Books in the New Year

I'll be adding books as I read them now that I have this blog. I started the New Year off with a nasty illness of some sort. I’m told that there is no flu here and I did get my shot but it sure felt like flu. Bedridden, I read three books in as many days, choosing those that wouldn’t challenge my compromised intellect too much:
NEXT - Francine Prose
I’ve read this author before and really liked her. The premise of the book looked promising: “What happens when protection goes too far and what it means to have freedom extinguished in the name of safety.” It deals with the fallout from a Columbine-like event. What wasn’t indicated anywhere was that this is a book for “young readers”. Since she is a writer of adult fiction this should have been noted somewhere on the cover. I read it nonetheless and would recommend it to young teenagers as it provides all sorts of fodder for discussion.

MALAISE – Nancy Lemann
A book about a forty year old, married, pregnant mother of two preschoolers whose writing career has hit the skids. She follows her husband and his career to a southern California town she despises. She hates the sun, the new housing developments and the ever-present Mariachi bands. She falls in love with an old tycoon from her past who is charmingly old-fashioned and wears ridiculous clothes. The central issue of the novel is whether she will trade her marriage for life with the oldster. Well written but the central theme is sort of uninteresting.

LIGHTNING FIELD – Dana Spiotta
Mina, Lorene and Lisa are 30ish women living in Los Angeles (although that’s where the similarities end) and their parallel stories make up this novel. California is once again (as in Malaise) portrayed as a wasteland of over-the-top narcissism and materialism. Reading these two novels back to back has made me vow to avoid California like the plague. The book is hip and sardonic and although the characters are repulsive one is engaged by their stories.