#35: One Breath Away

Last night I finished One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf.  I have really enjoyed her other books and I liked this one as well.  It's the story of a gunman in a school during the middle of a snow storm the day before spring break.  It's broken out as each chapter being from a different person's point of view, so we learn a lot about the characters this way.  One character was a child in the school looking for her brother, one was the grandpa, one was the mother, and one was the police officer.
I felt that I really liked learning about the characters, with the exception of Holly (the mom) I really liked them.  The story seemed to have some suspense as we didn't know who the gunman was until the very end.  There were lots of twists to get you to guess who it was, but it wasn't until the police finally were going in that I could guess who it was.
At times it was a little cheesy, but overall it was a good read.  I definitely like Gudenkauf's writing.

#34: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

I just finished the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg.  I remember loving this movie, but had never read the book.  It was on the eating themed table at the library, so I decided to read it for book club.  We are doing a "potluck" theme next week.

I really liked this book.  There were a lot of extra details in the book that I didn't remember from the movie.  I really enjoyed all the characters as well.

#33: Brown Girl Dreaming

I recently read the book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson.  This was the story of Jacqueline's childhood told through poems and songs.  It was beautifully written.  I loved learning how she started writing and found the history and her childhood very interesting.

#32: The Secret Keeper

Yesterday I finished The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.  This was a story about a group of sibling coming home to visit their mother Dorothy who is dying.  While talking to her mom ,the oldest daughter, Laurel keeps remembering something that happened in their childhood.  She feels her mother is hiding a huge secret and starts her research to find out more about her mother's life during the war years.

Laurel works quickly and ends up finding a lot of information about her mother.  She also has her brother Gerry help to find out more.  I loved hearing the war time story of Dorothy, Vivien, Jimmy, and all the others.  This was a great story with a perfect secret/twist that I loved.

#31: The Dinner

I recently read The Dinner by Herman Koch.  It's a story of 2 brothers going out to a fancy dinner with their wives.  One of the brother's is famous and running for a political office, so he keeps getting recognized everywhere and gets "fancy" treatment.  The whole point of the dinner is the discuss something horrible that their sons have done and how they are going to handle it.

I really hated all the characters in this book.  I also felt the book was written in a slow tone for such an important subject.  Look back, I think that maybe the slow tone was to go along with how horrible and unemotional the characters seem.

This book was both boring and disgusting at the same time.