She suspended the book club for a year or so after Jonathan Franzen got snotty about "The Corrections" being chosen. I don't remember what the official reason was.

She did, with like live authors. Which bummed me out, cause I always learned from it. That Franzen asshole. But then, she got pissy back and said that she couldn't find anything inspiring in modern books anymore. Which, even unpublished, made me go "Hey!" Friends don't let friends read Dan Brown. Or Nicholas Sparks. Oy. Totally painful, for completely different reasons. But they both make Gutenberg cry.

Something of Four?

The Rule of Four. One of the authors is actually a college classmate of mine, though I didn't know him. I mostly want to read it for nostalgia's sake, since it's apparently set at Princeton.

Heaven is the one who grows up backwoods hillbilly poor, has a crush on her (alleged) half-brother, a sexual relationship with her foster father, then ... help me. I remember she moves in with her birth mother's family and sleeps with someone there, but I don't remember whether it's her step-grandfather or what.

Her step-grandfather (who, it turns out, raped and impregnanted her mother so therefore is her bio-grandfather) tried to rape her in the 3rd book Fallen Hearts because she had bleached her hair and looked like her mother. She falls in love with Troy, who she believes to be a non-blood relative but when they learn that she is indeed his biological neice, he drowns himself and she ends up marrying Logan, her sweetheart from back in the hills. (But, as in true series-romance, Troy was not dead, comes backin the 3rd book and he and Heaven have an affair that results in her daughter Annie.)

And doesn't she, like Dawn, ultimately marry a boy she was raised as a sister to? Or am I making that up?

Dawn did, but Heaven didn't. Tom, the boy Heaven was raised with as brother and sister dies in the second book, Dark Angel.

(Yes, I'm almost 30 and I still read the series twice a year)

Well, I recall it got a nice mention on NPR, so one assumes it doesn't suck.

I have friends who knew Matt Ruff at Cornell, which is one reason I continue to follow his career. The other reason being that he's really very talented, and needs to write more.

Says the woman still a frustrating 50 pages away from the end of Set This House in Order.

Says the woman still a frustrating 50 pages away from the end of Set This House in Order.

Did you ever get to read the chunk that was missing from your copy?

Nope. If I remember, I'll bring it with me next time I go to Moe's and ask for a trade-in.

It is, however, very good, and I recommend it. Despite the subject matter (the two main characters both have multiple personalities as a result of prolonged and appalling abuse as children), it's not depressing. It's oddly hopeful, very creative, and suspenseful. I'm liking it a lot.

so therefore is her bio-grandfather

Bio-father, I think. Squicky even for Andrews.

And thanks, Aimee. I was conflatiing Tom and Logan, and I had entirely forgotten Troy.

Is Logan the rich boy in the 1st book?

Bio-father, I think. Squicky even for Andrews.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Is Logan the rich boy in the 1st book?

Yup, he's the son of the owner of the drugstore.

I was going to say that, disturbingly, the only thing on the best seller list I've read is The Notebook.

But that's not true, it was Message in a Bottle. I have nothing to say in my defense. I was at the beach with my ex SIL and my brother were there and she gave me the book, so out of obligation I read it.