My 15th book I found at a garage sale at my parents church last
weekend. All in all it took me approximately 3 hours to read. Written by Jude Devereau, I found "Carolina Isle" as a fairly easy read but with lots of action. The cover of the book really didn't relate to the story a tremendous amount. It was a typical action adventure/romance. It was written to have a twist, a switch in identities, but it failed miserably. I'll be perfectly honest, the book left a lot to be desired. The characters didn't have much depth. The person who wrote the data for the cover must've only read the first chapter as what they talked about got blown apart quickly.The whole story was to make you fall in love with being in the Carolina's, but nothing really made you even want to go there. The story would allude to something, and then never went back to explain it. Sure it came to a clean ending, but I never really felt invested in the story.
If you are looking for an easy beach read that occasionally will make you bang your head off the back of your lawn chair, this is the book for you. If you are looking for something that will force you to really think, I'd suggest going elsewhere.
My 16th book for #26in2011 was also found at the church garage sale. The cover really caught my attention. Background in light blue, a woman in a red flowing skirt appears to be dancing, and the title "Trespass" by Valerie Martin. It is a winner of the Orange Prize. To this day I have no idea what the Orange Prize is, but I knew there was something about this book. Yes it's true, i always judge a book by it's cover. There has to be something about it that intrigues me. Lucky for me I have a varied taste. With this book, I don't even think I read the back. I just had to have it.The story is written by an American, but definitely has some twists and turns that are unexpected. To be honest, I thought the book was written by a man, and it wasn't until I read the title again to put it in this blog post did I notice that it was actually a woman. There was something about the way the characters are written. The point of view doesn't come across as womanly. Although with that said, the characters all come out pretty clearly throughout the story, with the exclusion of some slightly mysterious characters.
What I liked about the book most was the characterization. I also kind of like that it isn't your typical book in that it doesn't have a happy ending. Not really anyhow. Of course it's all a matter of opinion right? There were so many times in the book where I thought "Oh so they are going to do ___" but then it doesn't happen. I found that I had to keep reading. I needed to see how it ends. The novel focuses so much on the character development, that it glosses over the setting. I was fine with that in this book because the story was so interwoven and I got so involved with the characters.
Anyone that knows me, knows that I tend to be a bit on the optimistic side, and that I tend to try and see all the sides of a story. This book really played to my personality in that it wasn't written from just one point of view. It's from the son, the mother, the father, the girlfriend/wife, the father-in-law, the mother-in-law. You want everything to work out for them. You want them all to find resolution and peace. But that wasn't how the book was written. Questions are still left at the end.
Both books were very different. But I would definitely recommend Trespass before I'd recommend Carolina Isle. Sadly, I gave that book too my mother-in-law. She, like me, got a bit pulled into the cover. Too bad I didn't wait and let the book digest before giving it to her. It wasn't a horrible book, and I did read it in a very short time frame. Perhaps if I was at the beach, I would've liked it better. Who knows.
Next time, I'm going to hopefully get something awesome. For now, I'm still on my quest to finish #26in2011. Only 10 more to go!
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