Hour 14 and 15: Death in Venice and Joey Fly

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Two more books completed in this read-a-thon. Could there be two more dissimilar books?

First, Joey Fly: Private Eye in Creepy Crawly Crime. Written in a comic book format, this thin book is charactered with insects, arachnids, and worms. The dialogue is clever, filled with bug-populated similes. Will kids get the humor? A bit, I think. Kids will just like the silly detectives trying to solve the mystery of the missing pencil box.

Second, Death in Venice. I liked and disliked this book. Mann has his character, Aschenbach, preach a little more than I like, preaching his thoughts about beauty and writing and control. That's what I disliked. For the first third of the book, I could barely force myself to keep reading.

Then Aschenbach falls in love and begins to tail the object of his affection all over Venice. The story takes a different turn and the writing moves from a rant about virtue to a real story. Venice is beautifully depicted and Aschenbach becomes a real, brilliant, tortured human being. That's what I liked.

I gave both books a 6/10. I feel scared to rate both books the same, almost as if I could be barred from the world of books if I do so, but the truth is that I liked both about the same.