The good house

The good house / Ann Leary, 292 pgs.

Hildy Good is the number one real estate agent in her town, a tony place outside of Boston.  She is related to a women who was persecuted as a witch in Salem.  She is a raging alcoholic but isn't ready to quit when her daughters stage an "intervention."  She is off the sauce for awhile but then decides she can have a little wine at home at night.  As the story goes, you get a good view of the extent of the drinking and the blackouts that make Hildy a bit of a untrustworthy narrator.  She makes friends with a newcomer in town who doesn't know about her trip to Hazelden and makes her a new drinking buddy.  Over a year or so, we see Hildy doing good around town and doing some bad as well.  She is such a part of the town that she is involved in almost everything.  Does the drinking define Hildy?  It is hard to say sometimes.

This book has some funny parts and some sad parts.  I listened to the audio version and it was well read by Mary Beth Hurt.

The girl on the train

The girl on the train / Paula Hawkins 323 pgs.

This is the most requested book at the library and I see why!  I waited for a long time to get this but then once I started, I could not stop reading until the end.  Who is the girl on the train?  Well, she has a few issues.  She is a black-out drunk who gets into some situations that are precarious.  She has been fired from her job but continues to go into London every day on the train to hide this fact from her flatmate who is already pretty judgmental about the drinking.  Riding the train is one of the things she enjoys.  She looks out the window and watches people in their houses and makes up storied about the people she sees.  In fact, she feels like she knows them. When something happens to one of the people she has seen from the train, she gets involved even though she probably shouldn't.  From there, it is all interesting.

As I say, I can understand why this book is so popular...very satisfying.

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