Book Review

In the personal update portion, my voice finally came back. Although, in spite of me being proud of it, my dad heard the message I left on his voicemail and said, "Your voice sounds ragged." Sigh. We're getting there. But it's time again for the book reviews that I keep promising I'll never do again. But I've been reading and some stuff has been good, so here goes.

Alright, I tried amazon.com and they'd never heard of my first book, and amazon.co.uk has heard of it, but has no picture. So it's Paradise by Tina Shaw. The reason it's lesser known is because it's by a Kiwi author. I tread on a few feet by saying this next bit, but it's still true: I don't like a lot of Kiwi books because the ones I've read have been a lot of "you'll never understand how it is to grow up in South Auckland; I mean, am I right?" Well, I wouldn't know. Because I didn't grow up in South Auckland. My point is that you usually have to be a Kiwi to get all the inside jokes, social more references, etc. But this book addresses those without alienating the reader. And I dug it anyway because it deals with the concepts of "paradise" and traveling, etc. So I highly recommend it and it's a good Kiwi author. Secondly, I read the book The Third Brother by Nick McDonell.



This is his second novel, the first of which Twelve, I read while flying back to the States for Christmas. I will always think of Gate 58 in LAX when I think of this book. He is really young to be such a great author (he wrote the first book at 17), but has that gritty Manhattan rich kid vibe that reminds me of Cruel Intentions, but better. I liked this book as well. It is rare that I get two books out of a random selection that are really good, but these were and I always feel the need to pass it along.

And see? I've been a good girl recuperating from illness, bedridden and bookladen.