Escape by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer (#18, nonfiction)

I found this book completely riveting. The writing and actual story-telling ability were mediocre at best, but the underlying story is just so out there, and she does an amazing job including tons of specific details and stories. I was hooked.

I am completely fascinated by extremist groups, specifically those that exist in the United States. In high school I did a report on the incident at Ruby Ridge. That was back before the whole Internet craze, so I actually had to read books about the incident.

The story is of Carolyn Jessop, who was born into a polygamist family. At 18 she married Merrill Jessop, 50, and became his fourth wife and went on to have eight children in 15 years. She details her entire life, and the abuse, neglect, and oppression that finally caused her to flee the cult. (Merrill Jessop went on to father over 100 children!)

After I finished the book I quickly googled "Warren Jeffs" and boy was I in for a treat. I got to watch videos of him--he looked absolutely nothing like what I thought he would look like, I imagined him older, and fatter. Here he is with one of his brides.

I also got to watch videos from the raid of the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) ranch in 2008, and interviews with practicing members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

I would recommend the book to anyone because it's just so amazing that this took place in the 21st century.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (#17, Classic)

I believe that I have evolved as a reader by plowing through this one. Remember Virginia Woolfe and my distaste for that little literary technique she is so well-known for--STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS? Well, guess what Faulkner is so special for? Yeah. You guessed it--confusing the hell out of the reader.

The book is broken down into four chapters, all narrated in a different voice, and all taking place on different days. That seems simple enough, but throw in steam of consciousness, no punctuation, moving forward and backward in time with no heads up, and that makes for one confused bnizzle.

After reading the first chapter I had a fuzzy idea of the plot. I was aware that it was being narrated by the special needs brother, and I knew his narration jumped around in time, and I got that he had a special connection with his sister Caddy, but beyond that a lot escaped me. I was lost and confused and not all that interested in continuing.

So, I went online and found the wikipedia and sparknotes websites about the book. Is that cheating? Did it ruin it for me? At first I thought maybe yes to both, but honestly, I think it was the only move I could make to salvage the book for me. I went back into the book, with three-quarters left to go, and I knew who was narrating, what they were thinking, and what was going to happen, and it made the book way more enjoyable, and a more manageable puzzle.

I don't know that I will pick up another Faulkner book soon, but I have definitely not written him off.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (#16, Contemporary Literature)

Ignatius J. Reilly is quite possibly one of the most memorable characters of all time. Infamous may be the best way to describe him or possibly ridiculous and most definitely infuriating! Sometimes he says things that made me laugh out loud, and others made me want to throw the book down in annoyance.

I highly recommend this book to most people. Apparently it is classified as a "guy book." I'm not sure I can adequately explain what that means, but I think I would probably have to agree. There is a lot of potty humor, which I generally don't find all that entertaining, but somehow it works and doesn't come off in a slap stick manner. We read it for book club and we discussed this theme, and a lot of the other girls agreed they don't normally find potty humor funny, but somehow John Kennedy Toole made Ignatius gross, and disgusting, but did not lose all his civilized female readers. :)

There are a ton of great characters and themes and it all ties together at the end. It was funny in such a clever way. It really is too bad that this is his only book.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (#11, Contemporary Fiction)

How can it be that I have never read Toni Morrison? Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, has been on my list for a while. And yes my friends, it is an Oprah Book Club pick. In fact, Morrison is the most recurring author on that list with which I have had an ongoing love/hate relationship with.

My book club voted this one as our April read, but as we all started to read it, we all decided we didn't like it. It is kind of an unpleasant book; there isn't anything in it to lift the spirits and inspire you. It is what Morrison intended; a hard, unflinching look at the wide reaching effects of slavery on into the 20th century. The slaves were emancipated from their physical chains, but what about the emotional ones? The characters in this novel struggle with the paralyzing white ideals of beauty. Pecola is the subject of the novel, the specimen we have to study and watch unravel as she eeks out an existence that can barely be considered such by our modern day standards. It's not a small wonder that none of us particularly like this book. There is incest, child molestation, and other similar horrors. And there is no happy ending here.

On a technical note, Morrison is a great writer and I enjoyed the slow unfolding of the story through multiple points of view. I further illuminated the villainous characters and you couldn't help but be both disgusted by and sympathetic to them.

Perfume by Patrick Sueskind (#10, Contemporary Literature)

I am not one to forget which books I read and the order that I read them in, but somehow this one slipped my mind! Sarah got me this book for Valentine's Day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I had to take a break in the middle of it to read the horrendous Jane Green novel, Second Chance.

Patrick Süskind's Perfume is perhaps one of the strangest stories I have ever read. Oddly enough, it was the book I read right after Jitterbug Perfume and you can imagine how much my mind was swimming in smells and scents and all things olfactory. Perfume is the story of THE supernose, which is someone (generally a man) has a nose that can detect the minutest of scents that go into perfumes. I don't want to describe too many details because I think I would have enjoyed the book much more had I known very little about the premise.

Perfume is historical, weird, gripping and oddly creepy. It will make you start to analyze the scents that make up your own world and it will make you yearn for the perfect perfume. If only I had a bottle of the ultimate perfume...

Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley (#15, Fiction)

I saw this movie almost exactly three years ago. Wow, was that really only three years ago? It feels like a lifetime. Anyway.

A co-worker said the book was much better than the movie, so I figured I'd check it out. I enjoyed the movie, the satire of the subject is pretty ridiculous, (that is satire, right?) and I enjoyed the book as well.

It is pretty awesome reading a book set in the city in which one works and lives. I envisioned Nick walking down Rhode Island Avenue, enjoying the cherry blossoms like I have been doing this month, and I can picture him scurrying around the Mall covered in nicotine patches and being picked up by some cop on a horse! That's not the way it happened in the book, but I really like the horse cops, so that's going to be my version.

The book is a quick read. Very entertaining, and full of messed up and crazy characters. I really enjoyed how Buckley wrote the southern accents--"Ah'd lak to thank Mistuh Nayla fuh his courage in attendin' today's hea'ngs." How great is that? I can just read it over and over again and actually hear some dirty old Senator speaking.

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend reading the book first! And if you have seen the movie, why not read the book?

The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens (#9, Contemporary Lit)

A fellow English major turned bartender recommended Peter Behrens' The Law of Dreams, a book that I most definitely would never have picked up of my own accord. This just isn't the type of book I would normally go for. When Baylis mentioned it to me initially, I was uninterested and wrote it off as a book about a topic that I wasn't really into reading about. But then she continued to rave about it and brought it in for me to borrow and I gave in to peer pressure.

I was immediately sucked in though, as Behrens is a great writer. His descriptions of Ireland are so gritty and detailed that sometimes I could almost smell what Fergus, the main character, was smelling. The Law of Dreams tells the story of a young Irish boy orphaned by the potato famine and his subsequent journey to America. There is nothing pretty or uplifting about this story. Tragedy seems to follow Fergus where ever he goes and he seemingly has the worst luck with women. Based upon the characters in this novel, I would tell you never to trust a red headed lass.

Behrens conducted a lot of research for this book, which was very, very loosely based upon his own family history and toward the end, when Fergus was making the crossing to North America, definitely made me think about my own Irish heritage and when my own ancestors made a similar crossing. I'd like to know the Collins story. How did we end up in Alabama? When did we cross the ocean? Do we even know these facts about our family history?