Dear Sister Person Book Club: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Dear Sister Person,

You are welcome. Very, very welcome. I figured that I could only add to the torture for so long before we abandoned our venture to read books together, and Gini Koch nearly made me want to kill you, to be honest. (No matter what you say, the Glorious Darcy books were in no way in the same awfulness caliber that Touched by an Alien was.) So reading Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane was definitely a welcome reprieve for me, as well.

Dear Sister Person Book Club: This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Alrighty, readers, the Sister Person and I are trying something different this month, and I think it's going to stick. Basically, any time one of us picks a book, the other writes the first review to be posted either on the first or third Thursday of the month, and then the picker responds the following week. Since SP chose this month's books, I'll be posting my take on it today, and then she'll post hers next Thursday! 

Dear Sister Person,

To be honest, I was really iffy about reading This Is Where I Leave You because, as I said via text message, "white people problems," but I tried to wipe that from my consciousness when I started reading it. I'm happy to report that I was successful in my endeavors, at least in that vein, but you know what? I still really hated this book.

Dear Sister Person Book Club: His Clockwork Canary by Beth Ciotta

Dear Sister Person,

SO WE MEET AGAIN, BINGHAM. This. Fucking. Guy. How does he even put on pants ever, let alone mastermind a plan to assassinate a monarch? Whenever he enters the scene, all I can picture is Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet, only much more inept and skeevy, in a way that only a robot-porking misogynist can. I am really hoping that, in one of the sequels, Renee, his robot sex slave and "confidant" returns to finish the job she started, only this time by sitting on his face and suffocating him.

Excuse me, I believe I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Dear Sister Person Book Club: Her Sky Cowboy by Beth Ciotta

Dear Sister Person,

So when we decided to read this book, I was, admittedly, skeptical. I'm not really a steampunk fan, but hey, the book had pretty decent reviews. Plus, after my encounter with Courtney Milan's work, I was ready to indulge myself with more romance novels, so I started reading Her Sky Cowboy as quickly as I could.

Her Sky Cowboy* by Beth Ciotta

It only took me a few days to complete the book, which isn't necessarily an odd occurrence. I mean, I finished Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in a day (And oh, what a frustrating day it was. I've only thrown two books in my life, and that was one of them.). Your text message response about what you thought, as far as you'd read - note: I expected you to finish before me - pretty much summed up my overall impression of the book.