That's Not a Feeling - Dan Josefson

Now for something completely different.  This book was weird and hard to read and that was intentional.  We're taken inside the mind and memories of a teenage boy hospitalized in a strict, behavioral modification school for troubled teens.  We experience the  psychobabble lingo and eccentric headmaster and baffled staff.  It's funny in parts but dark and sad in whole.

Published: 2012  Read: September 2016  Genre: Fiction

Disobedience - Jane Hamilton

I've read "The Book of Ruth" and "Laura Ryder's Masterpiece" and tried to read "A Map of the World" by the same author. This one gave me the same feeling as her previous ones - almost worth reading, but in the end, unsatisfying.

This title is the story of a teenager who reads his mother's email and finds out she is having an affair.  Over the course of about a year, he angst over her infidelity.  Intertwined is the story of his father, a history teacher and his sister, a preteen obsessed with the civil war and its reenactments.  It's a story of family relationships and family tolerances, secrets and weaknesses.

For me, the son's character was inconsistent; at times sounding childish and at others mouthing adult observations for the author's convenience.  I just didn't care much for any of the characters.

Published: 2000  Read: March 2016  Genre: Fiction