Book Journey

Why did I want to read (listen to) this book?  I have a friend who just recently read it with her book club.  It was her first Dan Brown and when she was done she was thrilled with it.  “A real thinker” she told me.  I downloaded it on audio and as the story pulled me in… I remembered, I really enjoy Dan Browns writing.  How could I have forgotten?”

Sheila

Synopsis:  Robert Langdon (our hero of such literacy wonders as The Davinchi Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol) finds himself once again pulled into a horrific plan on deceit and “God playing” centered this time around “Dante’s Inferno” .

When he awakens in a hospital bed not knowing where he is or how he got there, the pieces start to fall into place quickly that Robert has stumbled into something big and there are people – powerful people who do not want him anywhere near the plans they are making.  When Robert takes a look out the window of his hospital room and sees an architecture piece that just can not be… he realizes….

“Toto.. we are not in Kansas anymore.”

As the pieces start to fit together Robert Langdon is not sure who he can trust.  What he thinks is true can possibly be just a play on his lack of memory over the past few days, but as Langdon starts to see more clearly the truth is both fascinatingly outrageous as it is frightening.  He has a very short window to move forward on and try to stop a genius of a mad man from altering the worlds population in a effort to save us all….

Whoa.  Double whoa.

Within minutes of getting into this audio, I was hooked.  Paul Michael does an incredible job with the narration, but  if you are more of a book person, I think you will be just as quickly hooked.

Dan Brown does not mess around with a long drawn out intro to Inferno.  Instead, it opens with a rush of energy and we as readers/listeners are instantly engaged in the “What happened?  Who…. wait….” and all in a good heart pumping way. 

There is something fascinating about the under belly of the earth and those who dwell there.  I have always enjoyed how Dan Brown can take an existing piece or art or history and wrap a story around it so engaging you start to believe that this was always part of the history of the piece and it would be easy to associate one with the other from this day forward.  Remember readers – while Dan Brown writes with a fascinating pen… he is writing fiction…. great fiction.  But fiction all the same.

Inferno moves with a rapid pulse and I found it so engaging and so interesting.  I have heard of Dante’s Inferno, but knew little about it. 

From Wikepedia:

Inferno (Italian for “Hell”) is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.

I thoroughly enjoyed Inferno.  Never predictable when I did find out what was going on and how it took my breath away.  There are pieces of Inferno that make you think “what if”.  There is so much more I would like to share about Inferno, but it is a pleasure to read or listen to it fresh with no pre-thoughts so I am going to leave it at this. Do you need to have read the other Langdon books to understand this one?  Nope.  All of the books mentioned above are incredible stand alones.

If you would like to dig deeper into this one, I am rolling out the Spoiler Button which when pressed, will take you to a new page for those of us who have read Inferno and want to talk about it more.

Why did I want to read (listen) to this book?  Is this tomorrow sounded like a great “what happened?” style read when three close childhood friends one day come home not knowing what happened to the third…  Police are involved and people are suspiciously but nothing comes of the disappearance.  But the question is – did Lewis and Rose possibly know what did happen to Jimmy?  And if so – why have they waited so long to tell?

Synopsis:  It’s 1956 and Ava Lark is both beautiful and single.  She rents a home for herself and her twelve-year-old son Lewis in the Boston area.  Lewis finds friends within the neighborhood brother and sister Jimmy and Rose and the three become inseparable.

When one day Jimmy goes missing the neighborhood falls apart.  Ava is watched with suspicion as she had a boyfriend Jake at the time who had a record, unknown to Ava…. and Lewis and Rise go their separate ways as they grow older and find it hard to be around one another without Jimmy, but both still carrying the broken pieces of the unknown. 

When years later Rose and Lewis find their way to each other again a decision much be made to tell the truth or to leave well enough alone knowing enough hearts have been broken over this whole ordeal.

The story line behind what makes Is This Tomorrow is captivating.  Of course, I as the reader want to know what happened to this young boy who disappears without a trace.  As the story opens and the setting is put into place you can get the vibe of the book – an almost Jodi Piccoult feel as is unrolls page after page. 

While the story played out and I enjoyed it I never had a strong feel for any of the characters – they all felt a bit vague to me… not three-dimensional.  Due to that lack of feeling for the characters it affected my over all feel of the story.  Basically while I felt bad about Jimmy’s disappearance, I was not emotionally charged by this event.  I hung in there as I really did want to know what happened to Jimmy.

I listened to Is This Tomorrow on audio as Xe Sands is the narrator and that is almost always a win.  Almost always.  One thing that I picked up on was the tone of voice that was given to each of the characters… Ava always sounded weary.  I thought about that a lot during the listening of this book.  It bothered me that she never sounded strong or confident, or even happy… weary was actually a word I thought about while listening to the audio which in hind sight, probably took away from some of my enjoyment of the book.  Lewis as well always sounded weary… and the boyfriend…..  while weary is a perfectly acceptable emotion for the book – I had trouble getting beyond the weary of the entire book…

in the end – when all was said and I done… I too felt weary.

Note – that I am in the minority on this one.  I looked at Amazon and there are gushing reviews.  This may be one that came across better in book format than audio but certainly please check out other opinions on this one.

Leslie Carter and her husband Wesley have enjoyed many years of the upper class Atlanta society. But times are changing when two of Wesley’s long time buddies trade in the mothers of their children for younger models.  Leslie, in her later 50’s finds she can not relate to these young women with their modern taste in clothing, music, and childish (in her opinion) ways.  When Wesley seems to be more engaged in golfing and his buddies, Leslie takes a good long look at her life and realizes that Wes has always put his own needs and wants above hers.  As she tally’s up the sacrifices she has made through the years she comes to realize she has given up way too much of herself.

With two adult children that can not seem to get it together, and Wes acting as though Leslie is lucky to have him, Les decides enough is enough.  When a discovery is made that Wes has been keeping something very big a secret, it is the final straw.  Les packs her bags and returns to her home town of Sullivan Island in Charleston where she stays with her brother, Harlan (who Wes couldn’t stand because as he put it “Harlan was a little pink”).

When Les finds a connection with Johnathan a long ago boyfriend, Les rekindles the friendship between them and finds that life did not have to be as hard as she had made it to be and decisions on how to move forward from here were now what needed to be thought through. There are obligations to her husband of many years and to her children – but exactly what those obligations are clearly needed to be changed.

Oh how can I even describe how much I enjoyed this book?  Told in alternating chapters between Leslie and Wesley (yes the matchy matchy names bothered me at first) you as the reader get a first hand look at what is happening through each of their eyes and opinions.  It was actually enjoyable to go from reading Leslie;s matter of fact smooth dialogue to Wesley’s more demanding, almost pout like tone of what he felt should be the ideal wifely duties and what he felt was due him. 

Definitely a hard to put down read that I enjoyed very much.  I liked that it had a different twist to it than other “returning home” reads.  And let me say – Harlan, who in my mind felt like Rupert Everett (George in My Best Friends Wedding).

Gush worthy!

Additional format note:  Due to time restraints I read part of this book and then downloaded the audio book and listened to it -which is a rave!  Fantastic narration – I loved the voices of the smooth southern flow talk of Leslie and then the harsher whiny tone of Wesley – definitely a treat for the ears!

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for letting me try Dorothy Bentown Franks books

and making me a HUGE FAN as a result!