Some Recently Read Books

Since I'm calling this a book blog, I thought I should mention some books. I recently read The Road by Comac McCarthy. It is beautifully written and haunting..but the subject matter is difficult. The book tells the story of a young boy and his father wandering in a post-apocolyptic United States; scavenging for food and avoiding other survivors, some of whom are cannibals. The releationship between the father and son is touching, as is their attempt to hold on to goodness under very trying circumstances. I highly recommend this adult novel.

I also read the teen novel, Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer. The third book in a series featuring teen Bella Swan and her Vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen, continues storylines introduced in the previous two volumes. There is more about the tension between Edward's vampire "family" and a group of werewolves who live nearby (one of them, Jacob, is also in love with Bella). Bella still want to become a Vampire herself, and as her high school graduation approaches, so does the time when Edward promised to transform her. These books are fun reads, and are really teen romances, with lots of sexual tension (but little or no action) and an overlay of the supernatural (vampires and werewolves) to add to the excitement. The books are best read in order-- the first is Twilight, followed by New Moon. I can see why these are so popular with older teen girls.

The third book I want to comment on is called The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd, due out in 2008. It is a British mystery story with an adolescent protagonist who has an Autism Spectrum Disorder, so it is being compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. While Dowd's book is entertaining, and the mystery has some unanticipated twists, I thought that the depiction of the main character is less convincing than the protagonist in Curious Incident, but maybe you have to know a lot about Asperger's to pick that up.