June reviews

I missed my June reviews, so here they are now:

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. First, let me point out that I've seen the last 10 minutes of the movie, which meant that the Big Reveal in this book was utterly ruined for me. Having said that, I could find very little sympathetic about the protagonist, who seems to me to be not only a completely unreliable narrator (something I usually love), but also a sociopath with little or no remore for his actions, something I abhor in my protagonists. I am glad I forced myself to finish the book, but I doubt I'll be reading anything by this author again, no matter how much my friends cajole me.

No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes. A non-fiction account of the overwhelming-ness of juvenile criminal court, primarily in LA, but using LA as a case-study for the rest of the US. This book was distressing, disturbing, and detailed. It didn't successfully reach me with it's call to action, but it did reinforce my conviction that the criminal justice system is deeply flawed. I'm a big fan of the TV series Judging Amy, and I can see where a large number of plotlines, stories, and events from that series were obviously drawn from events depicted in this book (which predates the TV series by a couple of years). Good book. Did not make me think the narrator was a psychopath.

July TBR books:
High Five by Janet Evanovich
and
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards