The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (CBR-III #28)

Cannonball Read III: Book #28/52
Published: 2009
Pages: 320 (12,185 total so far)
Genre: Post Apocalyptic/Young Adult

This is a zombie book. I don't really care for zombie books, but this one looked pretty promising. It follows a teenager named Mary who grew up in a fenced in town in the middle of the Forest of Hands and Teeth -- named for the zombies that reside there. After the zombification of both her parents, Mary is rejected by her brother and sent to live with the Sisterhood in the town chapel. While there, she falls in love with Travis and meets a strange girl named Gabrielle who appeared from the forest one day.

The premise of this book was very interesting. I kept wanting to read more, which is always a good thing. It was also well written, so aside from the sort of cheesy romance it didn't feel as "dumbed down" as some YA books seem.

Speaking of the romance subplot, it did suffer a bit from the Twilight Syndrome. There was sort of a love quadrangle between Mary, Travis, Travis's brother Harry, and Mary's childhood friend Cass. You see, in their village they do some sort of courtship thing where the girls are chosen by a guy to court in the fall and then they get married the following spring. Travis and Cass are courting and Mary is chosen by Harry, Travis's brother. However, Mary loves Travis and Harry and Cass have a thing. See? Very confusing. It's all the more confusing since we never really get much from any of the characters besides Mary. I have no idea why anyone is in love with anyone else because they don't really have distinct personalities.

Aside from the eye roll inducing teenage love crap, I really did like the story. Mary was a fairly strong female character, which seems to be rare in YA these days. She dreams of one day seeing the ocean and is even willing to give up the supposed love of her life to do so. I just wish the supporting characters were fleshed out a little more.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (CBR-III #27)

Cannonball Read III: Book #27/52
Published: 2005
Pages: 480 (11,865 total so far)
Genre: Thriller/Crime

This is probably one of the best crime-solving books I've read since Silence of the Lambs. I normally don't go for the crime genre, but this book has gotten such good reviews that I decided to give it a try.

I actually almost gave up after the first couple of chapters due to the dull corporate investigative journalism storyline going on. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why people seemed to love this book. I decided to give it a few more chapters and all of a sudden, I couldn't put it down.

Finally, the real story starts as Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander start investigating the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger more than 30 years ago. Mikael is a journalist who was just successfully sued for libel and pretty much lost all credibility when he gets a strange offer from an elderly, wealthy man named Henrik Vanger. Harriet was Henrik's niece and he wants Mikael to spend the next year working on solving her disappearance (or murder, as Henrik believes).

Eventually, computer hacker/private investigator Lisbeth joins him on the case. Lisbeth is an interesting character. She's definitely got some sort of sordid past that is merely alluded to, but she's tough and good at her job. She was probably more of a minor character than I expected (especially considering the book is pretty much named after her) and I would have liked to see more of her.

I'm really glad I stuck with the book. I had no idea where the story was going to go and was definitely thrown for some loops. This book really stood well on it's own, so I'm not sure yet if I'll pick up the other two books in the series.

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by JT LeRoy (CBR-III #26)

Cannonball Read III: Book #26/52
Published: 1999
Pages: 250 (11,385 total so far)
Genre: Fake memoir?

First of all, apparently they was a bunch of controversy over the author of this book back when it came out. It was branded as being a true story about a young boy, but then it was found out to have actually been written by a middle aged woman who was going so far as to actually have another woman pose as "JT LeRoy" (he's suggested to be transgendered) at book signings. Anyways, I knew all this before I read the book so I read it solely as a work of fiction.

The book is more or less a collection of short stories from different points in the life of a young boy named Jeremiah. He was in foster care when he was a baby after he was born to his fourteen-year-old mother, Sarah. Sarah takes him back when he is around four years old and drags him around while she bounces between various boyfriends and her job as a truck stop prostitute.

The whole book is very sad and I can only imagine how much more horrifying it must have been when it was initially released as a memoir. It's all just story after story of horrific child abuse and neglect. I'm pretty sure I bought this book back when I was in my Google-disturbing-books-and-read-whatever-comes-up phase in college. It's sat on my bookshelf for several years and I'm glad I can finally mark it off my list, but I probably won't be keeping it around for a re-read.