Astrid & Veronika

Book Review
Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson is about two hurting women. Astrid is eighty-years old and is a hermit, staying in her own house, having no friends, and socializing with no one. Veronika is thirty and has come to live in the house next door to Astrid. These are the only two houses in the area. Veronika has come to write her book and to recover from the loss of her fiancé.

Astrid is inexplicably drawn to Veronika and the two women head out on the road of friendship. They each tell the other about their life and their hurts and their darkest secrets. Both women heal from their pains.

As I read this book, I didn’t really enjoy it. I couldn’t connect with the characters. I thought the story that was being told was good, but I just couldn’t connect with either Astrid or Veronika.

I read this book for the book club that I’m in. After going to book club and discussing this book, I like it better. This is not a surface book. It is better appreciated when you have time to think about it. Maybe if I wasn’t in a hurry to read it so I could pass it on to the next person in the group to read, I might have found the beauty in it as I read.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Book Review
I recently finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It’s our book of the month for the book club I’m in.

It’s a story about a girl growing up in Brooklyn after the turn of the century. Her family is quite poor, often not having enough to eat for days. The book describes in detail life of the struggling, immigrant poor at this time in a city. How they bought bread and meat. How they scraped together money. How the children spent their time.

The book mostly follows around Francie Nolan from birth until she is seventeen. Her mother works hard and usually has a steady cleaning job that doesn’t pay much. She is centered on providing for her family. Her father is more of a dreamer and has little concern for having a steady job to take care of his family. When he does get sporadic work and money, he drinks half of it away. He is a likable fellow though and truly loves his wife and children. He just doesn’t really know how to take care of them. The mother knew this when she married him but also knew she would do most anything to have him.

Francie is a smart girl who develops her own opinions. Like her mother she has an inner strength to be a survivor. She loves to read and loves to learn. She has nothing monetarily but she and her brother are quite happy and seem to have a good childhood in spite of their circumstances. I think that because they have the love of both parents, their childhood is good.

Fittingly, the story wraps up with the family moving away from Brooklyn and their circumstances improved.

For me the book seemed to start out slow and without a clear purpose. I had a hard time connecting with the characters. If it were not for needing to read it for book club, I would have set it down and not picked it up again until it was time to return it to the library. But because I was forced to continue to read, I did eventually connect with the characters and care about their well being.

Even though it’s a classic, it’s not a book I’m excited about, but I’m glad I finished it.

He's Just Not That Into You

Movie Review

I went and saw He’s Just Not That Into You with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston yesterday.

This movie is about the struggles of dating and finding the right person in the 21st century. All the things the twenty-something crowd does right but mostly what they do wrong when looking for love. How to read signals to tell if the other person likes you and will call you or should you call them. This movie is very up to date with all the current technology being used in the modern dating ritual.

At times this movie was hard to watch be cause of the struggles and pain involved with rejections. I was rooting for Gigi to find a nice guy who would treat her well. As she tried over and over to find Mr. Right, she kept waiting for a Mr. Wrong to call her back. They never did. This I didn’t understand. She was so sweet and likeable.

There are several romance and anti-romance story lines. There is Gigi who is actively searching for love. There is a married couple who is struggling. There is a guy who likes a girl who likes this other guy who is married. There is a couple where she wants to get married but he doesn’t. And there is Mary (Drew) who meets men via technology but never in person. I liked the way the unrelated stories had character connections.

I would watch this movie again. I thought it was a good study in the current dating culture. I would recommend this movie to my friends. ☺

Odd Thomas - Book Review

I just finished reading Odd Thomas for the second time and LOVED it once again.

Odd is sweet, sensitive and definitely the reluctant hero, but wherever people are in danger Odd is right there on the front line to do whatever he can to help save anyone he can. He is a simple man, a short order cook and is good at his job. He does not have lofty goals; he just wants to live a quiet normal life with his love, Stormy Llewellyn.

I have heard Odd Thomas, the main character in the series of books by Dean Koontz, described as the boy from Sixth Sense grown up. Odd is his first name, and he is indeed a bit odd. He sees dead people and the dead don’t talk.

The lingering spirits of the dead come to Odd for a variety of reasons, some come for him to help them. One spirit hangs around him daily, Elvis. Though Elvis doesn’t talk, he is quite a character. He also sees demon spirits that clue him into that something terrible is about to happen. So he goes off to figure out what this terrible thing is, when it is going to happen, and try top stop it.

Even though there is suspense and people could die and Odd sees dead people, Odd Thomas differs from The Sixth Sense in that the story is filled with humor, littered with it. The light tone that Dean Koontz uses through the eyes of his main character is masterful. As in the opening scene where Odd is chasing a child killer through someone’s house and up into a child’s bedroom. He grabs a lamp to smash over the killer’s head, but not just a plain boring lamp, a panda bear lamp, and not just a panda bear lamp but a smiling panda bear lamp. In the fight and flurry of the chase, the contrast to the smiling lamp can hit you as funny. I laughed many times while reading this book even though Odd was racing toward doom and danger. I laughed, I cried, and I held my breath. I would give Odd Thomas 5 out of 5 stars.

So far there are four Odd Thomas books, Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, and Odd Hours. I have read them all and loved them all. I have heard that there will be maybe up to seven books in the Odd series. I can’t wait for the rest.