Looking Back - Wish You Well

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Wish You Well by David Baldacci

Fiction

2000 Warner Books, Inc. 

Read in February 2001

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

David Baldacci has always delivered great stories, authentic characters, and thought-provoking ideas since he burst on the literary scene with Absolute Power. Now this versatile writer movingly evokes the charms of rural America as he makes us believe in the great and little miracles that can change lives—or save them. 

Precocious twelve-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her family. Then tragedy strikes—and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on their great-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains. Suddenly Lou finds herself coming of age in a new landscape, making her first true friend, and experiencing adventures tragic, comic, and audacious. But the forces of greed and justice are about to clash over her new home…and as their struggle is played out in a crowded Virginia courtroom, it will determine the future of two children, an entire town, and the mountains they love.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

Wonderful story and characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. Coming-of-age story. Touching passages. Humor. Unforgettable characters (Eugene, Cotton, Longfellow, Diamond, Oz, Lou and Louise). A real page-turner, yet more literary than Baldacci's previous works. Unpredictable.

My Current Thoughts:

I've only read a couple of books by David Baldacci, but I remember how much I enjoyed this stand-alone novel. At the time, it was quite a departure from his early thrillers (Total Control, Absolute Power, etc.). Might be fun to read it again.

Looking Back - Total Control

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Total Control by David Baldacci
Fiction
1996 Grand Central Publishing
Read in February 1999
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Sidney Archer has the world. A husband she loves. A job at which she excels, and a cherished young daughter. Then, as a plane plummets into the Virginia countryside, everything changes. And suddenly there is no one whom Sidney Archer can trust.

Jason Archer is a rising young executive at Triton Global, the world's leading technology conglomerate. Determined to give his family the best of everything, Archer has secretly entered into a deadly game of cat and mouse. He is about to disappear - leaving behind a wife who must sort out his lies from his truths, an aircrash investigation team that wants to know why the plane he was ticketed on suddenly fell from the sky, and a veteran FBI agent who wants to know it all.

From Seattle to Washington, D.C., from New Orleans to Maine, the hunt for Jason Archer follows a trail as complex as the world he lived and worked in - a world of enormously powerful computers, a multimillion-dollar takeover deal, titanic financial standoffs, artificial intelligence, and the Internet. With brilliant minds colliding, ruthless men waging battles of intimidation, rainmakers going toe-to-toe with killers, and security specialists making a fortune trying to plug the holes, the startling truth behind Jason Archer's disappearance explodes into a sinister plot with the murder of the country's single most powerful individual. And soon Archer's wife, Sidney, aided by the relentless and sharp-eyed FBI agent Lee Sawyer, will plunge straight into the violence that is leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and shocking, exposed secrets...

My Original Notes (1999):

Spellbinding! Somewhat difficult to keep track of all of the characters, but other than that, this is a great suspense novel. I'm ready for his next!

My Current Thoughts:

Nope. No recollection of this book, but I do remember reading a lot of books like this. It was the time in my life when I was reading a lot by Grisham, Cornwell, Coben, etc., but it's been many years since I've read any of their current novels. Maybe it's time to revisit some of these authors.

Looking Back - Absolute Power

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Absolute Power by David Baldacci
Fiction
1995 Warner Books
Finished on January 31, 1997
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Absolute Corruption. In a heavily guarded mansion in a posh Virginia suburb, a man and a woman start to make love, trapping a burglar behind a secret wall. Then the passion turns deadly, and the witness is running into the night. Because what he has just seen is a brutal slaying involving the President of the United States.

Absolute Danger. Luther Whitney is the career break-in artist who's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alan Richmond is the charming U.S. president with the power to commit any crime. And Jack Graham is the young attorney, caught in a vortex between the absolute truth--and...

Absolute Power. A tale of greed, sex, ambition, and murder, this is the novel everyone has been talking about...the shattering, relentlessly suspenseful thriller that will change the way you think about Washington--and power--forever.

My Original Notes (1997):

Excellent novel! Right up there with Patricia Cornwell and John Grisham. Very suspenseful. I read it in about a week, whenever I could squeeze it in between school work and housework. Can't wait to see the movie (Clint Eastwood's in it!).

My Current Thoughts:

I have no recollection of this book at all. Glad I was entertained by it, but I don't have any desire to give it a second read. Brain candy.

One Summer

One Summer by David Baldacci
Fiction
2011 Grand Central Publishing
Quit on 7/26/11
Rating: DNF




Publisher’s Blurb:

It’s almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing to say good-bye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children. Then, unthinkably, tragedy strikes again [spoiler removed]. Just when all seems lost, Jacks begins to recover in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together. [Remainder of blurb removed due to spoilers]

It’s been close to a decade since I’ve read something by Baldacci. I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his thrillers, but I thoroughly enjoyed Wish You Well and had high hopes for another outstanding departure from his usual books. Unfortunately, after close to fifty pages, I decided to call it quits. Pick a word, any word: Overly sentimental. Schmaltzy. Predictable. Sappy. Contrived. Overwrought.

Blech.

Note to self: Read the back of the book before adding it to my stacks.