The Regulators by Stephen King

The Regulators by Stephen King
512 pages
Finished 1/29/08













In case you can't tell, I am on a bit of a Stephen King tear. I'm trying to build up my collection - I've always been a King fan, but haven't read much of it lately. Thanks to Half Price Books, I'm now all over it.

Anyway, at one of my last trips I picked up Desperation, and I liked it quite a bit. I had seen on the book that there was another book (The Regulators) that I thought was a sequel of sorts. Turns out the books are more "companions" of each other. You can read them completely separately, and really aren't missing anything. I got David to take me to HPB again this past weekend, and decided to check out the Stephen King section again for funsies (even though I had picked up a couple of King's books already from the dollar section). I saw The Regulators and snatched it up right away, even though I honestly had forgotten about the book.

The coolest thing about these two books are the characters - simply because the characters names, and a number of their main traits, are recycled between the two books. I didn't realize this when I first started reading Regulators, and I actually had David go grab Desperation for me out of the office so I could compare names (and yep, they matched). It was a little confusing at first, and then I realized that I had to separate the two stories - just because someone was a bad guy in one book, didn't necessarily mean he/she was a bad guy in the other.

I really liked Regulators - more than I liked Desperation, even. I was reading some other reviews, and it sounds like most people think Desperation is the better of the two, but I'd have to beg to differ on this one.

Four stars.

Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
340 pages
Finished 1/26/08












This book is your typical chick lit - career woman falls madly in love with the man of her dreams, only to find that things aren't as peachy as she thought it'd be. In the case of this book, the main character, Claudia, has always maintained that she didn't want children - ever. She eventually meets a man that feels the exact same way about that (and, apparently, everything else under the sun). They get married, and after a few years of marriage, one of them eventually decides that hey, maybe they do want kids.

This book is exactly what I envision most chick lit to be - simple, predictable, and an easy read (I read in a day, no problem). It wasn't a great book, but I didn't despise it. I'd probably read other books by the author (as long as I found them in the dollar area at HPB).

Three stars.

The Innocent Man by John Grisham

The Innocent Man by John Grisham
435 pages
Finished 1/26/08













I've always been a big John Grisham fan - I've read all of his fiction books, and I was eagerly waiting for this book to come out in paperback ever since I first heard about it. Of course, I could only get it in paperback since all of my other Grisham books are in paperback (consistency people!). I happed to see it the other day while wandering around in Target - David must have been in a good mood, because he let me buy it. :)

The book centers around the true story of a man wrongly convicted of murder in the late '80s. It's a pretty compelling story in itself - ex small town hero turned bad guy turned not so bad guy. It was a little weird reading the book though, because there were a few times that I forgot that I was reading nonfiction, and would think I was reading one of Grisham's thrillers - maybe that's a good thing? Overall, I liked the book. Reading Grisham is a bit like comfort food - very familiar.

Three stars.

The Alibi by Sandra Brown

I'm not going to say much about The Alibi by Sandra Brown - I pulled it off of the dollar shelf at HPB because it looked kinda interesting. I realized about five pages into it that 1) I had read this book before, and 2) that it is a horribly written book. I was not a fan.

Two stars.

Desperation by Stephen King

Desperation by Stephen King
547 pages
Finished 1/21/08













A week or so ago, David and I were going to run into town and do some errands. Since we are had to go to Home Depot, the common compromise is to go to Half Price Books (yay!). I decided to take a look at my Stephen King collection, and pick up another book of his that I haven't read. I ended up writing about 6-8 books down before we left.

Turns out Desperation wasn't even on that list, but I knew right away I hadn't read the book. I really liked it - in typical Stephen King fashion, the story revolves around a ton of characters that all end up being pulled over and abducted by a crazy weird cop in Desperation, NV. The coolest thing about the book is that it looks like there is a bit of a sequel called The Regulators that was written by King's alter-ego, Richard Bachman. I can't wait to read that one, too.

Three stars.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
236 pages
Finished 1/16/08













I had a really hard time getting into and then through this book. It is an autobiography (really?!) of a woman who had cancer when she was a child. As a result of that cancer, she had to have part of her jaw removed, leaving her disfigured.

The first thing that bothered me is that I wasn't a huge fan of the author's writing style. I know what she was going for with the visualizations, etc, but it just seemed like she was trying too hard. That wasn't the biggest thing that bothered me, though. The whole time I was reading it, I was annoyed by the lack of family relationships that were mentioned. She talked some about her father and her mother, but her twin sister was barely mentioned. It just felt there was this huge aspect of her life that was missing while reading the book.

I did find the afterword written by author Ann Patchett really interesting - it really shed some light on Grealy and her thoughts behind the writing of this memoir.

Two and a half stars.

Also, is it bad that every time I see the book, I kept thinking "So's your face!" (an insult from Scrubs) and then will usually start singing Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face"?

Amazing Race Genius

Can I just say how proud of myself I am for picking the winners of the Amazing Race 12 after watching the first episode? Granted, I didn't do much better in picking any of the other positions (um...Jason and Lorena in second? Not so much), but I am happy that for once my favorite team was able to win it. The last roadblock was awesome, although a little confusing.

On a sad note...of course the Packers lost last night. David and I ended up watching the second half of the game in bed (he's pretty sick right now), and I turned the TV off with two minutes in regulation and the game still tied. I was way too nervous to keep watching. Of course, about 15 minutes later I went online to check the final score, and saw that it was in OT. I ended up turning on the TV again just in time to see the Giants kick a field goal and win it. Ouch. Brutal. I so hope Tom Brady kicks Eli Manning's ass in the Superbowl.