Reviews, Reviews, Reviews (Catching Up, Pt. 4)

100. Crazy Love by Francis Chan

101. If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus by Philip Gulley

Both scathing, but both authored by pastors who love the church despite its weaknesses. I, too, love the church, but find it disappoints me….We could be so much more but for our complacency and off-putting piousness, the very things Jesus stared down in his Jewish faith.

102. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields

What is fiction and what is nonfiction? The boundary line is no longer clear. Shields argues that modern novels are a form that does not satisfy a world increasingly alienated from reality, using bits and pieces of others’ writings to make his point.

A book worth reading if just for the cleverness of its form.

103. Nicholas by Rene Goscinny

A 1001 Children’s Book. Nicholas is a bad boy, a Dennis the Menace from France, in and out of (but mostly in) trouble. He attends a boarding school where most of the other boys are also bad boys. It makes for a story equally compelling for children and grownups.

104. The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk

This book arrived in the mail a few weeks ago from LibraryThing. It’s a memoir of a time the author spent traveling around Italy with her husband and two young children. I like travel stories, usually, but this one was quite different from my typical travel story. Cusk seems removed from the story, aloof, distant. Her children are not named, for example, and do not feel like people but concepts. Cusk is vague about the reasons for her trip to Italy and even more unclear about what she took away from the experience. As a result, I felt disassociated from the story and the characters as well.

105. Weekend in Paris by Robyn Sisman

A young woman is thrilled to be chosen by her boss to accompany him to Paris for a business trip, but she is devastated to learn he has ulterior motives. (Wanna guess what these are? Yep, just what you thought.) She quits her job and decides to go to Paris anyway. Of course she meets a handsome Frenchman and of course there is heartbreak and of course she learns not to be so naive and of course she meets a nice person who offers her a better job and of course everything turns out okay in the end.

106. Whiter Than Snow by Sandra Dallas

Sandra Dallas is one of those writers who appeals to both readers who read to escape and readers who read thoughtfully. Whiter Than Snow is the story of the families of a group of children caught in an avalanche. The reader knows from the very beginning that most of the children will die, but one of the hooks of the story is trying to figure out just which children will live. Like the other Sandra Dallas books I’ve read in the past, there is a nice sense of redemption by the final pages, with the characters all experiencing a new sense of connection and feelings of empathy that can arise out of a tragedy.

107. Get Lucky by Katherine Center

Sarah Harper has crashed and burned at her job and has run home to Houston and her sister to get back into the air. She and her sister have always been close and, when she discovers her sister has given up trying to have a baby, decides to serve as a surrogate mother for her. She ends up carrying twins, but the surrogate motherhood is really just a small part of the story. Sarah meets up with a former boyfriend who she cruelly dumped in high school and tries to reconnect with him and make amends…she works on her relationship with her sister…and she tries to figure out her place in the world. All of these plot lines come together to make a satisfying story.

I like Katherine Center. But then again I know Houston and that makes a book like this one, set in Houston, a better read.

108. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

All the ingredients from Rick Riordan’s earlier Lightning Thief series are here in the Red Pyramid: gods (with a very small “g”), monsters, mythology, fights, danger, potential destruction of the universe. I cannot imagine a ten-year-old who would not love this book. Pretty safe to say that if you liked Lightning Thief, you’ll like this one. Well, unless you don’t like books that are toooo derivative….

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