Brief Book Review

So I slept in this morning and started reading right after waking. I finished Laura Lippman's Baltimore Blues which I had been working on chapter-by-chapter during the last two busy work weeks, and I really enjoyed it. I like that Tess, the main character, wasn't portrayed as an expert from the get-go. Because this was her first book, too, she made mistakes, accepted help, and was admittedly flawed. My mom hasn't read Baltimore Blues yet, but jumped right into a few later novels, so it's interesting how our views differ. She's more familiar with an experienced Tess, while my Tess is still learning.

One thing I can say it that I wasn't able to predict the storyline. There were plenty of angles and subplots (VOMA, Crow, the uncle, etc) that it's obvious that the author really made an effort to avoid an obvious ending. After reading Dan Brown's Deception Point and being rather unimpressed with its predictability, it was nice to read a book where I truly had no idea where the story was going. In a way, you can kind of tell it was an early book, so I am anxious to read more from Laura Lippman.

After finishing Baltimore Blues, I dove into a quick read - Such A Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess. It's along the same lines as The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, in that it is a very dark topic, but written with a tone that makes it mildly bearable. The disturbing topics are told rather flatly, so that the emotional side of your brain doesn't have to absorb what you are actually reading. Well told, and like The Lovely Bones, it had a very satisfying and clever ending.

So now... I have to clean up and shower (It's 4 PM - Ha!), and eventually I'll start into my next book, Every Secret Thing, another by Laura Lippman. This book isn't a Tess Monaghan novel, though, and it is more recently published (2003). Ever since I read the plot of this book I have wanted to read it, so I am very excited. Stay tuned until my next book review.