December 2016 Reviews

December books:

1. The Rules of Love and Grammar by Mary Simses (a library ebook from Overdrive)

This is a story about a short time in the life of a young woman. It pursues her emotional state as circumstances she cannot control take place in her life.

The story is filled with descriptions of life in a small town. The characters feel real as you read about the way life is unfolding around them.

Grace takes a long forced holiday to her parents home during the summer. She meets people from her childhood and comes face to face with the consequences of a childhood tragedy.

Her own beliefs and lifelong learning experience are challenged as she once again becomes involved with the friends and acquaintances of her childhood.

Grace becomes aware of the sounds and sights she used to be familiar with at an earlier age. “The waters of long island sound flash and sparkle in the sun and a salty breeze sings through the window screens.

What happens when a movie crew invades the town is only one part of the atmosphere created in the story. The descriptions are well done. The story keeps you wondering about what the ending will bring.

2. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter ( a library ebook from Overdrive)

Starting with the Epigraph: “a particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror.” By Carl Jung, to the ending, this book is about crime. Karin Slaughter has a writer's ability to express knowledge of crimes committed against women in fictional form.

The story is the life of a serial criminal. How he stalks women. How he lures women. How he gets away with the crime he commits year after year. Then, why he stops living his life of crime.

If you don’t like gory stories don’t start reading this book because you may not be able to put it down until you reach the conclusion. “She wasn’t going to give up seventeen and a half years of sobriety for the asshole.” Lydia is one character in the book with lots of character. She has a daughter to raise and she spends her time raising her daughter with life experience to help her.

The story tells you a lot about the reason one family was split apart by circumstances, not of their own making. It will show you how the family becomes reunited by circumstances they took into their own hands. “Dee came out of her room and gave Lydia the greatest gift a teenage daughter can ever give her mother: she had agreed with her.”

It is also a story about sisters. “Her rift with Claire had been a choice.” How the sisters deal with life is all here.