The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster

When I started this project, I told myself I'd adhere to a strict 100-page rule: if a book didn't grab me by page 100, I'd ditch it. My friend, a literary agent, convinced me that 50 pages was sufficient--that's the criteria Nancy Pearl (www.nancypearl.com) uses. If it's good enought for Nancy, it's good enough for me.

But, with The Life All Around Me, my second book into this, I broke my rule. I started thinking about ditching it about 80 pages in . . . but since it was only a 200 page book, I figured I was close enough to the end that it had to pick up soon. The first book, Ellen Foster, had been gripping . . . certainly this one would pick up. Although I should have been suspicious since the same publisher didn't publish the sequel . . .

It did pick up around page 100, and then I read the rest of it the same day. But it took that 100 pages to get used to the rhythm of the writing. The author used a strange sentence structure, especially since the narrator is supposed to be a brilliant child prodigy. There were grammatical errors, and I was never sure if it was intentional or not. In either case, it was a mistake. A fifteen-year-old applying for early admission to Harvard (her application letter opens the book) should not make gross grammatical errors.

So, while I would highly recommend Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, the very first Oprah Book Club selection I ever read, the sequel is skipable.