CM - She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb

I've become a Wally Lamb fan, his writing style is charming.

The plot is tricky to explain. The book is about a girl named Dolores Price, and to quote the book, "you will never forget Dolores Price." As the reader you have both the privilege and obligation to experience her coming of age from her perspective. A concoction of ill-fated events leads you to believe that this girl is a human pincushion; that the world is literally just picking on her. Don’t fret; Wally Lamb uses enough humor in the storyline to keep it from being a depressing sob story.

The book starts when she’s four years old, takes you through adolescence, and brings you to college with Dolores, and even the mental institution and eventually marriages and other events in her life. You start to feel like you’re experiencing everything right along with her, which I love it when authors are able to do that. The sheer quantity of experiences pretty much guarantees that any reader can relate to at least one. It’s odd, yet delightful how her story can make you laugh at some points, wince at others, and be neutral through some.

Ratings:
This is also another Oprah’s book club pick, and I have to agree, it was definitely a good read.
Characters: A
Plot: B+
Interest Level: A-
Overall: A-

KM- Baby Jack - Frank Schaeffer

For the military fans, this one's for you!

This is an amazing story of a young man, Jack Odgen, who comes from wealth, priviledge, and opportunity and makes the selfless act of joining the Marine Corps against his family's wishes. His father tells him never to speak to him again, although his mother and sister do come around. It takes you on the path Jack took through Parris Island for basic training and even to the last of his days and beyond. Through his diary kept at PI, his letters to and from his family, and his family's thoughts, you'll learn of the difficulties new Marines face in training, the hardships of Jack going against his family for what he knew was right, and best of all, what became of that young Marine...and his child.

Overall Rating: A+++

Great story, although it does bring tears at certain moments.

KM- Cut - Patricia McCormick

This book was one of my favorites when I was in high school. It's the story of a young teenager named Callie who is a "cutter". She is put into Sea Pines after a school nurse notices the lacerations on her arms, and the story is a great vessel that takes you into the mind of a troubled teen.

We can all relate to a time when we felt absolutely overwhelmed and felt utterly hopeless. Callie's story is one that will touch everyone's heart. She is going through treatments at Sea Pines and isolates herself behind a wall of silence. You'll be taken behind the scenes to how it all started, what provoked her, and best of all, how she finally got help.

It's a young adult book, but I think anyone of any age could appreciate this book. It's a very powerful story.

Overall Rating: A+

CM - The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb

This book was extremely well written and flowed nicely for the reader. I kept seeing the book everywhere, and as someone who takes a hint pretty quickly, I decided to read it. It was a work of fiction about a schoolteacher named Caelum Quirk and his wife Maureen who works as a school nurse. However, the book places two fictional characters at the scene of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. If that makes sense...Caelum and Maureen were fictional characters, and their story was fictional, but all the facts surrounding Columbine were legit.

Had I not known better, I would have surely believed that these two people were real and so was their experience. That gives credit to the author for writing such an enthralling book. In April of 1999, Caelum returns home to Conneticut to be with his aunt, the only living member of his family and also the only one who ever cared about him. His aunt "Lolly" had suffered a stroke and although she was unable to talk, she manages to say "Cae", so he went. While he was there, he receives bad news followed by horrific news. His wife Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine (where the majority of the killings occured) locked in a cabinet saying Hail Mary's and etching a note to her husband in the cabinet fearing that the sadistic teenaged killers had only a matter of time before they found and killed her too. She survives, but not without cost...she is unable to recover from the trauma.

The effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues. I have to admit this book caught me off guard. What I thought was meant to be a book about Columbine turned into a eye-opening read. It questions the faith that lies at the heart of everyday life and questions why those who claim not to believe in God, nevertheless turn to Him in times of trouble and in the face of tragedy. I can't give away too much more because that would defeat the purpose of you reading the book, but it was a worthwhile novel. Great read. Oprah even picked Wally Lamb's books to go in her bookclub. I am personally envious of the fluidity in which he writes.

Ratings:
Hey, if its good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for you.
Great read, thought provoking, well written, I give it an A

CM - Manhunt - Colin Wilson

This book is titled Manhunt - The Definitive History of Serial Murder Investigation. Being a criminal justice major, we tend to love reading these twisted accounts of human evil. This book is both a look at the sadistic killers themselves and the innovative techniques detectives have used to track them down. It describes in detail how psychological profiling is used to read "personality fingerprints" and create a profile to help catch and stop serial murderers. Although serial killers make up less than 1 percent of murders each year, their crimes are usually so grumesome that it makes detectives and the public alike wonder how they commit these heinous crimes with no compunction about doing so again and again.

This book embodied the stories of some of the most notorious criminals...that being said, their crimes are not bedtime stories. To anyone with a beating heart and a shred of human emotion, their crimes are unthinkable. It included but was not limited to the following: Karla Homoika (who looked like your everyday blonde but was driven by a desire to present her fiance' with a "surrogate virgin"-schoolgirls to rape), the infamous Charles Manson, the "Boston Strangler" Albert DeSalvo, Ed Kemper (who once stated that "to have a particular experience with a person, and to possess them in the way I wanted to, I had to evict them from their human bodies", which he did frequently and was famous for his cruel acts of necrophilia), Gary Ridgway the "Green River Killer" who was charged with 48 counts of murder after being caught in what was once the largest unsolved murder case in American history, Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins, David Berkowitz a.k.a. the "Son of Sam", John Wayne Gacy, and a slew of other "celebrities" that have gone down in history as the "worst of the worst" for lack of a better phrase.

I of course found this book to be enthralling and quite interesting, but it is definitely not for the faint at heart or the weak stomached. It's nightmare material for most. The only complaint I have about this book is that the print was incredibly tiny and hurt my eyes after awhile. Other than that, I can't exactly give ratings to serial killers individually, so if you're interesting in criminal profiles, serial killers, etc, this one was a good read.

KM- Terminal - Robin Cook

Robin Cook mainly writes medical thrillers, and I've never really been into them, not because of a dislike for the genre, but more because I've never really read any books from that category. I was quite pleased with this book.

It's the story of a young med student named Sean who comes from an Irish family and is currently attending Harvard. He begins working at the Forbes Cancer Center, since his main research goal is an oncogene project which could help cure cancer. This Center seems to have a 100% success rate for treating a certain type of brain tumor, called medulloblastoma. It usually affects young people, and suddenly he starts to realize that the statistical analysis of their patients just doesn't seem to check out, so he begins to dive into an abyss of conspiracy, politics, and overall underhanded schemes.

I was a little confused at times because the novel does contain a lot of medical jargon, but if you pay attention, it's not hard to keep up, and you can actually learn a lot about the condition and how it works.

I'd recommend it for any medical thriller fan, and adults who are looking for something a bit more intellectual to get into.

Overall Rating: B+