Book Report: The Book of Joe

The Book of Joe
by Jonathan Tropper

From the back cover:

Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut, and never looked back. Fifteen years later, he wrote a novel that savaged everyone in his hometown--then became a national bestseller and a huge hit movie. Of course, he never planned on going home again--until now...
Joe's father's had a stroke, so it's back to Bush Falls for the town's most famous pariah. Within hours of his arrival, Joe's return ignites a maelstrom of reactions: His brother avoids him; former classmates threaten to beat him up; and members of the book club just hurl their copies of Bush Falls at his house. But while Bush Falls may be less than thrilled to see Joe, it's becoming clear that Joe needed to see Bush Falls. As he walks the familiar streets, he revisits the terrible events of his senior year--1986--a year of passion, betrayal, and catastrophe from which he's never fully recovered. But after seventeen years of hiding from it, Joe is finally ready to face his past, and with the help of some old friends, he may actually learn something...if he manages to survive his homecoming.


First sentence:

Just a few scant months after my mother's suicide, I walked into the garage, looking for my baseball glove, and discovered Cindy Posner on her knees, animatedly performing fellatio on my older brother, Brad.

Book Report: Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Way of the Peaceful Warrior
by Dan Millman


From the back cover:
Despite his success, college student and world-champion athlete Dan Millman is haunted by a feeling that something is missing from his life. Awakened one night by dark dreams, he wanders into an all-night gas station. There he meets an old man named Socrates, and his world is changed forever. Guided by this eccentric old warrior and drawn to an elusive young woman named Joy, Dan begins a spiritual odyssey into realms of light and shadow, romance and mystery. His journey leads him toward a final confrontation that will deliver or destroy him.


First paragraph:

"Life begins," I thought, as I waved goodbye to Mom and Dad and pulled away from the curb in my reliable old Valiant, its faded white body stuffed with the belongings I'd packed for my first year at college. I felt strong, independent, ready for anything.

Book Report: The God of Animals

The God of Animals
by Aryn Kyle


From the back cover:

When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, twelve-year-old Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles--a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch in Desert Valley, Colorado. To make ends meet, the Winstons board the horses of rich neighbors, and as their lives become intertwined with the lives of their clients, Alice is drawn into an adult world of secrets and hard truths. She soon discovers that people--including herself--can be cruel, can lie and cheat, and every once in a while, can do something heartbreaking and selfless.


First paragraph:

Six months before Polly Cain drowned in the canal, my sister, Nona, ran off an married a cowboy. My father said there was a time when he would have been able to stop her, and I wasn't sure if he meant a time in our lives when she would have listened to him, or a time in history when the Desert Valley Sheriff's Posse would have been allowed to chase after her with torches and drag her back out to our house by her yellow hair. My father had been a member of the sheriff's posse since before I was born, and he said that the group was pretty much the same as the Masons, except without the virgin sacrifices. They paid dues, rode their horses in parades, and directed traffic at the rodeo where my sister met her cowboy. Only once in a great while were they called upon for a task of real importance, like clearing a fallen tree from a hunting trail, or pulling a dead girl out of the canal.