One of the hallmarks of a good book is its ability to affect one‘s emotions, and I read a number of such books last month. Unfortunately only two of them awakened positive emotions, one (Beware of Cat) to make me feel happy and well-disposed towards humankind, and the other (Misery Loves Maggody) made me laugh out loud at the ridiculous and wonderfully stupid antics of the characters and the situations they got themselves into.
In one of the others I was annoyed with a clueless character and in another it was a masochistic lead character that got my goat.
However, it was Blood, Bones and Butter which really got me worked up. I closed that book full of negative feelings, a seething rage and just a bit of paranoia - come to think of it: not unlike the feelings of the author herself seem to have been at the point where she chose to end the book. Reading about a crumbling marriage where both sides are equally at fault, mostly through their inability to really communicate, is not fun, but it was more the negative tone of the whole thing that affected me than anything about Hamilton or her husband or their relationship.
Mostly I think it was because the ending doesn‘t really show what happened. Did they get divorced, did they make up, did she..., did he... ? We don‘t get to find out, although a divorce seems highly likely. But nothing is revealed for sure and it leaves one dangling, full of the negative feelings the description of this oil-and-water marriage has stirred up. The first 2 parts of the book, however, make a great foodie memoir that I wouldn‘t mind rereading at some point.
The Books:
- M.C. Beaton: The Skeleton in the Closet. Romantic mystery.
- Thomas J. Craughwell: Urban Legends: 666 absolutely true stories that happened to a friend... of a friend. Urban legends, unimaginatively retold.
- Gabrielle Hamilton: Blood, Bones and Butter: The inadvertent education of a reluctant chef. Memoir.
- Joan Hess: Misery Loves Maggody. Comic mystery.
- Stephanie Laurens: A Secret Love and All About Love. Historical romances.
- Ed McBain: The Mugger. Police procedural.
- Jill McGown: Gone to Her Death. Police procedural.
- Barbara Moore: The Doberman wore Black. Murder mystery.
- Nora Roberts: Chesapeake Blue. Contemporary romance.
- Nora Roberts: Montana Sky. Contemporary romantic suspense.
- Vincent Wyckoff: Beware of Cat, and other encounters of a letter carrier. Memoir.
