Run Like a Mother: How to Get Moving-- and Not Lose Your Job, Family, or Sanity

by Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell

I will never run marathons like the authors of Run Like a Mother, but I still really enjoyed the book. (I'm perfectly willing to read books about things I'll never do if they're well written. For example, I enjoy reading about organizing one's home and clipping coupons even though I have no interest in actually doing either.) The writing in Run Like a Mother is funny and compelling. There's lots of practical advice. I wanted to keep reading. One criticism: some of the cultural references in the book (music and clothing advice, for example) will become dated pretty quickly. But this is a book I will probably go back and read at least sections of again, which means I found it pretty darn useful.

Schooled

by Gordon Korman

I have loved, loved, loved Gordon Korman since I was in middle school. He's written so many books I haven't been able to keep up with all of them. I really liked Schooled. It's about a hippie boy who was raised alone by his grandmother on what's left of a commune but is thrown into the real world when she breaks her hip and is hospitalized for six weeks. This book has the humor of most of Korman's books. I really liked it.

My Life As a Rhombus

by Varian Johnson

Very few men can successfully write from a female perspective, and unfortunately, Varian Johnson is not one of them. As a result, My Life as a Rhombus isn't that great of a book. It's about a high school girl who had an abortion as a freshmen and now, as a senior, is helping a new friend deal with an unplanned pregnancy. I just didn't find the narrator compelling or realistic. The writing was flat and awkward. I could see some high school kids enjoying the book because of its topic, but the writing is weak.

Swimming

by Nicola Keegan

Swimming, about a Kansas girl who becomes an Olympic swimmer, has gotten lots of good reviews, but I didn't care for it at all. I had to force myself to finish it. Maybe I'm just not literary enough for this book, but I really didn't think it excelled as either a literary novel or a popular one. One thing that annoyed me was that part of it was set in Kansas, but I'm not sure the author has ever stepped foot in the state. I also just didn't like the narrator. At. All. And I know sometimes that can be part of the strength of the novel, but it just didn't work for me.

House Rules

by Jodi Picoult

I didn't care for Handle with Care, but Jodi Picoult redeemed herself with House Rules. It's about a boy with Asperger's Syndrome who's accused of murdering his tutor, and of course, it isn't clear until the end whether or not he did it. A lot of literary types poke fun at authors like Picoult, but I think she generally does a good job exploring the complexities of human emotion. Or maybe I'm just low-brow.

Apple Turnover Murder

by Joanne Fluke

I admit it. I love cozy mysteries. Especially food mysteries. With recipes. I have secret fantasies of someday writing cozy mysteries set in Satanta. I know these books have absolutely no literary merit. And I can't even use the excuse that I'm reading them so I can recommend books to my kids at school. But I love them all the same.

I like Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swenson series (not as much as I like Dianne Mott Davidson, but still....), and Apple Turnover Murder doesn't disappoint. Sure, I started figuring things out pretty early, but that just makes me feel smart. The recipes aren't particularly ground-breaking, but that just makes me feel cosmopolitan. And there are enough unraveled threads at the end to make me want to read the next book.

Jump the Cracks

by Stacy DeKeyser

I'm glad Ryan picked up this book for me because I think some of our junior high and high school kids might read it, but it's a YA book that's really only good for kids. It doesn't have a lot of substance to it. It's about a girl who accidentally kidnaps a little boy (with the best of intentions). I read it on the way back from Rolla, so it's a quick read. I think kids will like it, but it won't really stick with me as an adult reader the way some YA books do.

Also Known As Harper

by Ann Haywood Leal

This a YA book about a girl who's named after Harper Lee. I plan to get my own copy in the hopes that some of my freshmen might read the book after they finish To Kill a Mockingbird. (I'm optimistic that way.) The book is really sad and depressing. But it's well written and filled with literary allusions, so I liked it.

Galloway's 5K/10K Running

by Jeff Galloway

I picked this book up in KC because I was about to finish the Couch to 5K program and needed to know what to do next. The book is very informative and has many training plans (although not one that suits my needs right now). I learned a lot from the book, and Jeff Galloway seems like a good guy. But there were some problems with sentence construction that irked me, and the organization could have been stronger. I had to flip all over the place to figure out what different terms meant, and I think that could have been avoided. But I'm still glad I have the book.

Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

I loved, loved, loved, loved Niffenegger's first novel The Time Traveler's Wife, but Her Fearful Symmetry just didn't compare. It's a totally different book, so maybe it's unfair to compare them. But The Time Traveler's Wife sucked me in. I wanted to live in that book. I couldn't put it down. Even when I reread it, I can't put it down. But even though this book was well-written, I sometimes had trouble picking it back up when I put it down. I just didn't like the characters. And I know I wasn't supposed to, but it made me not always want to read. And the ending was really sad. It was supposed to be sad. The book wasn't terrible or anything, but I just didn't love it the way I had hoped I would.

Handle With Care

by Jodi Picoult

Usually I really like Jodi Picoult, but I found this book disappointing. It's about a little girl named Willow who's born with brittle bone disease, which causes her to break bones very frequently. When Willow is six, her mom finds out that she can sue her OB for not diagnosing the condition soon enough for to have terminated the pregnancy (even though she wouldn't have done it). The problem is, her OB is (was) her best friend, but of course, the lawsuit ruins the friendship and her marriage.

The problems: the character of the mom really wasn't that sympathetic; Willow was a little too perfect personality wise to be realistic; this bulimia/cutting sub-plot was thrown in in an utterly predictable way; and the ending was a total cop-out and seemed like it was copied from My Sister's Keeper. I wouldn't recommend this book.

Secrets of Eden

by Chris Bohjalian

I love Chris Bohjalian, and I liked Secrets of Eden (but not quite as well as some of his other books). It tells about a husband-wife murder suicide from the perspectives of the minister who baptized the wife right before she was murdered, the DA prosecuting the case, an author who writes about angels who finds herself drawn to the case, and the daughter of the couple. Bohjalian does nifty things with unreliable narrators. One minor criticism--the DA character seemed kind of flat and uncreative. It seemed like she was a copy of every tough female cop or lawyer on any legal drama. Other than that, a good book.