Books in April

Starting to catch up a bit on my reading. I grabbed Cell by Stephen King from the library Saturday, and managed to finish it Sunday afternoon.

My initial impression is that it is simply a bad rewrite of The Stand. Something bad happens, lots of people die gruesomely, the survivors gather into two camps, good and evil. Most of the story centers on a journey. Good finds a way to blow up evil, some of your favorite characters die, but the rest live happily ever after.

I won't recommend this book. I much prefer Duma Key which I blogged about earlier. And that's kind of the way it goes with me and King. I'll really like one book and really not like another.

Changing tracks... finally got around to reading the dramatic conclusion of the Twilight series (Eclipse) in which Bella discovers that she actually does love two monsters. Well duh! Saw that coming quite a few pages back. Meyers does a nice job of wrapping the series up. I was really wondering about how she could possibly turn it into a happy ending... but I don't want to spoil it for anyone chancing to read this. The movie (due out Dec 08) will make a lot of money, I may even go see it.

However, upon further research it appears that this may NOT be the last book in the series after all. Sigh. Since I'm in this far, I will have to see what else is in store for our ill-fated ménage à trois, and continue reading.

What else? Nearly finished with the next installment of O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin saga; Desolation Island. What a great title for a naval story! Also working through The Tombs of Atuan by LeGuin, and am simultaneously reading Dale Carnegie's wonderful books on worry and influencing people. More on them later.