Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

After reading a bunch of great reviews for Lincoln in the Bardo I was happy to discover that the hype is justified and this is a terrific book. I have a feeling that this will be a book that people will be talking about for awhile (hopefully). The writing style is a bit unusual and there's isn't a traditional plot here... but don't let that deter you. The whole thing just seems so beautifully written and emotionally moving.

The "plot" is a bit unusual. It takes place on the day of the funeral of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, and is about the effect Willie's spirit has on the other spirits that live in the cemetery and have not fully moved on to the next stage of the afterlife. After the funeral Abe Lincoln returns to the cemetery and  visits Willie's body in the crypt. The other spirits realize that Willie is stuck and they try to manipulate actions so that Willie can be at peace and move on even though these other spirits are in a strong stage of denial that they themselves are also dead and stuck in a state of limbo.

So if you like weird literary books I'd highly recommend it. A

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Well The Dark Tower series continues to defy a reader's expectations with Wizard and Glass. After actual progress in the quest to the Dark Tower is finally made in The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass gives us a flashback that takes up about ninety percent of the book. And since the book is 1000+ pages that's a pretty long flashback. It isn't that I mind the digression... since that seems to be the theme of the series, or the length of the book either... it is just that the story presented just doesn't require this many pages. Maybe since the previous novels all featured Roland going on adventures in several different locations, having him stuck in one location for so long makes this one really drag. The first 100 pages and the last 300 pages are all full of the usual thrills... but the 600 pages in between really could have been condensed down. How many times do really need to read about Susan arguing with her aunt? Or the bad guys talking about how much they hate Roland? B

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

I will give The Summer That Melted Everything credit for one thing... always being able to find a way to top itself in having horrible things happen to its characters. The book starts off interestingly enough with the narrator telling us about how as a child he met a boy that claimed to be the devil. Bad luck seems to follow the boy around and there is some thoughtful discussion on the nature of man, God and Satan... but then the bad stuff just keeps getting piled on until the reader is beaten into submission and stops to care about what happens. So SPOILERS... this book has the following : death of a dog, miscarriage, infidelity, child abuse, sexual abuse, false imprisonment, racism, suicide, homophobia, AIDS, more suicide, dead parents, cults, and the death of more than one child. I'm probably forgetting something... oh yeah.. after the big climax when an angry mob burns a child to death when I'm thinking "well at least there wasn't any cannibalism" we find out on the second to last page that one of the characters is a serial killer that eats small children! For a relatively  short book this is maybe a few too many topics to tackle. The whole thing is so over the top it is hard to care about what happens. There are at least three major plot lines that could have served up enough plot for the entire novel. For awhile the book reminded me of kind of a dark mirror universe equivalent of A Prayer for Owen Meany... they both have the same structure of a narrator looking back and telling us about a childhood friend (that accidentally kills someone) that was weird and may or may not have a supernatural purpose... but you know Owen Meany takes its time to really build up the characters and balances the dark with some lightness and packs an emotional punch. This book, not so much.  Plus I'll also note that the characters have ridiculous names and it doesn't help. Let's say this gets a C.

List books mentioned : Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Flies, Gone with the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird.