Twofer: Killing Kennedy and The Rosie Effect

taken from Goodreads.com

I've heard great things about this book (and O'Reilly's other, similar book Killing Lincoln) for several years now, and I've always wanted to listen to them. Thanks to the beauty of library audiobooks, I now know why everyone loves them so much. I really enjoyed O'Reilly's (and Dugard's) writing style, which made the complicated interpersonal and historical details roll off the pages like a casual conversation. I think the fact that the audiobook was narrated by Bill himself helped. I feel like I learned quite a bit, too, about all the major players in the Kennedys' story; I really enjoyed that he included so many details about all of the people who crossed paths with and/or had anything to do with JFK, rather than sticking just to JFK himself. I really enjoyed it, and I'm excited to listen to Killing Lincoln soon.

taken from Goodreads.com

I read Simsion's first Rosie book, The Rosie Project, at the beginning of the year and loved it. I loved the protagonist's unique voice (adult genetics professor who also lives somewhere on the autism spectrum), as well as the plot (adult genetics professor who also lives somewhere on the autism spectrum has formally decided that it's time to find a wife, and creates a detailed survey that he hands out to as many women as he can). This sequel, though...eh. I didn't love it. Most of it I didn't even like all that much. I loved a lot of the new characters and their relationships with Don, and I enjoyed the ending a lot, but most of the beginning and middle just made me mad. Rosie's all-powerful, alpha woman attitude is not my favorite (putting it mildly), and I hated how she handled her frustrations with Don. To be fair, he would be hard to be married to...but she did marry him. And decide to get pregnant with him. So that kind of seems like her fault, not Don's. That being said, I did love the first one and will definitely still recommend it.

The Impossible Knife of Memory: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

This book caused me to have a pretty significant epiphany; the first two books of Anderson's that I ever read were Speak and Wintergirls, which are both hardcore, intense, and super good. Because of them, I got it in my head that Anderson's books were all hardcore, intense, and super good, despite the fact that the last four books of hers that I've read (Prom, Twisted, Chains, and Forge) weren't nearly as "wow"-filled. I kept thinking and saying over and over that each of those books just weren't filled with the old Laurie Halse Anderson ka-pow, when maybe it's just that the first two books I read were the only ones that had that ka-pow. This book (which only had a little bit of ka-pow) made me finally realize that if five of the seven books I've read by this author are kind of run-of-the-mill, typical teen books and two are blow-you-out-of-the-water intense, maybe those are the exceptions. And not the rules.

But anyway, a book review. I liked this one, a comfortable 3 out of 5 stars worth. Some tougher issues are definitely approached with this plot (the lasting effects of war, PTSD, childhood trauma, drug abuse of both teens and adults, alcoholism) but the rest of it is pretty typical teen drama. Not only is it typical teen drama, it's kind of realistic teen drama (aka: the protagonist's crush is kind of moody and inconsistent and dumb and I didn't like him). I thought maybe she was going to blow me away with a crazy and traumatic ending, but then she mellowed out and gave kind of a glossed-over, middle of the road ending instead. I enjoyed it, but it didn't change my world or anything.