The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

by Ron Hansen

New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1983.
ISBN: 0394516478 : 9780394516479
OCLC Number: 9646402

Date completed: 07-15-2009

Why I read this book: Did it for my book & movie discussion group.

It is easy to forget that this book is a novel. It turns out that not too much of it is actually fiction. It based largely on the historical record of what Jesse James's gang did and the facts known about his life and the life of Robert Ford. Obviously the author has put in some of his own interpretations and made up the dialogue and the character's thoughts, but he did not change any of the facts for convenience or to make the story "better."
It took me quite a while to get into it, but as it went along, I grew to like this book. It's really the story of Robert Ford- a nobody, annoying kid who was obsessed with Jesse James - hero/celebrity worship in the extreme. They became close, things sort of went wrong, and he killed him. The book gets into the psychology of all the characters and paints Jesse not as a Robin Hood, as he is sometimes remembered, but as a charming guy who robbed people for his own personal gain and who also happened to not feel bad about killing innocent people.
Check it out if you are into outlaws, history of the West, etc.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Philadelphia : Quirk Books ; San Francisco : distributed by Chronicle Books, ©2009.
ISBN: 9781594743344 1594743347
OCLC Number: 311684437

Date completed: Sometime in June, after PS, I Love You.

Why I read this book: Duh, it's the greatest idea anyone has come up with, ever.

If you have read Pride and Prejudice, you HAVE to read this. It is awesome. It is almost word-for-word the same as Pride and Prejudice, but it has ZOMBIES. It's hilarious!!! Basically a zombie plague is happening in England, and the Bennett sisters are trained in the deadly arts in order to vanquish the zombies. There are some awesome illustrations. I actually think it would be pretty awesome to get the picture from the cover as a tattoo. I will be so excited if this gets made into a movie!
I just found out today that the next book in this series is coming out in September: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Book trailer here!
OMG read it read it read it.

PS, I Love You

by Cecelia Ahern

New York : Hyperion, ©2004.
ISBN: 0786890754 : 9780786890750
OCLC Number: 57443871

Date completed: Umm, I don't really remember. Sometime in June.

Why I read this book: I did this for my book & movie discussion group thing (which 4 ladies attended, and left 5-10 minutes prior to the end of the movie !?!)

I liked it. It read pretty fast. It was a bit of a different take on a romantic comedy, which was kind of refreshing. The main character already found the love of her life... then he died. So she had to start over - with the help of her dead husband, who left her a letter with a task to complete to open each month. It's not a typical romance. I thought I knew how things were going to turn out and I was wrong.
I think it's kind of cool that the author is the daughter of Ireland's Prime Minister, and that she was so young when she wrote this (21). However, I wonder if someone that young can write realistically about a widow dealing with turning 30. Though I guess if people couldn't write about things they haven't gone through, a lot of great fiction would have never happened.
BTW, I just read her Wikipedia article and it is pretty crazy. She was in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000 and is co-creator of the TV show Samantha Who?

Anyway. It's a pretty good chick-lit book. The movie is basically garbage. Hilary Swank just is not good as the character and the location got moved to New York but still tried to have this Irish thing going on that just did not work for me.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

by JK Rowling

New York : Children's High Level Group in association with Arthur A. Levine Books, 2008.
ISBN: 9780545128285 0545128285
OCLC Number: 243491671

Date completed: 05-20-2009

Why I read this book: Duh.

This was awesome. I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting. Anything Harry Potter rules. This is a "new translation" (by Hermione Granger, natch) of classic stories told to wizard children by their parents. It also includes commentary by Dumbledore. If you read the Deathly Hallows, then you are already familiar with one of these stories, as it was very important to the plot of that book. Awesome, amazing, funny, wondrous. Check it out if you're into Harry Potter stuff at all.

Caramelo, or, Puro cuento : a novel

by Sandra Cisneros

New York : Knopf, ©2002.
ISBN: 0679435549 9780679435549 1400041503 9781400041503
OCLC Number: 49259927

Date completed: 05-20-2009

Why I read this book: Because House on Mango Street is one of my favs.

Ugh. This took me forever to read. It was like 450 pages. And, like I complained about with Tender is the Night, which had sections in French, this had sections in Spanish, and like obviously I'm too lazy to go look up the translation, so a lot of the time I just didn't know what was going on. Overall it was a cool story, about a girl and her family history, and roots, and how traditions and new ways mix and don't mix, but for me it was just too long.