{summer reading} part ii

This week I read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Both books were excellent stories of love, life, and death. They were about family. I didn't intend to read two books so similar in theme and didn't even realize they were until I started writing this post. The Lovely Bones was recommended to me by an employee of Barnes & Nobel. She asked me if I'd heard of it and was surprise that I hadn't. She told me that I looked like the type of person who would enjoy it. Not sure what she meant, and entirely curious about what a stranger thought I might enjoy, strictly on 'looks' alone, I bought it. I was not disappointed. It was disturbing + haunting, the way some great books are. It was also incredibly touching. The Pact stood out to me on the table of Bestsellers because I had read another of Jodi Picoult's books just last week. Although I had enjoyed Vanishing Acts, I liked The Pact even more. I felt so connected to the characters in the book that at times I felt their pain too much and had to remind myself that I was reading! I am looking forward to reading more of her books in the near future.