The Good, the Bad, and the Okay- April Reviews

I'm proud of myself- still maintaining a steady pace of three books a month. Not a PR by any means, but maybe enough to qualify me for- okay, I'll stop. I have a half marathon on Sunday and am trying to get motivated. Not working. Here's April:

The Good
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
288 pages
This was book club's second selection (funny story- we were actually supposed to go to Giordano's reading but got our times mixed up and ended up discussing the book stuck in traffic on the 60 freeway- oops), and we all really loved it. The novel describes two young Italians and the events that cause them to grow into broken, wounded adults that end up trying to find strength to live their lives. This novel makes you wonder how exactly the tragedies we experience in our youth impact who we grow into as adults.


The Bad
Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee
336 pages
I may be a little harsh with the term "bad," but I really didn't enjoy this book I snagged from Amazon Vine's program. I read one of Mukherjee's collections in college and thought that this might be an interesting take on a woman trying to find social and financial independence in modern India. I was wrong. The dull plot and flat characters ruin Mukherjee's still decent prose.

The Okay
Kara Goucher's Running for Women by Kara Goucher
320 pages
I have a bit of a girl-crush on Olympic runner and new mom Kara Goucher (hmm, this fits nicely with my previous post on Dorian Gray), so I was very excited when she published her guide earlier this month. Unfortunately, it was geared more towards beginners and had some annoying "dead Kara" and "I love this quote" sections that got old. There were some interesting ideas though, (getting a good night of sleep before the night of a race isn't that big of a deal as long as you are generally well-rested) and I appreciated the chapter about running while pregnant (for future reference).

So, buy and read The Solitude of Prime Numbers, stay away from that bore Miss New India, and only read Goucher's book if you're a beginner, pregnant, or a huge fan.