Finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

This is soooooo sad!  Sad, sad,sad.  No more new Lisbeth Salander stories to read!  I am grieving.
This book compares favorably for satisfying endings with The Shawshank Redemption (Lana Turner and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King.)  Wow.  I am definitely going to miss Lisbeth and Blomkvist.  Great book.  Great series.

TR continues to read the second book in the Hunger Games series.  I am starting The Vampire Files by P. N. Elrod, Volume 2.  It has three short novels about Jack Flemming:  Art in the Blood, Fire in the Blood, and Blood on the Water.  These are similar to Harry Dresden, but Jack is a vampire (of course) with a human partner who is really the detective.  I enjoy the character, but anything would be a let down from Lisbeth.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's nest. P 280

I was surprised to see so much rather dry personal history of certain characters near the beginning, but it was necessary for me to be able to see just what Salander and Blomkvist will be up against.  In some ways the writing style is similar to Mary Higgins Clark--short segments that tell exactly what is happening.  No conclusions are drawn...no opinions are expressed.  The reading is left to put together the pieces.  This is why I enjoyed teaching Lois Duncan's Killing Mr. Griffin.  I could teach both story elements and drawing conclusion skills with the book and the kids were on the edge of their seats reading it!  Ended the year with it with my slower readers--and every teacher knows... the end of the year is when you bring out your most interesting material if you want to survive until summer.  :-)

TR has finished The Pillars of the Earth and is now reading the second book in the Hunger Games series.  I won't be reading it.  People senselessly hurting people in an institutionalized way is not appealing to me.

Finished The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton

Easy, sexy fare...fun and exciting and different.  I enjoy Hamilton's books, though I really can't say why.  Same reason I love Buffy and disaster flicks...

I'm starting The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson next.  Not sure it will be sufficiently different from The Killing Dance. (feisty women who are not afraid to "kick butt.")  I'm kind of sad to start this last book by Stieg Larsson.  There will be no new ones to look forward to when I am finished.

TR is finishing up The Pillars of the Earth.  When he is done, it will go in my pile--probably in the same pile with Jean Auel's books.  He intends to read another John Jakes' saga when he finishes.

Finished Fatal Revenant

Whew!  It ended with the ending of the world set into motion, but I'm not worried.  There are two more books to go.  Yes, that is right--four books in this Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.  The other chronicles only had three each.  Thomas is going out with a bang, for sure.

I'm glad to take a break with Laurell K. Hamilton's The Killing Dance.  She has just had a hit put out on her--to be dead in 24 hours and whoever is paying is offering $500,000.  Yep, this is quite relaxing after Thomas Covenant!

Fatal Revenant, p 470

Whew, I nearly wrung this book's neck today.  The hardest part was finding its neck.  I've been through two more climactic events.  Our heroine, armed with two instruments of huge power, remains crippled against the forces that are thrown at her, regardless of how much power she throws at them.  Thank goodness for the respites in which we still have time to enjoy the beauty of the land and the special lovability of her companions.

Fatal Revenant P 365

At the half-way mark (Part 2, about page 300), I was exhausted.  The book started confused and disappointed and proceeded down from there.  By the mid-point, I couldn't believe Linden could ever survive.  But, that was the turning point and the uphill climb has begun.  Again the creation of characters is amazing.  All characters are flawed....most hold both good and evil.  And no one race or kind of people is alike from one to the next...some shared characteristics exist, but some form of individuality is always to be expected (if not always found.)  This is one author that, not only can I not predict, I can't even begin to speculate as to what might happen next.  And the language is as rich as the characters and the environment they inhabit.

Fatal Revenant P 200

Perhaps because Stephen Donaldson can create such memorable and likable characters seemingly effortlessly, he does not hesitate to kill them off.  Then in a fantasy like this, he will bring them back...but they will be altered irrevocably so that they just are not the character you had learned to love.  But, by then, he has other characters that you love...  This makes his worlds exasperating, but never boring.  And his vocabulary...  Yes, he has his own world so he gets to make up some vocabulary.  But I think he has also made up half of the words that are NOT in the glossary!