“Snow” by John Banville

If you were cynical, and you were reading a book about a priest who was one of the people in charge of a school for wayward boys, would you guess what that priest did with those boys (or at least some of them)? Yes, yes you would. And you would be right, and you would be disgusted. 

And that right there was me reading Snow. And I just can't get past that aspect of it. 

It was a murder mystery, and I like murder mysteries. It was well written and suspenseful, and I enjoy well-written suspense. It was atmospheric, and really, Snow was the perfect name for it--the story really evoked the wintry and cold ambience. But also  . . . it was just . . . sordid. Agatha Christie would never have written about a pedophile who (albeit deservedly) had his junk removed in the throes of death.

This one is going back to Half Price Books.  

“Rules of Civility” by Amor Towles

Any time a book I read completely absorbs me, the book that follows is going to suffer in comparison. And there's no doubt that's what happened to Rules of Civility. 

But even if I hadn't read this immediately following The Guest, I'm not sure I would have known what to make of it. It's mainly the story of one year in the life of Katey Kontent, an independent young twenty-something in 1938 Manhattan who talks like a hard-boiled detective in film noir. I don’t know why, but I expected Katey to turn out to be a Russian spy. Thant unmet expectation threw me off for quite a ways through the book. 

I liked it but didn't love it. I enjoyed the reading experience but wasn't swept away by it. The characters were interesting enough but I didn't live their lives with them. And it took me nine days to finish this blog post . . .