Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey of Ghana was an intriguing murder mystery. The novel kept me engaged, throughout. The most interesting part for me, again, was my introduction to a piece of the Ghanaian culture and customs...specifically the religious custom of fetish priests and trokosi (Wives of the Gods)which is the practice of marrying teenaged virgin daughters to these priests to atone for sins against the gods. The novel brings in the concern about AIDS in Ghana and the efforts to educate the people to end the spread of AIDS in Ghana.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The genre of The Hunger Game books is definitely not my favorite and is usually very difficult for me to get through. I enjoyed this series, very much, even though the violence is so hard to get past. I know that Collins is making a statement about war, killing, power, etc., but it was a difficult thing to witness as you came to love the characters of the novels. I was specifically disappointed with the way Collins kills Finnick with no real honor or glory...it is almost an aside that he is killed as they flee the mutts that are chasing the rebels through the tunnel. Perhaps it is another statement that, in the end, death is a common thing and there is no real glory or heroism in it. I am just not sure.

I noticed a motif of flowers throughout the novels that I have also not figured out. Many characters names suggest flowers, real or fictious (Katniss, Gale Hawthorne, Prim [Primrose], Rue, Buttercup,and others. Then, there are Snow's roses, Katniss burying Rue under the flowers, the flowers of the meadows, daisies in the song, and a dandelion in the final paragraph of the last chapter. I am not sure if the flowers are significant and symbolic or much more simply there and should not be overanalyzed.

I look forward to the movie version of this series, although I cannot imagine how I can enjoy the gory violence that will have to be a part of this.

Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

I really enjoyed this tragic story by Hardy! I definitely agree with those who say to skip the first 50 pages or so...losts of description of the heath that I cannot figure out how it was so important to the development of the story and characters. The description, itself, is poetic and thorough in its description, so if you are interested in that, you will love the first part of the book. I nearly quit reading, but plowed on because it is listed on one of the lists I have of the best 100 books of all-time. The development of the characters in the novel are fascinating. Descriptions of everything from the people to the locations are so well-done that it is easy to visualize the entire story and feel such a part of it.