Book Review: Immortal Guardians by Eliot Schrefer

Immortal Guardians by Eliot Schrefer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Release Date: August 11, 2015
Age Level: 8-12, Grades 3-7

Publisher’s Description:
In the world of Erdas, every child must discover if they will summon a spirit animal, a rare and incredible gift. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan were rare even among those few. They summoned legendary animals–brave guardians who were reborn to protect their world.

Now more of these legends are appearing across Erdas, bonded to special children. But a dark force has emerged. Older than memory, it has slept for centuries beneath the surface of the world. With the power to tear away spirit animals, it begins a rampage that will be felt in every corner of Erdas. If the young heroes can’t stop it, the darkness will first consume the spirit animals . . . and then the world.

I chose this book because I had heard that the Spirit Animals series was really good. Since this was titled Fall of the Beasts Book 1, I assumed that it was a brand new series within the Spirit Animals family and I would be fine reading it without having read the previous Spirit Animal books. However, it is a continuation of the original series. I’m not sure why they started a new series if it’s the same characters and concept as the first series. Seems like they should have just continued the first series. Obviously, I didn’t have each characters backstory and I think because of this I had trouble keeping the characters and their animals straight. However, it could have been how the book was written. That aside, this book had non-stop action and was pretty violent but was somehow boring at the same time. There wasn’t any break in the action to get to know the new characters introduced in this book, they just showed up and joined the action. It was hard to feel any suspense when I didn’t care that much about the characters. Even though most of them had been previously established in the first series, more could have been written about their thoughts and they could have had a little down time to make the reader more invested in what’s happening with them.

I gave this book to my boys (ages 9 and 11) to read and both of them put it down about half-way through and didn’t pick it up again. They are fantasy fans but prefer a more substantial story. You may enjoy this book if you’ve read the first series but I’d suggest you read some reviews of this book from people who also have read it. A lot of them didn’t like it either – it’s not just me.. Read at your own risk!

(I received a complementary review copy of this book.)

For more reviews of books for children and teens, check out Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection, posted on Saturdays. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, you can go to her site to leave a comment and your link .

Book Review: The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
Publisher:  Nan A. Talese
Release Date: September 29, 2015
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their “civilian” homes.

At first, this doesn’t seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one’s head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan’s life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.

The country is in a deep depression and Stan and Charmaine have been forced to live in their car, a dangerous situation that offers them little sleep as they are forced to constantly move the car from place to place to avoid gangs who want to steal the car and who knows what else. Charmaine earns a little money working as a waitress. One day at work, she sees an ad for the Positron Project in the community of Consilience. Residents of the community agree to spend their time alternating between their picture perfect home the Project provides for them and a non-violent prison, switching every month. Consilience = Cons + Resilience. What could possibly go wrong? It turns out a lot. Predictably, the Positron Project is not what it seems on the surface.

Every resident has a job both inside and outside of the prison. Stan works in a scooter repair shop in the community and as a chicken farmer inside the prison. Charmaine works in the community bakery on the outside and as Medication Administrator in the prison. Charmaine is so sweet and naive that the bad things she does both in both places were really surprising to me. Yet, I still liked her and even felt sorry for her. Stan, on the other hand, just rubbed me the wrong way even though truly he was mostly the victim in this story.

The atmosphere in this book is a cross between an Orwell novel and The Stepford Wives (which happens to be one of my all-time favorite books). Of course, being an Atwood novel, it reminded me somewhat of The Handmaid’s Tale but in atmosphere only. The Heart Goes On is definitely original and not a repeat of the Handmaid’s Tale. There is more dark humor and I love dark humor when it’s done right.

The last bit of the book involving Elvis impersonators – yes, Elvis impersonators – went a little off the rails for me and is what kept me from giving this book five stars. However, the very ending of the book stunned me. It was the kind of ending that left me thinking about the book for days afterward. This book would make an excellent book club selection for that reason.

I’m a huge Atwood fan and this book did not disappoint.

(I received a complementary review copy of this book.)

Book Review: Sleep Tight by Rachel Abbott

Sleep Tight by Rachel Abbott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher: Audible Studios
Release Date: August 11, 2015
Publisher’s Description:

How far would you go to hold on to the people you love?

When Olivia Brookes calls the police to report that her husband and children are missing, she believes she will never see them again. She has reason to fear the worst; this isn’t the first tragedy that Olivia has experienced. Now, two years later, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Douglas is called in to investigate this family again, but this time it’s Olivia who has disappeared. All the evidence suggests that she was here, in the family home, that morning.

But her car is in the garage, and her purse is in her handbag – on the kitchen table. The police want to issue an appeal, but for some reason every single picture of this family has been removed from albums, from phones, from computers.

And then they find the blood…

Has the past caught up with Olivia?

Sleep Tight – if you can. You never know who’s watching.

This is the third book in the DCI Tom Douglas series; however, it stands alone easily. The happenings in Tom’s life are pretty minor in the grand scheme of the book and explained well enough that the reader will know what’s going on with him.

This is one of those mysteries that’s hard to review without accidentally giving something away. I can say that I found this book to be very suspenseful. There are a couple of minor mysteries in addition to the central mystery of what happened to Olivia. One in particular was easy to figure out but I didn’t mind because I was still engrossed in the main plotline. Parts of the book were repetitive and it could have been trimmed down a bit. However, the twists, especially the big one at the end, were very clever and outweighed my minor criticisms.

I listened to the audio version of this book. The book takes place in the UK so the narrators have British accents, which I love to listen to. Tom was voiced by a man and the main female character was voiced by a woman, which was the right choice. The hard part about listening to a compelling mystery on audiobook is that I want to stay in garage and keep listening even after I’ve come home! (I listen to the books while I’m driving.) I’d like to read the other books in this series and see if the mysteries contained in them are as good as the one in Sleep Tight.

(I received a complementary review copy of this book.)

Vacation Get-Away

I’m sorry for the silence this week. I just got back from a family vacation to Universal and Disney World and I’m having some trouble getting back into my regular routine. In the meantime, check us out on Splash Mountain. I think my boys liked it! My daughter doesn’t look so sure.

Banned Books Week Book Review: Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers

This week I’m joining Shelia at Book Journey in celebrating Banned Books Week. Check out her blog every day this week for links to other blogs with posts about banned books.

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: January 5, 2010
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard–falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High… until vicious rumors about her and her best friend’s boyfriend start going around. Now Regina’s been “frozen out” and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn’t come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend… if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don’t break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.

Regina Afton is one of the Fearsome Fivesome, the most popular clique of girls at her high school. They rule by intimidation and seem to have absolute power in the school. After Regina is nearly raped by her best friend’s boyfriend, she makes the mistake of confiding in one of her frenemies, who is also a Fearsome Fivesome member, Kara. Instead of being supportive, Kara starts a vicious rumor about Regina and just like that, she’s frozen out of the group.

Regina is flawed, to say the least. She makes bad choices over and over, to the point that you want to shake her. But she’s still in high school so I think that’s totally realistic, even if completely frustrating. There was so much tension in this book that my stomach was in knots pretty much the entire time I was reading it. Regina’s former friends are vicious in their full scale attack on her to get revenge for what Kara says Regina did.

The heart of this book is what happens when the bully becomes the bullied. I appreciated the realism this book brought forth. It wasn’t the formulaic story you would expect where Regina learns her lesson straight away and embarks on a path of redemption. Do normal high schoolers do that? No. Most are self-absorbed teenagers, they don’t always get things right away, if at all. This is a good book for high schoolers to read, everyone will relate to at least one of the characters and realize that they are not alone. It would also make for a lively classroom discussion. There is mention of sex but no graphic sex scenes. There is also quite a bit of swearing but like I’ve said before, it you’re teenager hasn’t heard those words before, you might want to let them out from under that rock you’ve got them trapped under. I think this is a great book about that high school kids will appreciate.

Why is Some Girls Are featured as part of my Banned Books week celebration? Well, I’ll tell you. It was on the summer reading list for kids at Charleston, South Carolina’s West Ashley High School this summer along with Rikers High by Paul Volponi. Students could choose to read one or the other. Melanie MacDonald, a parent of a student in the district, read to page 74 of Some Girls Are and decided that it was “smut”. She didn’t even read the whole thing before passing judgement! Instead of just having her daughter read the other choice on the list, she launched a full scale campaign to have the book removed from the reading list. And the school caved. Based on ONE parent’s complaint. A parent who took it upon herself to decide what was appropriate for all of the children in the school to read, not just her own. You can read Courtney Summers’ excellent response to the situation here. Have you read any banned books lately?

Book Review: Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
Publisher: William Morrow
Released in 2012
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:
It’s all about a man who one night helps a girl. Just for a second. And there’s a moment between them. But then it’s over. She disappears. But in his hands, he realizes he’s still got something of hers…
Her disposable camera. So what should he do? Develop the film? Or forget about her? He develops the film. Of course he does. And he looks at her photos. And that’s when he spots something very unusual indeed…

Charlotte Street is a British romantic comedy along the same lines as a Nick Hornby novel. Jason Priestly (not that Jason Priestly) has recently quit his job as a school teacher to become a journalist. He’s ended up writing reviews for a free paper that’s handed out at the train station – not exactly where he wants to be. If that’s not disappointing enough, he finds out through Facebook that his recently ex-girlfriend is engaged.

One day, he sees a girl on the street struggling with her packages. Jason doesn’t notice until she’s riding away in a cab that she’s dropped her disposable camera. His friend Dev convinces him to go on a quest to find the mystery girl – she might be the girl of Jason’s dreams.

Oh, how I love dry British wit. There’s no shortage of it in Charlotte Street. Jason’s friend Dev is the best. He is so clueless and funny without realizing it. A couple of the situations were a little too much on the side of screwball comedy, which I do not care for, but most of the book was just really funny. If this book were a movie, a young Hugh Grant would play Jason. The book has been optioned by Working Title Films but I couldn’t find any information on whether it will actually be made into a movie. I hope it is.

I really enjoyed Danny Wallace’s sense of humor and plan to read more of his books.

(I received a complementary review copy of this book.)

Page to Screen: Dark Places

Wednesday I reviewed Gillian Flynn’s novel Dark Places. Today’s review is for the movie adaptation of Dark Places which was released a couple of months ago. Charlize Theron plays Libby Day, the woman whose testimony as a young girl was instrumental in her brother being convicted of the murder of their mother and two sisters. Like in the book, Libby has been numb since the murders, living her life in an emotionless haze. Theron had the right idea in her performance as Libby but I think she took it a little too far. Her performance seemed more wooden than numb. And a note to the costumer about the trucker’s hat that Libby wears throughout the movie: That hat looked brand new! It needed to be roughed up to look worn out and aged. It was really distracting to me that someone who is not only poor but doesn’t care about her appearance at all was wearing a brand new hat. And a note to the make-up artist: It was clear that Charlize had on makeup. Christina Hendricks, who played Libby’s mother in flashbacks, clearly either didn’t have any make up on or the makeup artist did a much better job of making her look like she didn’t have any on. I thought Charlize didn’t look like Libby at all. Libby is depressed and apathetic– she should have looked more slovenly. Charlize wasn’t afraid to get all uglied up in Monster so I don’t know why she didn’t do it in this movie. It bugged me for the whole movie!

The plot followed the book pretty closely and included as much detail as it could in a two-hour movie. I would have liked to have seen most of the characters developed more, especially Ben and Diondra. I couldn’t help but wonder what the screenplay would have been like if Flynn adapted it herself since she did such a fabulous job adapting Gone Girl.

I was surprised how many big names were in this movie since it’s a little independent film. Christina Hendricks played Libby’s mom, Corey Stoll (Peter from House of Cards) was Ben, Chloë Grace Moretz (I love her!) was young Diondra and Drea de Matteo was Krissi.

Here’s an interesting article I posted on this blog’s Facebook page a few weeks ago about why the movie of Dark Places flew completely under the radar, especially compared to the madness that surrounded Gone Girl. The poor movie actually started filming BEFORE Gone Girl did and was supposed to be a little independent film. It had no aspirations to be as popular as Gone Girl because Gone Girl didn’t exist. It also faced a lot of production problems. Reading the article made me feel sorry for the poor director of Dark Places.

My husband and I went into watching this movie with horrible expectations because the movie did not get great reviews. Of course, having read the book, I felt compelled to watch it. I didn’t think it was THAT bad, probably due to my low expectations. I thought it was on par with a Lifetime movie thriller, like Mother May I Sleep with Danger starring Tory Spelling. My husband, who hasn’t read the book, thought it was pretty good with a few plot holes. Most of them are due to a poor adaptation but after he pointed them out, I realized some of them were originally in the book.

This is a moderately enjoyable movie but just like with the novel, don’t go in expecting it to be Gone Girl.

Book Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Publisher: Broadway Books
Paperback Release: 2010
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

Dark Places is Gillian Flynn’s second novel. I think it’s important when reading Flynn’s earlier books not to make comparisons to her amazing third novel, Gone Girl. Remember that Dark Places is her second book so one wouldn’t expect it to be as good as Gone Girl. That said, it was pretty darn good. The main character is Libby Day. When Libby was a child, her brother Ben was convicted of killing their mother and two sisters. It was Libby’s testimony that was instrumental in putting him away. Libby’s an adult now and lives her life walking around in an emotionless haze. It’s really hard to empathize with her because she doesn’t seem to feel sadness or anger about what happened – she’s just numb. I didn’t like her very much at all. But you don’t need to like Libby to enjoy this book. You probably aren’t meant to like her.

Lyle, a member of Kill Club, a group obsessed with real life murders, approaches her and suggests that someone other Ben killed her family. Libby is outraged – she saw what happened. Eventually, Lyle convinces Libby to help him investigate. She agrees so that she can prove to him that her brother is a murderer.

I’m usually pretty good at guessing the ending to thrillers and mysteries but not in this case. This book has so many twists and turns that my head was spinning. Flynn is so great at weaving a complicated plot together, keeping the reader confused (in a good way) about how everything fits together until the very end.

When Gone Girl was released three years ago, I had the pleasure of attending Gillian’s book signing in Kansas City. Incidentally, Flynn is from Kansas City. That’s also where Libby and I live so it was fun reading about real-life landmarks that are in my city. Libby’s hometown of Kinnakee is fictional though.

Anyway, at the signing, Gillian also shared some thoughts and answered questions about Dark Places:
• Dark Places started out as a fictional look at the McMartain preschool case in California. [If you look up that case, you’ll see that it ended up being just a small piece of Dark Place’s story.]

• In the first draft of Dark Places, Libby was supposed to be perky because she didn’t want another dark narrator like in Sharp Objects. She changed her mind after her husband read the first draft and said it was clear that she didn’t like writing Libby.

• She doesn’t start out knowing how a book will end. The twists and turns come to her as she goes. She writes her books five or six times!

• She said I was very attentive and had a friendly face so she looked at me a lot during her talk. [I already mentioned that in my review of Gone Girl but it can’t hurt to tell you again!]

My reviews of Gillian Flynn’s other books:
Sharp Objects
Gone Girl

Movie Review: Straight Outta Compton

Normally I don’t write movie reviews for movies that aren’t an adaptation of a book, but I feel compelled to review Straight Outta Compton because it blew me away. I was a fan of NWA and other gansta rap acts in high school and college but I didn’t know too much about the behind the scenes goings on. This movie covers when NWA first came together in 1986 up through the early 90s.

NWA is probably most known for their song F*ck the Police. The movie shows the tension between the police and the black community at that time and the racism that the group members individually experienced that led to Ice Cube writing this song. If you can get over the shock of the song’s title and listen to the lyrics, you’ll realize that not much has changed, especially recently with the Black Lives Matter movement and the incidents that inspired its creation.

I was surprised at how emotional I felt watching this movie. From the incidents of racism to the group’s relationship with each other and their manager. Tears were streaming down my face towards the end. My husband was not a fan of gansta rap or NWA and told me that not everyone knows of the tragedy that made me cry – he didn’t for sure – so I won’t spoil it for you.

The casting in this film was great. Ice Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., plays him. Not only is he a great actor, he looks just like his father- especially later in the film when he doesn’t have Jehri curls anymore. Corey Hawkins plays Dr. Dre and the resemblance is uncanny.

The one criticism I have is that the movie didn’t go deep enough. A lot of events were left out or skimmed over. But here’s the thing, a lot happened to NWA and to the gansta rap genre that they were instrumental in creating. The industry was one big soap opera. The movie is already two and a half hours long. It would have to be a mini-series to get everything in. Or a separate biopic for each artist. As is, I think what the writers and director have chosen to highlight are the right things.

I felt so nostalgic driving home from this movie. I wanted to get out my old CDs and listen to them. Then I remembered that small children live in my house and there’s a reason why those CDs are packed away! Someday…

Week In Wardrobe: GYPO Fall 2015 Style Challenge

You all know I love the Get Your Pretty On Style Challenges. It’s time for the 2015 Fall Challenge!  Here’s how it works: You sign up for the challenge and are sent a shopping list of all the items you will need to style the 21 challenge outfits. This challenge is not about buying an all-new wardrobe. Alison encourages shopping in your own closet for the items first. All of the items mix and match – you will be building a fall wardrobe “capsule”. Alison will start releasing the daily outfits on October 4th. Then dressing for the day becomes a snap – you have all the items needed for the outfit, just put them together and go! There is room for creativity too – you can use a different color scheme than the sample items on the shopping list or make substitutions. You will be granted access to the challenge Facebook page where you can post your daily outfits and see how other people put their outfits together. It’s a fun, supportive community.

Now is the time to sign up for the Fall 2015 Challenge. Alison says, “Imagine waking up every morning knowing EXACTLY what you’re going to wear that day, walking into a closet full of mix and match, on-trend pieces that you love. No more wandering around the mall wondering what to buy.”

Early Bird Registration Closes:  9/17 at midnight ET. You can sign up by clicking here.

Some of my outfits from the Spring 2015 Challenge:

Some of my outfits from the Summer 2015 Challenge: