The Devil All the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock

Gruesome. Gory. Scary. Well written and vividly descriptive. I won't recommend this because you'll think I'm sick and twisted if I do. It's about a lot of really sick people in Ohio in the 1950s and 60s - some serial killers, bad cops, abusive priests... just a lot of people who do really bad things.

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

LOVED this book. It was really well written with a great, fast-paced plot. It was a mystery/thriller style book, but it also really hit on some points about relationships and marriage that were spot-on... although most marriage issues (hopefully) do not get quite to the extreme as Nick and Amy's did in this book. I thought for a while that the author was trying to pull some trite allusion to Great Gatsby, with Nick as the potentially unreliable narrator, but she proved me wrong. The book took all the right twists and turns, except at the end. I can think of a couple of better endings, but my lack of complete satisfaction with this ending in no way destroyed by absolute enjoyment of this book. Take it on vacation; you'll read it in a day or two.

Imaginary Jesus, by Matt Mikalatos

This was a light, silly book about pretty heavy theology - a man on a personal quest to find the real Jesus, with a bunch of pretty hilarious fake Jesuses (Jesi?) in tow.

Fifty Shades, by EL James

I considered not posting that I read this, but oh well. I did read them. All three. And I'll never get those hours of my life back.

44 Scotland Street, by Alexander McCall Smith

This was a light, fun little read. The plot was about nothing (something about a missing painting that may or may not have been famous), but the charaters and dialogue were quite funny... quite the farce (with things like missing underwear). I don't remember this book all that well at this point, but I remember some line about not being able to execute a proper risotto while discussing anthropology. Too true, don't you think?

Nonfiction

I read and/or attempted to read three nonfiction books during this period: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I only read a little Krakauer's book. Really boring. It was about life in the Mormon polygamist compounds in Colorado and Utah. The subject matter itself was fairly interesting, with pretty tough-to-take goings on, but the writing style was SUCH a snore that I couldn't take it. Unbroken was a very good book. It did have one aspect of nonfiction that I don't like - a very didactic, instructive style to the writing - but no one can deny that the plot is harrowing. What Zamparini went through as a soldier in WWII is almost unimaginable, and I'm glad this author told his story. Half the Sky is about the effects of global poverty on women and particularly focuses on sex trafficking. As a professional woman who is very in tune with discrimination issues, this book really hit me. While, of course, discrimination in the U.S. is real and a problem, my concerns in that regard surround professional advancement and pay. My concerns aren't lethal.

Stephen King, 11/22/63

You would think this was another genre departure for me, but no. This was genre departure for Mr. King. This is a clever, compelling book about using time travel to attempt to stop the Kennedy assassination, of course, invoking a butterfly effect. I haven't read much Stephen King, but, wow, he is a good writer, and funny too. His relationships felt real, and I completely bought into the plot despite its fantastical nature. It is well documented that I don't like nice, neat little bows at the end of my books, and this delivered on that, although I thought the ending was also quite sweet. I do not want to hear "I don't like/read Stephen King" as an excuse to not read this book. It's great.