: How to Be Happy (Even When You Have Every Reason to be Miserable) by Scott Hamilton with Ken Baker

I finished this book 2 days ago... after procrastinating for about a week. And now it is time to write the review and I have to say that it has been really difficult to figure out what I was going to say about this book. This is the first book that was sent to me for review from the "Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers" program at Thomas Nelson Publishing.  I certainly don't want to "bite the hand that fed me" so to speak, and I should say before I get to the meat of this review that I am truly grateful for the gift of the book.  And I may have built up an over-expectation about the book, too.  I was really excited about it because I grew up watching Scott Hamilton skate and liked him very much.  I thought he must have been a pretty smart and very funny guy because he always skated to the "funny" routines.

All that being said, there was very little humorous in this book. I know that not everyone's life is sweetness and light.  I also know that Scott had it particularly rough.  Or, if I didn't, I surely do now!  I actually found myself struggling to get through the book, to be honest.  One of the first reasons why is that for a book about being happy, there is a lot of terribly depressing stuff in it.  He goes into great detail, over multiple chapters, (and very often repeats himself) about his many illnesses, the pain and suffering they caused his family, and the sacrifices they had to make for him in order to be a skater. Then he talks about how, when his adoptive parents could no longer afford to support his career, he found another "mother and father" type of couple to sponsor him.  He talks about how he turned a place he was supposed to temporarily crash at for a few weeks with a kind hearted family into his home for YEARS.  He talks about how his father died alone in a hospital because he was busy working in his job hosting at the Olympics. He talks about how sorry he was that his mother didn't live long enough to see him become wealthy and successful.  He even goes so far as to talk about the "folly" of a female audience member who was applying make up while he was skating one of his last shows - after having just been diagnosed with a brain tumor!  He had made no announcement, there was no way for this woman to know how "momentous" this occasion was for Scott.  And yet, "her folly" for having the audacity to be applying make up of all the terrible things! (gasp) 

I always thought when you were putting on a show it is about the audience enjoying it, not about you.  It seems there is very little in Scott's life, if this book is any indication, that isn't just all about Scott.  I know you are saying, "But it is a book about Scott Hamilton's life and how he found happiness!! Of COURSE it is all about Scott!!" And to an extent, you would be right.  But, I found it all to be egotistical, selfish and superficial. He seemed to revel in name dropping and mentioning all the glamorous jobs he has had over the years working in t.v., film and skating. As if that would lend him some credibility in being an authority on being happy... even though he goes to great pains to state that it does not.  If it does not, then why point it out?

Throughout the book, he sprinkled in Christian thoughts, Bible quotes and ways in which he believed his "Almighty Coach" (that's his name for The Lord) has helped him out in his life. How coincidence and happenstance all came together for him on many occasions to help him out of a bind... and all because of his "Almighty Coach".  This was very hard for me to read.  I have always thought of Christianity as being a humble religion, and good Christians themselves as being humble people in the extreme. It seems from this book that Scott is anything but humble. Yes, he is charitable... and he will be happy to tell you all about his charity work. The Christians I grew up with would look on that as being boastful.  Overall, the biblical quotes and "inspirations" seemed to be a facile overlay onto the structure of the book.  He does say that he came late in life to Christianity, so perhaps that is why it seems as though God is an afterthought in his life.

The structure of the book I am sure started off as a good idea. Skating figure eights, the great eight rules for happiness.  But, it became bogged down in multiple retellings of the same stories over and over.  Perhaps it would have benefitted from a more chronological structure?  I don't know... it is sort of hard to see the forest for the trees.  

Another problem I had with the book was the vocabulary. It seemed as if someone told the authors, "Now, no more than a 6th grade vocabulary level.  They won't understand you if you use big words or try to grasp complex subjects."  The simple fact of the matter is, as depressing as some aspects of Scott's life have been, there is real potential here for deep thought and real heartfelt analysis.  There is very little in life as complex as life and death, faith and belief in The Lord.  But this book just skates over everything as though it were just one more thing on a checklist.  Wife- check.  Church- check.  Kids- check. Money- friends- celebrity... check, check, and check.  

Now, with all of the things I didn't like out of the way, here is one thing I *did* like about this book. It has good advice.  If you read it, the advice will make sense to you and it could be inspiring to many.  It has great potential.  And hopefully you won't get bogged down in all the other stuff like I did.  I would give this book a read just for the advice, because I believe you can solve problems in your own life quicker and easier if you learn from the mistakes of others.  But I wouldn't read it just to learn more about Scott Hamilton.

At this point, I've had about as much of Scott as I can stand.

To sum up, as the primary reviewer for "Sherry's Blurbing Book Blog", I give "The Great Eight"...

2 (out of 5) stars!!

I would be interested in reading what others thought of this book.  If I am dead wrong, I sure would like someone to tell me so.  If you saw it a different way, drop me a line and tell me your perspective.  Because I really did WANT to like this book.  It's just a damn shame that I didn't.  I suppose the only thing I can be thankful for is that there is no possible way my little review could hurt someone with as much star power as Scott.  I do wish him and Ken Baker all the best in their future endeavors.

Wishing you the best of books,

Sherry

A Kinder Bright: Poems of Praise and Remembrance by Jerry Fagnani

"We often choose to remember 

our brightest memories. 

But certain brightness can be harsh.

For me, I prefer a kinder bright."

- Jerry Fagnani

Well, and this is not to put too fine a point on it, I am not sure I could recommend this book enough.  I loved it and I am still a little blown away by it.

I will be the first to admit that I am a lover of poetry.  That is one reason I was so excited when I saw that the first book I was to receive from Library Thing's Early Reviewers program was a book of poetry.  I was thrilled, but at the same time a little voice in the back of my mind said, "Uh oh." Because I am pretty particular about my poetry.  I didn't want my first ever review of one of their books to be a negative one!  And I knew I wouldn't be able to lie if it was truly awful.  Poetry in modern times has a problem, as far as I am concerned.  And that problem is poets who don't know when their prose has become a little too purple, their free verse a touch too florid.  It drives me nuts and ruins poetry for me when that happens.  And it happens far too frequently.

Luckily, I had nothing to worry about with Fagnani's "A Kinder Bright: Poems of Praise and Remembrance".  Fagnani is just my type of poet.  He is simple, straightforward and even when he is killing you with the pain of the loss of his beloved wife, Elaine, he manages to wrap the words in velvet.  His imagery is striking and honest... and no less starkly powerful for it's simplicity.  Reading the best of his poems is like listening to the last song of the night in an almost empty jazz club... that moment when the pianist is a bit tired, probably slightly drunk and more than a little sad.  When he is just putting down the notes that need to be there, and nothing else.  When everything nonessential is stripped away and all you are left with is the raw pain of a life lived long, and the horrible beauty it contains.

The book itself is split into three sections:

First is "Moments in Time".  These poems basically cover the span of his life from the perspective of a man who has grown old, and is looking back with longing on his youth.  It contains remembrances of friends and loved ones who have passed away, the innocence and purity of youth and his love of the outdoors.  This is my least favorite of the three sections, but not because of any failing in the poetry itself.  There is just one poem in this section that doesn't seem to belong.  As traumatic as the Kennedy assassination must have been for anyone alive on that day, the poem here is so different from all the others that is must have been written in a vastly different portion of the author's life.  It was jarringly different, and really took away from the flow of this section.  It's not a bad poem, but it just doesn't belong here.  

Second is "The Lackawanna Collection".  These poems talk about his life as it relates to Fagnani growing up close to the Lackawanna River in Jessup, Pennsylvania.  It is fairly obvious from the poems that he has been a lifelong lover of the outdoors, and perhaps that is something else that lends his poetry its unique honesty.  One so in touch with nature must find it somehow harder to remove themselves from the truth of life, the passage of time and the constancy of change.  After reading this section, it is hard not to jump on a plane headed for Pennsylvania to see if you can capture some of the peace of Fagnani's childhood romps among white birches and hear the "Lackawanna whisper" in the "Lackawanna night".  This is my second favorite section.

Third, and my favorite of all the sections, is "The Elaine Collection".  I am a sucker for a love story, and if the pain suffered at it's loss is any indication of the magnitude of a love shared, then Elaine and Jerry must have had a powerful love for each other.  One gets the feeling by the end of this section that were it not for the children and grandchildren born out of their love, Jerry would have promptly followed Elaine over to the other side.  It's a rare honor to see this kind of love from a male perspective in modern times, and the poems in this section are simply the best of the book. I am not sure how kind the brightness of looking on memories of Elaine might be for the author, though.  It might be a good deal like looking at the noon day sun for how he describes their love.

I guess in the end, the only question this book leaves for me is this:

Would Jerry give up the brightness of that love and the joy of the happy memories of his young life so that he might not have to suffer now in the darkness he is left with in their absence?  I'm not sure I know the answer to that question.  

Give this book a read and decide for yourself.

To sum up, as the primary reviewer for "Sherry's Blurbing Book Blog", I give "A Kinder Bright"...

5 (out of 5) stars!!

You owe it to yourself to give this book a go.  It doesn't get much more darkly beautiful than this, folks.  As the author writes about the river of his childhood, this book is truly "the free movement of a flowing jewel."

Wishing you the best of books,

Sherry

Mean Streets by Jim Butcher (& Green & Richardson & Sniegoski)

I recently completed the first of the four stories contained in Mean Streets, a compilation book of stories from four of the best selling authors in the genre of "paranormal private investigators."  I honestly did not even know this was a genre, but I am relatively new to the whole book reviewing gig. I am at the stage of "I don't know what the genres are, I just know what I like."

And I definitely liked "The Warrior" by Jim Butcher.  Well, "like" is not strong enough.  "Flat out loved" would be more accurate.

This is a story that fits into Butcher's Dresden Files series right after the full length novel Small Favor.  One of my favorite characters from that installment was seriously injured; almost killed, in fact.  This short story deals with the aftermath of that attack, and Dresden's reaction to almost losing his friend.  And what happens when his friend is put in danger while he is still vulnerable.  

The writing is fast paced, as with most of Butcher's previous works.  It is heavy on humor, action, sarcasm and snark which suits me just fine.  As per usual, Dresden gets the living daylights kicked out of him while fighting against almost insurmountable odds and enemies so powerful that one cringes to think of even looking too closely at them, much less attempting to best them in battle.  And as usual, Butcher ties it all up with a pretty bow in the end.  

Honestly, I think that is what keeps me coming back for more. I have read so many really great books (The Last Good Kiss by Crumley springs to mind) that just left me cold in the end.  I know that a good story doesn't always have to have a happy ending.  And there have been ones that did not end with everything all sweetness and light that I actually loved. But, Butcher has a lovely way of ending a book (or in this case a short story) with a good, solidly tied-up finale that leaves you feeling happy you read it and hungry for more.  

While "the moral of the story" aspect of the end of this story came on a tad strong this time around, it was still a sweet sentiment about who the "real warriors" in our world are.  As a former social worker, it was an appealing argument.  People spend a lot of time in the real world beating their heads against brick walls trying to help others.  It would be nice if we all could have an angel named "Jake" to sit back and debrief us some days.  Someone who could tell us if we are on the right track would be a blessing, no matter what his disguise.

In short, as the primary reviewer for "Sherry's Blurbing Book Blog", I give Mean Streets...

4 and 1/2 (out of 5) stars!!  

This book is a "must have" for any Dresden Files fan.  And while I didn't read the other stories in the compilation (I started to but it is really difficult when you don't know who the characters are and you don't get the "in jokes"), I am sure it would also be a "must have" for fans of Green, Richardson and Sniegoski as well.

Wishing you the best of books,

Sherry

Keeping Track of Books...

As I get older, I find it more and more difficult to remember what I have read.  I find myself buying the same books more than once, because I don't remember that I have read it until I'm about 25% of the way through and thinking to myself, "Gee, this seems like a familiar story."  So, I created this special blog just to review and keep track of books I have read. Hopefully, folks out there will find my site and enjoy my reviews. 

Who knows?  Maybe I'm your "book twin" and you will like the same things that I do. I might even help you find fun, new books you haven't read, yet!!

A few neat things about Sherry's Blurbing Book Blog:

1) Anyone can comment, except for spambots!  No spambots, please.  

2) Wherever possible, I will make the titles of each new post actually link to a site that sells the book I am reviewing.  In most cases, and whenever humanly possible, that site will be Powell's Books of Portland, Oregon.  This is my home town, and I believe in supporting independent book sellers.  Everyone should order all their books from Powell's!!!

3) I am going to try to learn how to put up pictures of the book covers, but don't hold your breath.  I am still more comfortable with paper and ink than I am with HTML and link.

Hope everyone enjoys!  And if you have ideas for my site, feel free to leave 'em in the comments.  I can't promise I will make every change suggested, but if it sounds like a good idea and I can figure out how to do it, I will!

Wishing you the best of books,

Sherry