Yellow Wallpaper

The weather has been weird for the last few weeks--we've been having a lot of muggy mornings followed by massive thunderstorms in the afternoon. About 10 days ago we had a crazy microburst that caused a lot of flooding around the neighborhood (thankfully my basement stayed dry). Things have been rather unsettled, but we are slowly creepy towards fall. I love watching the trees slowly turning colors and feeling the air cool off a little each day. On Sunday I distracted the kids from the fact that we didn't have a lot of good food options in the house by packing a random picnic and driving us up into the canyon for dinner. They love getting outside and I need to take advantage of our proximity to the mountains more often.  The last few months have been somewhat unsettling for me too. I've been in my new job for almost five months now and am finally starting to feel more comfortable in my role. I think I underestimated how big a transition in workplace atmosphere and job typ...

Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez I don't know much about the world of highly gifted, competitive musicians, and I felt like the author did a good job making that world come alive and be understandable to readers. I also really liked the main character and her love interest; there were a few elements of the story that led to the conclusion that felt a bit over-the-top, but not so much that I couldn't suspend my disbelief and enjoy the story. The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian Bohjalian is an author that I always end up a little disappointed by, but keep reading anyway. I felt like this book was one of his weaker efforts. He uses many of the conventions of popular fiction these days--gruesome details of murder mixed together with romance, jumping back and forth between characters and time periods, and using complicated historical time periods for somewhat simplistic statements about politics and ethics. He also always has some kind of shocking twist at the end of his...