Books We Did Not Finish June Edition

By Blood  by Ellen Ullman
I got about 1 disc in and just had to stop listening.  The main character is narrating the story.  He tells the reader about his "sabbatical from his teaching job.  He takes an office in a shady part of town.  After he is there for a couple of weeks, he starts listening in on the weekly therapy session of a mysterious woman in the office next door.  The guy is unhinged and the whole thing was just too creepy.  He was also really depressing. I decided it just wasn't for me. 

Island Flame by Karen Robards:

How can I abuse you? Let me count the ways.  That is what was going through my mind through the whole half of the book that I managed to stomach. I love this author, but I just couldn't finish the book.  The heroine, Cathy, is raped repeatedly by the hero, Jonathan, in the beginning.  She is also beaten and berated by him, but she falls for him anyway.  I know this was supposed to be a bodice ripper, but this was just abusive and I couldn't understand how readers think this behavior is even remotely romantic.   I like alpha males, but Jonathan is nothing but a bully and a rapist.

Home by Toni Morrison 

I got about 30 minutes into to the audio of this one, and I was confused and bored. I can't really pinpoint what it was about the book that I didn't like.  It could be that I didn't like listening to Ms. Morrison reading her own book.  It could also be that I had no idea what was going on.  Normally, I can orient myself in a story pretty quickly, as in by the end of the first chapter.  I couldn't do that with this one. It has gotten great reviews, but it just wasn't for me.

Grossed me out!  I understood going in that it was about a middle aged woman that kidnaps a teenaged boy.  While that's kind of ew, I thought maybe it might get a Gillian Flynn type treatment.  The subject matter is just so messed up, but the writing is awesome and the characters are train wrecks but you love them anyway.  This wasn't that book.  The main character would drug the boy then do things like lick his stomach.  When she got to sucking his earlobe, that was enough for me.

Triple Crossing was confusing.  Maybe if I read it in print form, with some highlighters and post-its I could have had a better time with it.  It started off fine, but I was listening to the audiobook and I had trouble keeping all the characters straight and who they were and how they fit into the story.  The reader made everyone sound like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, even the main character who was supposed to be an Argentinian Italian from Chicago, yes he was Spanish speaking with a funny accent, but I didn't think he sounded like Speedy Gonzales.  Anyway, so that was my gripe with that book.