Reviews of the following books: (in no particular order)

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyers
Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

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This is, so far, the only book of Jodi Picoult’s that I have read. This story is harshly realistic, tragic in the extreme, and leaves the reader with an ending that is unsatisfactory to the conscience. That is, however, praise coming from me. Too few writers are willing to be so realistic, I think because people like happy endings and tidy plot resolutions in their fiction. I know I do, but I think there’s something to be said for a heart-wrenching story. Read the rest of this entry »

SQUEEEEEE! I just got a delivery from Amazon.com; Harry Potter books 1-6 in paperback as a boxed set!!!
How could it possibly be any better? Well, I’ll tell you: it was a surprise present! Beat that!
Squee!

Wow. What a book!

Oh, you wanted more? Ok, here it is. Ender’s Game, written by Orson Scott Card is far and away the best Science Fiction book I have read. Ever. Even better than the book most often held up as the pinnacle of Sci-Fi, Herbert’s Dune.

Ender’s Game tells the story of young Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, the child of parents who are never named, who just go by Father and Mother. A “Third” child, uncommon in a world concerned with population control, Ender has had a monitor attached to the back of his neck since he can remember — a monitor that allows his every senses to be monitored every moment of his life by the International Fleet (IF), in the hope that the IF can determine if he is the one that they’ve been waiting for. An older brother, Peter, and a sister, Valentine, had both also been monitored, but both had been eliminated: Peter for being too heartless and agressive, and Valentine for being too caring and feeling. The IF had hoped that Ender would be a middle ground, and succeed where his siblings had failed. Then, one day when Ender is six, his monitor is removed. The Ender experiment had failed.

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This book was, and wasn’t, what I thought it would be. It was a fairly good source for greek/roman mythology, along with some other myths around the world; it wasn’t quite as easy to read as I had hoped it would be. It was a pretty academic book, but I still found myself engrossed in the stories. There was information on all the gods we know from school, and information on some of the more obscure gods, beings, or stories from back in the day. I was quite impressed with this book. I wouldn’t recommend it as reading simply because it doesn’t have the continuity of a story, but it is a great source and a fun read. You’d just have to be someone genuinely interested in the subject matter to appreciate it.
I enjoyed it.
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Honestly, I’ve had this book for a while and I just can’t get into it. I’ve read the first few chapters, but I’ve had to take a break from it because I can’t seem to get engrossed in the story like I did when reading Archangel. I rely on that in books because I read for fun (tested out of English for college, bwahahaha) and if I can’t get into a story, it usually ends up sitting on the shelves until I can get back to it, or I give up and trade it in for credit at the local used book store. Too bad I don’t have anywhere where I can go for an even trade, but that’s another story… Read the rest of this entry »

This book was a foray into a “new” author and genre for me. I’ve been trying to expand my literary horizons, so to speak, and when I saw an excerpt for this in the e-mail bookclub I signed up for, I became interested in getting to read the whole story. I have very little information on this author (google, here I come) but I was pleasantly surprised with the level of writing.
I think it’s no great secret that some pretty crappy writing is being published these days (which could lead me into a whole ‘nother rant) so I was very happy to see that the quality of this author’s writing skills were top-notch. The story was intriguing, the format of the story was good, though the story itself was a little lacking in the end.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see/hear that this book is being hailed as a great work of literature. It is up there in my estimation, though in some places I think the writing was unnecessarily “colorful”. (By colorful, I mean a little too “adult” in the “adult movie” kind of way.) To her credit, Gruen doesn’t over-exploit that aspect of the writing/story, but I think I could’ve done without a few of the descriptive scenes that were in there. Admittedly, it’s a very visually focused writing style; you get a lot of colors, sounds, descriptions, smells, and textures in the writing so it would’ve been awkward to insert the literary equivalent of a 1950s fade-to-black.
Given that, the only thing I would’ve really changed about the book is the title. “Water for Elephants” is equally ambiguous and an attempt at sounding very profound, in my opinion and I think that leads to a little bit of confusion as to what the story is about. It’s just always been my thing that book titles should sound more like what the story is rather than being an obscure excerpt from the text that the publisher/author/whoever decides sounds nicely profound and likely to sell.
I would highly recommend reading this book; on a scale of one to ten it gets a 7, and for those of you as OCD as me about this: you’ll be happy to know that I didn’t spot an typos in my copy of the book.
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Under the pseudonym Amanda Quick, this writer’s material is all very similar. The historical novels all have pretty much the same plot, with a few different twists and change, but they’re good fluff reading. This book, however was different enough to really catch my interest when I read it. It’s still fluff reading, but I was glad for the change of pace in this book when compared to the rest under the Quick name. The focal points are still pretty much the same: girl has problem; girl seeks out/comes across boy; boy and girl are instantly, deeply attracted to one another; mystery surrounds the whole ordeal; girl realizes feelings for boy; boy realizes feelings for girl but can’t admit it until he knows for certain girl feels for him and girl is afraid to say anything because boy has given no indications of anything more than strong affections and physical attraction; the confession finally comes; obstacles are overcome and they live happily ever after. Like I said: good fluff reading. I did enjoy this book a little more than some of the others I’ve come across under the Amanda Quick pseudonym, and I would recommend that any gal interested in a nice historical romance (I’m not certain of accuracy) go out and find a book by Amanda Quick. There are a lot of them out there and if you look closely enough you can find some that are priced under the typical market paperback price; I’ve also seen an abundance of them in the used book store here where I live. I think at least one of these books makes a nice, colorful addition to any book collection – of course, I’m sure the men aren’t too interested in it.
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Read anything by Amanda Quick, Jayne Ann Krentz, or any other of this author’s names? Tell us what you think; visit the NeoForum, or just leave a comment!

This book is a current read for me. I’m a little over halfway through and without even knowing how it’s going to end, I’m going to recommend it. I absolutely love all of what I’ve read so far. The story begins with the main character looking through her father’s library while he is away…in the top shelf of the study she finds a batch of old letters. Out of curiosity, she reads the first paragraph of one letter which begins: “My dear and unfortunate successor”. In these letters – and the stories told within the story – we travel through many countries, in different times and places, meet many different people, and learn that the truth behind these letters may be that Dracula – Vlad the Impaler- may actually still be alive.
From there begins a series of stories, travel, and little adventures that just suck the reader in. The writing is eloquent, the plot devices are excellent and I have yet to come across anything in this 624 page book that seems extraneous. There is no lag in the story, but it has nice little stopping places where you can take a breath before you plunge back in.
I leave you with a quote from the cover:

It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis for the legend of Dracula…Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself…