Book Number 19

I just grabbed book #19 randomly at the library....truth be told, I was looking for a male author because I've been reading a lot of female authors lately....

also I wanted a book with a nice cover

don't try and tell me "don't judge a book by it's cover" that's BS, I am way more likely to pick a book I've never heard of if the cover looks nice.

.....I can't be the only one......

The Novel: One Mississippi
The Author: Mark Childress
Link: http://www.crazyinalabama.com/One_Mississippi.html

After I spent a few minutes saying m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i over and over in my head (and out loud once or twice), I decided hunker down and read this novel.
I liked it.
The novel was very descriptive and interesting. Set in the 70's and during the time of court-ordered integration, there is a lot that Mark Childress works with. Conflict is slow to build up, but ends in a bang. This is a humorous coming of age novel that takes a dark twist.
I enjoyed the character details, as well as the scene descriptions. Myself, being born in 1979 I never experienced much of (at all) 70's culture. I found myself being easily sucked into the story and seeing everything as though I had lived through it back then.
I found the novel to flow nicely and build up with conflict for the most part, however, I found the end to be almost too much. I was expecting some sort of conflict or controversy, but the novel ended in a way I had not expected. I felt as though the build up of the story didn't quite warrant such an explosive ending. It was a good twist, which would seem, due to the nature of the novel, expected....but for me it really wasn't.
There was a lot of adumbration as to what might happen at the end, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but I really was. Maybe it is a continuity issue for me (the novel goes along la-la-minor conflict-la-la-la-conflict- la-la-la-conflict-conflict-la-la-la-BANG) Just my personal opinion, I'm sure a lot of people didn't have a problem with the novel or how it ended, but for some reason the ending just didn't sit well with me (not because of the level of violence, but because of the way it was written, I guess)
All in all I still enjoyed the novel. It was a nice choice for a "pick at random" book.

I give "One Mississippi" a rating of 3.5 out of 5.

I might give Mark Childress a second go around, I enjoyed the look into the past that I hadn't been alive to experience.