103. Kill Me

By:  Stephen White
Rated 4 Stars
From:  Library

This was an interesting premise and one that hit a few of the buttons that I acquired during my Mother's end of life illness.  It's not an easy question when you are standing in the middle of a personal situation.

But all that aside, I didn't like it as much as I did The Siege.  It just wasn't as gripping.  Maybe down deep I like books about psychopaths with lots of blood and gore more then I do psychological thrillers where it's mostly about outwitting someone.  Surely not! (G)

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller White (Missing Persons) takes an endlessly debatable question—at what point would a decline in your quality of life cause you to want to end your life?—and leverages it into a clever, absorbing thriller. The anonymous narrator is in his prime, a happily married father of a young girl given to high-risk sports. An assortment of grim fates and a near-escape of his own make him consider the question. A shadowy group called Death Angel Inc. contracts to guarantee that if the life of the "insured" should reach a certain agreed-upon level, they will terminate that life. Fascinated and impressed by the Death Angels' knowledge and reach, he eventually negotiates terms with them. This Faustian bargain doesn't take long to reveal its dark side, and White pays almost equal attention to the philosophical and the physical as his hero has to both approach the conditions that would trigger his contract's death clause yet remain healthy enough to fight back.

102. The Motion of the Ocean

By:  Janna Cawrse Esarey
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Amazon

I ran across this book on beachreaders blog.  It's another one of those books I would have missed left to my own devices.

This book is part travelogue and part the story of the beginnings of a marriage.  I thought that the author had a tendency to nit pick her relationship with her husband to where I would have understood if he had thrown her overboard once or twice.  But then I thought about it and gosh, living for 18 months on a 35 foot sail boat with no once else around for most of it, I mean what else was there to do other than over analyze things.  I think she finally saved her life and her sanity by using her computer and journaling her thoughts and experiences.

But annoying spots aside, this is the story of a very gutsy couple who had a dream and just went out there and DID IT!  On a shoe string budget, storms, break downs, pirates and lack of open ocean sailing experience  - they always sucked it up and came through.  If she got a tad bit winy during the slow times, well IMO she earned the right.

But I gotta say this one last thing and that is that had I been her I would have demanded a better stove.  Trying to cook on a pitching boat with the one she had is the stuff nightmares are made of.

Amazon Review
"On her honeymoon Janna Cawrse Esarey and her fisherman husband set sail in pursuit of her childhood dream....Motion of the Ocean is a fresh and honest story on many levels. It's an entertaining read for those who enjoy a voyaging story or are contemplating an adventure, though in the end it's not about achieving the sailing dream -- it's a love story in which Janna discovers how to live and enjoy life."