Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – Being made into a movie, so I really wanted to read this novel first. It’s pretty creative in its futuristic world, one where children are monitored to find “the one” who can defeat the aliens who’ve invaded earth in the past. Simulated games reveal physical skill, wisdom, ability to cast vision and lead. Ender appears to have it all, but can his tender heart allow him to do what’s being asked of him? To kill without remorse? The two battles–ruthless enemies against Ender and another in Ender’s heart and mind–are both well drawn.
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini – This one wasn’t as moving to me as Kite Runner. Still, the story of Pari and Abdullah—separated by Pari’s adoption by a wealthy but flawed family—has ramifications far beyond this initial separation. An intense study of family and relationships and how those bonds exist beyond the physical world.
The Curiosity by Stephen Kiernan – When a scientific expedition searching for life in deep ice discovers a man frozen from 1906, they reanimate him. This story caught and kept my attention from the first page, and I really liked the developing love story between the “frozen man” Jeremiah and the scientist, Kate. But the total lack of probing and questioning anything related to life after death, God, the deepest meanings of life itself…showed a lack of judgment for presenting reality, in my opinion. Frustrating!
The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes – Another good novel by this author…about young widow Liv who owns a painting that was a honeymoon gift from her dead husband—a portrait of a hauntingly beautiful woman with a smile conveying amazing depths of love. When Paul and his company–a firm that restores stolen paintings from WWI and II to their original owners–seeks to take the painting from Liv, she fights them with all that she has—even though she may lose Paul’s love in the process. Satisfying ending which I did not see coming.