Catching up with a multiple book review...

OK--new month, new leaf. I've been faithful in my reading, but not my blogging, so let me play catch up.
My last post was about The Hunger Games, which I ended up really liking--so much so, that the next week I read its sequel Catching Fire. Somewhat disturbing, but very compelling reads.
Then I read The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I had won in a blog giveaway. Several people had recommended it to me, and being a relatively new dog owner, I was interested in reading anything good about dogs. I enjoyed the use of the dog Enzo as narrator and entering into his way of looking at the world, but I ultimately couldn't buy it. He seemed too human in his way of reflecting on the past and planning for the future. I had been spoiled by reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, in which the dog's perspective is so sensitively and masterfully served up. I also did not find the plot believable in The Art...
For my bookgroup, I read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, the Newberry Award Winner for 2009, which I really enjoyed. The thinness of the volume, the cartoonish design of the front cover and the large type led me to expect something pretty light. The plot line, character development and description was actually quite complex. It drew on one of my favorite books from childhood, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, which was fun.
I followed with The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, the first book in a tween/young adult series about the Greek Gods and their offspring--demigods or half-bloods--who are very much alive in the 21st century. Both of my daughters love this series, and they wanted to see the movie which was coming out during our school break with their cousins. Since I always try to "read the book before I see the movie," I had to scramble to get it finished in time. I couldn't help comparing the book to the Harry Potter series, and finding it wanting. This is one case in which I found the movie to be better than the book. The twists and turns seemed so implausible to me, and Riordan didn't do enough to create an alternate world that I could get caught up in. My daughters assure me that the later books in the series are better, and I'm willing to give them a try.
This week I read A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick's first novel, for my book group. It was an entertaining read, a story with a dark, gothic feel set in rural Wisconsin during the dead of winter. I found that, like the winter, the plot dragged on long after I was ready for it to be over. I never grew to believe in or care about the main characters: a rich, lonely man in the winter of his life, his beautiful younger mail-order bride who has more hidden than just the jewels in her skirt hem, a prodigal son, faithful servants, and a supporting cast of characters in the form of tragic news reports, casualties of the isolation and hardship of rural life. The author frequently repeated statements like "Such things happen," like a refrain, and while I agree that they do, I think they can be conveyed in a more believable way. Sex is a major theme in this novel, but it was not explored or portrayed in a way that I found appealing or authentic. I wouldn't put this book at the top of your list.