This is the book Twilight wishes it could be. It is a vampire love story as it should be. It is full of gore because after all vampires are dangerous blood-sucking undead creatures who just happened to have been human at some point. There is danger, intrigue, romance, blood, and stakes. There is no going out in the daylight because when there is then there is smoldering, burning flesh, and a pile of ash.
AND THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO SPARKLING!!!!!
Tana wakes up in a bathtub after a party and all the other teens at this party are dead. The only other souls (or soulless) left alive (relatively speaking) are her pain-in-the-ass ex-boyfriend and a vampire who she feels drawn to save even as she is terrified of him.
Along the road to a Coldtown there is blood (it is after all a vampire story), mystery (who is this vampire and why isn't he trying to drain all the blood form Tana's still living body?), and betrayal. But there is also romance. And this is the least sappy romance I have ever read. And I loved it.
Very well written and fresh even while it might feel familiar because it follows years and years of accepted vampire lore.
Take a trip to Coldtown, you won't regret it.
(Finished December 27, 2014)
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
As in Eleanor & Park Rainbow Rowell creates characters who feel broken in some way. But she does it in such a way that draw you and make you cheer for them to win.
In FanGirl you meet twin sisters Cather and Wren. They are freshman in college. Wren is confident, sassy and outgoing. She wants to try being a person apart from her twin even if they are going to the same college. Cather is an introvert who is having a hard time leaving home and being apart from her twin.
The girls have a mother who walked out on them when they were 8 and a bipolar father who did his best to raise the girls on his own.
Outward appearances can be deceiving and sometimes those who seem the most put together are the ones falling apart in the worst way. And how we see ourselves isn't necessarily how others see us.
What Rainbow does so well is write in such a way that you feel like you are in the skin of her main characters. Healing, honest, heartbreaking.
Cather is such an amazing young woman and it takes her a long time to figure out her worth. Along the way you will fall in love with her.
(Finished December 26, 2014)
In FanGirl you meet twin sisters Cather and Wren. They are freshman in college. Wren is confident, sassy and outgoing. She wants to try being a person apart from her twin even if they are going to the same college. Cather is an introvert who is having a hard time leaving home and being apart from her twin.
The girls have a mother who walked out on them when they were 8 and a bipolar father who did his best to raise the girls on his own.
Outward appearances can be deceiving and sometimes those who seem the most put together are the ones falling apart in the worst way. And how we see ourselves isn't necessarily how others see us.
What Rainbow does so well is write in such a way that you feel like you are in the skin of her main characters. Healing, honest, heartbreaking.
Cather is such an amazing young woman and it takes her a long time to figure out her worth. Along the way you will fall in love with her.
(Finished December 26, 2014)
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride By Cary Elwes, Joe Layden
Cary A.K.A. Westley isn't a writer, he is an actor but that doesn't make this book any less enjoyable. In fact it adds to the charm. The pages are peppered with blurbs by his Princess Bride cohorts.
From his casting in the roll of poor farmhand turned pirate Westley As You Wish is a peek behind the scenes and it was wonderful to get the glimpse.
Everything about this book is a pleasure. Even the dust jacket is wonderful. There is printing on both sides.
Cary shares the details on the training for the sword fight, the hard time he had keeping a straight face working with Billy Crystal, and the amazing way Rob Reiner ran the show. The parts about Andre the Giant are very moving.
That this movie was a project of love to all those involved is clear, most of the cast and crew came on board as fans of the book and found it an honor to bring it to life in movie form.
A little on the saccharin side but not unpleasantly so.
(Finished December 23, 2014)
From his casting in the roll of poor farmhand turned pirate Westley As You Wish is a peek behind the scenes and it was wonderful to get the glimpse.
Everything about this book is a pleasure. Even the dust jacket is wonderful. There is printing on both sides.
Cary shares the details on the training for the sword fight, the hard time he had keeping a straight face working with Billy Crystal, and the amazing way Rob Reiner ran the show. The parts about Andre the Giant are very moving.
That this movie was a project of love to all those involved is clear, most of the cast and crew came on board as fans of the book and found it an honor to bring it to life in movie form.
A little on the saccharin side but not unpleasantly so.
(Finished December 23, 2014)
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
My dear friend Eileen is walking across Spain and she posted an update that said she pretty much devoured this book while on this trek. I knew then that I had to run out and get a copy. I started this at 8am and by the end of the day I was done. I wasn't going to bed until I was done, I just needed to get to the last page of Eleanor & Park's story. I had to know where, what, how, they were...And I closed the book with so many feelings. Now the next morning I find myself missing them and wanting more.
The story of teen love isn't your typical cheesy, gooey love story. It is about the relationship that grows between this girl with big red hair and the half Korean half Irish boy who reads comic books. But it is also about how we see ourselves and how the outside world sees us, it is about the toxic things that can be happening behind closed doors that no one can or wants to talk about. It is about finding the person who grounds you to the world so your life and its pain doesn't make you float away, as insignificant as a piece of dust floating in a sunbeam.
Read this. NOW!!!
Then share it with someone.
(Finished September 3, 2014)
The story of teen love isn't your typical cheesy, gooey love story. It is about the relationship that grows between this girl with big red hair and the half Korean half Irish boy who reads comic books. But it is also about how we see ourselves and how the outside world sees us, it is about the toxic things that can be happening behind closed doors that no one can or wants to talk about. It is about finding the person who grounds you to the world so your life and its pain doesn't make you float away, as insignificant as a piece of dust floating in a sunbeam.
Read this. NOW!!!
Then share it with someone.
(Finished September 3, 2014)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
I read a review of this book quite some time ago and it went on my list. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw it on the buy 2 get 1 free table (I'm a sucker for this table, LOVE IT) at Barnes & Noble, remembered it was on my to read list and picked it up to read the back cover. Main character went to Mount Holyoke, SOLD!!!
I picked it up from my pile this week and the timing was fortuitous. The book takes place at the start of WWI and this week is the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
Elizabeth heads to Syria with nothing but her Mount Holyoke degree, some light nursing training and good intentions. She witnesses some of the horrors of the genocide of Armenians. She learns to stand on her own two feet, and she falls in love.
But this isn't some cheesy love story with war as its setting. The story goes back and forth between modern times to 1915. Elizabeth's granddaughter is the narrator and she tells her grandparents story and the story of the Armenian people. She doesn't learn the story of how her grandparents met and fell in love and what the war did to them and others until they were long gone.
The story is told in the form of threads from different prespectives in the past and present and come together in the end in a way that felt satisfying and natural.
I'l admit I didn't know anything about this genocide and it is heartbreaking. While this story is fiction what happened to the Armenians is not. What is told here contains fictional characters but what they witness and experience is not. At times it is quite brutally described. The history lesson, interesting story telling style and the really well told tale make it worth the read.
(finished August 5, 2014)
I picked it up from my pile this week and the timing was fortuitous. The book takes place at the start of WWI and this week is the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.
Elizabeth heads to Syria with nothing but her Mount Holyoke degree, some light nursing training and good intentions. She witnesses some of the horrors of the genocide of Armenians. She learns to stand on her own two feet, and she falls in love.
But this isn't some cheesy love story with war as its setting. The story goes back and forth between modern times to 1915. Elizabeth's granddaughter is the narrator and she tells her grandparents story and the story of the Armenian people. She doesn't learn the story of how her grandparents met and fell in love and what the war did to them and others until they were long gone.
The story is told in the form of threads from different prespectives in the past and present and come together in the end in a way that felt satisfying and natural.
I'l admit I didn't know anything about this genocide and it is heartbreaking. While this story is fiction what happened to the Armenians is not. What is told here contains fictional characters but what they witness and experience is not. At times it is quite brutally described. The history lesson, interesting story telling style and the really well told tale make it worth the read.
(finished August 5, 2014)
Thursday, July 31, 2014
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
"They don't walk like ordinary dogs, but leap and somersault like an apostrophe and comma."
"They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger."
It's lines like those that make this a pleasure to read. Sandra Cisneros draws you in right from the introduction. You want to see things with her eyes. And that is exactly what happens in the pages of The House On Mango Street. It's like someone is talking and you can see what they are talking about but then you blink and the story and scenery change, then you blink again and another story and scenery change, blink-change, blink-change....And each time you are drawn in. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is lovely and sometimes it is really sad. But always it is something you want to look at carefully, taking in each and every detail and you want to listen so closely you can taste the words, you want to do this before it changes again because while you can't wait to see what's next you don't want to leave the current story.
I found this book on a table of beach reads. The blurb on the back of the book felt like a challenge, "Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages..." so of course I had to grab it. What a good thing I did.
(Finished July 31, 2014)
"They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger."
It's lines like those that make this a pleasure to read. Sandra Cisneros draws you in right from the introduction. You want to see things with her eyes. And that is exactly what happens in the pages of The House On Mango Street. It's like someone is talking and you can see what they are talking about but then you blink and the story and scenery change, then you blink again and another story and scenery change, blink-change, blink-change....And each time you are drawn in. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is lovely and sometimes it is really sad. But always it is something you want to look at carefully, taking in each and every detail and you want to listen so closely you can taste the words, you want to do this before it changes again because while you can't wait to see what's next you don't want to leave the current story.
I found this book on a table of beach reads. The blurb on the back of the book felt like a challenge, "Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages..." so of course I had to grab it. What a good thing I did.
(Finished July 31, 2014)
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
This was a book club pick and was on my radar so I gave it a go.
Let's get out of the way the did or didn't I like it question...yes, I liked this book very much. It was well written and very quickly does it make you forget that it is a novel. Melanie Benjamin writes in such a way that it makes this very readable and draws the reader in.
Now, the content. Using actual events and non-fiction writing about Anne and Charles this novel tries to paint a picture of Anne Morrow Lindberg and her life as the wife of one of the most famous men of the day.
She starts out the shy daughter of a diplomat and becomes the wife of the most famous pilot pretty much ever. He isn't a warm man, he doesn't show any real emotion and despises it in Anne and so forbids it. Even when their child is kidnapped and killed.
The story here touches on how he controlled her, including making her share his views and she allows it. She doesn't find her own voice and strength in time to tell him she doesn't share his views on Hitler and Jews. She isn't innocent, she knows it is wrong but doesn't (can't?) stand up to him.
He is not a likable character/person and at times it becomes difficult to like her. But in the end I found I did like her very much. I know what it is like to feel weak and have that reenforced by those who it benefits to have that feeling remain in place. In this telling she finds her footing and begins to stand up to him in her own way. But through it all she seems to realize she loves him even as she dislikes him.
(finished July 30, 2014)
Let's get out of the way the did or didn't I like it question...yes, I liked this book very much. It was well written and very quickly does it make you forget that it is a novel. Melanie Benjamin writes in such a way that it makes this very readable and draws the reader in.
Now, the content. Using actual events and non-fiction writing about Anne and Charles this novel tries to paint a picture of Anne Morrow Lindberg and her life as the wife of one of the most famous men of the day.
She starts out the shy daughter of a diplomat and becomes the wife of the most famous pilot pretty much ever. He isn't a warm man, he doesn't show any real emotion and despises it in Anne and so forbids it. Even when their child is kidnapped and killed.
The story here touches on how he controlled her, including making her share his views and she allows it. She doesn't find her own voice and strength in time to tell him she doesn't share his views on Hitler and Jews. She isn't innocent, she knows it is wrong but doesn't (can't?) stand up to him.
He is not a likable character/person and at times it becomes difficult to like her. But in the end I found I did like her very much. I know what it is like to feel weak and have that reenforced by those who it benefits to have that feeling remain in place. In this telling she finds her footing and begins to stand up to him in her own way. But through it all she seems to realize she loves him even as she dislikes him.
(finished July 30, 2014)
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