Finished: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald) The last novel by Fitzgerald, which was incomplete at the time of his death, is the story of Monroe Stahr, a Hollywood producer, and is supposedly based on the real life "wonder boy" producer Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald's writing is always very powerful, but you can tell he was not done with the story or with possibly rearranging parts of it. His notes are included at the back of the book and it's very interesting to read those and see what he was intending for the major characters, especially Stahr. The story is narrated by his business partner's college-aged daughter, Cecelia, who fancies herself in love with Stahr. She tells about how powerful he is, how he changed movies, how successful he made them after the depression, how he interacts with people, and at the same time, how vulnerable he can be when he falls for a woman who is the spitting image of his late, dead wife. We see a bit of him pursuing that woman, and her falling for him, but warning him he doesn't know everything. Then, it turns out she's got a fiance and is getting married the day after they are intimate! Cecelia then decides it's time for her to swoop in and make her move. The book ends there rather abruptly, but the notes suggest that they do have an affair, but only for a few weeks before he breaks her heart. They also indicate that he takes a trip to the northeast, and falls ill and dies due to a heart that he has overworked because he won't ever take a break. I imagine the story would have been much clearer (obviously) if Fitzgerald had been able to actually complete it. What he did write, though, is his typical, excellent prose. :-)

Finished: The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (Gray) This was a very good book! It's the story of three sisters and a brother who are raised by a physically and emotionally absent father after their mother dies when the oldest is twelve years old. Althea, the oldest, literally becomes the mother figure for six year old Viola, four year old Joe and one year old Lillian. Althea remembers alot about her mother, and how kind she was, and how much time she spent with the children. Flash forward over 40 years later and Althea, plus her husband Proctor, are in jail awaiting the judgment that will either set them free or send them on to a more permanent prison home. Althea and Proctor had become respectable members of their small town, but when businesses started closing down due to the economy and a closed factory, they struggled mightily to keep their restaurant open. Their restaurant became a beacon of hope for other town members, as Althea and Proctor held continuous fundraisers for the victims of a huge flood that also devastated the town. As people just handed over their life-savings to the couple, they were deceiving everyone, taking the money and spending it on themselves as fast as it hit their hands. So, needless to say, the betrayed town is furious and wants them to go to prison for years. Althea and Proctor have twin teenage daughters at home, though, Baby Vi and Kim. They are as opposite as can be, and are not handling the treatment they are receiving at school and in town very well. To make it worse, Kim, who feels as if her mother always favored Baby Vi more, is the one who called the police to turn her parents in when she found out what they were doing! She didn't do it out of right versus wrong. She did it because she was mad at her mother. So, Kim is living with the guilt of that action sending her parents to prison without realizing it was their own actions that did that. Kim and Baby Vi have been living with their Aunt Lillian for the past two years while their parents sit in jail awaiting the decision. As decision time comes, Althea's other sister, Viola, comes to town as well...missing the actual sentencing because she's got major issues of her own. Althea and Proctor are found guilty and sentenced to multiple years, and the tension and stress rises even higher. We see snippets of Althea's life in prison, her communication with Proctor, and her relationship with a few of her fellow prisoners. We also see that Althea is still very angry with her own daughter and with some self-reflection she realizes she has become liker her distant father. We also learn that Lillian was abused by Joe when they were the only two left at home with their father. Always craving his father's attention, Joe lashed out in anger when he didn't get it. He didn't sexually abuse Lillian, but locked her in a dark closet for hours, sometimes days, at a time. So, there are lots of family issues to deal with in this book once Althea's siblings are all there trying to figure out what to do with the girls permanently. In crisis, Kim runs away and they all fear for her life because she sends a few texts that are pretty despondent to her twin, but Baby Vi doesn't share them right away. They end up finding Kim in time before she can harm herself. It is decided that Kim and Baby Vi, will go and live with Viola and her wife in Chicago. Althea, realizing she didn't want to be like her father, makes tentative steps to make amends with Kim with weekly phone calls to her and Baby Vi. Lillian confronts her brother, tells him to stay out of her life (he's a preacher now who just wants to let it all be in the past), and finally sells the home she grew up in and moves to New York to pursue a career. Told in the voices of the this is a very well written, powerful story about the struggles each of these sisters went through and how they overcame to the best of their ability. Well, minus the felony scheme of Althea and Proctor. No excuse for that!

Finished: The Silent Patient (Michaelides) A great book about an artist, Alicia Berensen, who shoots her husband to death (or does she?) and then is committed to a psychiatric hospital where she never utters another word. The police simply find her standing over her husband with the murder weapon, and she never says a single word to anyone. Six years later, Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who followed her case and became intrigued by the one painting she did after the murder, seeks a job at the same psychiatric hospital and becomes her therapist. This was such a good book with a huge twist. I'm not even going to write any more about it because anyone who might read this, I really don't want to spoil it. :-) I loved the twist, though, and I usually figure twists out, so this was a nice surprise. Great book!