Title: 

Five Days At Memorial is a reconstruction of the time following Hurricane Katrina that survivors spent at the hospital, largely without electricity and with decreasing supplies of food and water. Horrific mismanagement led to a situation so desperate and chaotic that later some doctors and nurses were accused of having euthanized some of their patients. The second half of the book deals with the investigation and trials following that accusation.

The first thing the author did right was pick a captivating, if horrifying, story to tell. This book was intense! Everyone was constantly making tough decisions. Sometimes I wanted to scream I was so frustrated by administrators who were obviously (in hindsight) making very poor decisions. At other times I was deeply moved by people’s compassion. Even the second half, detailing the investigation and trials, was emotionally engaging because of the number of people whose lives were going to be affected by the outcome.

I think the main reason this story had such an impact was because the author did such a great job making people come to life for me. The primary focus of the story was on only a few of the many individuals trapped at Memorial. This made it easier to keep track of who was who and what was going on. However, even characters who were mentioned tangentially were often fleshed out with some small details about their personal life. I was very impressed by the author’s ability to share just enough to make me remember that these “secondary characters” were real people without distracting from her main narrative. Given the emotional impact of the story, the ending felt like a bit of a let down, but I think that’s simply one danger of telling a true story. Not everything always works out in a satisfying, this is the end of the narrative kind of way in real life.

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Title: 

Mystery writer Josephine Tey is in Portmeirion to meet with Alfred Hitchcock and his wife about a film deal. Hitchcock is also in Portmeirion to scout the location and set up tricks to reveal his crews response to guilt and fear. In this tense atmosphere, no one is prepared to deal with the murder of two women on the island. The island police don’t seem particularly interested in finding the killer and it’s only years later that another murder connected to a Hitchcock film begins to lead to the truth.

Much of this book was amazingly well done. After reading a Hitchcock biography, I knew immediately that I loved the quote used for the title; that Hitchcock would probably like the abstract art feel of the cover; and that the chapters were named after Hitchcock films. I also loved the number of quotes used in the book and how well they gave the reader a feel for what Hitchcock was like. The suspense of knowing that someone was going to be killed before starting the story also seemed like something Hitchcock would approve of. The writing was also very impressive.

So, that was the good stuff. And there really was a lot to recommend this book. However, he violence was pretty extreme though and that got to me a bit. Worse than that was the unsatisfying, unsettling, unfinished feel of the ending. This made the horrible violence feel more pointless and harder to live with. I do hate to give such an objectively good book such a poor rating, but I decided early on that ratings on my blog would reflect I how felt when I finished the book. Then I try to give a good account of why I felt that way, and what you do with that information is up to you

For some other perspectives, check out the other stops on the tour, Amazon, or Goodreads.

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