Book Five: The True Deceiver

The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson



If someone found some lost crate containing 52 previously unpublished books by Tove Jansson, I would put all other books aside and just read her words for a year solid. She creates worlds that I want to inhabit. Even when they are as bleak and cold as the one in The True Deceiver. Where The Summer Book captured the innocence and sweetness of childhood, The True Deceiver is more about the lies and suspicions and conflicts of adulthood. It feels so very allegorical without losing its sense of real characters and real situations or sacrificing the integrity of the story's inhabitants with a trite ending meant to teach us something simple and true. The two women who make up the central conflict--Katri and Anna--feel so very real it's easy to imagine them in your world. But the story is about something bigger, too, and that's what makes it compelling. I'm not sure I can say much more without either A, ruining the plot or B, making it all sound completely ridiculous, so I'll just shut up and admire the beautiful cover some more (a Tove Jansson illustration, natch).

Book Four: Mormon Country

Mormon Country, Wallace Stegner



I love Mormons. Let me rephrase that, I am fascinated by Mormons. What a strange, and curious group of people. I mean, in general I probably summed up my feelings about Mormons and religion in general here, but this book discusses more tangible, day-to-day aspects of Mormonism. It isn't so much a history, as a collection of essays about the Mormons and gentiles that populate that particular large expanse of the West.

I also love Wallace Stegner. If anyone can write, he can. What I never knew about him is that he spent time growing up in Salt Lake City. A gentile among the Mormons. And what's clear from this book is that he has a clear respect for Mormons and their culture. The essays in here cover everything from the United Order to polygamy to the strength of Mormon communities to the lost Deseret Alphabet to the various industries in the area and more. All told simply but beautifully, personally but knowledgeably.

I honestly do share a lot of Stegner's admiration for Mormons. I find it so amazing that a group can be so united together and constantly work so hard toward collective goals. Since they first settled Salt Lake--actually, since they made their way across the horribly desolate expanse of the midwest in order to settle in Utah--they have been a consistently united group. Hence the Deseret analogy: the honeybees working for the good of the hive. But what I wonder is, can you have that kind of togetherness is you are not united against something else? Meaning, it's us vs. them? Because the "them" in Mormonism seems to be anyone who is remotely different from the straight, white, God-believing norm. I really do wish I had any inclination to believe in god, because I am quite envious of people who have a group that they can depend on, who support them. I just wish there didn't have to be a cuckoo nutso* religion behind it.

*Again, I am not singling Mormons out with the cuckoo nutso thing. I am including all religions here. All of you! I love you all, but find you all equally crazy!

Book Three: Evil at Heart

Evil at Heart , Chelsea Cain



I know, I know! I can't believe I persist in reading these either. I think this may be the end of my serial killer/thriller/mystery kick for a while. I need to feel like an intelligent human being, one who consumes more than just stories about sexy serial killers, body mutilation, blood, more blood, heads and eyeballs not where they should be, kinky sex and the like.

In terms of where this one falls in the Gretchen Lowell trilogy so far, I'd say it's a bit better than the second, not quite as good as the first. But isn't that always how it is?

Book Two: Sweetheart

Sweetheart , Chelsea Cain



This book, on the other hand, makes no illusions about being literary. This is pure guilty pleasure reading. At least, with these Gretchen Lowell thrillers, I can vividly picture the setting in beautiful Portland, and Chelsea Cain does a lovely job of capturing the city and imaging its inhabitants. But wow, such gore and violence and disturbing sex. Not for the faint of heart.

But that's obviously not going to stop me from reading the next one.

Book One: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson



So, seven books short of my goal isn't too shabby. Worse than last year but better than the year before. I think I'm learning that the secret is not to expect to catch up in December. Seriously, I will never be able to read more than a handful of books in December. But, onward and upward! No more looking back at the past! It's a new year and a new goal! Whee!

And now watch as I fill my reading list with mysteries and thrillers. I'm a glutton, what can I say? But this one, this one is really great! All the hype is true, I assure you. It's amazingly well-written, thoughtfully plotted (even in those first 50 pages when you're wondering, "Where is this going?"), and has loads of good stuff to propel you forward on every page. Sure, it has its share of gratuitous violence (including some icky violence against women--brace yourself), but I think it ultimately defies a lot of the cliches of the genre and becomes something more. Really looking forward to reading the next in the series.

Book Fortyfive: God's Spy

God's Spy, Juan Gómez-Jurado



What a slog. Everything about this book was difficult, from the preposterous plot to the cardboard characters to, worst of all, the stilted dialog. I'm going to guess that most of that blame lies on the shoulder of the translator. Either he has no idea how English is spoken or the poor fool had no choice but to translate some of the worst and weirdest dialog ever. My favorite bit comes when the two main characters (who are adults, mind you) show up at a delivery driver's house in the middle of the night to ask him some questions. "'I'm Ispettore Paola Dicanti and this is Padre Fowler. Don't stress out; you're not in any trouble and nothing has happened to anyone in your family. We just want to ask you a few urgent questions.'"

What the what?! Does anyone besides thirteen-year-olds actually tell people not to "stress out"?

But then, maybe I wasn't the prime audience for this book. I take it Mr. Gómez-Jurado was attempting to capitalize on the success of The Da Vinci Code and the whole Catholic church, conspiracy theory, hypocritical-men-of-the-cloth type of thing. Also, while there have been some thrillers that I have enjoyed, it takes much more for me to sit through that kind of grizzly murder shit without a good payoff in the end.

Book Fortyfour: Garnethill

Garnethill, Denise Mina



Gosh, this was a great mystery and a great thriller. At every turn you're thinking, "He did it! She did it! Everyone did it!" but not in a contrived sort of way. The story is set in a Glasgow that, like pretty much every character, is bleak and flawed. Maureen is our protagonist and the story feels so much about her that I kept thinking it was told in first person. And every time I picked it up again I was surprised it was third person. She is freshly released from a mental institution, after suffering a breakdown when she remembers that her father abused and molested her as a child. And she is dating a married man who is a therapist (but not her therapist, we are constantly reminded because that would be wrong, right?), who she discovers in her flat dead with his head nearly cut clean off (unfortunately the day after she discovers that he is married). Obviously, everyone thinks she did it, so she feels compelled to do her own research into the case to clear her name and possibly discover who offed her boyfriend. And there's so much more to this story, really, the amount of craziness and coverups and seediness is out of control. So, so good.