BTT ~ Undo that VooDoo You DIDN’T Do So Well

In the perfect follow-up to last week’s question, as suggested by C in DC:

Is there a book that you wish you could “unread”? One that  you disliked so thoroughly you wish you could just forget that you ever read it?

OMG… this is an easy one to answer.  The Gun Runner’s Daughter by Neil Gordon is one of those books that I wish I could unread.  There was a few hours of my life that I’ll never get back.  It’s one I read before I was blogging, but here’s my review of it from Library Thing:

She was quiet, thinking, for a long time, so long that he asked her what it was. And she answered, hesitantly: “They were beginners, you mean. Two years ago, when they hatched this thing. The problem is, if they really don’t have the will for this prosecution, they’re not going to come out and say that. They’re going to let you say it for them. By losing.”

The plot of the story is: Ronald Rosenthal sells weapons to the Muslims in Bosnia under the wink and nod of the Clinton administration. When a reporter breaks the news of the sale, the federal government arrests and prosecutes Rosenthal to cover their a–. Citizen of both the US and Israel, Rosenthal flees to Israel, where he is regarded as a folk hero. Dee Dennis, the lead prosecutor for the gov’t, realizes he had a fling with Rosenthal’s daughter, and when he talks to her to see if she’ll tell about it, they begin another tryst. Allison Rosenthal takes up the mantle of her namesake, Esther, to destroy the prosecutions case and set her father free.

Simply said: This book was absolutely horrid. The writing was thick and dense, with stops and starts that nearly made me carsick. The characters were shallow and unrelateable. Having never been a jet setting, ivy league, Washington insider, with a house in NY, DC, and Martha’s Vineyard, I really could not care less if the world burned around them. As much as I like crime novels and intrigue, this book not only couldn’t get off the ground, but it belongs 6 ft. under it.

The only good thing about this book is if there’s a blizzard and you have no heat, at least “The Gun Runner’s Daughter” is flammable.

I gave this book one star, and every once in a while I think maybe I was too harsh in my review, but then I just re-read the quote from the book and remember how much pain I was in reading it, and I decide I was more than fair on it.

How about you?  Any books you wish you could unread and get those hours of your life back?

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They Plotted Revenge Against America by Abe F. March

Title:  They Plotted Revenge Against America

Author:  Abe F. March

Paperback:  254 pages

Date Published:  February 3, 2009

Publisher:  All Things That Matter Press

ISBN:  9780982272220

“Pandemics happen,”  U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt had said.  There have been ten in the past 300 years, and “we’re overdue and under prepared” for the next one.  Would America be ready for a flu pandemic at least as deadly as the one in 1918 that killed roughly 50 million people worldwide, including 500,000 in the USA?  David and his scientists didn’t think so.  The scientists working with David were scientists for hire and worked underground.  Knowing the strong arm of the Mossad, they were trusted to keep any work they did secret and confided only to the originator.  They were now assigned to work on a deadly virus…. people had become more vulnerable today than in 1918 because many more now lived in cities that are dependent on food brought in for outside.  In a disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, help can come from outside the region, but with a pandemic, there is no outside.

… Bird and fish virus were the ideal candidates for David and his scientists.  The initial target would be the northeastern part of the United States.  The forests and waterways would be used to begin the infestation of both fish and birds whose virus would be transmitted to millions of Americans.

–They Plotted Revenge Against America by Abe F. March, pages 30-31

They Plotted Revenge Against America by Abe F. March is glimpse into the minds and motivations of a group of would-be terrorists.  Christian, Jew and Muslim, they are bonded in their desire to punish Israel’s biggest supporter in the hope of removing the teeth of the Israeli bite.  The plan is simple:  Go to the US, blend in, observe fish and wildlife in the Northeast and poultry farming in the South, then release viruses that will transmute into a deadly flu, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

However, it is much easier to maintain their hatred for the US and desire revenge for their families deaths while living in the Middle-East.  Once in America, the teams meet and get to know the people who live in the places they are planning to infect; they begin to have second thoughts and feel guilty, seeing their new friends as their potential victims and not enemies.  Things become even more complicated when one of them is detained and interrogated, another falls under the suspicion of a community member, and David, the leader, becomes romantically involved with Samantha, the team liaison.

While this book has moments that seem preachy/teachy about the evil, white-devil America and her meddling in Mid-eastern affairs, it is an intriguing read.  As I read this book, Obama-Netanyahu met and “agreed to disagree” about Israeli-Palestinian settlement and peace, and the Swine Flu scare had schools closing in random locations across the US, which added some tension to my reading.  I couldn’t help but look at H1N1 with a suspicious eye and think that that might be the work of terrorists… interesting how a deadly, potentially-pandemic-capable virus broke out in a popular vacation spot around the time of US Spring Break.

While I don’t believe the author is anti-American, infact March served in the US Air Force from 1957-1961, They Plotted Revenge Against Americamight be viewed as excusing, even condoning, terrorism against the US by more Conservative, right-wing, politically impassioned people.  In much the same way as some Christians jumped on Harry Potter with both feet, proclaiming it “of the devil,” this book might not be received by those who are strong supporters of Israel and believe in US involvement in the Mid-East.

For the most part, I enjoyed reading They Plotted Revenge Against America by Abe F. March, and it will stick with me for a while.  I give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

If you’d like to read other reviews of this book, I reccommend the following:

The Book Tiger

Malcom’s Round Table

Well, I missed last week’s Salon, and finishing Breaking Dawntook a bit longer than I had anticipated… like 10 days longer; it was an exercise in self-torture and perseverance. I wanted to finish before my boyfriend, but I think we both finished the same night, and I’m not sure who read “THE END” first. You can read my review here.

One of the things disappearing in Second Life for a few months has done is rob me of the time to comfortably achieve my reading goal of 75 books for the year by December 31st. After Breaking Dawn, I had 19 books to go… it’s a seemingly impossible goal to achieve; it works out to one book every day and a half. So I’ve been piling headlong into this insurmountable quota. It’s my goal, set by me, and if I miss it I’ve only got myself to answer to. But still, it chafes a bit that I might NOT make it. I have every intention to meeting this goal if I go blind in the process.

For that reason, my next book was Nim’s Island by Wendy Orr. A short 125 pages with a lot of illustrations, this cute little book took a little over 2 hours to finish. Maggie looked it up at her school to see if it’s an Accelerated Reader book, which it is, so I’ll be reading it a second time with her next week 😉 . You can read my review for Nim’s Island here.

I finally returned to my Viral Video Wednesday post, this week posting music videos. The concept was “If there was a soundtrack to your life, what songs would be on it?” I listed mine, along with my reasons for them in a brief history of my life, which included songs like “Crawling” by Linkin Park, “The Unforgiven” by Metallica, “Wonderful, Merciful Saviour” by Selah, Natasha Beddingfield’s “Unwritten” as sung by Team Lachey, and Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love”, among others. Personally, I thought it is a story of triumph and resilience, but it would seem that it was more depressing than joyous, inspiring pity. I apologize to those of you who found it more of a downer than a sharing of my life and recovery. You can check out this week’s Viral Video Wednesday here, if you dare.

I tried hard to finish Fragile Thingsby Neil Gaiman by Thursday to hit that one book per each day and a half quota, but didn’t quite make it. So I finished a book Maggie and I had been slowly working on for the last month or so. Vampire Kisses Blood Relatives, vol 2 by Ellen Schreiber was my first experience in Manga. It’s an interesting and by no means a small genre of reading material. Manga covers any subject matter and age group that books of text cover, only they do it with graphic art panels and thought and speech bubbles. You can read <my review of Vampire Kisses Blood Relatives, vol 2 here.

I did finish Fragile Things: Short Stories and Wonders by Neil Gaiman today. I really loved this book, and read the two poems I posted in the review, plus the short story “Other People”… making that my fourth time reading it… to my boyfriend. I remembered another short entry (not written in verse form, but feels like poetry nonetheless) that I liked in it a while ago. It’s called “In the End”:

IN THE END

In the end, the Lord gave Mankind the world. All the world was Man’s, save for one garden. This is my garden, said the Lord, and here you shall not enter.

There was a man and woman who came to the garden, and their names were Earth and Breath.

They had with them a small fruit which the Man carried, and when they arrived at the gate to the garden, the Man gave the fruit to the Woman, and the Woman gave the fruit to the Serpent with the flaming sword who guarded the Eastern Gate.

And the Serpent took the fruit and placed it upon a tree in the center of the garden.

Then Earth and Breath knew their clothedness, and removed their garments, one by one, until they were naked; and when the Lord walked through the garden he saw the man and the woman, who no longer knew good from evil, but were satisfied, and He saw it was good.

Then the Lord opened the gates and gave Mankind the garden, and the Serpent raised up, and it walked away proudly on four strong legs; and where it went none but the Lord can say.

And after that there was nothing but silence in the Garden, save for the occasional sound of the man taking away its name from another animal.

–Fragile Things: Short Stories and Wondersby Neil Gaiman, “The End” page 233.

You can read my review of Fragile Things here.

I started reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon today, and hope to finish and post the review tomorrow. I’m about 70 pages in and am enjoying it so far. It’s an alternate timeline in which Sitka, Alaska became the interim Jewish homeland after the fall of the State of Israel after three months of independence. The book opens with a murder, a messed up homicide detective, and the stress of the reversion of the Federal District of Sitka to the state of Alaska.

Unfortunately, though, I may not be able to finish it tomorrow… Second Life has made a claim to my time tomorrow, as a SL friend is getting married there and I’m a bridesmaid. Busy, busy, busy!