Reviews of my latest reads

My latest book read is "First Darling of the Morning" by Thrity Umrigar. I seem to have a knack lately for picking up dark books that strangely have similarities to my life. Not that my life is or has been dark, per se, but you know where you read something about a character andd think "Wow, that's me!" That - it's happening to me. A Lot. Very eerie, strange, and a bit perturbing, when you're trying to think about positive things and cheery little butterflies, but then, what fun is that anyway? The dark side is where the good stuff is, according to all the books.

So I just finished the Umrigar book, which is dark but good, and am almost done with 'The Palace Of Illusions' by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Now this is one Fantastic book, but it is Very Dark. It is basically a retelling of essential stories from the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic, from the vantage point of the main female character, Draupadi. I had to actually put the book down at times, as those of you that are familiar with the Mahabharata are aware of how dark the story gets at points. Multiply that by 100 - the author really puts you in Draupadi's skin and makes you feel an approximation of what she might have felt at each of the major instances in her life. This book is really amazing - Divakaruni should win a literary prize for it.

The last book, which I ended up returning to the library without finishing, was a book about Elizabeth. The author is Allison Weitland (sp?), and the book is really amazing, but it got too dark for me, with all the talk of the Tower and death, so I just let it go. I believe that this is the book that the last Elizabeth movie was based on, and I highly recommend it for any history enthusiasts that enjoy the stories of Elizabeth and Henry VIIIth. I've read a lot of historical fiction about these two subjects, and this one did the best job of making sense of various events in history. The lives of both of these historical figures make so much more sense to me now! If the subject interests you, definitely grab this book!

Tonight - dinner at CPK with the parents, sister, and her father-in-law. The finale for SaReGaMaPa was very long, but decent, and Rush Hour 3 is a good movie! The next books on the list are: 'A Golden Age' by Tahmima Anam, 'The Diplomat's Daughter' by Tom Kinsolving, 'The Harafish' by Nagub Mahfouz, and 'Secrets and Mysteries of the World' by Sylvia Browne.

Later,
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