One more down, 1.1 million to go...

or something like that.  But, who's counting?  My latest book was Every Secret Thing by Ann Tatlock.  I really enjoyed this book, up to a point.  The premise:  a group of teens with a secret.  Not your typical teen secret, but something I've not encountered in a book before.  They knew what happened to a favorite teacher that left his job under mysterious circumstances.  When the main character, Beth, returns to the campus of her private prep school as a teacher some 30 years later, she seems to be the only one of her friends that can't let it go.  The story moved along quickly but towards the end took a religious turn.  I hadn't expect that.  It was only later, after reading some other reviews online, that I discovered this book was considered Christian Fiction.  So, taking that into account, maybe I wasn't exactly the target audience.  It explains the total lack of real personality traits..... like swearing, worrying about what your hair looks like, or sexual tension between characters.  I understand that people want to read books like that, so I can get past that.  What I really found perplexing was the lack of effective editing.  One character tells Beth that she has the whole evening free to visit and catch up with her but then rushes off.  They also claim to have kept in touch over the last 15 years but then they don't seem to know the most basic things about each other's lives.   The other glaring error was in the telling of a favorite childhood memory by one character where she use to visit a cottage on 'Lake Conesus'.  Being from the Finger Lakes Region of NY, I know that the name of the lake come before the word 'Lake'.  Probably an inconsequential error, but obvious to anyone familiar with the names of any of the lakes.  What, maybe a hundred thousand readers? 

I never want to discourage someone from reading a book because we all like different things.  Rarely does a book strike 2 people in the same way.  It's just that I have the means and desire to share..... so go forward and read whatever pleases you!  For some, though, there are far too many books in our 'waiting to be read' pile to spend time with anything we're not going to enjoy.  So, hopefully I've spared some people and peaked the interest of others.

Pam