Characters to Love, Like (Sort of…), and Not Quite Like…

The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens

Mary Gooch’s husband leaves her on the eve of their Silver Wedding Anniversary. But rather than this event being an ending, it is the day that her life finally starts.

Mary has never gone anywhere: never been on a plane, never left her native Canada, and never had an adventure. When her beloved husband suddenly leaves her, she decides to be brave and leave her hometown and track him down. She does have some challenges facing her before she starts her journey. Mary is morbidly obese. She has no wardrobe and no energy. Yet she meets helpful strangers along the way that guide her, advise her and connect with her in ways that she never thought imaginable.

You can identify with Mary’s hunger. You don’t pity her, you understand her, and you cheer as she starts living her life, perhaps for the first time. This is a story of a woman learning to love and accept herself just the way she is.


Horns by Joe Hill

Need a little horrific fiction to leave you with a pleasantly uneasy feeling? This one may be for you. What would it be like to wake up one morning with horns growing out of your head? Horns that make everyone who saw them suddenly tell you their darkest desires? And forget touching people. Once you touch someone all their inner thoughts become your own. That’s exactly what happens to Ig Parrish. Everyone in town thinks he brutally murdered his long time girlfriend, now he’s out to find the killer and exact revenge.

Just like his father (his famous dad is horror king Stephen King) Joe Hill is a master at horror pacing. The current timeline of the story flies by as Ig learns more and more (and much he doesn’t want to know) from the people he’s known all his life, and the parts that leisurely tell the story of Ig’s childhood and teen years seem to mosey along. There are dark parts, and sweet parts. His writing keep you feeling unbalanced, exactly what you want in a horror book.

Ig is the anti-hero out for justice that you root for even though deep down you know that liking him isn’t quite right…


Solar by Ian McEwan

I finished this book a week ago and I can’t quite describe why I enjoyed it. If I was to describe the womanizing, lying, cheating, egocentric man the book revolves around you wouldn’t want to read it. But he’s an engaging character. You know what makes him tick and why he does what he does, and in a strange way you’re okay with the horrible things he does. In his worldview his decisions make sense. He’s a well-developed character that you grow to like despite himself…

McEwan’s writing is wonderful as usual. He’s descriptive without being too wordy. It’s worth the read just for the descriptions of an ill prepared man attempting to snowmobile across the Nordic tundra. Trust me; you’ll have tears of laughter and pain at his ordeal.

I guess I should mention the plot. It’s semi-twisty and I don’t want to give anything away… In a nutshell, a former Nobel Laureate, who hasn’t had a novel idea in decades and has been milking his award for the past umpteen years, is given a position with a center tackling the global warming issue. At a suggestion mentioned by our scientist in passing gads of money is spent developing wind turbines to dot all over London to harvest wind energy. He instead, through odd circumstances, pursues solar power.