The God Hater by Bill Myers

This book is really, really thought-provoking. As a stay-at-home mom for the past 10 years, my brain is slowly withering away and I can use some provoking of my thoughts. Here's the story: A computer programming has set up a virtual civilization that mimics ours. The point? To be a market predictor of everything from goods and services, outcomes of elections, catastrophes and anything else you might need or want to predict. The problem? 1. He is having to steal computer memory in order to keep it up and running so the government isn't thrilled. 2. He has created artificial intelligence and a lot of nebulous bad guys would like to steal the technology 3. The civilization keeps killing itself off.

It seems that without order and law they just can't survive. And so, the law must be introduced from an outside source. It is and it helps, until the inhabitants decide that the law is all-powerful and once again start killing each other off. And so an itermediary arrives, to interpret and apply the law. Sound familiar? It is an allegory of Christianity and a very interesting one. And while all of THAT is happening in the virtual world, in our world, their are explosions, gun battles, kidnappings, and killings.

I will think about this book for a long time coming. If you end up reading this book and like it, check out the VERY dark The Sparrow, one of my favorite all-time books.

After You by Julie Buxbaum

I finished this book this afternoon and I LOVED it. It is a simple story, well written, I loved the characters and I just really really loved this book.

Ellie, suffering from the loss of her unborn baby, Oliver and the withering of her self and her marriage is shocked when she learns that her best friend Lucy has been murdered. Not only that, but Lucy's daughter Sophie, age 8, has been a witness. Ellie immediately rushes across the Atlantic to London to be with Sophie.

Focusing on Sophie, her marriage completely collapses. Ellie is shocked to learn things she didn't know about her husband, her best friend and herself.

This was a lovely book (which pays homage to a fabulous book The Secret Garden) and I loved it. Did I already say that?

The author also wrote the book The Opposite of Love which I will be reserving as soon as I finish this post!

On This Day: A Novel by Melody Carlson

Someone's getting married! But this story is about the guests: the bride's best friend who is newly engaged, her aunt who is sick of her husband, her grandmother who is missing her departed husband, her grooms' boss' wife who is being cheated on, and maybe some other charecter who isn't memorable?

Anyway, this is a cute book about women, most of whom I found slightly annoying. But it was cute. Good book for the beach, you can leave it there when you leave!

Oh!!! The other charecter is her sister-in-law who is insecure and a new mother. I liked her.

And Then there was One

Identical triplets go to the movies with their cousin. When the movies are over, only one comes out. Where are the other two?

Their parents are a major league baseball player and a psychologist who deals with the monsters of the world. Does one of them know the kidnapper?

The author then gives you a slew of evil, horrible monsters who may or may not have the girls. It is every boogeyman story you have ever heard...to the point that it is tedious and unbelievable. I did keep reading, just to find out what happens, but I was annoyed. Didn't like it.

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

I started this book, set it aside and then tried again. I really really liked this book. Set in the midst of the Vietnam war, a young woman has set out to become a female photojournalist. She is there, in part, to uncover the truth of her brother's death. She meets a man, falls in love (or something), suffers through his death, the death of friends, the collapse of a nation and the turmoil of war.

In some ways it is darker than this description and some it is lighter. It is about love and loss and war and horror.

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund

This book was good and interesting and irrelevant. I kept waiting for a greater meaning or a sense of enlightenment or something to think about and NOTHING.

But it was good. Basically, this woman Lucy(or Eve) is left alone after her husband dies (or was murdered?). She falls in with a plot to smuggle a version of GENESIS out of one country into another. En route, her plane crashes into a weird, impossible Eden, complete with a sexy yet possibly mentally derranged Adam.

Then a bunch of other stuff happens and in the end nothing really happens and it was stupid. :)

Maybe This Time by Jennifer Cruise

This book is chick lit with a twist of ghosts, orphans, haunted mansion and quirkiness. It was cute and romantic and I liked it.

Andie is divorced and shows up at her ex-husband (of 10 years) to hand over all 10 years worth of uncashed alimony checks. She is getting remarried and wants to be done with him. He asks her to do him one last favor and go take care of 2 orphans who are in his charge. They are troubled and it's a bad situation that he has held at arms-length (it's not the strongest story line ever). So she goes and the house is haunted and all kinds of hi-jinks occur. It's an interesting mix of silly romance novel with a bit of a mystery (but not much of one). I did like it though. It was 'cute'.