Long Weekend book review

Hmmm - I typed an entry for this yesterday and it seems to have disappeared.

This weekend I read:

How to be Good by Nick Hornby - This was written by the same person who wrote High Fidelity and another book on my list that I can't think of. I had high hopes. It was...okay. There were a few little gems in it but overall, I really had to plug away at it instead of it reading it in a panic to finish it as I usually do with books that I'm not indifferent about. I really didn't care about any of the characters. The main character likes to think she's "good" because she cares about all the right things and is a doctor. Her husband is generally "not good" and their marriage is also not good. He then has an epiphany of sorts and becomes Good (with a capital "G") and actually tries to do good things. This causes her to go into crisis because she has trouble believing she's "good". Meh - it wasn't great. Why do we care about these people? Why do I want things to work out for them. Mostly I felt bad for their kids but they weren't the main characters.

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson - This was a very quick read. I enjoyed it even though it was a bit schmultzy (sp?). It's a story within a story à la Heart of Darkness but without all the literary accolades. The woman in the "outside" story gets her heart broken by a man who she thinks she's going to marry. A few days later, she finds a Diary with the title of the book on it and a note in his handwriting to read it so she understands. The "inside" story is Suzanne's story - it becomes clear very quickly that Suzanne is/was (nobody's sure at this point, it's a bit of a mystery through most of the book although it's somewhat predictable) the man's wife and Nicholas is their son. It's fairly predictable but a nice story and you really get to feel for all the people involved which was a nice change from the previous book.

What I'm reading now: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson