Not All Winners

I may have given the impression that I unerringly cull the best reads from the library shelves.  That is not the case as this last two weeks can show.  I have tried to read six books recently and only two have been read all the way through so far.

I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series.  I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE.  There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one.  It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.

I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann.  It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities.  I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway.  It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.

I am still reading two others:  Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends.  I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on.  There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel.  I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me.  Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.

The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done.  Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing.  It's been known to happen.