Woman, Eating; The Ravaged

 

I think I've read more in the last three days than I have in three months. I was on jury duty so I had a lot of breaks and got through these two books plus almost finished a third and got halfway through a fourth!

I didn't particularly care for "Woman, Eating". I don't know why. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't my thing. Lydia is a vampire, her mother is also a vampire (her father was human, but he died before Lydia was born) and turned Lydia shortly after she was born because she was dying. Lydia is now in her early twenties and appears normal. She can go out in the sun if she wears lots of sunscreen. She just can't eat normal food but she really wants to. A lot of the book talked about the different foods she wished she could try and how she had to eat this disgusting dried pig's blood she found online. She was slowly starving because she couldn't find enough blood to sustain herself. Honestly it just made me really hungry. 

"The Ravaged" by Norman Reedus was more up my alley. Reedus plays Daryl on "The Walking Dead" (played? Is it still on the air? I stopped watching years ago). This book told the stories of three people who were each going through something similar but their lives never intersected. Hunter, who is a mechanic, finds out his dad passed away in a "mysterious" house fire out in California. He and two of his buddies, Nugget and Itch, hop on their motorcycles and head out for a cross country drive, making some friends and enemies along the way. Hunter also uncovers some family secrets. Jack is in South America. He's a successful and wealthy businessman who lost his family: his daughter committed suicide, his wife died, his mother died, and he and his son are estranged because his son didn't live up to Jack's ideals. Jack is trying to figure out what to do with his life. He has some interesting adventures, including being kidnapped twice. And then there's Anne. She has abusive parents and terrible siblings, so she and her best friend, Trot, hop a train and head out of town, looking for a brighter future. They hook up with some other teenagers who ride the rails. It was a fun read, Hunter's story kind of left itself open to a sequel but I'm not sure about Jack and Anne.