More reading! I’ve been very busy and I wasn’t thinking I would get much read this last month.  But, something that helped my reading this month? Flying to Vegas! 😀  With a 5 hour flight each way, I knocked out a book for each trip.

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

This book started out with a lot of promise. Ren is an orphan with a missing hand who is adopted out of a monastery by someone claiming to be his brother. He ends up in the land of grifters in New England.  Aot of the book is spent with all the schemes that Ren’s ‘brother’ and his con artist friend think up.  It’s also a story of a big mismatched family that forms from all of these people.  Coincidentally, he ends up landing in the perfect spot to find out about his real family and how he lost his hand.

I actually really enjoyed this book until about 3/4 of the way through and the plot started to become a little unbelievable, especially what comes to light about Ren’s real past.  Ren was a very well developed character, but the others were a little predictable.  I would recommend borrowing this and not purchasing. Borrowed from the library on my kindle.

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The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton.

Wow.  This book was really, really good.  We all know about doping in pro cycling, but the extent of the doping throughout the years and the lengths that they went to in order to cover it up is amazing.  It’s a very honest book.  The pressure put on the athletes is amazing.  Tyler doesn’t really try to put himself in a good light. He basically states that while doping is bad, not all people who dope are bad.  He talked about his decision to start doping and what the alternatives were for him. Even if you don’t follow cycling, this is just a well done book about how the culture of something can get out of control.  Not to mention a lot of details about Lance Armstrong as Tyler Hamilton was on the Postal team for several of the years that Lance won the  Tour.  I really do recommend this book.  Borrowed from the library on my kindle.

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Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

This was quite a good book.  A very emotional book.  It is a story set in the 1980s during the first real awareness of the AIDs epidemic.  It’s the story of  teenage June and her sister Greta and how they deal with the death of their uncle Finn from AIDS, who was also a famous artist.  June becomes unlikely friends with Toby, Finn’s partner, in secret and the book is an unfolding of this.  The book deals with a lot of emotional issues like sibling relationships (both as children and adults), dealing with illness, death and grief, family secrets, etc.   This is definitely worthwhile to pick up.  Borrowed from my library via kindle.