Strange Times

I have to start with an apology for not having made regular entries in the past two months.  Hurricane Sandy, and an early snowfall, have knocked me off my game a little, and sent us all scrambling.  With that being said, now that life is back to normal, I am going to combine my entries for October and November into one.  Here we go....

I chose this book as my October entry, because I thought that it's "creepy" factor lent itself to the Halloween season.  I had a hard time getting started with this book.  It took me a few chapters before I really started to get into it, and as the story progressed, it was a real page turner.  I do not want to give a lot of the plot away in this entry, as it will ruin the story for you, but lets just say that the "big twist" had my jaw dropping.  Also, true to the unsettling nature of this story, it does not end in a nice neat bow.  You are left hanging, and unnerved, and more then a little concerned about what the future holds for the characters in this novel.  If you love psychological suspense thrillers, this is the book for you!
From Booklist, May 2012
When Nick Dunne’s beautiful and clever wife, Amy, goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, the media descend on the Dunnes’ Missouri McMansion with all the fury of a Dateline episode. And Nick stumbles badly, for, as it turns out, he has plenty to hide, and under the pressure of police questioning and media scrutiny, he tells one lie after another. Juxtaposed with Nick’s first-person narration of events are excerpts from Amy’s diary, which completely contradict Nick’s story and depict a woman who is afraid of her husband, has recently found out she’s pregnant, and had been looking to buy a gun for protection. In addition, Amy is famous as the model for her parents’ long-running and beloved children’s series, Amazing Amy. But what looks like a straighforward case of a husband killing his wife to free himself from a bad marriage morphs into something entirely different in Flynn’s hands. As evidenced by her previous work (Sharp Objects, 2006, and Dark Places, 2009), she possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor. Both a compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage, this could well be Flynn’s breakout novel. It contains so many twists and turns that the outcome is impossible to predict.

As part of my job as the school librarian, I read a LOT of young adult fantasy.  This seems to be a genre that children love, and there is an ample supply of great stories.  Now, when it comes to adult fantasy, a good one can be hard to find.  I am not a huge reader of traditional "high fantasy" (i.e. Robert Jordan, Tolkien, etc.) as I find them laborious to read.  This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I will admit it is a lovely fantasy story.  To be completely honest, I have nothing I can compare it to.  The story is completely unique in nature, and as a debut novel for Erin Morgenstern, I am excited to see what she will write next.
From the Publisher:
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Cirque des Reves and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.