Shit my Dad Says, Justin Halpern

OMG. I loved this compilation! I giggled and laughed out loud throughout the novel. His father seems like such a typical blue collar, North eastern guy (like many I know about here on the East coast), but not! They are on the West coast & his father is some crazy neurophysicist spewing the worst language in front of his children that you can imagine!

I also love the concept of someone with a blog making it work & making a life of it, wouldn't it be grand?

The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle

Yes! The next Sherlock Holmes story! This was more interesting than the first, to me. More exotic, more intrigue, more characters.

It's interesting to read about Sherlock's drug problem especially with all the tear jerking and intervention stories that are out now-a-days. This introduces his drug problem without all that. It's introduced as commonplace or as a part of his personality without Watson, in first person, judging or stressing on the implications of this problem. Not that the problem isn't a problem but more that it isn't the story nor the sub story, just a part of Sherlock's personality.

Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle

After reading all the Laurie R. King / Mary Russell novels I am finally getting around to reading the actual Sherlock Holmes novels. And I love them!

These are wonderfully written, keeping one guessing from the start. I like how details are completely eliminated or minimized but come back later as a slam dunk in Sherlock's synopsis.

I can't help but see Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock since the movie came out a year or so ago but I think he fits! I don't think he fits for the Mary Russell Sherlock somehow but I can see Robert Downey, Jr's Sherlock all over this novel. Either he really nailed the character or he really is the character.

I will go on to read the other Conan Doyle Sherlock stories, I can download them free from www.epub.com onto my Nook Color, I am really looking forward to it!

The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown was a coming of age story of three adult sisters and their relationship with their parents. Their father was a Shakespeare scholar, hence the name of the story and how it was reflected in the story. I expect if I knew Shakespeare I would have had a better appreciation of this novel.

Not that I didn't appreciate the story, because I did. I just wonder what was there that I didn't see because I don't know Shakespeare.

I came from a family with three daughters, I was the youngest. I can relate to Cornelia, the youngest in this story, even though my travels away from home did not take me in quite the same direction.

The middle sister in my family has very little in common with Bianca except for the desire to get away from the family, be successful and eventually to come back into the fold. My sister never strayed as far away as Bianca.

My oldest sister has some similar characteristics as Rose, the doer, the centered, grounded one. Thought not necessarily the flaws.

Their mother's cancer is what brings them back home, my mothers cancer brought me back home and I believe it brought my sisters and I closer as well. The conflicts with their relationship with their father never really goes away, like in my family, but these young women question themselves and find themselves to be more similar to themselves and with a different understanding of what home means.