WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

1. What are you currently reading? American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping,Crimes and Trials of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin. I have never known what to make of Patty Hearst. After she was kidnapped, did she willingly join her captors and engage in domestic terrorism? They say she did. Or was she frightened for her life during their entire 19 months together? She says she was.

Jeffrey Toobin is familiar to me for his work as a CNN legal analyst. He writes well. The book is told chronologically, including many details about the long ago 1970s that put the kidnapping in context. Post-Watergate, pre-internet America was such a different place than it is now. Our attitudes and concerns were so different, so was the way we processed information. So far, Toobin is effective at setting the scene and establishing the cast of characters of this incredible real-life drama.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin. I wish I could recommend this book. Giffin writes well and gave me some moments that were so compelling I felt like I was right there with our heroine, Ellen, as she tried to decide between her husband, Andy, and that ex she just can't forget, Leo.

Yet I ultimately found the book annoying because of the characters. It literally took Ellen pages to think of something about her celebrity photo shoot that occurred to me almost instantly, and I'm not that bright. Neither of the men is very well drawn: Andy is simply too good (and a little too simple) to be true, Leo is a rather obvious "bad boy." 

In short, I enjoyed it while I was reading it -- the dialog and the descriptive passages are that good -- but then later, when I thought about what I just read, I thought, "What the hell?"

3.  What will you read next? Maybe another biography? Or a mystery. My TBR pile is stacked dauntingly high with both.