Book review: Astonish Me

Title: Astonish Me

Author: Maggie Shipstead

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Joan is a ballet dancer who helps an acclaimed Russian ballet dancer defect many years ago.  Joan retires from ballet when she becomes pregnant and subsequently moves to California with her husband and young son.  When Joan's son is revealed to be an very talented dancer himself, secrets from the past are revealed.

Review:   While I've never danced and I hesitate to push my girls into dancing, I can't help but be fascinated by ballet dancers and the world in which they live.    I admit, I didn't see where this book was going initially.  One of the advantages and disadvantages of writing a review a few weeks after I finish a book is my perspective changes on it.  Sometimes this perspective changes for the positive, other times for the negative.  In this case, I think it's positive.  But I loved the insight into the world of ballet.  I have no idea if it was accurate or not, but it was still interesting.  

Book Review: Edge of Eternity

Title: Edge of Eternity
Author: Ken Follett
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  This is is the final book in Follett's The Century trilogy.  Rather than summarize this book in my own words, I'm going to use Amazon's summary: "Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they make their way through the twentieth century."

Review:  In the interest of full disclosure, I read this entire trilogy for a book club at work.  And I use the term "book club" loosely since we have yet to actually meet to discuss any book in this trilogy, although we are scheduled to meet and discuss in just a few weeks.  I've never read any of Follett's other books, so I can't speak to how this compares to his other books, but this book is so bad it's good.  There isn't a lot of depth to the characters, but I like to think it's educational (if I assume that the description of events in the books from the 60's on is actually true.  I was educated by the California Public School system and while I was in high school when the Berlin Wall fell, I don't actually remember learning about why the Wall going up in the first place).

There are a LOT of characters to keep track of.  Fortunately, there are character lists and family trees to help one remember who is who.  I wouldn't read this book on its own--if you're going to read this then start with the beginning of the series.