Creepy Irish ghost story...

Three dead women are found by the postman in a house at the end of a lane, in a small town just outside Dublin. One woman died from having her head bashed in, presumably by the shovel found upstairs, next to the emaciated bodies of her two nieces who had been imprisoned, fed rat poison, and slowly starved to death. Shortly after the grisly discovery, Niall, an aspiring graphic artist who works at the post office, finds an unclaimed package in the dead letter bin, mailed by Fiona Walsh (one of the dead girls) to "anyone at all" in the post office. It turns out to be Fiona's diary, and once Niall opens the book and begins to read, he is dragged into a world of fairy tales and evil. Fiona and her sisters grew up in a town in West Cork, and Niall goes there to follow the story.

How much of the tale is fanciful or exaggerated? How much is just a romantic telling of something very real and horrible? Fiona and her sister are dead -- and so is their Aunt Moira. They all had been involved with a traveling storyteller named Jim. And it is Jim's story that forms the spellbinding tale which leads to the final chapter of doom.

Read this one with the lights turned down low -- to get into the mood of horror and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. Or keep all the lights on to their full brightness so you won't get too freaked out. I give this book 3 1/2 stars for spinning such an intriguing yarn.

Can't Stop Readin' Those...

As addictive as Jay's potato chips, the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins has gripped RB's reading world. The 1st book in the series was selected as the Eng. 10 summer read, and several sophomore classes are embarked upon a research project based on the 2nd book, Catching Fire. The 3rd and final book in the series, Mockingjay, was just released a couple of weeks ago, and true fans have "flocked" to purchase or borrow it. I myself had to wait for my husband and daughter to finish our copy before getting my turn.

The tone of Mockingjay is different from the first two. While they were based on the to-the-death games imposed on the other 12 districts by the ruling "Capital," there was still an element of adventure and suspense. This third book gets right to the point and doesn't let the reader escape from the absolute control and unrelenting terrorism practiced by the Capital. Yes, people died in the other books, but we weren't slammed in the face with the brutality, torture, and genocide. Mockingjay makes it clear that Collins was writing about war, violence, and totalitarian governments. While The Hunger Games could have been compared to the TV show "Survivor," there is no chance that Mockingjay can be considered light-hearted fun. Still well-written and gripping, though. And the love triangle between Katniss, Gale, and Peeta continues . . .

I give this one 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

Futility of Africans' Plight

The Faculty Book Club chose this book for our April book, so I took it with me to Mexico over Spring Break. What a downer! Apparently Oprah and Anderson Cooper had raved about this book and how it would open one's eyes to the reality of what so many people in Africa are dealing with. The books has won multiple awards. So I went in expecting to be enlightened and inspired. Instead, I found it unrelentingly depressing. There are three short stories and two longer novellas - each one centering on a child living in a different country. The first one deals with an impoverished street family. The oldest, a 12-year-old-girl, is supporting the family through prostitution. She's giving the secrets of the trade to her 10-year-old sister to get her ready. The narrator brother is destined to go off to school - he is their future and their hope. But he can't stand the guilt - so runs away. HOPELESS. Then there is the story about an uncle who "saves" his niece and nephew from their parents who are dying of AIDS -- only to sell them into slavery. HOPELESS. Follow that story up with the one about a young man running away from marauding revolutionaries in the Islamic north to the Christian area in the south (his mother was Islamic; his father was Christian). He is on a bus -- and the very long story deals with the people on the bus talking about the politics, religion, and other philosophies -- and his fear that he'll be discovered and killed. Which is what happens at the end. HOPELESS. Or how about the one where a Rwandan family is destroyed when the father is forced by tribal revolutionaries to murder his wife -- and the reader knows that his children are also facing imminent death. HOPELESS. Why am I telling you the end of these stories? To save you from the depression that enveloped me after trudging through this collection. The thing is, you come out of this book without any idea of what will ever solve the problems all those people are facing. The conflicts based on colonially-imposed borders and the inequality (politically and economically) between factions is not going away. The disease, poverty, and overall lack of hope for a decent future seem unrelenting. I was not enriched by reading this book. Nor was I disturbed in a good way -- one that might have encouraged me to take action to improve the situations. The stories were poisons that infected me - and I just needed a good Disney movie or two to clear them out.

1 out of 4 stars.