July wasn't the month I expected it to be

July wasn't quite as successful as I thought it would be.  I actually started a rather long book on the 19th that I normally could've finished before the end of the month.  But, well, things happen.  And that book will be finished (and blogged about) next month.  I still managed to get 4 books and 1,607 pages read.  So let's get going.

Girl in the Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (414 pages).  The back of the book spoke of Charles Dickens and his scorned wife Catherine, who wanted his letters to her published post-mortem so the world would know he had once loved her.  So it took me several pages to realize that the telling part of the cover was when it said "a novel inspired by the life and marriage of Charles Dickens."  The book is about totally fictitious characters!  Dorothea Gibson was married to Alfred Gibson, the One and Only, for twenty years and had borne him eight children when he publicly shamed her and kicked her out of their home.  He kept their children, their home and her sister as housekeeper.  He also kept his mistress, an actress who was the same age as his oldest daughter.  Ten years after the Gibsons' separation, Alfred died.  And Dorothea was faced with the reality of her life.  The mistress.  Her estranged children and sister.  Her solitude.  And she began to build a life out of what remained.  Not that I was a huge Dickens fan before, but damn - he was cruel to his wife!

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (529 pages).  Wow.  That's all I can say.  I didn't really know anything about the story prior to reading it.  I'd just heard it was a must read.  And boy was it!  Cal is living in Berlin.  As a man.  Which is strange because he was raised as a woman.  You know, because he's a hermaphrodite.  He recounts his family's history - from his grandparents who immigrated from Greece to Detroit, getting married on the boat to America.  Which was weird because they were brother and sister.  To his parents, who were second cousins.  To his formative years as a girl.  It was amazingly written.  Like honestly, I thought it was a memoir at first!

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison (326 pages).  This was supposed to be my book club book, but it got changed to one I'd already read.  So I decided to read this one anyway.  Why did it get changed?  Because two people in book club hated it.  Which honestly made me what to read it even more.  My verdict?  Not as horrible as it was made out to be.  Jodi and Todd Gilbert have been together for twenty years.  They've built a wonderful, if somewhat predictable, life together.  Her, the stable psychologist.  Him, the cheating real estate developer.  Then, one day, it all falls apart.  Todd's twenty-something year old girlfriend tells him she is pregnant.  As the Gilberts' world is torn apart, some interesting truths come out.  And then Jodi decides that Todd needs to die (I refuse to say SPOILER ALERT when that fact is on the back of the book).  That's when it got a little weird to me.  Not my favorite book (I really hated the ending), but I definitely didn't think it was the worst thing I'd ever read.

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (338 pages).  I have seen the play.  I have seen several movie versions (musical and not).  Yet I'd never read the book!  So I decided it was time.  It was a very easy read (considering I pretty much already knew the story).  I finished the book in the 3 1/2 hours I sat by my pool one Saturday.  I love the story of the Phantom.  Such sadness, such love, such obsession.  I found myself singing the songs from the musical (which aren't in the book.  Just some of the words of the songs are in the story).  If you enjoyed the musical, the book is good.  It gives a little more background to Erik, the Opera Ghost.