Superstitous by R.L. Stine

This is the author who writes the Goosebumps horror series for kids. Yea, this is horror all right. Horrible storyline and horrible writing. I've wanted to check out the Goosebumps series and still do but this story was so bad! I could not finish it so skipped to the end just to see if my theories about the "bad guy" were correct. They were.

Spoiler alert, the bad guy was possessed by demons and the only way to get rid of the demons was to have a child who would in turn be possessed by the demons. He finds some sucker to marry him but then regrets it and "saves" her. Oops too late she is pregnant. That's the cliffhanger. I don't want to be awkward and mention it but this seems like the easiest out ever...abortion...shhhh

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Non-fiction! The story: a group of MIT students who through a card counting system can beat the dealer and win at blackjack. They proceed to make millions, from Vegas to Atlantic City and every Indian reservation in between. Mildly interesting but the main character was annoying and kinda dense for someone who is supposed to be so smart. He was portrayed as having some mild regret for what he did and I think it would have been a hell of a lot cooler if the guy just owned up to it. I mean for gods sake, if you are going to do something pretty cool don’t be acting like a little boy who got caught cutting school. Man up! Yes, I won millions and had hottie prostitutes all over me because I had boatloads of cash. Done, see how easy that was?

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve

I usually love her stories but this one didn’t really do it for me. The story was set in the months shortly after 9/11 and that was a huge focus of the book so maybe it is too specific to the time and reading it ten years later loses something. Anita Shreve seemed out of touch with modern times and she seemed especially out of touch when trying to write anything about the fifteen year old son of one of the main characters. For example, there was one scene where the boy and his friend drank a fifth of vodka one night. The next morning he was unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital where they couldn’t pump his stomach because ALL the vodka had been absorbed by his body. The son proceeded to be “unconscious” all day. While a fifth of vodka is a good amount of alcohol and if you shared it with one other person you would most certainly be drunk I don’t think it would lead to you being unconscious all the next day. It seemed a stupid story to include in the larger story.

Other oddities:

The book is about a group of friends who haven’t seen each other in 25 years but two of the friends are getting married to each other and inexplicably invite all these people they were friends with in high school who they haven’t seen in 25 years! But no one else…

They do invite the brides mom and sister but quickly make excuses for them to leave so we can focus on the friends from high school.

The women getting married has cancer, is probably dying but still her Mom and sister make excuses to not be around her wedding weekend. “Time to hit the outlets” aiii. Makes no sense.

Anita Shreve is a great writer so all is not lost but a big old shrug on the story itself.

The Likeness by Tana French

Right after I finished reading and being blown away by Into the Woods I was at the airport (the only place I buy new books) and saw another book by Tana French. I was having that internal debate over all the options and trying to read the first chapter to make sure I didn’t accidently buy a kids book (which is how I ended up reading Twilight) Anyway, I saw The Likeness and scooped it up immediately and hot damn, if it wasn’t even better than Into the Woods! I probably liked it more because it didn’t leave all the loose ends that the other one did but still had excellent writing, interesting characters and Cassie too! Who I think kicks ass, I want to go hang out in her apartment and eat dinner and talk about the shit going on in her crazy life. Ok, maybe not she does seem like she needs a friend but shit, man, she brings the drama! This is just a great story that is f’ed up as all get out.