Books, Part 2

Continuing with yesterday's train of thought...

Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
Yes. I read the entire series. It took about 3 days. (Jeff made fun of me for "inhaling" my books. I told him to stick it where the sun don't shine.) Ahem. Where was I? Oh. Percy Jackson. The books were touted on the cover as the "next Harry Potter." Not quite. Imagine plopping all the Greek and Roman deities in modern-day America. Now imagine that they all had kids with humans. Now imagine that these kids (known as "demigods") have their own special abilities and only they can truly save the world, blah blah blah. Okay, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. The series really is pretty enjoyable. It's nowhere near as enthralling as Harry Potter, but still worth a read. The real fun of the books is the modernizing of mythology - the "what if" factor is nicely done. Even Jeff is reading them - though it's taking him a lot longer than three days. :)
Score: 4 of 5

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
This was also recommended by my friend Lauren. She's one for two at this point. Can't say I enjoyed this all that much. The book consists of mostly true tales of Savannah, Georgia during the eighties. Technically, the tale revolves around a murder, but there are so many side stories that are not really related that it's distracting. I kept thinking that all of the side characters would eventually tie together, but that didn't happen at all. Why it landed on the bestseller list, I'm not quite sure. Why it stayed on the list for 216 weeks, I couldn't begin to tell you. Interestingly enough, the black drag queen in the story, Lady Chablis, actually portrayed herself in the 1997 movie. Not that I'll be rushing to Netflix to watch it, though.
Score: 1.5 of 5

Also on my list of reads is an array of crime/mystery novels my dad had collected from various airports on business trips. I won't even bother listing them - they weren't bad books, per se, so long as you were not interested in literary value and just needed mind-numbing entertainment for a while. I've also plowed through a few Christian romance-type novels, none of which got me all that excited, either. Don't write off the genre, though - there are some truly good ones out there.

Right now I'm reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I'll post a review on it later, but I will say that 50 pages in I am completely hooked.

That's all for now. Go read something!