Ablutions

Ablutions: notes for a novel / Patrick deWitt, 164 pgs.

This novel is the saddest collection of notes by a writer/bartender who works at a down-and-out Hollywood bar whose clientele seems to be in a contest for biggest loser.  I'm not talking about the losing weight type of thing.  Right there in the contest is the writer himself.  The bartender who is himself a raging drunk who doesn't realize the notes are more of a mishmash of his own failings.  Sometimes it seems kind of funny but mostly it seems very sad and lonely.

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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