I really wanted to like "Hour of Peril" by Daniel Staphower. It seemed like an interesting subject, about how Allan Pinkerton thwarted a conspiracy to kill President Elect Lincoln in Baltimore on his way to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. But it just didn't hold my attention and I honestly couldn't get into it. I should have stopped reading it, because it was just a waste of time, but I really wanted it to get better.
"After Visiting Friends" by Michael Hainey was really good. When Michael was six, his uncle came to their house one morning to tell him that his dad was dead. As Michael got older, he asked what happened, but his mother wouldn't talk about it. Following in his dad's footsteps, Michael became a journalist and set about investigating his dad's death. The obituaries gave him his first clue: one paper said he died in the street after "visiting friends". Michael couldn't remember anyone who lived in that neighborhood, and most of the people who would know were long dead or, like his mother, refused to talk about it. Michael finally gets to the truth and realizes that it doesn't really matter, after all.
I was really trying not to reread any old books this year, but a friend of mine at work read "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner for the first time and so we were talking about it and next thing I knew I was pulling one of my copies off my shelf to read again. I hadn't read it in a long time, so I was glad I did. It really is very funny. Now I am totally in the mood to reread the Snopes trilogy. Sigh.
"Cross My Heart, Hope to Die" by Sara Shepard is the fifth Lying Games book. Emma thinks her crazy birth mother Becky might have been responsible for Sutton's death, but eventually she is cleared. Now it looks like Emma's boyfriend, Ethan, might be a good suspect. He's definitely hiding something.
"Eleanor and Park" by Rainbow Rowell was absolutely beautiful. It's a YA book set in 1986. Park is half-Korean and Eleanor is pudgy with flaming red hair. She's so poor she shares a room with three brothers and sisters and her stepdad beats her mom. Forced to share a seat on the bus to school, eventually Park and Eleanor come to realize how much they like each other. It was a lovely portrait of first time love, especially the part about the hours long phone calls where you don't really talk about anything but you somehow talk about everything? Oh, I remember those :)
And finally, a children's book called "The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen" by Susin Nielsen. It was really powerful. Henry's therapist wants him to keep a journal to help him deal with his anger and sadness about his older brother, Jesse. Jesse spent years being bullied by a boy named Scott. Jesse finally can't take it anymore, gets his dad's hunting rifle, goes to school and kills Scott and then himself. Henry's mother has a nervous breakdown and is in a mental hospital. Henry and his dad move to Vancouver to try to rebuild their lives. While the subject matter was really heavy, it was told with such honesty and humor that it wasn't overwhelming.
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