Lower East Side Librarian

I almost put this book down because I disliked the opening so much, but I persevered. When possible, I try to stick with Nancy Pearl's recommendation that you give the book 50 pages to convince you. Plus it was the only book I had at Eric's place, so I had to either give it more of a shot or brave the cool, wet June weather and walk the two blocks to my house for a better selection.

What I didn't like in the beginning was how childishly de Rosnay portrayed a child, but that got better as soon as the kid broke out of the Vel' d'Hiv, thus avoiding death at Auschwitz. That sort of thing matures a ten-year-old fast, and even the person writing her life has to respect that.

By page 40 or so, the story, which is told alternately in the third person about the ten-year-old (Sarah) and from the first person point of view of an American expatriate (Julia) living in Paris with her French husband and daughter, gets pretty compelling.

The second book in the Blue Bloods series begins where the last one leaves off. Our heroine is trying to solve the mystery of who is preying on her and her fellow teenage vampires, but the all powerful Committee denies that there is any danger.

As I've been saying, I've been having a hard time getting into serious literature lately, and so, being on vacation and all, I decided to embrace my love of vampire books and young adult fiction and dig into the Blue Bloods series by Melissa De La Cruz, a Philippines native now living in NY and LA.

Four books into the Sookie Stackhouse series, I'm finally willing to admit I'm getting hooked. That's not entirely stubbornness or snobbery talking; only with this one and it's predecessor, Club Dead did I read the books in a hurry. Plus, I liked that Harris thanked a librarian, Doris Ann Norris, in her acknowledgments page.

Because I've been reading such crap lately, I sort of forced myself to finish this literary novel even though I wasn't enjoying it so much. It's actually quite poetically written; it just didn't grab me. The narrator is a pre-teen with an angry older sister, a fucked up veteran father, and a mother who doesn't have much of a presence in their lives. They've also got a dog that keeps getting knocked up and a bunny with no tail. That's all I've got to say about the book. Sorry.