A Week of Reading at Half-Speed

During the last week, my time has been almost totally consumed by the logistics of arranging for my father to be moved from a rehabilitation center (where he is being treated for a broken hip) to a facility that can offer him the kind of care that he will need for at least the next several months. 

Consequently, I haven't done a whole lot of reading of tree-books, e-books, or even audiobooks. I listened to two hours of the audiobook version of Peter Robinson's Past Reason Hated a couple of days ago only to realize later that not a single thought made its way to my brain, so I had to re-read all of those pages via an e-book copy of the book I have on hand. I have no idea what I was thinking for those two hours of listening to the book, but reading them in the e-book one day later made it obvious to me that the audiobook had turned into some kind of white noise as I packed. 

Every day is still filled with some combination of phone calls, video calls, and physically packing up dad's old residence in preparation for his impending move. I'm really hoping that once he's in place next week, things will get back closer to whatever has become the frustrating new normal we've all faced for the last eight weeks or so. I miss reading! Reading less than 20 pages a day is driving me nuts - and playing havoc with my planned-review schedule. 

Surprisingly, though, the 386 pages I've read in the last week did result in two completed books (and a little progress on the Peter Robinson title) because most of the pages I read came during the second halves of both books. Now, I need to find the time and energy to review the books before I forget too many of the details to do the job properly. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, and different as they are, it was easy to get back into their plots despite the few number of pages I could work into my day. 

My Sister the Serial Killer is a story of sibling-rivalry set in Nigeria in which the older, less attractive, sister finds herself helping her younger, stunning, sister dispose of the bodies of her victims. The older girl has to decide where family loyalty ends - if it does. In West Mills is set in a black community in North Carolina. It begins in the 1940s and ends near the present day as it tracks a core group of characters whose lives intertwine in surprising ways during  all those decades. Of the two books, I especially recommend In West Mills.