What Have I Been Reading?

Holy moly I simply cannot choose a happy book with lots of sex and witty repartee can I?  This week, at the recommendation of Amazon.com, I read “The Kindness of Strangers” by Katrina Kittle.  This was another couldn’t-put-down book, I’ll give you that, but the content…

Sarah Laden has been widowed for two years.  She has a 17-year-old son and a 10-year-old son and her income comes from catering, which she does out of her home.  Her close friend Courtney and Courtney’s husband Mark hire Sarah two to three times a month to cater dinner parties that Mark throws for clients and business associates.  Courtney and Mark have a 10-year-old son Jordan, who is socially awkward and used to be friends with Sarah’s Danny until they had some sort of falling out.

There’s your background.  The rest of the book is about something horrific (again I use this word) that happens to Jordan’s family, leaving him in the foster care of Sarah and her boys.  Again, total page-turner, and while it’s not a happy story and the characters will always be somewhat haunted by the past, there is a happy ending that gives the reader hope for others in the same predicament.

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After I finished “The Kindness of Strangers” I started “Purple Hibiscus” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the recommendation of Mom’s friend Fran, though Mom had not read it herself yet.

I finally just quit this book today.  It’s about two Nigerian siblings, Kambili and her brother Jaja who live in an ultra-strict, ultra-religious household.  Their father is very wealthy and holds a lot of clout in their community as well as their church.  The have strict schedules to adhere to and nothing less than perfection is allowed.  Meanwhile, they see their father’s father only once per year, at Christmas, for 15 minutes.  They are not allowed to eat or drink anything from his home because he does not follow their father’s Christian principles.  They also see their father’s sister when she visits occasionally, and eventually have the opportunity to visit her and her children in their shack of a home for a week.  That’s as far as I have gotten.  I just don’t like it.  It’s not a happy book, it’s not exciting, I think it’s about to become political and it’s just – for lack of a better word – boring.  Maybe it’s just not in my genre and that’s why I don’t like it, but whatever the reason – it’s going back to the library.  If any of you enjoy the same books as I, I’m guessing you won’t enjoy this one.

Now off to start Jennifer Egan’s “Invisible Circus” after a Facebook status recommendation.