Those are just some of the blurbs on the paperback copy of my current read. I normally don’t pay much attention to that but this book seems to have a lot of blurbs; on the back and two pages inside.

Sometimes when I see such glowing recommendations I become a bit skeptical but so far I can say that Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn is living up to these descriptions.

The story is about Camille Preaker’s first reporting assignment at her second-rate daily paper. She has to go back to her hometown of Wind Gap to cover the murders of two preteen girls. Being back home brings up memories of her own difficult childhood and she’ll have to confront what happened to her years before.

I’m really drawn to the descriptions which sometimes I’m finding unsettling and intense. Here’s Camille describing herself:

“I’m a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It is covered with words – cook, cupcake, kitty, curls – as if a knife-wilding first-grader learned to write on my flesh.”

So far, my reading year has started off with some exciting reading material. I hope yours has as well.

Now, this week I’m getting ready for more excitement because I’m in Dallas and plan to visit with my former book groups, go to the Craft Guild for some bookbinding time and of course see friends. I can’t wait.

Happy New Year everyone! Ready to read lots of great books this year? I am but first let me give you my glimpse of how I did in 2008.

Total books read in 2008: 91 (same as last year – weird)

* Books by women: 72
* Books by men: 19
* Fiction: 43
* Mystery: 29
* Classics: 1
* Memoirs: 4
* Young Adult: 5
* Sci-Fi/Fantasy: 3
* Books in translation: 7
* Books borrowed from library: 17

For the most part, no surprise with those numbers. I participated in 10 reading challenges (one I still carried over into this year) and only finished four of those challenges. I think that should tell me something but as you can see I’m still jumping in and doing several this year.

Last year I said I hoped to read more classics, short stories and poetry and of course whittle away at my TBR stacks. These weren’t set in stone and good thing because I only read one classic, but I did read a lot more short stories than I typically do and all of my challenge books were from my reading stacks so that is always a good thing.

I don’t really make reading goals because that’s a sure sign I won’t reach them but I’ll just say that I hope this year I’ll be drawn to more classics, non-fiction and other various genres.

Here’s hoping everyone has a great reading year ahead!