Book Review- Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job

This is my second Christopher Moore novel, the first being Fluke, which I didn't really like, and I am glad that I gave him a second chance. Moore writes the quirky. Occasionally, it's nearly too quirky, but I found that with A Dirty Job, that just going along for the ride, makes for a fun read.

Charlie Asher is a lovable dork who unwittingly becomes a death merchant and must protect his unborn daughter from the rise of the underworld, which is about to occur in a mega showdown in his hometown on San Francisco. Moore's talent lies in creating memorable characters. Each character is nearly more bizarre than the very strange things that are happening around them. I love, love, love Audrey and her squirrel people. Best characters ever! Especially Bob with his spork.

I laughed out loud many times while reading this book and even had to read my boyfriend paragraphs that I thought were so well written. Moore is great with phrasing and writing comedy.I was mostly very entertained, which is why I gave this book a four star rating.

The bits that I thought were super dull were everything with the Morrigans, the central evil characters of the book. I found myself skimming through these parts just to get back to Charlie. I wish that a lot of it had been cut out and that the characters were kept more mysterious. It was tedious to read.

Also a bit tiresome was the picking up of vessels. At first, it was intriguing, but it went on too long.He kept having another name in his book and another person to track down. I felt that this book could have benefited from tighter editing. Maybe a few sections cut would have made a sharper story. A few of the scenarios were extraneous and didn't really drive the plot or character development.

Overall, I would recommend it and I look forward to reading another Moore novel. He has an interesting take on the world and is a unique author.

Book Review- The Diary of an American Au Pair

I was given this book over four years ago at a Bookcrossing meet up ( a really fun one at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank) and it has sat on my bookshelf ever since. I've been battling a terrible virus and decided that I needed a light read, so I plucked it off the shelf.

I rated Marjorie Leet Ford's The Dairy of an American Au Pair: A Novel four out of five stars, not because it's a great book, but I think for it's genre (definitely pulpy chick-lit) it was decent. It's a quick, fun read.

The story is told from the POV of Melissa, a twenty-something American, who loses her job and decides to take a position as an Au Pair to an English Couple. Melissa sets off to England with high hopes of finding herself and seeing a new country/ cultural immersion. She quickly learns that the family she is working for is a bit nutty and has different expectations for her time in England. Ultimately the book is about the relationships that she develops, in particular with the youngest daughter Claire and the old former nanny whom has worked for the family for years. I bought into most of the book, with the exception of Melissa's romantic encounters, which just didn't work for me and I thought held little relevance to the story. They should have been edited out.

I am dating a Brit, so I think that made me a bit partial to this story, as I found some of Melissa's cultural confusion to ring true. Two things that my boyfriend says, Melissa also encounters in the book. First, "what's for tea?". It took me forever to realize that tea means dinner and not actually having a cup of tea. The second, also related, "what's for pudding?". Pudding doesn't always mean Jello, it means dessert in a generic sense. This cracked me up when I read it in the book. The weird thing is, I have begun to think in terms of Tea and Pudding, because I hear my boyfriend say it every day.

This is a good beach read. It's mostly fluff, with a few insightful and serious chapters. Enjoyable.

Last note, I like the quote on the cover by one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith - "Nannies and au pairs are the new anthropologists. Employers : beware of those amongst you taking notes. They might produce something as funny and observant as this book."

Book Review- Alas, Babylon

Many stories have been written about Nuclear War, but what sets Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon apart, was it was published in 1959, at the height of the Cold War. This book is very scary and I can imagine even more so for people who read it when it was initially published.

A modern companion book would be Cormac McCarthy's The Road, as it had many similarities in theme and tone. Although, the characters in Frank's novel are stuck in a contamination zone and their range of space is stiffling, adding to the tension in the story.

The book is a horror story. Many of the characters turn into animals and the actual animals turn into beasts. Our core group of characters, a motley bunch of friends, neighbors and relatives are forced to scrape by and use both brains and brute force to resolve problems. I loved how the town library, on the verge of extinction prior to the attack, becomes an indispensable resource and the librarian a town hero. Frank really seems to know his stuff going into writing this novel, because he lists problems that would arise in such an event that never even crossed my mind. Scary, scary stuff.

I rated this four out of five stars, only because I found it difficult to get into. I read this book over the course of several months and only after getting sick and making good progress, was I able to find it gripping. After a hundred pages in, I was totally captivated and I finished it up in less than a day.

This book will leave you with jangled nerves.