Unsettling

One has to wonder about the author a little bit--maybe in his formative years he read Lolita and that really imprinted on him what a sexy relationship is like. I know it was only a story but I found it a bit disturbing. Rose is 14, and from a poor family. She is sold to a household as a cook/maid, and you probably have guessed, for nefarious other uses. There's the requisite ice-cold grand dame, withered and stone-hearted, the "master" who is evil to the core and ugly to boot, and of course, the anti-hero love interest who is more than twice Rose's age. There are some twists, later on in the tale, but I found a lot of it tedious and heavy with philosophy, and just didn't really care, as I'd divorced myself from the characters early on to avoid the sadistic force-feeding nature of the book. Not my flavor.

The Name Says It All!

This sweet book tells has a wonderful array of photos of unlikely (and to some, unloveable) heroes, and gives a short, lively bio of each. Jennifer's supposition is that by dumping our notions of worthiness based on a stereotypical expectation of what "cute" really is, we can appreciate these "ugly" creatures and then, perhaps, do the same with each other. Actually, I thought most of them were just cute. And wouldn't we be better off to give our neighbor the same consideration? It's a keeper. :)

This Is Why Language Was Developed

First of all, Jamey can write. From the outset, you just glide along, forgetting that this isn't someone across the table telling you their story. The nuts and bolts are that Tracy, her brother and father are getting by after her mom's accidental death. You learn a lot about some family secrets (love that, at first), there's a sneak attack on Tracy, and then a different man conveniently shows up to trade work for rent--coincidence? That being said, for me, the story being told gets frustrating because over and over, they could have avoided this or that unfortunate event just by having a very basic conversation and being just a tad less secretive. And then there's THE event, which, well, you'd have to read it and I'm not a spoiler. A little nudge over on the fantasy side for me, but like I said, the writing was so good that it was good anyway.