The Wave by Susan Casey

This book was pretty good.  It was written somewhat like a scientific report combined with a novel.  This book is true and based on research.  It was very very interesting.  I don't understand how the author got enough money to do the research going to Hawaii and around the world examining waves.  I now completely understand who Lloyd Hamilton is.  He is one of the greatest surfers ever, going after surfing 40 foot waves... what a crazy man.  He's married to some famous ex-basketball player or something like that.  I found out a great deal of things concerning waves and I thoroughly enjoyed the book despite my preconceived notions that the book would be very dry.  I'm kind of scared about the size of waves in the ocean now, which I gather from the book they are getting larger as time goes by.  I'm still not entirely sure if the research means waves are necessarily becoming larger, maybe people never studied them to the depth they are being studied today.

I would give this book an 8/10.

Summer Shift by Lynn Kiele Bonasia

This book was OK.  I could definitely put it down without a problem, but it was enough to keep me reading.  A woman around 44 years old who owns a seafood restaurant near the ocean feels responsible when one of her employees dies in a car accident.  She puts on a fund raiser for the daughter the waitress left behind.  She struggles to overcome bitterness toward an old flame who she met after her husband died in a car accident.  They were headed toward divorce when the husband died.

I'd give this book a 5/10.

Journey's End by Josephine Cox

I wasn't really reading this novel for grammatical errors or problems with sentence structure or anything of the sort, however, I recall being slightly repelled because of these issues.  It wasn't too prevalent and I can't think of any at the moment, but I remember encountering some situations of it.  I'm sure I'd have the same issues, although much much worse if I tried to write a novel, which I fully intend to do... some day.  It's so easy to sit back and critique something, but doing the work is another matter.

I was overall not impressed with this book.  The reason I forced myself to keep reading it was that I was isolated in a different country (Canada... four hour trip from my home... heh heh) and while my daughter was in ballet school at Royal Winnipeg all day, I wanted to have some options in my free time, despite the fact that free time was limited as I was watching my 6-year-old as well.

The beginning of the book had chapters that didn't gel together in any way for me.  The accent was annoying and I thought, somewhat fake, however I am not so attuned to Scottish accents.  I found the occasional dialect of European words to be somewhat fake and the storyline was unbelievable to me, however, about half-way through the book I did become engaged in the story somewhat and I actually began to enjoy it.

An elderly woman reminisces about her life and ends up taking a trip from America to Europe (I think it was Scotland) to bring to a head all the secrets and past life experiences for herself and her friend.  In the process, her life is threatened and people become upset.

I guess this book would be a 4/10

Calico Joe by John Grisham

This book was very boring as I can't stand baseball.  Watching it is bad enough, but trying to force myself to read it is super duper bad.  The writing is quite good though and did keep me engaged.  I enjoyed the underlying story about the tension between the father and son.  The writing was good enough to incite feelings of me wanting to read another John Grisham novel, which was Restitution, which was brilliantly written.  I was sorely dissappointed that the characters were not real in either of the books because I became so engaged in them.  John Grisham is very good at pointing out what is true and fiction his novels.  There are a lot of real characters in the Calico Joe novel, just not the MAIN ones!

The Racketeer by John Grisham

The Racketeer by John Grisham was very good.  I was beginning to get lost in the mess of the twists, but in a good way.  I wanted to feel like the main character of the novel was a hero, and I didn't quite get that satisfaction at the end of the novel, however, I was satisfied.  The pace and action was enough for me to be engaged while reading, yet not so fast that I was annoyed.  The brilliancy of the plans were enough to make me wonder about the author.  I thought it was helpful adding at the end in the Author's Note that everything was fictional.  I was beginning to become upset at the government in the back of my mind for their corruption.

The main character suffering through a horrible deal and coming out on top made this novel great for me.  I didn't like the last John Grisham novel I read as I can't stand baseball (Calico Joe), so I didn't expect much from Restitution, but it was excellent!  I felt like cheering for the main character in the end yet I was still horrified at his ability to be corrupted.