Recent Reads

I kind of took a break from reading recently too (what have I been doing?), but I've still read quite a few books recently.

I'm not normally a huge historical fiction book, but this one was a pretty easy and interesting read.  It's set in Italy during WWII and supposedly was based off of a true story.  It follows a young art restorer, her lover, his business partner, and the business partner's wife.  Everything revolves around a painting that the Nazi's want, but no one wants to hand over.  It had a lot of art terms that I didn't really understand, but it was still interesting.

Jessica Hagedorn is supposed to be a really good writer, so I had high hopes for this book, but it ended up just being weird and annoying.  It's told from the viewpoint of lots of different people and it's really hard to keep up with.  It follows an older woman who used to be a famous writer, her lesbian lover, her next door neighbor who she wants to be her lesbian lover and the next door neighbor's teenage daughter.  There are lots of drugs and lots of weird scenarios.  I don't really understand how an old invalid woman that can hardly move can do so much cocaine.  Who is supplying this lady?

I really liked this book.  It reminded me a little bit of "The Lovely Bones", but with a different twist.  The book revolved around the disappearance of a young teenage girl by an older man in the neighbor hood.  It's all about how her best friend, her family and the girl herself cope with the tragedy.  It ends a little strangely, but overall was a really good read.

This book was readable, but wasn't anything too memorable.  It's very "Something Borrowed" and I felt like I had read this book more than a few times.  Basically best friends end up breaking up over a man.  It's all about how they deal with their break up and what happens with their new relationship.  It was pretty blah.

This one goes without saying.  It was pretty cheesy and written pretty poorly, but I'm definitely hooked.  I had to run into Wal-Mart over the weekend and tried to find the other two, but they didn't have them.  I didn't know if it was because it was sold out or because the little town we live in isn't really into that sort of thing.  Needless to say, I'll be scoping them out at Barnes & Noble next.

What books have you read recently???