I take a stab at blog updating with review haiku

Someone on a book blog I like used to offer three line book reviews, which were dubbed "review haiku." She was better at the form than me, but, frankly, this is the only way I'm going to catch up on the scads of books I've read since last posting in August:

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch**1/2
Alison Arngrim
Former "Little House on the Prairie" child star Alison Arngrim survives sex abuse and parental neglect. Lots of Michael Landon stories (he was short and wore tight pants as Pa to please the lady viewers). Almost succeeds in rising above the Hollywood trauma genre.

Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China ***
Pearl S. Buck
Fictional biography of Cixi, whose main challenge was allowing a reluctant empire more access to Westerners. Cixi's internal struggles reflect those of the nation, which blend the personal and historical aspects of the novel nicely. A bit romantic for my taste.

A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World**
Rachel Cantor
A dystopian mess in many ways. Everything from the dull, sad world of service employees in the future to Marco Polo and a library of Judaica. A lot of stuff just isn't explained.

The Circle ***1/2
Dave Eggers
Another dystopian set in a Silicon Valley tech company. People are urged to "go clear" and give up their privacy; everyone becomes accessible to everyone else. A lot of people hate this book, but I think the themes are worth talking about.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America****
Barbara Ehrenreich
Ehrenreich goes undercover to work minimum wage jobs to show how impossible it is to be poor in America. Nothing I didn't already know, but I appreciate her ability to document it. She gets pretty worked up at times, which was a plus for me, but might turn some people off.

What Is Visible****
Kimberly Elkins
Absolutely excellent fictional biography of Laura Bridgman, child with no real working senses but that of touch, left in the care of Samuel Gridley Howe, who both petted and repressed her. Elkins' novel sensitively delineates Laura's inner life and the outside forces that brought her joy and misery. Helen Keller makes a brief appearance, appalling the reserved Laura with her grabby hands. (There's Laura's photo above left.)

The Panopticon***1/2
Jenni Fagan
A Scottish juvenile delinquent is sent to the titular home for wayward girls. What the warders don't count on is how much the girls care about each other and their fierce desire to direct their own lives. Very nicely done, though the slang takes some getting used to.

Gone Girl***
by Gillian Flynn
Girl goes missing, husband suspected. Well-plotted but utterly strains credulity after awhile ... and the "surprise" isn't that hard to figure out. Certainly a page turner, but hard to care about any of the characters.

The Pillars of the Earth**
Ken Follett
Medieval master builder and his friends might be subtitled "Bob the Builder Goes Back in Time." Clearly Follett is all stoked up about cathedral building ... so much so that the novel is only a frame to allow Follett to tell what he knows. Good if you don't care about the story and like a lot of architectural description.