Great New Books discussion
Book Recommendations
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Do you have a recent favorite book?
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Jennifer
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Mar 16, 2013 12:35PM
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I just finished Mannheim Rex by Robert Pobi. My secret guilty pleasure - horror novels! But this one was so well written and the character development was great, it was more of a story about lonely people finding each other. And about the fact that goals, no matter how lofty, can be accomplished against all odds. It was also about a man-eating musky the size of a locomotive. :-)
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I just finished Keowee Valley by Katherine Scott Crawford which was a fantastic historical adventure story set in the late 1700's South Carolina frontier. It is her debut novel and I was very, very impressed with her writing. It was one of those books I kept flipping pages to see what would happen next. A great, great read!
I finished The Painted Girls last night after reading constantly once I began. Set in late-1800s Paris, the book tells the story of three young sisters, Antoinette, Marie and Charlotte, living hand to mouth with their absinthe-addicted mother after the sudden death of their father. Working for pennies at the laundries, bakeries and brothels, two of the sisters focused on the Opera - where poor young girls trained for the ballet hoping for a shot at surviving the harsh reality of their surroundings. Weaving in historical figures like Degas and Pizarro, the author paints a picture of the era as the young dancers practiced their steps constantly to prepare for the exam that would move them from barely-paid students to stage ballerinas. Because that's where they would have the best chance of meeting wealthy men who would "sponsor" them, paying for their company and their food and lodging - a poor girl"s only chance of rising above the squalor of the surroundings to which she had been born. The oldest, Antoinette, who had already failed the ballet, developed an obsessive love for a young street criminal, who used her body and destroyed her humanity. It was heartbreaking to realize the less-than-human status of women during that period of history. Author Cathy Marie Buchanan doesn't tug at your heart strings - she rips out your guts describing the filth, poverty and oppression that stole women"s souls and turned them into prostitutes, alcoholics and common thieves.
