Kate's Point of View

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton was handed down to me by my brother-in-law after vacation. He told me it was only “all right” so my expectations weren’t high. I needed a break from Hit Woman and this certainly offered it. I sort of regret reading it, though. Pirate Latitudes was published after Crichton died and it’s not his best work. I don’t know if he would have published it had he lived or, if he had, what condition the story would have been in at publication. Fortunately, it’s a pretty forgettable book and I can remember Crichton for the books I liked better like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain.

I read Hit Woman by Susan Hamilton because I received it as a Goodreads First Read and it was accompanied by a lovely note by Hamilton. I was determined to finish it, but it’s also taking me a great deal of restraint to give my opinion of the book.

Nicely, I will say that Susan Hamilton experienced her own Peggy Olsen career track by moving up very quickly in the music business at a very young age and at a time when women were not in positions of power. I assume she had to be able to talk her way to the table for many decisions and it was important that she know just how good she was.

More critically, 400 hundred pages of a person telling you just how good they are / were gets old. I’ve never heard of Hamilton before but I know she’s famous because she told me so over and over. I’ve never heard of most of the people in the book but she made sure I knew they were famous. When I gratefully closed the book after the last page, I felt confident that Hamilton really was good at her job and that I would never, ever want to meet or hang out with her.

 

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

This past week was an odd one in terms of reading. I read (and reviewed) He Texted: The Ultimate Guide to Dating in the Digital Era by Lisa Winning and Carrie Henderson McDermott (2014). That was a pretty fluffy book and one I initially only read because I was sent a copy to review.I also finished The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (2012). These two books are so far apart from each other in style, topic, feel. The reason many books slip under the radar in terms of what I choose to review and what I skip are ones like The Yellow Birds. So important, but so, so heavy. But it’s important to expose ourselves to things that cause us discomfort. How else do we evolve our thinking and grow as people?

The Yellow Birds was nominated by the National Book Award in 2012, but lost out to The Round House by Louise Erdrich (on my To-Read list). NPR describes The Yellow Birds as a book whose “poetic language gives intimacy and intensity to the conflicts of war, and the conflicts within ourselves.” I rely on their words because I am sort of at a loss on how to aptly describe Powers’ book.

In theory I am against war. I hate the idea of the political maneuvering that exists to get one country ahead of another, to make one world leader more powerful than another, to get one elected official in office instead of another… And I know it’s more complicated than that and that war and violence are often used to end other wars and violence. But the loss of life… What The Yellow Birds illustrated for me is that loss of life takes many forms and sometimes it’s just a matter of losing yourself and all that you use to be while you are in the middle of a horrible situation, such as one where death and the smell of rotting flesh becomes normal.

It’s a terrible read. It’s a wonderful read because I think it, or something similar, is a necessary read. Without it, I don’t know how to have any perspective on what soldiers experience and on the decisions our leaders make for us.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, was a book club selection and I one I’m very glad I read. It’s light and fun but has stuck with me. An unusual combination.I reviewed this book for Nudge and would describe it as a sort of wonderful mash-up of Somewhere Out There (episode #374) from This American Life and the character of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory.

In the Rosie Project, Don Tillman, a genetics professor, is a man of precise order. He schedules his days to the minute, literally, and he constantly looks for ways to streamline daily activities. For instance, rather than waste time deciding what to make for dinner each evening, he eats the same thing every Monday, every Tuesday and so on. Further, he has his pantry shelves organized by the day of the week so his weekly Monday dinner ingredients are all together, same with Tuesday, etc. No variety but maximum efficiency.

As the book continues, Don works with the same scientific efficiency to find a wife. Repeatedly he is confronted with the reality that science doesn’t work that way. Or is it love that doesn’t work that way?

You can read my complete review of The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion on Nudge.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

I’ve been a bit of a machine with books lately and while I write reviews of some of them for various outlets, a lot just slip by unmentioned. I’m going to attempt a regular feature where I discuss the books I’ve finished in the previous week. Some weeks will be silent if I haven’t finished anything. Others might feature one book while other detail many. We’ll see.This past week I read an early draft of Love by the Morning Star by Laura L. Sullivan. This YA book is the third by the author and is scheduled for publication in early June. In Love by the Morning Star, which takes place during the early parts of World War II, Anna and Hannah (unrelated) both find themselves undercover in the home of a wealthy family. Hannah, half Jewish, is escaping persecution in Germany, and Anna is on an ill-defined undercover mission. It’s not a bad set-up for a story! And yet it is. The story I mean.

The thing about successful YA novels about World War II is that there are so many to pick from. One of my most recent favorites is Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012), which was a much less innocent look at Nazi Germany, but is much more captivating. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2006) is pretty wonderful and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1958), you might have heard of it, is a must read.

Young adult fiction targets a broad age range (10-15?) and I think most readers within that grouping would be disappointed by Love by the Morning Star. But, perhaps for parents of children at the lower end of the range, Love by the Morning Star is an okay introduction to the much more exciting reading that awaits them.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.