Lots of Reading

Just got home from another camping trip.  I finished several books.  The first one was Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts.  This wasn't one of my favorite books of hers.  I didn't like the way she went into so much detail about the Hopi Indian traditions, but it really had nothing to do with the story.  Usually she explains those things in a very interesting way, but it always comes back to the motivations in the story.  I just didn't get the connection.  The main premise is that a 29-year-old girl finds out her father kidnapped her from her mother (who was an alcoholic) when she was 4 years old.  She was always told her mother was dead.  The legal system catches up with her father, and this is the story of his trial.  It is complicated by the fact that the daughter's fiance is the attorney for her father.  I would recommend this book.  It was interesting -- it's just hard to compare it to her other books that I've read.

Then I read I, Alex Cross, by James Patterson.  I liked this one better than the last one (Cross Country.) This one was a more traditional Alex Cross nove.  You know I like them, so I don't need to say more.

Then a book I'm ashamed to say I've never read before -- To Kill a Mockingbird.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I can see why it is so studied by our students.  What a lot of moral issues to discuss!  Great book.