A to Z April: S Reviews - Strangers by Dean Koontz/Summer to Die by Lois Lowry/Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley

Since there were soooooo many books that started with the letter S, it was really hard to narrow it down to just two to review today. So I'm going to do three that are ones that I just couldn't give up on as I tried to decide.  The first is one of my all time favorite Dean Koontz books.  The next one is one of the books I read as a teen over and over.  And the last one is a sequel to Gone with the Wind, one of my favorite all time books ever since high school.

First is Strangers by Dean Koontz.  I read this book over and over, even at over 700 pages, I could read through it in a day or two because of what a good read it was.  It is a UFO type of story.  There are bits that make you think of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but all in all it is just one of Koontz's great earlier stories.  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
A surgeon, a writer, a motel-keeper, a priest and a thief; they have nothing in common - nothing but one hot summer night at the Tranquillity Motel: a night filled with unending terror; a night when an awesome power stripped them of their memories.

Now the evil is creeping back into their minds. Slowly, tauntingly, maddeningly, they are recalling the unspeakable events of that fateful moonlit evening. And as the vision of evil grows clearer, the guests of the Tranquillity Motel seek each other out. Some of them will not live to face the power head on. But some will - in a terror-packed climax unlike anything ever experienced before...

Second is A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry.  It's one of her sad teen stories that she wrote so many of.  It's not at all a dystopian story like The Giver.  This is about a girl who gets leukemia and how her family deals with it.  I don't know if I can put my finger on all the little things that have influenced my life from this book, but there are many.  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Meg isn't thrilled when she gets stuck sharing a bedroom with her older sister Molly. The two of them couldn't be more different, and it's hard for Meg to hide her resentment of Molly's beauty and easy popularity. But now that the family has moved to a small house in the country, Meg has a lot to accept.

Just as the sisters begin to adjust to their new home, Meg feels that Molly is starting up again by being a real nuisance. But Molly's constant grouchiness, changing appearance, and other complaints are not just part of a new mood. And the day Molly is rushed to the hospital, Meg has to accept that there is something terribly wrong with her sister. That's the day Meg's world changes forever. Is it too late for Meg to show what she really feels?

The last book I want to talk about today is Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley.  When this book came out I devoured it.  Shortly after the book was out, they made a mini-series for tv of it.  And while it was okay, it skipped some of the parts I loved about the book. But isn't that how it always is?  This book picks up after Rhett left Scarlett.  It includes her taking a trip to Ireland to be with her father's side of the family.  She finds out that Rhett seems to be done with her when she went back to try to get him back.  Her mother's family demands she has nothing to do with her father's family, it all leads to her trip to Ireland, along with a new romance, one that soon turns into a murder, that Scarlett will be blamed for.  Here is the pretty nondescript blurb from Goodreads:
The timeless tale continues... The most popular and beloved American historical novel ever written, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind is unparalleled in its portrayal of men and women at once larger than life but as real as ourselves. Now bestselling writer Alexandra Ripley brings us back to Tara and reintroduces us to the characters we remember so well: Rhett, Ashley, Mammy, Suellen, Aunt Pittypat, and, of course, Scarlett. As the classic story, first told over half a century ago, moves forward, the greatest love affair in all fiction is reignited; amidst heartbreak and joy, the endless, consuming passion between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler reaches its startling culmination. Rich with surprises at every turn and new emotional, breathtaking adventures, Scarlett satisfies our longing to reenter the world of Gone With the Wind, and like its predecessor, Scarlett will find an eternal place in our hearts.

Talking about all three of these has made me want to read them again!  So tell me, are you a Dean Koontz reader?  If so, have you read this one?  Did you read Lois Lowry as a teen?  And have you read this sequel to Gone With the Wind?

While you're here, be sure to enter the giveaway that is going along with my A to Z challenge!

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2013 Truman Possibility 10: Paintings From the Cave by Gary Paulsen

I actually had never read a book by Gary Paulsen until I began to read for the different award lists.  I know, I know, how many people grew up reading Hatchet?  Not me.  But I have to admit he is a very good writer. Normally they're not my type of books, but they're good.  This book is actually three novellas.  Very short stories. The whole book is only 161 pages.  So, a good choice for low readers at the middle school age for this award.
The first story, Man of the Iron Heads, is very reminiscent of another book I read for awards, If I Grow Up, by Todd Strasser.  In this story our main character is Jake.  He lives in a ghetto basically.  In his building, there is a drug/gang leader, that Jake has learned to stay away from.  He lives with his aunt, because his parents, mother anyway, left when he was like 3.  But his aunt never wanted a kid, and gets drunk I guess, so he stays on his friend Layla's couch when her mom isn't home.  Layla is pregnant, Jake says you have to keep moving, or they'll catch you, and Layla got caught.  And when he can't be there, he hides in an abandoned building and watches the people across the fence in the nice, fancy apartments.  In one he sees a man with a bunch of what look like iron heads.  He watches the guy for several days.  Until one day the guy sees him.  He invites Jake over for pizza and to see the heads.  Jake is leery at first.  He's heard about men who "invite boys over for food".  But this guy, Bill, isn't like that.  He just wants to sculpt Jake's head.  And soon Jake is also learning how to sculpt.  But things just don't get magically better.  The gang leader, Blade, wants Jake.  And when the lackey he sends doesn't get him, they kidnap Layla.  This turns out really bad.  And, I won't give away the end, just know it isn't all roses.  So the spark of kindness and goodness is there, but it's a realistic ending.
The second story is called Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Girl, which is a play on a circus freak from a while back.  Jo lives in a trailer park, with abusive parents.  A mother who hits, and a father who, well it's never said what exactly he does, but you can figure it out.  Jo learns to get to her room when they're not there and push the dresser in front of the door.  One by one she finds three dogs that she takes in.  They protect her and she loves them.  She is made fun of at school because of her being poor.  And she has no friends.  Then one day the dogs lead a girl named Rose to their spot in the forest.  Reluctantly, but because the dogs seem to trust her, Jo becomes friends with Rose.  And teaches Rose how to "see" and "feel" like the dogs.  Rose is sick, she has leukemia.  And it seems that the dogs could sense it.  Jo is glad to have her a friend, even knowing this friendship won't last forever.
And the third and final story is Erik's Rules.  The main character is Jamie, and he and his brother Erik are homeless.  Their grandfather took them away from their parents when he saw how they lived.  But then one day, their grandfather got sick and had to go to an old folk's home.  And they could no longer live there or social services would probably have come and separated them.  So they tried going home, and that wasn't a lot better, so Erik stole a car and they'd been living in that.  Once in awhile Erik would have a girlfriend, and they'd live with her.  Every day while Erik worked, Jamie would go to the dog park, where he liked to draw the dog.  There was this one guy who came every day it seemed, but often with different dogs.  They soon find out he works at a dog shelter.  And, Greg, the guy from the shelter, wants to offer him a job drawing the dogs to help get them homes on the website.  Soon Greg learns that they're homeless, and why they don't have an apartment.  And he has a friend who just went away in the army, who they can stay there until they get some money saved.  While this story kind of leaves off with things in this kind of settled pattern, I would say it is the happiest ending of all of the stories.
Not sure if this is the best of all the books.  It is a good, quick, but hard to read book.  So it won't get my highest recommendation, but it is good.