The first month of 2012 has passed and I am actually keeping up with my intention to be more pro-active about this year’s challenges. Let’s check my progress so far:
Here’s the list for 2012:
1. A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title
2. A book with something you’d see in the sky in the title – Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
3. A book with a creepy crawly in the title
4. A book with a type of house in the title
5. A book with something you’d carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title
6. A book with something you’d find on a calendar in the title
One of my favorite challenges is S. Krishna’s Books South Asian Challenge. The year there aren’t different levels of number of books to read – everyone sets his or her own goal. I’m setting my goal at six books.
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The Global Reading Challenge 2012 is a challenge to read one fiction book from each of the seven continents:
Africa
Asia – All the Flowers In Shanghai by Duncan Jepson (review coming soon)
Australia
Europe
North America
South America (please include Central America where it is most convenient for you)
The Seventh Continent (here you can either choose Antarctica or your own ´seventh´ setting, eg the sea, the space, a supernatural/paranormal world, history, the future – you name it).
The Off the Shelf 2012 challenge is to read books that are on your shelves as of December 31, 2011. I need this challenge in a major way – I have so many books in my TBR pile! I’m signing up for the Trying level which is 15 books.
1. Lover Awakened by JR Ward
2. My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland
3. Poison Study by Maria Snyder
4. The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley
5. Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips
6. Modelland by Tyra Banks
7. All the Flowers In Shanghai by Duncan Jepson
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February 1st, 2012 in
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I have a feeling that my reading and reviewing is going to slow down a bit for a while. We accepted the placement of an 18-month old little girl on Friday. Since she’s a foster child, I can’t post any pictures or identifying information. You’ll just have to trust me that Little Miss is super cute and really smart. It’s been an adjustment having a toddler around here again but I love it. Cash and West love her because she thinks they are hilarious and will imitate anything they do. Eighteen months is such a fun age – the calm before the storm of the terrible twos and threes.
Countdown by Mira Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Countdown is a short prequel to the Newsflesh series. I have previously reviewed the first two books in the series: Feed and Deadline. I read the Kindle version of Countdown so it didn’t have page numbers but I think it probably has only about 65 pages. It’s a detailed account of the days in 2014 leading up to The Rising.
Mira Grant is an excellent world builder. Adding more details to the story of how the Kellis-Amberlee virus was created and spread only made the possibility that something like that could really happen seem even more believable to me. There wasn’t any brand new information in this book but it was a nice dose of the Newsflesh world to help tide me over until the final book, Blackout, is released this summer. I highly recommend Countdown for fans of the Newsflesh series.
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January 26th, 2012 in
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Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lover Awakened is the third book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I have previously reviewed Dark Lover and Lover Eternal. This review may contain spoilers for the first two books in the series so proceed with caution.
Lover Awakened is Zsadist’s story. Zsadist was kidnapped from his birth family as an infant and served as a blood slave for years until rescued by his twin brother Phury. He has never gotten over the abuse he suffered as a slave and lives a life full of anger and intimidation. When he rescues vampire Bella from the evil Lessening Society, she is drawn to his strength and intrigued by his angry aloofness. Will Bella be able to help Zsadist overcome his past and heal enough to love another being?
I loved Bella and Zsadist’s story. I appreciated the fact that it was actually fairly realistic (as far as smutty vampire novels go anyway) in portraying how the abuse Z suffered effects his interactions with everyone, especially women. And he wasn’t just magically healed after having sex with a woman who cared about him – it took time and patience on Bella’s part. I’m a sucker for a book where a seemingly impenetrable tough guy ends up showing his vulnerable side, formulaic as it may be.
I read the print version and listened to the audio of this book. The audio book is narrated by Jim Frangione, who narrated the first two books as well. He did a fine job once again.
Fans of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series will not be disappointed with Lover Awakened. I highly recommend it for fans of smutty vampire books everywhere.
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January 25th, 2012 in
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Modelland by Tyra Banks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Tookie De La Crème is a Forgetta-Girl – no one notices her. With frizzy hair, a huge forehead and spindly body, she can literally lay in the middle of the hallway at school and everyone just walks on by. In spite of all that, Tookie finds herself selected on The Day of Discovery to be a student at the magical Modelland. Of the hundred or more girls chosen on The Day of Discovery, only seven extraordinary, fabulous girls graduate Modelland each year to become Intoxibellas – the most worshipped and influential women in all the world. Tookie can’t figure out why she was chosen to go to Modelland instead of her beautiful younger sister Myrracle.
Tyra Banks, former supermodel and host of America’s Next Top Model, wrote this book. It was exactly like Tyra herself – crazy, manic, and over the top. The book is set in a future, dystopian society where the standards of beauty are the law of the land. Everyone is a superficial consumer. Even though every girl dreams of going to Modelland, it has a sinister element. Rumors of girls not good enough to become Intoxibellas being tortured abound. Girls who aren’t selected make pilgrimages there, never to be heard from again. And once you’re a student at Modelland, trying to escape has dire consequences.
Knowing Tyra Banks wrote this book, I expected it to campy. She definitely went above and beyond my expectations in that department. I don’t think the word subtle is in Tyra’s vocabulary. I was expecting this book to be similar to the Uglies series – filled with metaphor and symbolic lessons about judging people by their appearance,etc. This book was more like a hammer, hitting you over the head with that message. And there were no metaphors. Everything was straight up as it appeared. For example, in the health clinic at Modelland, the head purse (nurse) is Purse Drestookill and her outfit is described as, “an elaborate sage-green cape made of multiple types of pistols, knives, nooses, and razors, with a hat shaped like a guillotine.”* Get it?? She’s literally “dressed to kill”! Get it?? And then there’s Guru Applaussez, who’s head is shaped like a third hand – all the better for him to clap with my dear.
It may sound like I didn’t like this book at all, but actually I was strangely drawn in. I should probably disclose that I’m a big fan of America’s Next Top Model – it gives me a chance to rest my brain and watch the madness that is Tyra and Company. And this book has little inside jokes for ANTM fans. For instance, the BellaDonna, head master at Modelland, hates actresses and says disparaging things about them. Tyra also holds actresses in low esteem, compared to models; and says disparaging things about them on ANTM. I felt much the same way while I was reading this book as I do watching ANTM, although I did feel like the pacing of the book was too frantic. A different science fiction effect was around every corner and almost none were repeats – it was overwhelming. This book is the first of a planned trilogy – I don’t know if I’m invested enough in what happens to Tookie to keep reading the series but I did have fun reading this first book.
*This quote is from an advance reader’s copy – the final version of the book may differ.
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(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)
January 24th, 2012 in
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Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips
My rating: 3,5 of 5 stars
Ren’s brother Scott died when she was only 12 years old, but he never really went away. His ghost has been a part of her life for 25 years. Her ability to see ghosts has help her in her career as an archaeologist – they can help point her to where the artifacts are buried. She is currently trying to piece together the life story of a Mimbres woman who made unique bowls. Two long-dead Mimbres women have appeared to her but they seem to be telling her more about her own life than theirs.
Ren meets and starts a relationship with one of her fellow archaeologists, Silas, on the dig for the Mimbres bowls. However, she’s apprehensive about sharing her ghost-seeing abilities with him and is afraid she might lose him.
Overall, this was a good story but it was slow and also predictable at times. I thought her relationship with Silas was fairly formulaic – she’s a tough, mysterious woman who needs the love of a good man to break down the walls she’s built around her. However, I thought Ren’s relationship with the two Mibres women was interesting and I enjoyed the flashbacks of what the Mibres women’s lives were like when they were alive.
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(I received this book courtesy of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.)
January 18th, 2012 in
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The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
In 1765, King Louis XV ordered the first French expedition around the world. Philibert Commerson was appointed the voyage’s botanist and charged with discovering medicines, spices and other resources. No women were allowed on ships on this kind of voyage but Commerson’s mistress, twenty-six year old Jeanne Baret managed to come aboard posing as Commerson’s young male assistant. She was able to keep the ruse up for quite a while but eventually it all fell apart. Even so, she was the first woman to circumnavigate the Earth.
This book was incredibly well researched but I found it too academic for my taste. Because everything takes place was so long ago and not many first person accounts from people on the voyage are out there, the author has to make quite a few assumptions about what may or may not have happened. She always backed them up with historical background information or by outlining the logic that lead to her conclusions, which I thought was great. However, since there is no known first person journal or letters written by Jeanne Baret herself, the author also makes a lot of assumptions about how Baret was feeling or what she was thinking in various situations. I didn’t always agree with the author’s reasoning in these cases. The author clearly admires Baret, which she should, but I think this led her to be overly generous with some of her assumptions.
I would have preferred to read this story as historical fiction – then the author could have made all the assumptions she wanted without having to outline her reasoning and documentation. I think that is part of what made this a dry read. There is quite a bit of information about the plants that Commerson and Baret documented on the voyage so if you have an interest in botany, you will probably enjoy those parts quite a bit. All in all, it is an interesting story and even though I thought the book had some flaws; I’m glad I read it.
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(I received this book courtesy of the publisher.)
January 17th, 2012 in
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I like to try and actually commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. in some way during MLK Jr. weekend. Last year, I tried reading the boys a picture book about his life. That went over like a lead balloon. When we got to the part where he got shot, the boys started crying and saying, “This book is too scary!” Trying to explain that he made a sacrifice for a larger movement was no help. When I told Cash that with out MLK Jr, his best friend wouldn’t go to the same school as him, he basically told me to be quiet – that was too horrible to contemplate and he didn’t want to hear any more. So when I brought this book out this year and said we were reading it because it’s MLK Jr. weekend, they freaked out. I have scarred them for life. I assured them that no one died and that Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t even actually in it and they let me read it to them. Sheesh.
White Water by Michael S. Bandy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
On a very hot day in 1962, Michael and his grandmother take the bus into down. Once they get there, Michael runs to the water fountains to take a drink. But the water tastes nasty and dirty. He looks over at a little boy drinking out of the whites-only water fountain and notices that little boy seems to be enjoying his drink. Could the white water be better? Michael decides to find out and takes the bus to town the next day by himself. When no one is looking, he takes a drink from the whites-only water fountain. It tastes dirty and nasty too. He happens to look down and see that both fountains are fed by the same pipe. It’s the same water! The white water isn’t any better. Michael wonders if the fact that white water is a lie, what other things that he’s been told should he question?
I think most of this book went over West’s (the five year old) head but Cash (my seven year old) and I were able to have a great discussion about segregation and Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in bringing that to an end. He didn’t freak out and was flabbergasted to learn that even Kansas City had segregated schools back then. West’s only contribution was to tell me that he doesn’t have any friends with black skin – they have BROWN skin. I think this was a great book to use as a stepping off point for a conversation about race and history that was on their level.
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January 16th, 2012 in
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Yesterday I reviewed My Life As a White Trash Zombie – which I loved! I happen to have an extra copy to give away to a VERY lucky reader with a United States address. To enter, just fill out the form below by 11:59pm on January 23, 2012.
January 12th, 2012 in
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My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I heard that the zombie is the main character and the “good-guy” of this book, I knew I had to read it. I’ve never heard of a book with a zombie good-guy before! And just look at the cover – how could I resist?
Angel lives with her alcoholic dad in Southern Louisiana. She’s a pill junkie and a high-school dropout who can’t hold a job. In other words, a loser. One day, she wakes up in the hospital after overdosing. She remembers being in a terrible car crash but she mysteriously has no injuries. A note is delivered to her hospital room informing her that a job at the county morgue is waiting for her when she’s released. How convenient now that she has an inexplicable craving for brains. Unfortunately, there is a serial killer on the loose who decapitates his victims.
This book was so fun and original – I loved it. It has two mysteries to solve: 1)Who turned Angel into a zombie? and 2)Who is the serial killer? I couldn’t figure out either mystery, the author definitely kept me guessing. There is also just the slightest hint of a romance thrown in as well. Angel is a great character. She has her flaws (obviously) but she is so likable, I was rooting for her to turn her life around.
After finishing My Life As A White Trash Zombie, I was delighted to learn that it’s the first book in a series. The next book is called Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues and will be released on July 3.
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January 11th, 2012 in
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