The Angel's Game--Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Let me just say that I LOVE Carlos Ruiz Zafon. His writing is beautiful. He has a way with words. I love his stories too! This one was no exception. The story was engrossing and captivating, and beautifully written! It is kind of a mystery, but more just suspenseful. At one point I thought  I had it figured it out and then there was a twist and I thought something else was going to happen and I was so worried! But then there was a turn to the twist, and, well, I don't want to give anything away, but it was a great story. I honestly couldn't put it down.

The Vintage Books of Contemporary Short Stories --Tobias Wolff

I love short stories. You can read something with a beginning, middle, and an end, and because they are "short", the language tends to be beautiful, concise, and what could be said in 300 pages is usually told in 100. I also like them because sometimes I just don't want to read a full blown novel. Short stories are great because it's a small commitment!

That being said, this collection of short stories is incredibly depressing. I was assigned this book in my senior seminar class in college. It was rough because like I said, a lot of the stories were sad and hard hitting, so having to read 4-5 stories in a sitting for review was no fun. I felt like I needed to watch Disney movies after each assignment to get my spirits back up! But even with all that, the stories were beautifully crafted and always enthralling, just not in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. It was a good thing these were short stories, because if they were novels, I don't think I would have made it through any of them!

Clive Cussler Novels

The Lost Empire and The Tombs

Oka, I reviewed Cussler's Spartan Gold, and I read these two in succession. I liked them, don't get me wrong, but I think I was just overloaded with Cussler. I feel like, yes, these are very action packed, mystery laden books, but Jesus, the Fargo's have ALL the luck, ALL the resources, and ALL the help they ever need. I mean, I know it wouldn't be as fun if something horrible happened to one of them, but if they struggled a little more, maybe it would be more believable! For example, in The Tombs, Remi gets kidnapped and held for ransom. And before long, she starts practicing the "system" her and Sam had put together, in case one of them got kidnapped, and before long she has escaped and at the same time Sam was there to come to the rescue. I don't know. I think I was just burned out on them. I wanted something bad to happen, just so it wouldn't be so predictable. I still think they are fun and exciting books, but it is going to be awhile before I pick another one of Cussler's books up. 

The Tiger's Wife--Tea Obreht

The Tiger's Wife

My first reading of Tea Obreht's writing was in one of my college lit classes, Short Story Collections, and my teacher brought us copies of Obreht's stories from The New Yorker. They were two separate pieces, and I guess compared to some of the authors we had been reading, Junot Diaz, Alice Munro, and Tobias Wolff's collection of American Contemporary Short Stories, which will be reviewed soon, and so these two stories just kind of came out of no where. Don't get me wrong, they were very rich, colorful, thought provoking stories. But anyways, what really got me was that this GIRL was under 25 and was already in the New Yorker! I thought that was just amazing! I, at the time, aspired to be a writer, but even though that's what I thought I wanted I knew my chances of being in the New Yorker by the time I was 25 just wasn't going to happen.

Flash forward a year or so after I graduate, and I don't remember where I saw it--either on an Amazon.com newsletter or a Goodreads.com email, but there she was, Tea Obreht, and her debut novel, The Tiger's Wife. I really wanted it. BUT times were tough, and buying it wasn't an option at the time. So I went to the library. They didn't have it. BUT they had it as an e-media file I could download onto my kindle. And of course there was a loooong waiting list to get it! So I signed up for it and waited. And then forgot about it. When the email came that a digital file was waiting for me, I had no idea what it was. Then I saw it was the debut novel, and just about devoured it!

Oka, so, it is about this girl who just lost her grandpa. He was sick, and she was the only one who knew, and before he died, he just went off and died alone, and his wife was hysterical and she knew that her grand daughter was the only one to figure out why and where he went. This was paired with flashbacks to time spent with her grandfather, and old tales, including the tale of the Tiger's Wife.

Let me clarify, when I "devoured" this book, it still took me about a week and a half to finish. True to Obreht's style, the language was at times dense, and the story moved from one place to the next and sometimes there were very long gaps between them, so I would have to backtrack to remember what had happened. Even with that, I loved the book and I really couldn't put it down. For someone so young, she is so eloquent and detailed in her writing. It sounds cliche, but she really does paint a picture, and she just immerses you in this life and story. It's amazing. She's 27 now. And has a novel. And has been featured in top 5 under 35. Amazing. Phenomenal. God, to be her!!!

Anyways, if you have time, pick this book up and let her language take you away.