I just finished a book by one of my favorite organizers, Peter Walsh. This good-looking Aussie (he's handsome, talks with a sexy Australian accent and is ORGANIZED - yeah, he's probably gay) was featured on TLC's series Clean Sweep. Although the show's been cancelled (darn it, I loved that show), I believe you can still catch reruns on TLC.

Anyway, Peter wrote a book called It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life With Less Stuff. I bought it hoping it would contain specific tips for organizing, but it's really more of a primer for those dealing with large amounts of clutter. Having seen Peter in action on Clean Sweep, I was already familiar with his strategies and his no nonsense approach to organizing. So, what I really enjoyed about the book was Peter's emphasis on collecting experiences, not possessions. He makes this point very strongly in the section on decluttering kids' rooms. Peter talks about setting toy limits and training ourselves to use time not toys to enhance our children's lives.

So, all in all, I enjoyed the book. I think it's a fantastic guide for organizing novices, I just wish he had gone more in-depth for those of us who need less help decluttering and more help with the day-to-day management of our homes and lives.

I took another dip into Young Adult fiction this week, reading Libba Bray's first novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty. It's a mesmerizing Gothic suspense tale, chilling, and impossibe to put down once you've started reading.

The story concerns Gemma Doyle, a 16-year-old English girl living in India at the end of the 19th Century. Bored with her dreary life, she longs to escape to England. During an argument with her mother on this very subject, Gemma snaps and flees through a busy Indian marketplace. She is thrilled by her sudden freedom, even though she soon becomes lost. In the midst of this, she succumbs to a troubling vision that shows her mother dead, a black shape looming over her. Gemma awakes only to find that her vision has become fact. Now without a mother, Gemma is shipped off to Spense Academy, an English boarding school. Although she is determined to become a proper lady there, she can't shake the sinister visions. It doesn't help that she's the strange new girl, or that she's become aware of a handsome stranger watching her every move.

Thanks to her discovery of one girl's shocking secret, Gemma suddenly finds herself in the center of Spense's circle of popular girls. To quelch the boredom of school life, they decide to form a secret society, like the one they've read about in an old journal Gemma found. Together, they enter "the realms," a world between worlds where they are free and powerful. The magic seems harmless, until the girls unleash it on their own world. Suddenly, they are in deeper than they ever imagined. As the secrets of "the realms" reveal themelves, Gemma and her friends suddenly realize that they are dealing with a power they not only don't understand, but also can't control. Gemma is stunned to discover her mother's connection to The Order as well as her own.

It's not the strongest plot, but it was compelling enough to keep me reading (and ignoring housework), desperate to find out what happens to Gemma and her friends. I read a review of the book that called the characters "unlikable," an idea with which I agree somewhat. Gemma is a sympathetic protagonist, with enough wit to be an engaging narrator. Felicity, her rich, beautiful friend is complex and unpredictable, making her just as interesting. The rest of the characters are somewhat bland, it's true, but I was willing to read about them just the same. Perhaps the most masterful element of the book is the mood it evokes. From the first page, it's somber and downright creepy. As Gemma travels to and arrives at Spense, the mood darkens even further and never lets up. It's that more than anything that makes this such a chilling novel.

A Great and Terrible Beauty is foremost a horror story, but it's also a commentary on the imprisoning lives of 19th Century women. Gemma and her friends are being groomed to be one thing - marriageable. Their parents use them as pawns to secure wealthy, well-bred futures, seemingly disregarding their daughters' desires. This problem becomes painfully obvious when Gemma's friend, Pippa, becomes unhappily engaged to a man 30+ years her senior, because he is rich enough to save her family from financial ruin. Echoing the feelings of her peers, Gemma says, "We are looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they'd like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance." (page 305) This, more than anything else, is what makes "the Realms" so appealing to the girls. While Bray does an excellent job of showing the imprisonment the girls face, I think she errs in not showing ANY examples of happy marriages. The only one that comes close is the union between Gemma's parents. Even that, however, is discredited in this conversation between Gemma and her brother, Tom:

"Mother was Father's equal," I say coolly. "He didn't expect her to walk behind him like some pining imbecile."

Tom's smile falls away. "Exactly. And look where it's gotten us." (page 27)

Still, my only real beef with the novel is that I believe it is too sexually mature for young adult readers. Don't get me wrong, there are no graphic sexual scenes. There is, however, plenty of innuendo, as well as faint lesbian undertones. These, combined with the sinister tone of the whole novel, make it more of an adult book in my mind. I admit it could just be my prudish side coming out, but I don't think I would let my teenager read this book. Despite this, I enjoyed the novel and found that it did what all good books do - it transported me to a world apart from my own.

I've read several books lately, but haven't had time to sit down and write about them. I'll try to summarize them below:

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brasheres

This series tells the story of 4 close friends who find a magic pair of pants - at least the jeans seem to be magic, since they look great on all of the differently-shaped girls. In the first book, the girls decide to pass the pants around to keep them close throughout their summer apart. Each of the girls has ups and down - Lena is in Greece, smack dab in the middle of a family crisis; Bee's spending her summer at a soccer camp in Mexico, trying not to get herself into too much trouble, especially with an attractive, older coach; Tibby's working at a drug store, when an intriguing little girl enters her life; and Carmen discovers that her Dad's got a few surprises that will change the shape of her whole summer. The book is funny, realistic and surprisingly deep, even heartbreaking in spots. The sequel is just as good as it continues the story of each of the girls. There are two more books in the series that I haven't read yet, but I'm definitely planning to read them soon.

The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

This was an interesting read about Quentin Clark, a Baltimore lawyer, who is determined to solve the mystery surrounding the death of his favorite author, Edgar Allen Poe. The year is 1849 and Poe has just been found dead in the city. Clark, outraged by the press' coverage of the author's demise, commits himself to finding Poe's murderer, thereby restoring the writer's good name. Realizing that he cannot solve the puzzle himself, Clark travels to England to find Auguste Dupin, a famed detective. Together, the two men return to Baltimore, where they set about collecting clues. Increasingly frustrated with the eccentric Dupin, Clark obsessively scours the city for information, determined to solve the mystery. He's not the only one looking into the matter, however, and he soon finds himself looking over his shoulder for would-be attackers. As if that isn't enough, Clark is in danger of losing his career, his fiancee and his best friend.

Unfortunately, the plot summary makes the book sound much more exciting than it really is. It is a compelling mystery story, but it plods along so slowly that I was tempted to ditch it several times. I stuck with it, but was disappointed in the ending, which tied up the loose ends in far-fetched and unconvincing ways. After reading Pearl's debut novel The Dante Club, I was looking forward to reading his sophomore novel, but I simply found it too long and tedious to be enjoyable.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

This is another interesting book. It tells the story of Jacob Jankowski, a young man who finds himself adrift after his parents die in a car accident. Rather than face a bleak future at home, he takes off and unwittingly joins a circus. Here, a meets a host of strange characters, who show him the ropes, as well as the gritty underworld of circus life. Eventually, it is discovered that Jacob is almost a veterinarian - he skipped his final exams after finding out about his parents - and he is put in charge of the show's menagerie. He enjoys his new-found status as a higher-up, but finds that it has its own problems, including his boss, a charismatic and dangerous man named August. Worse still, Jacob finds himself longing for August's wife, a beautiful, disillusioned performer. A relentless do-gooder, Jacob fights to keep his sanity and soul in the strange, dazzling world of which he is suddenly a part. Like I said, an interesting story. It's well-written, but odd and shocking in parts. I found it riveting, but...strange.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M.C. Beaton

I just finished this cozy English mystery about an aggressive businesswoman who decides to retire to a cottage in the Cotswolds. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the quiet life is not for a woman like Agatha Raisin. Determined to make her dream work, Agatha decides to win over the village by entering its annual cooking competition. The fact that Agatha has never touched an oven doesn't bother her in the least - she happens to know a lovely shop that makes a killer quiche. She enters the dish, clears a spot on her mantle for the winner's cup, then sits back to wait. Pretty soon, the local police are knocking on the door accusing her of poisoning the judge with her quiche. Determined to clear her name, she sets about solving the mystery. Although the book is poorly-edited and predictable, it was entertaining, mostly because of the caustic Mrs. Raisin. Her brash nature is balanced nicely by her vulnerability, making her interesting and likable. The mishaps she gets herself into are humorous and somewhat original. All in all, the book is okay, although I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the books in the series.

I started Elizabeth McGowan's The Expected One this week, only to abandon it about 1/3 of the way through. The book was not only a copycat of The Da Vinci Code, but it was also difficult to get into. At 1/3 of the way through the book, I realized I didn't care much about the characters or what might happen to them, so I abandoned the whole thing. I also happened to read the Author's Note at the end of the book, and that did it - I think the author is delusional.

Anyway, I have been hearing a lot about Andrew M. Greeley, a Catholic priest and bestselling novelist, so I picked up the first book of his "Irish" series, Irish Gold. It's the story of Dermot Michael Coyne, a 25-year-old Irish-American playboy, who travels to Ireland to leisurely solve the mystery of his grandparents' past. A sometime writer, Dermot believes the story will make a fine novel. What he doesn't realize is that their story is linked to a violent time in Irish history -- "The Troubles" -- and that there are people in Ireland who will do anything to stop the story from being told. In the midst of Dermot's search, he meets Nuala McGrail, a mysterious and talented Irish girl. When Dermot unearths his grandmother's diary, Nuala proves to be an able translator, as well as a very appealing companion. Soon what began as a half-hearted quest to get some answers about his beloved grandparents, turns into Dermot's obsession to find the truth. He also finds himself becoming more than a little obsessed with Nuala, who proves to be as intelligent as she is beautiful. The duo's race to find answers is an exciting race into time and history that keeps the reader turning pages as fast as possible.

As exciting as the plot is, it's the characters that really sparkle in this novel. For all his faults, Dermot is an extremely appealing hero. He's an overconfident Yank who knows he's no 007, but who, nevertheless, holds his own against beautiful, scheming women; knife-wielding Irish thugs; and dangerous enemies of every sort. Nuala is no less appealing. She's a 19-year-old Irish wonder, who's at once a tough-talking Dubliner and a shy country girl, capable of charming everyone from the Irish elite to her parish priest. The electricity between them is captivating and hilarious. Then, there's Dermot's grandmother, whose indomitable spirit shines through her diary entries. Historical giants like Michael Collins, Winston Churchill and Daniel O'Kelly also make cameos in the novel.

In short, it's a rich, thrilling novel. It's not exactly what I would expect from a Catholic priest (the f-word [in its less-offensive Irish form, but still...] is used repeatedly throughout the text), but it's still a good read. I loved it, and will be grabbing the sequel next time I'm at the library.