3 Snouts Up for Crow Lake
(:)(:)(:)* for Crow Lake by Canadian author Mary Lawson. Billed as the "best novel he read this year" by one of my brothers-in-law, I dove heartily into this self-proclaimed "shimmering tale of love, death and redemption" (who could not be drawn to that?).

This is actually one of the best novels I've read this year, but that's mostly a testament to the level of brain candy I've been ingesting this summer (these days I tend to alternate weighty non-fiction with complete trash). It's strongly written, holds your interest and the characters are well-drawn, but the heroine and narrator of the story is such a cypher, existing mostly relative to her brothers and boyfriend, that you get a kind of shadowy picture of her glimpsed in snatches. Ultimately I had trouble caring much about her life.

The best novel I've read this summer is Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende--definitely (:)(:)(:)(:)--her best since the early days--a must as far as I'm concerned.

*For my newer readers--I have a snout-based rating system for movies, books and restaurants. 4 Snouts up is the best you can get.