El club de los viernes, Kate Jacobs

No sé por qué me compré este libro. Bueno, sí lo sé. Lo hice de oídas, porque las críticas estaban siendo muy buenas y todo aquel que lo leía lo ponía por las nubes. Lo reconozco, a veces me dejo llevar por las opiniones ajenas a la hora de elegir un libro. Soy una gafapasta voluble, qué se le va a hacer, y, aunque por regla general huyo de best sellers, como éste no incluía ni santos griales ni símbolos perdidos acepté barco. Y acerté.

El club de los viernes es, básicamente, un libro de mujeres escrito por una mujer para otras mujeres. No creo que a ningún hombre le gustara (y si hay alguno que lo haya leído por ahí, por favor que me diga si me equivoco), porque está tan metido en el mundo femenino que dudo que cualquier hombre pueda sentirse identificado. Lo bueno es que, cuando hablo del mundo femenino, no me refiero a historias sobre novios, o dudas sobre qué traje ponerse, o cómo salir con el tío más bueno del barrio. No. Las protagonistas son gente corriente, sin historias del otro mundo, con sus pequeñas rencillas con el mundo y entre ellas, pero sobre todo son mujeres. Mujeres que se ayudan las unas a las otras, eso que es tan difícil de encontrar hoy en día porque parece que nos pasemos el rato luchando unas contra otras. Mujeres que sufren con los males de las otras y que saben bajarse del burro cuando ven a alguien sufriendo, y tienden una mano a pesar de que la otra pueda no ser santa de su devoción. Son hijas, madres, parejas, empresarias, tejedoras y, sobre todo, amigas. El punto es al principio su único punto de unión, pero pronto se convierte solo en una excusa para estar juntas.

Este libro me ha gustado, aunque quizás haya momentos en el que peque de ñoño y sentimentaloide. No creo que vaya a leer nada más de Jacobs, porque mucho me temo que es una de esas autoras que sólo tiene un tema y lo explota hasta la saciedad, como le pasa a Fannie Flagg. Pero me ha gustado descubrirla, y desde luego no me ha pesado en absoluto pasarme una semana con el libro. Eso sí, el final no es apto para leer en público si os da vergüenza que os vean emocionados con un libro. Os lo dice una que se tuvo que tragar las lágrimas en el tren. Pero esa soy yo.

Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

"What?", you say. "Didn't she already put an entry about this book?" No, I didn't. Read carefully. It's a different one. Try having two Pendergast novels and not reading them back to back. It's impossible. I've tried. It can't be done.

In this one, Pendergast finds out that his wife (wife we had never heard of) didn't die in a tragic accident while hunting lions, because the weapon she was using was loaded with blanks. She was murdered, and, even though it was twelve years ago and the trail is as cold as it gets, Pendergast decides to hunt down her killer and do her justice the Pendergast way: killing them.

I liked this book better than the last one, I think, just because the science fiction bit was left to a minimum and the story was almost believable (avian flu that turns you into a brilliant mind before driving you crazy and killing you? Okay). D'Agosta is only present at the beginning of the story and then his spot is taken by his brilliant girlfriend, Laura Hayward, who doesn't approve of Pendergast but ends up liking his style a little too much. There are shootings, there are life threatening situations and there is treason. And a 140 year-old woman who looks 23 and decides to throw her baby in the Atlantic ocean while on a cruise.

I'm curious to see how the Southern readers take to this book, because their inhabitants are depicted as a bunch red neck, illiterate animals who can't tell right from wrong and could serially rape a woman without blinking. Apart from that, Louisiana is depicted as the beautiful state it is, and the book only raises more questions about the Pendergast family and the mysterious fire that destroyed the family mansion. I think we still haven't heard all there is to hear about Aloysious and his brother Diogenes, although this last one has been dead for a few books now. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the roles of good and evil were reversed in the past.

A summer without Pendergast novels. How am I going to cope?

Cemetery dance, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I don't know how this authors do it, but they seem to be waiting for me to go on holidays to publish their books. Okay, let's be fair, this one was published so long ago that it's already in paperback, but I just found out a few weeks ago. So I bought it. Obviously.

The Pendergast books are easy reads, kind of a roller coaster ride of emotions and flashy scenes one after the other. Once you have followed them for a while (this book is part of a series), you know their way of doing things and you know what to expect: exposition up to page 100, series of events to page 400 and, 50 pages before the book is over, great ride that won't allow you to put the book down until you've finished. Good thing school is out for the summer.

In this book, FBI agent Aloysious Pendergast and his side kick Lieutenant D'Agosta investigate a series of strange murders that seem to have been perpetrated by dead people. The main suspect is a sect or cult of sorts that lives deep in an urban forest in the middle of Manhattan (and I think it really exists, but without sect), where zombiis seem to be appearing. The story has it's share of gore, like all the Pendergast books, and depends heavily on coincidence and luck, but hey, who said I was reading this for the content? I'm just hear for the thrill!

Preston and Child have written books on their own, all of them thrillers and some with a touch of science fiction, like the Pendergast books, but their true success comes from their work together. I hope they don't stop writing the series or don't kill Pendergast off; there's still a great deal we need to know about this strange character.

All in all, an entertaining read for those lazy summer afternoon. Better served chilled.