May Book Review

Hey everyone! It's been a bit since I've reviewed books, but there've been a few worth noting:

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend - Sue Townsend has written four or five Adrian Mole books, and I've adored them since I stumbled across my first one whilst in college. I remember reading Adrian Mole, Aged 13 & 3/4 while on the treadmill at the OU gym. This was not a good idea as I actually started laughing so hard that I fell off the treadmill. Not my finest hour. But definitely one of my more enjoyable ones. The Adrian Mole books are all about a British boy who imagines himself an intellectual, superior to all about him, particularly his parents. His one object of devotion is Pandora, a girl in his school from an upper-class family. The first two Adrian Mole books are beyond hysterical. They're told in diary format and are too quick of a read for anyone to avoid. Townsend then struck out Adrian Mole, The Cappuccino Years, released a few years ago. It tells of Adrian's misadventures in his 20s and was quite disappointing. I'm happy to say that she has returned to form with this latest in the series. Adrian is now in his 30s and has a son in Iraq, hence the title. All my favorites are back - Pandora, the Mole parents, etc. I saved this book for our trip to Hawaii and it was definitely the perfect beach read. It got a little too preachy toward the end for me (totally out of character for these books so it just didn't work), but given all the chuckles it gave me, that is easily forgiven. I now look forward to whatever lies ahead for Adrian. Regardless of your age, anyone from 12 to 102 should enjoy reading about the bizarre world of Adrian Mole.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith - Unlike the rest of the modern world, I read On Beauty before Smith's acclaimed White Teeth. The setting of the book was instantly appealing to me. It's about two families in the world of academia, the Belseys and the Kipps. The Belseys are a liberal mixed family - the father Howard is a white professor at Wellington, a fictitious Ivy league school and his wife Kiki is an African American homemaker. The Kipps are a conservative black British family - the father Monty is also a professor and he and Howard both teach some form of Art History, but with radically different theories on the topic. The drama unfolds when Monty takes a guest professor post at Wellington and the two families begin intermixing. Some friendships are made, some enemies reinforced, and some secrets are unveiled, but this book is really about the characters. On Beauty is told from several different perspectives - Howard's, Kiki's and two of their high school and college-aged children. Smith has a brilliant ability to capture a character's voice and make it ring true. The book is long, but there was enough drama and bits of humor to make it very enjoyable.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith - I'm really glad I read On Beauty before White Teeth. Because getting through this novel was like pulling teeth for me. I enjoyed very, very little of it and though Smith once again tells the tale from several characters' perspectivez - and does this successfully - the problem was that I didn't like any of the characters. And Smith didn't seem to either. The story is once again about two families those of Archie Jones and Pakistani Samad Iqbal. The two men meet during WWII and form an unlikely friendship that lasts for decades. Their wives and offspring intermingle in the book and it gives you several different viewpoints on what it must have been like to have been an immigrant in Britain, or the descendant of one. All I can say is BORING.

Ya-Yas in Bloom by Rebecca Wells - Several years ago I was in love with Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It made getting older and having kids seem like it could still be fun and crazy. Wells also wrote a prequel called Little Altars Everywhere that was really good. But Bloom is a different story. It has no plot and instead is a series of stories about the Ya-Yas and their kids, the Petite Ya-Yas. Some were mildly amusing, but I picked this up thinking it would be a novel, a continuation of the story or something. Bloom must have wanted some fast cash and traded off a series that was loved by women. Bad idea. With the sub par Bloom, she managed to taint the whole Ya-Ya series.

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris - Harris is most known for Chocolat, the book that was made into a movie featuring the divine Johnny Depp. G&P is set in a British prep school, St. Oswalds. The novel is told from two perspectives, that of Roy Straightley a Classics teacher who's been at the school for 30 years and Julian Snyde, the child of St. Oswald's caretaker. Julian has a pretty poor, bleak childhood at his local school so he decides to sneak about St. Oswald's and fit in as a student there. It works and he even makes a friend. Drama goes down though and 15 years later Julian returns with an alias and a vengeance and manages to get hired as a professor at the school. He is then set upon bringing St. Oswald's down. The story goes back and forth in time and is a very intriguing one. Plus it has a magnificent twist at the end. I did not even come close to guessing this twist, making it all the better, since it is plausible. I ended up caring for both the school, Straightley and many of the other assorted players that make up the novel - from the backbiting teachers to the rebellious but lovable students.

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