The Town that Forgot how to Breathe - C
Kenneth J. Harvey
St. Martin's Press
2003

Let me give you a quick litany of terms that go along with this book: vacation, dead girl, solar house, breathing disorder, military lockdown, sea monsters, spirits, prophecy artwork, old fortune teller, albino shark, electromagnetism,  lots of water.  What exactly is going on in this story?   Well a lot actually.  So much it's hard to keep track of what the story is really about.  Setting is a sleepy seacoast fishing town that's out of work and way too modernized to appease the spirits that use to linger there.  There's too much technology in this place now, internet, phone lines, cable television signals that it triggers aspyhixiation in most of the inhabitants, and strange things start taking place.  Every dead body in the sea next to the town surfaces, sea monsters of legend and lore appear and the US military takes over.  This book, at times, is wonderfully descriptive, creepily cryptic and stoicly warm (with the Uncle Doug & Miss Laracy characters).  Other times it's suffering from a major identity crisis; is it horror?  is it a commentary on the pitfalls of too much reliance on new technology?  a story of a family discovering itself again?  Sci-fi?  Fantasy?  There's a subplot about a little dead girl somehow taking over her mother's body, while it's a dog at the same time, i don't know, but it's tragically depressing even with the psychotic sexual sub plot going on.  I think at the heart, is a warm epicenter, focused on families staying together and people harmonizing with each other, even in the face of imminent danger, no matter your background or title.  There is no kumbaya around the fire place though in this story, but there are several strange sea songs sung by old lepers.  Final few pages actually had some poignant scenes, especially involving the outcast police chief and his wife, that I thought were well done.

The Whole- F

1st 10 pages of this were intriguing, a giant hole that can't be stopped swallows suburban family that doesn't have time for each other and news crew desperate for footage of it.  Then, we zoom through (actually trudge feels more appropriate) through the trivial wet t-shirt existence of a MTV vixen as she travels the world doing spots for the channel that has nothing to do with music anymore.  Not sure if this is supposed to represent a real person or not (definitley not Kennedy) but it's message beams through as a jab at media and it's hold on the general populous and how someone as deeply intelligent but vacuous and profesionally augmented will capture our attention more than a studied woman.  But, for me, this book lulls on pointless relationships (with the intent of showing our inability to be alone, so we shack up with any dirtbag at the time) and the strange thoughts that linger in the Thing (our lead woman, devised to show her status to those who see her she doesn't even get a name) and conversations with this Bunny character.  Way too aloof and trite for my liking.

Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell= C
Susanna Clarke
2004

        If late century 1800's English lifestyle is your cup of tea, then you will find some enjoyment from this arduous journey of a novel.  it stands largely at over 1,000 pages when surely 450-500 would have sufficiently told the story.  Action packed it's not, the object of the story is magic, long since been eradicated from England and the world, two vastly different practicioners revive it and use it in different manners much to the delight of jolly old England.  There's a lot of fantasty elements playing out here, lot of use of footnotes in the book that I found interesting, but most of the lore doesn't seem to take you anywhere, just provide a more well rounded and fully fleshed out world for this novel's events to take place in.  Strange falls into the world at a useful time in his life and is a natural at the art, while Norrell has poured over books and texts his entire life to have gained the knowledge of magic, only  to have used it on occasion.  There are many more characters to recount and categorize, but most of them don't play an important part in the book.  I actually found myself thinking more of Norrell and wondering what he might do next even though his character is the more predictable.  Overall I think this could rank higher in terms of enjoyment had it not been so long.  There's about 55 conversations that go nowhere I would have done without.  Still, it's an interesting tale and the author has gone to great lengths to give her Englad a rich history that seems to fit right in to the world around it at that time.

Little Children- B+
Tom Perotta
2004

        This isn't a book about kids, but everyone in the novel has them.  They aren't relevant to the overall plot, but again they do lie in the themes of this book heavily.  They are seen as doted upon creatures too helpless to fend for themselves, and at the same time, pesky nuisances in the way of long sought out desires.  We get to see all the parents in the book seek out things for themselves, feeling trapped in the domestic rigamarole everyone seems destined for:  So you'd rather watch kids skateboard and reminisce about youth gone by then pass the bar exam and fulfill the lawyer dream; what's so bad about wanting some excitement in your sex life since your husband obviously isn't providing it; too busy sniffing panties of internet porn queens.  Then there's the convicted sex offender living in your neighborhood; a social pariah placed directly in the eye of the storm of Kids Central, a convenient plot device that works on severa levels, as played out in the latter portion of the story.  In the end, none of these things pacify our lead characters, they are who they are, parents, wives, husbands, failures, perverts, heroes, the book does a great job of pushing the boundaries of every day life and how much we detest it for it's monotonous cycle and how much we come to rely on it to remind us who we are and what's important. Another thing I like, being a parent, is how it captures the little details of the daily ritual with your child in the book; there's a snack every day, and a nap, and the cleaning after them, but at night, when they fall into their slumber, there's nothing more precious than seeing them asleep.  The book shows those emotions, and they're real. There's also a film version of this book highlighted by Kate Winselt in graphic fuck scenes and a completely different ending that works wholely from the novel, one of the few instances I've seen that happen with an adapated screenplay.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter- B+
Kim Edwards
2006
Penguin

        This is one of those books where the answer isn't so simple, no matter how it may seem.  We start with one couple, pregnant, in love, foolhardy, in the late 50's.  The husband a doctor, delivers his beautiful son, but alas, as his wife is in and out of consciousness from pain, she births a girl.  The doctor notices immediately something is off with her, being a trained professional, he can see she has Down's Syndrome.  In those days, the diagnosis wasn't good, so to spare his wife the grief, he has the nurse take the baby to a home for those children.  Only his nurse can't bring herself to do it; whether selfishness from her own lonliness or the utmost courage and humanity to save this child's life and keep her as her own is the decision she wrestles with and we do too.  From there, pacing becomes a crucial issue and it makes this book such a treat.  We watch the two children, different societies, different upbringing, different people grow up on the page and see our heroic nurse find caches of good luck along the way as our good doctor's decision haunts him for the rest of his life, splitting his marriage slowly apart and hurting his son irreperably.  The novel is heavy and truthful, it's not a Hallmark card at all, but a deep dissection of how that split second decision changes many lives forever and it's extremely well done.  My only reason for not giving it an A, is the unfinished conclusion to the book.  It wraps up elegantly and awkwardly, but lets real life seep in for a undesired (at least on my count) finish without the event I had looked forward to discovering.

- Jessie