If you're like me, you can't walk through the doors of a bookstore without 1) spending hours perusing the stacks and 2) spending money you didn't actually have. (usually at least $30, in my case).

Here in the editorial offices of The Mercury (I make it sound grand, don't I?) editor Nancy March, author of The Daily Overload, had the idea to bring in some of her recently read books and magazines and start a lending library. Other readers in the office, including myself, have contributed, and I've been picking great books from there ever since. A great way to save money! When the books have been in the "library" a long time, we will cart them over to Gently Used Books in Douglassville. (Another great place to save money and find great books locally, as is the Pottstown Public Library).

Below is an interesting "On the Money" column from the Associated Press about saving some money on books. I usually run this weekly column on the print side, but it got bumped with all the craziness on Wall St. in the past two weeks. But saving money is always timely. And saving money on books rocks!

Read on for more ways to budget your reading habit:

Beyond the library: 6 ways readers can cut costs
By Candice Choi
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK — One budget line Wendy Li isn’t watching even in this tight economy is her spending on books. That’s because she uses PaperbackSwap.com, one of the book trading sites that are growing in popularity.
“All I have to pay for is the postage,” said Li, a 44-year-old banker in New York City. A diet of three books a month costs her only about $6, clearly a bargain for an avid reader.
Whether it’s trading titles, downloading e-books or tapping discounts at major retailers, borrowing from the library isn’t the only way readers can cut costs.
Here are five ways to ensure your love of reading doesn’t become a casualty to high food and gas prices.
Start Swapping: If you’ve got books to barter, check out sites such as PaperbackSwap.com, Bookins.com and BookMooch.com.
The rules are simple; generally you list the books you’re willing to trade. Every time you mail a title out, you get a credit or point, which you can redeem for a book. At PaperbackSwap.com, which currently lists 2.4 million books, you can also purchase credits for $3.45.
Membership is free on all three sites, so your only cost is shipping. Mailing a paperback at the lowest rate typically takes around seven days and generally costs less than $3. After you get a book, it’s yours to keep if you wish.
One drawback to these sites is that new or rare titles may be hard to find. Also, because you’re trading with strangers, you won’t get the same guarantees as with a retailer. But the sites may be able to help mediate a dispute, or award credits for lost damage.
Bookins.com, for example, promises to refund shipping charges and award credits if you don’t get the books you were promised. However, there aren’t any guarantees at BookMooch.com or PaperbackSwap.com, which, despite its name, also lists hardcovers, CDs and DVDs.
Kelly Fowler, a member of the site for two years, said she once agreed to swap three books with a member in a discussion forum. Yet after mailing out her box, she never received the books she was promised.
Fowler, a 38-year-old homemaker in Clinton, Tenn., notified administrators and said the member was immediately banned. She never got her books back, but she said it’s only happened once in the more than 300 swaps she’s made to feed her love of harlequin and romance novels.
For a more unusual approach to trading books, there’s BookCrossing.com. The idea is to leave books in public places — in an airport lounge, on a park bench — and let people find them. Users log onto the site to note where they “released” the book. For instance, someone recently posted that they left a copy of “The Nanny Diaries” at a Starbucks in the Kingsview Village Shopping Center in Germantown, Md.
Users can search for books by city, type of venue (such as museums, coffee shops) or title. This may be a little too whimsical for some, but it does save the cost of postage.
Buy Smart at Major Retailers: If you’re ordering a book online, remember to compare prices at major retailers. On Amazon.com, for example, a new paperback copy of the best-seller “Eat, Pray, Love” was listed for $9, compared to $10.50 at Borders.com and $13.50 for nonmembers at BarnesandNoble.com.
What’s more, all three retailers and eBay.com also offer used copies through third-party sellers. Borders recently listed used paperback copies of “Eat, Pray, Love” at prices ranging from $4.44 to $15.75. Sellers are typically authorized by the retailer, but be sure to check each site’s guarantee policies on quality and returns. You can also view customer ratings and comments on third-party sellers.
Plus you’ll want to check to see if there are any deals advertised for shipping, or membership programs that may offer regular discounts.
Go Electronic: With the help of volunteers, the nonprofit Project Gutenberg compiles e-books and offers 25,000 free titles at www.gutenberg.org. The catalog includes fiction, nonfiction and reference books no longer protected by copyright.
DailyLit.com sends serialized books via e-mail. You can set the time it arrives in your inbox and adjust the size of how much text you want in each installment.
The site has 650 free classics and 350 additional titles ranging in price from $1.49 to $9.99.
Hit the Pavement: Trade-in your unwanted books at a used book store. Most used book stores don’t pay much, but you might get a better deal in store credits.
Set aside some time to browse the shelves. They may not be as tidy or well organized as at a major chain, but you may come across a rare or out-of-print title you wouldn’t find elsewhere.
Buy at the Library: Libraries often hold sales to clear out space for new books. Prices are generally even lower than at used book stores.
Additionally, about two-thirds of the 65,000 public library systems in the country have a local Friends of Libraries chapter that helps raise money. Most chapters hold annual book sales where paperbacks usually go for around 75 cents and hardcovers sell for $1 or $2, said Sally Reed, executive director for the national organization.
While you’re there, don’t forget to sign up for a library card if you don’t already have one. You won’t be the only one checking out books in this economic climate. Last year, borrowing at libraries nationwide was 10 percent higher than during the 2001 economic downturn, when there was a similar spike in visits, according to the American Library Association.

On the Net:
www.paperbackswap.com
www.bookmooch.com
www.bookins.com
www.bookcrossing.com
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
www.borders.com
www.dailylit.com
www.ebay.com

Reviewed: “Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to Do Next When You’re Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired,” by Marcia L. Worthing and Charles A. Buck, Wiley, Nov. 2007, $18.95, 204 pages.

If your feel like you’re stuck in a job you have no passion for, uncertain how to make your escape — you’re not alone.

When I graduated from college with my bright, shiny journalism degree and no job, I went to work as a secretary in a chemical company. Frankly, I worried what the dangerous chemicals stored nearby were doing to my health, but it paid the bills. Every day, counting the minutes until my lunch break or until quitting time, I plotted my exit from this occupation.

While the job that “saved” me from the chemical company wasn’t my career salvation (I sold custom-made furniture on a commission-only basis, and was not terribly good at it), it was a stepping stone that helped me to see where my natural abilities did not lie. And, on the bright side, I now know how to accessorize a room.

Those were, no question, the wrong jobs for me, and I knew they were temporary. But even the right job — the right career — can become wrong for you.

Written by a career consultant and a career coach, Marcia L. Worthing and Charles A. Buck, “Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to Do Next When You’re Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired,” is a handy reference designed for those who are established in a career and yearn to make a move or for those who are forced out by way of layoffs or who choose retirement but aren’t ready to leave the workforce.

“Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums” offers practical advice and soul-searching exercises to those stuck in what the authors call the “BBRF Syndrome” (bored, burned out, retired or fired). The goal is to get them back on track.

One caveat is that the intended audience is a narrow group: extremely successful business professionals. So, while those of you who are not high-level executives may find some pearls of wisdom, you may be a little put off by the hoity-toity real-life “examples” given.

Here’s one: “Richard, a highly successful human resources executive for a top corporation, had over 200 employees reporting to him and a high-level executive role that allowed him to take on strategic and planning responsibilities. Despite a great salary and other perks, Richard was bored.”

They lost me even before “great salary.” Poor Richard. So misunderstood.

But, I accept that even top-level, high-paid executives get bored. And certainly, in the wake of the economic rollercoaster ride we’ve been on of late, many highly-trained professionals are being abruptly laid off or forced into early retirement.

If you’re a mid-career professional and find yourself out of job, as painful as that may be, the authors say it’s important to keep an open mind. Consider going back to school, starting a consultancy, working part-time or volunteering or working for a nonprofit organization that might benefit from your expertise.

Before doing anything, Worthing and Buck advise readers to get to the bottom of why you were bored with your job, or why you were fired.

“When you don’t know the real cause behind your boredom, burnout, retirement or firing, you can’t respond to it effectively. Your false belief about why something happened will prevent you from emerging from your career blues and discover what you really want to do for the next 10, 20, or 30 years,” they write.

The reality, they say, is that there are “plenty” of opportunities for the mid-career professional, “but a variety of factors make it seem like few opportunities exist.”

Making a change won’t be easy, and just as when I began my career search, you may start out going one direction, only to find it’s not the right path.

“Be open to new opportunities. Just because you had a plan to start your own business or to divide your time between part-time work and travel doesn’t mean you can’t adjust this plan,” the authors write.

Thoughtfully, they remind the reader: If you’re mid-career at 50, you technically have another 25 working years ahead of you.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
a>



Anyone who has worked in a "cubicle city" will see the humor and genius in Joshua Ferris’ novel "Then We Came to the End."

In a phrase that mimics the cadence and portent of "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times," Ferris begins his tale with "We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything."

The story is told from the anonymous "we" point of view until, about half-way through the 385-page book, it turns into a first-person account of one of the characters, returning to the collective "we" to finish up.

The "we" speak, meant to imitate the way corporations view themselves in the first-person plural, is effective in communicating the way, in large companies, there is a collective mentality, and also that there are cliques. There are the cool kids and the geeks, those on their way up and those on their way down, the dedicated and the non-caring.

Everpresent to everyone is the constant threat of layoffs.

Not long ago, I worked for a large company where I had my own "cube" in the middle of a large room. In the corners of the room were the offices, complete with coveted windows and doors that could be shut, of the higher-ups. On the edges of the room were the slightly larger cubes of the soon-to-be higher ups. And in the middle, with the shortest and farthest away from the windows cubicles, were the peons like me. Personalities ran the gamut, and with such close quarters we were exposed to each other’s quirks. To my right was a colleague who constantly talked to his wife on the phone, using (quite audible to everyone in the vicinity) wince-causing babytalk and kissing noises. Across the aisle was a guy who spent most of his workday on Jdate. Like most workplaces, it was a group of people with whom you spent a great chunk of your day, but might never choose to associate with otherwise. It was a culture in and of itself.

Ferris had his own experience with corporate culture.

In the reader’s guide at the end of his book, Ferris explains: "I did yeoman’s work in advertising four about three years, and I was fascinated with the behemoth structure in place — the hierarchies, the coded messages, the power struggles. I thought such an awesome, malignant, necessary, pervasive, inscrutable place deserved a novel’s attention."

The "we" of the novel were a group of office buddies whose work had become rather unimportant or overimportant to the point of their inability to act. They are dissolved into the daily grind of coffee breaks, endless meetings, lunch trips, and gossip. And for them, for everyone in their company, layoffs loom large.

The possibility of a layoff is enough to make any worker freak out, as I found in my former cubicle city job. In Ferris’ book, some of the characters go to extremes. A man who feels he’s lost the loyalty of his friends and his grip on reality does something irrevocable. A woman who discovers she has a terminal illness chooses to ignore it and throws herself into her work.

As for the mid-way change in perspective to a first-person narrative, Ferris describes the “interlude” as “the book’s emotional heart. Without it “Then We Came to the End” would have been only an elaborate, if amusing game.” Although it was unexpected and somewhat jarring – all of a sudden you go from the anonymous “we” into someone’s private thoughts and fears - I believe this section was effective in bringing the humanity back to the individual worker. After a bit, the book takes us back to the group perspective, which before had become a bit tedious but now we can view in a new light. And there’s where it “comes to an end.”

Ferris’ book is entertaining, witty, enlightening, observant and true. Recommended for anyone stuck in that cube, with no door and no privacy, under the hum of the fluorescent lights and far from the windows, in the daily grind.






View all my reviews.

The following exerpt is from the Associated Press' "Watercooler" column, which runs Fridays in The Mercury's business section. Coincidentally, this book, "Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide ... and How to Avoid Them." is sitting on my desk right now, waiting to be reviewed. I'll make it my next review after this Saturday's (planned, barring any major crazy Wall Street development) column, on "Escape the Mid Career Doldrums: What to Do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired," as they kind of go together, yes? And on deck on the fiction side, but totally business relatable, is Joshua Ferris' "Then We Came to the End."

Anyway, here's the Watercooler excerpt:

BLOOPERS: Picture this: You're in the shower, and you hear the kids fighting over which channel to watch. Then your teenage daughter bursts into the bathroom announcing there's "some guy on the phone." You take the call — and realize the man on the other end of the line is a potential employer for a job you've applied for, sounding as confused as you do embarrassed.

That's just one example of a humiliating job-hunting mistake pulled from the recently published "Job Search Bloopers: Every Mistake You Can Make on the Road to Career Suicide ... and How to Avoid Them."

To sidestep the above blunder, job seekers should establish a strong support system and make sure their family is aware they are expecting a life-altering phone call, according to one of the book's authors, Laura DeCarlo. All calls should be handled professionally; if that's impossible on a home line, then set up a voice mailbox, call forwarding or special ringtone on a cell phone.

"There are so many outrageous ways to mess up getting the job you want," said DeCarlo, who is president of Melbourne, Fla.-based Career Directors International. "It's the small details that can make or break the job search."

Other examples in the book, drawn from real-life stories told by resume writers and career coaches, include everything from those who go to job fairs unprepared to those who show up at a job interview ridiculously overdressed.

"With this book, we hoped to take stories that are frustrating and even torture to endure, but feed them back to the reader as tips for what to avoid in a way that will make them laugh rather than cry," DeCarlo said.

I love that I can borrow from the WSJ and their talented writers. I'm sure there are a lot more outdated ill-chosen titles out there. Got any suggestions?

Change of fortune makes for book-title bloopers
By LOUISE RADNOFSKY
The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON — A financial crisis, a historic presidential campaign and a series of political scandals have scrambled how people understand the world in the past few years.

For some authors, that presents a ticklish problem.

"Obviously I would change the title," says David Lereah, the former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and author of "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust — And How You Can Profit From It," published in paperback in February 2006. "There are places in the book where I actually say the boom is not healthy. But people don't read the book, and they just look at the title and they criticize it."

Brooke Masters, author of "Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer," says her book was right at the time it came out — 18 months before the New York governor was brought down by a sex scandal in March of this year. In any case, she adds, "Spoiling for a fight is totally accurate."

This election season will likely bring more casualties. Among "Why the Democrats Will Win in 2008: The Road to an Obama White House"; "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win"; and "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," someone has to be wrong.

Politics, economics and social-science books are a mainstay of adult publishing, an increasingly lucrative market. Nonfiction sales in the U.S. have risen steadily to 311 million books in 2007 from 270 million in 2004, according to Nielsen BookScan.

But with tens of thousands of new titles competing for attention each year, authors have to make some bold claims — and fast. It's possible to turn around a topical book in weeks. What was once written as history is now appearing as prediction.

"It was more timely than a monthly magazine," says Steve Gill, a conservative radio host and author of "The Fred Factor: How Fred Thompson May Change the Face of the '08 Campaign," which was published by Mr. Gill's business partner in May 2007.

The book "blew through" its first print run of 10,000 copies ahead of the former Tennessee senator's declaration in September 2007 that he would run for president, Mr. Gill says. The Thompson campaign lasted barely four months. The book sold about 2,000 of its new run and the remainder were given away or trashed.

"It was truly intended all along to be a work in progress," Mr. Gill says.

Traditional publishing houses say they still want books to feel timeless despite the fast turnaround that new technology allows. "You hope that the book, even if it's about current affairs, will stand as a record of that event," says Carol Schneider, executive director of publicity and public relations for Random House Publishing Group, a division of Bertelsmann AG's Random House Inc.

But she acknowledges that accidents happen. "There's no way to manage it. You're talking about life."

That doesn't sit well with authors, who often blame their publishers when books are overtaken by events. "We argued back and forth," says Mr. Lereah, the real-estate author, who says he didn't want the titles to be so bold. "But you know, I'm a big boy, I agreed to what they told me to do and you've got to live with it," he adds.

Doubleday Business, Mr. Lereah's publisher and a unit of Random House, confirmed that the book's titles were suggested by the publishing team but said that they were based on his reasoning.

"In retrospect, everyone was fooled," says Roger Scholl, editorial director for Doubleday Business. "I would certainly say I was fooled. No one saw what was going to happen with real estate."

Mr. Lereah's book was served up in hardcover in February 2005 with the title "Are You Missing The Real Estate Boom? Why Home Values and Other Real Estate Investments Will Climb Through the End of the Decade — And How to Profit From Them." That edition sold 12,000 copies.

It was downhill from then. The paperback sold 2,300 copies in 2006 and 250 in 2007, according to Nielsen BookScan. So far this year, it's notched just 20 sales, Nielsen says.

Publishers say they're under pressure to craft titles that can quickly launch a book. "There is a trend of subtitles getting longer and longer and publishers insisting that a subtitle needs to explain everything about the book," says Bruce Nichols, vice president and publisher of Collins, a division of News Corp.'s HarperCollins. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.)

Kevin Hassett, co-author of the 1999 book "Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market," says criticism of his book isn't something he's lost a lot of sleep over. He is now an economics adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed yesterday at 11230.73.

"I think that it's important for public discourse for people to be willing to take clear positions," he says. "You can be negative and be wrong year after year and somehow it doesn't create angry critics, but if you're optimistic and incorrect the response is much more vocal."

And angry readers? They mostly have themselves to blame, says Philip Tetlock, a psychologist and author of "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" which details humans' insatiable desire for more certainty than is possible.

"My counsel is greater modesty," Mr. Tetlock says. "People should expect less from experts and experts should promise less."

The following story about Reading Reads is from our sister papers, Berks Mont Newspapers. I am psyched to see that Pulitzer winning author Richard Russo "Empire Falls", "Straight Man") is going to be speaking on the Alvernia campus next month as part of the festival.

Reading Reads: Reading Literary Festival enters third year

Poetry workshops and open mike sessions, children reading to dogs, programs ranging from vampires to ghosts to the reconciling of religion in the public schools, the appearance of a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer-these are among the events scheduled for the third Reading Reads: The Greater Reading Literary Festival.The festival will take place throughout the month of October and throughout Berks County in nearly 30 venues. Dozens of authors, poets, illustrators, and lecturers will take part in more than 90 events during the month.

A complete schedule of events, feature articles, and updates are available at the festival web site, www.readingreads.com.

Highlights of the 2008 Literary Festival include:

• The naming of the 2008 Poet Laureate of Berks County, which will take place on Oct. 1 at 10 a.m. in the Miller Center of Reading Area Community College. A gala event is scheduled, sponsored by RACC in collaboration with Berks County Libraries, the Berks Bards poetry group, and the Greater Reading Literary Festival.

• An appearance by the world-renowned Poetry Slam titleists "Junkyard Ghost Revival" at the Berks Campus of Penn State University. The "spoken word theater experience" will take place in the Perkins Student Center at 9 p.m. on Oct.16.

• An "Author Extravaganza" with 16 local and regional writers discussing and signing their works at Borders Books & Music on Oct. 18. The event begins at 10 a.m. and continues through 8 p.m.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo (Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs, and more) will speak in the Alvernia College Physical Education Center at 6 p.m. on Oct. 21.

• The Literary Festival will honor Reading's landmark Pagoda atop Mount Penn by dubbing it the "Bookoda" and presenting several events there on Oct. 24. The evening begins with a "mixer" of writers' groups from Greater Reading and the Lehigh Valley, continues with a book signing by Reading Police Chief William Heim and Reading Fire Chief William Rehr (both authors), and concludes with ghost stories by author Charles J. Adams III.

• Eli Kowalski, author of Looking Back: 75 Years of Eagles History, will sign his book and chew the fat with Philadelphia Eagles fans at Barnes & Noble at 6 p.m. on Oct. 30.

If you truly are a fan of business books, check out this other, rather excellent and comprehensive business book blog I found (that also gives away free books and stuff).

http://800ceoread.com/blog/

(It's always fun to see what everyone else is reading.)

WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST-SELLERS

FICTION

1. "Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)

2. "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)

3. "Devil Bones" by Kathy Reichs (Scribner)

4. "The Gypsy Morph" by Terry Brooks (Del Rey)

5. "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)

6. "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (The Dial Press)

7. "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)

8. "New Moon" by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown for Young Readers)

9. "Silks" by Dick Francis (Felix Francis Putnam)

10. "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski (Ecco)

11. "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" by Sean Williams (Del Rey)

12. "Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Sanction" by Eric VanLustbader (Grand Central Publishing)

13. "Smoke Screen" by Sandra Brown (Simon & Schuster)

14. "The Laughter of Dead Kings" by Elizabeth Peters (William Morrow)

15. "Moscow Rules" by Daniel Silva (Putnam)

NONFICTION

1. "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion)

2. "Stori Telling" by Tori Spelling (Simon Spotlight)

3. "StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)

4. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria Books/Beyond Words)

5. "The Obama Nation" by Jerome R. Corsi (Threshold Editions)

6. "Six Disciplines Execution Revolution" by Gary Harpst (Six Disciplines Publishing)

7. "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" by Chelsea Handler (Simon Spotlight Entertainment)

8. "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris (Little, Brown)

9. "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate" by David Freddoso (Regnery)

10. "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Other's Don't" by Jim Collins (Collins)

11. "Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life" by Spencer Johnson (Putnam)

12. "Fleeced" by Dick Morris & Eileen McGann (Harper)

13. "You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty" by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press)

14. "The One Hundred" by Nina Garcia (Collins Living)

15. "Four Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss (Crown)

The Wall Street Journal's list reflects nationwide sales of hardcover books during the week ended last Saturday at more than 2,500 Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, Bookland, Books-a-Million, Books & Co., Bookstar, Bookstop, Borders, Brentano's, Coles, Coopersmith, Doubleday, Scribners and Waldenbooks stores, as well as sales from online retailers Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

The River King by Alice Hoffman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been a fan of Alice Hoffman's mysterious, magical fiction since high school when I read Turtle Moon - borrowed from my sister's library.

The River King didn't disappoint. Hoffman's lyrical prose drew me in to a story about an enchanted Massachusetts boarding school and the suspicious death of an outcast student in the nearby river.

The appearance of watery ghosts, charmed fish and vengeful black cats were not surprising, given Hoffman's penchant for bringing the otherworldly into the everyday.

But also this is a love story, and not just of one couple. An engaged teacher and a lonely cop get together and sparks fly. A beguiling swimmer and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Passion triumphs over reason.

A good read. I plowed through the last half of the book in one night. This book missed a fifth star because I was disappointed with how tidily and hastily the book ended. I would've liked to learn more about the lovers, the townsfolk, the dead boy's final resting place.


.