I finished Dry and have started reading The Last Boy. It was a recommendation from Elizabeth so I am positive that I will love it. Dry was not as good as Running With Scissors, but was still enjoyable and hilarious.

I finished reading Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult and loved it. Since this is the third book I have read by Picoult, I was able to guess the surprise ending long before it was revealed. I think this is my favorite Picoult book of the three that I have read. It really left me wanting more story about what happens after the book ends, but I was kind of disappointed in the end. I think it was because I knew the secret and then when it was revealed it didn't pack the kind of punch that I am use to at the end of her books. This was a great recommendation by Elizabeth, she has recommended the most fantastic books and I think from now on, I am going to defer my book choices to Elizabeth.

I have started reading Dry by Augusten Burroughs. I loved Running With Scissors, so I am hoping this lives up to my expecations!

This is my latest book. Thanks Memo for buying it for me. I have heard really good things about and so far they are all true.

It is about the life of a high school English teacher in New York. He tells a great story and has been through some pretty amazing things. The last three books I read all had death in them and so I am hoping that this one is a change of pace from that!

Me and Emma

So I am working on my February book, me and Emma. SO far it is really interesting but also very disturbing. The entire story is told through the voice of a little girl about her and her sister. Where it really has gotten strange is that the youngest girl is being molested by the step father but becuase the story is told by the other little sister she is rather flippant about what is happening (mostly becuase she does not get what is going on).

Jenny picked this book out and it is really a good choice. I am really hoping that the little girls figure out how to do away with the step father becuase I am just about done with his character.

Of course the most frustrating character is the mother who knows what is going on and is not trying to stop it.

To present this book to the book club I was going to make a power point or display board (mostly for my own entertainment) but know I am thinking I may go all out and make a little quilt or something!

I finished reading The Glass Castle and found it kind of interesting and enjoyable, not the most captivating of books.

She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."

I really found the parental units disturbing and disgusting. I really must have some kind of complex that never allows me to like the mother figure in books. It's amazing how fucked up families can be!

I am so much in love with Jodi Picoult that I am reading Plain Truth. So far so good!

The Pact is so far a fantastic book. I have high hopes since I absolutely loved The Tenth Circle. I am about 175 pages into the 500 page book and can't tear myself away. At first glance, I thought that this was going to be a cheesy Romeo and Juliet style story, but it is totally is better!

Kite Runner was a fantastic book. It took me about 100 pages to get into it. In fact the 1st 100 pages took me about 5 days to get through and the last 275 I got through in one day. This book kept me guessing the whole time and when you thought you knew how it was going to work out, the story up and changes itself. I would recommend this book highly.

The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.

I am going to start Jodi Picoult's book The Pact. I loved The Tenth Circle so hopefully this book will be just as amazing!

Last night I finished The Memory Keepers Daughter. It was a quick read and it was so-so. I did not love it, but was glad that I read it. Towards the end I was basically skimming because I was getting terribly bored. I rushed through the last 100 pages so that I didn't have to spend another night reading this book. I didn't particularly like the ending, nor did I love the characters. I thought all the characters blamed everyone else but themselves for their problems and never really owned up to their mistakes. Again, I found myself hating the mother character (what is with me and hating the mother figures in books...I don't have any pent up rage against my own mother) and not liking the way she shunned her husband and ignored her fault in her miserable marriage. The dad was pinned to be the root of the problem (which, admittedly he made huge mistakes) but his wife did nothing to make the situations any better. I didn't like the son's character either, he was a shit and needed to be slapped around. I found the basis of the book to be off and kind of out there (I guess that's the point of a novel and creative writing). I don't know if it was the actual book that left me feeling high and dry (totally not ridden hard and put away wet), but maybe the fact that after reading The Shadow of the Wind, this book just couldn't compete.

I started reading The Kite Runner last night and so far it's okay, I will update you when I get a little farther in.