PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up
1. What are you currently reading? G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage. This book is a deep dive into the life and career of the first FBI director, a man who served under eight Presidents and was at the center of American law and culture for decades. I've encountered him often while reading about JFK and Nixon. Now I'm going to get to know him as the subject of this Pulitzer Prize winning biography (la-de-da).
This was a Christmas present from my nephew. He knows that I'm attracted to big biographies of men with big personalities (last year it was Richard Nixon and Leo Durocher) and he figured I would like this one. I appreciate the thought he put into my gift and I not only want to like it, I want to have made a significant dent in the book by the time we spend the weekend together at the Cubs Fan Convention (January 16-18). Wish me luck!
2. What did you recently finish reading? Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica. Nina and Lily both teach at a high school in the Chicago suburbs. The women become friends, and socialize away from school with their husbands, Jake and Christian. Their worlds are completely upended when Nina's husband Jake suddenly goes missing, and Lily tells her husband Christian that she believes she was the last one to see him before he disappeared.
This is a psychological thriller told by two characters: Nina and Christian. Page by page, Nina goes from angry to panicked. At first she thinks Jake went off without a word to punish her after a fight, then she begins to worry something darker happened. As Christian narrates, we can see him go from protective to paranoid. At first he believes Lily is exaggerating her role in Jake's disappearance. After all, she's newly pregnant and very emotional. Then he starts to worry that running into Jake at the forest preserve that day put her in grave danger.
I love how Kubica uses the forest preserve. Here in Chicagoland, they bump right up against residential neighborhoods and are part of our lives. In this book, the local forest preserve goes from being a restful and friendly meeting place where folks cycle and walk their dogs to a dense, dark thicket that keeps its own secrets.
Which is not to say I loved this book. I liked it. I appreciated it. But Christian bugged the living shit out of me, and he narrated half the book. He wasn't an unreliable narrator, he was an annoying one. As curious as I was about what happened to Jake and why, I almost bailed on the book because Christian was such a ninny.
3. What will you read next? Edgar and I are spending almost 900 pages together, so who knows what I'll be up for when we're done?
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