books!

56. Hallelujah City by Tom LaMarr
This is a great little book I randomly picked up in the library. It is the story of an end-times cult, and what happens the day after the world fails to end. It is really more about a man and his cult member daughter and their relationship. I really enjoyed the book.

57. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perotta
I was prepared to not like this book, as I had read a couple bad reviews. I also watched and disliked the movie Little Children, which is based on another book by Perotta. Here's a bonus review of the movie Little Children: blah blah blah we live in suburbia and it sucks and is alienating and our lives are not what we expected blah blah. I just feel it has been done before. Although I love Kate Winslet. She is my girlfriend. Anyway, back to The Abstinence Teacher -- I loved this book! The characters were amazingly well-drawn and fleshed out. They seemed somewhat stereotypical at first, and then as you got to know them you realized they were not what you expected. Also, I really appreciated the born again Christian character who was treated like a real person and not made cartoony, which I think is so rarely done. Read this book if you want a really well-done character driven novel.

58. Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
I was on an emergency out of books run to the library and grabbed this, even though it look familiar. On page 10, I did realize I had read this book before, but that was ok as it is a great, sweeping story of a Mexican-American family over several generations. I loved the narrator's voice and the lush descriptions of the different worlds she lived between. Good book.