Memory

Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others imprinted indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father I was 10 years old. My brother Poe was 9, and my sister Cisely has just turned 14.

That's Not What Happened addresses that in a powerful way. 

My First Ron Rash Novel

was Above the Waterfall and I am VERY disappointed.  NOT disappointed in the book!  It was excellent!  But disappointed that this was not a series!   The main character, the town sheriff named Les would be an excellent main character for a series.  Rash is such a great writer though, I bet he would get bored.  But man, this was really good. 

Wondering how I missed this?

Except for the fact that I am the fool who didn't read Hatchet until I was 44.  Mockingbird was a wonderful book.  One of the best I have ever read.  Sadly timely, compassionate, lovely. 

Love/Hate Relationship

I have a love/hate relationship with Joyce Carol Oates.  She is a great writer.  She really is.  You can see that I have disliked a book or two by her.  Check out High Crime Area.  Her books are disturbing and thought provoking.  Big Mouth and Ugly Girl was a book that I loved.  A great story of rumor gone wrong.  Religion takes a hit here, that is no surprise in an Oates book.  But at least Oates names this religion for what it is, ridiculous right-wing garbage cloaked in a "religious" mask.  So that was good.  A very recommendable read.

Tragedy

I would imagine that it must have been hard for Dave Cullen to write Columbine.  This is an extraordinary well written book and an example of some serious research that must have buried Cullen in deep with the horror of the Columbine shootings.  It was highly recommended to me by two of my very dear friends and I listened to it this week.
It must have been hard for Cullen to tell the real story behind She Said Yes:  the Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall.  And then when I read Cullen's goodreads review of She Said Yes, I was even more impressed with his professionalism, his honesty and his heart.  I so look forward to his next book, which comes out next year.
Eric Harris has been called a sociopath, and even from the very average book, The Sociopath Next Door, I could see that being true.
I did feel ashamed and guilty about my own gawking trip to Columbine High School last week, after reading the book and reading about how the kids were subjected to tour buses that would come and people would get off the bus and take pictures and I wonder why.  Why I did this?  Why these people did this?  I read I Crawl Through It last month and in the book, the parents of one of the main characters visit sites where horrible things like what happened here happened.  And the reason that they do is because they have lost a child.  And there is something that makes them feel better about being in the places where others have experienced a similar loss and grieving for them and with them and about their own loss.  And I have never lost a child directly but I have lost and hurt and grieved, but not like those who have lost a child have.  So I don't really have an excuse that can assuage my guilt, and that is probably right.  I just have to live with that, and not do it again.  And pray for and think of those who have.

Powerful

I can't believe it has been almost 14 years since the shootings at Columbine High School.  Shooter was written a few years after that.  I love WDM and so I know I would love this book as well.  He takes the toughest subjects, the most heart-breaking stuff and puts them right in front of you.  It's like you can tell that Mr. Myers is writing from his heart.  Like whatever is on his heart, he just lays it right out there.  This book was different from a lot of his other stuff, but equally as profound.