Book Review: Avalon High

Avalon High by Meg Cabot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Avalon High is a modern retelling of the Legend of King Arthur. Ellie is new in town and to Avalon High. Her parents are both college professors who specialize in medieval times and they’ve moved with Ellie to Annapolis because they are both on sabbatical for a year. While out running, Ellie meets Will, one of the most popular boys at school. He tells her that he feels like he’s known her in another lifetime. Ellie doesn’t think much of it until more strange things begin to happen. She slowly puts the pieces together and realizes that the Arthurian Legend is playing out in her school. If you aren’t familiar with the Legend of King Arthur, don’t worry. Cabot works in detailed explanations of the legend throughout the book.

I enjoyed this book. It was a cute high school romance with elements of suspense. Ellie was a realistic, likeable character. So was Will – I would have loved to have had him as my boyfriend in high school!

I listened to the audio version of this book which was narrated by Debra Wiseman. I thought she did a great job with both the male and female voices. However, one of the characters has a British accent and I didn’t think her British accent was very good so that was distracting.

I didn’t find out until after I’d finished this book that the rest of the books in this series are graphic novels. I’m disappointed because I love listening to Meg Cabot’s books in the car and I’m assuming that there aren’t audio versions of the graphic novels. On the other hand, I’ve never read a graphic novel before so reading them could be a new and exciting experience for me.

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Book Review: Soulless

Soulless by Gail Carriger

My rating: 4,5 of 5 stars

Alexia Tarabotti is a “preternatural”, that is she was born without a soul. This gives her a special power over those who have extra soul – namely vampires and werewolves. Their supernatural powers are deactivated whenever they come into bodily contact with Alexia. Naturally, if the supernatural beings found out what Alexia can do they would not be happy so Alexia keeps her being a preternatural a secret from most everyone. Soullessness is not Alexia’s only affliction. She’s also a spinster and Italian.

Alexia lives in a Victorian England where werewolves, vampires and ghosts live openly alongside ordinary human beings. When a vampire rudely attacks her at a party, Alexia starts to uncover a larger problem brewing in the supernatural community. The investigation brings her closer to Lord Maccon, an Alpha werewolf.

I loved the stylized manner in which this book was written. I felt transported back to Victorian times as I was reading and Alexia has a dry wit that kept me chuckling to myself. The chemistry between Alexia and Lord Maccon was great – I wasn’t expecting the love scenes to be as steamy as they were. There were also so many fantastic supporting characters in this book that were vividly written and really fun.

This book has elements of a few genres, it’s hard pin it down to just one. If I had to, I would say steampunk. It also fits into paranormal romance, mystery and comedy of manners. I think this book would appeal to almost everyone in some way. I highly recommend it.

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Thank You Secret Santa!

A very nice surprise that I came home to after a week at the Mayo Clinic was a package from my Holiday Swap Secret Santa. My Secret Santa is Nicole from The Book Bandit. Boy, did she spoil me – look at all this:

She gave me not one, not two, but count ’em THREE books. They all look right up my alley and really good. They are: Dark Songby Gail Giles, Tris & Izzie by Mette Ivie Harrison and The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller. Nicole also gave me a really cool silver bracelet with a purple stone, a very sparkly blue ornament and a pretty bookmark with a Japanese girl on it. Thank you so much Nicole – I love everything!

I’m Back!

I’m back from my “vacation” to the Mayo Clinic. I drove up last Sunday night and stayed in Rochester all last week having tons of tests. The plan was to have my final consultation with the Mayo GI doctor on Friday afternoon and then drive to Des Moines Friday night and the rest of the way to Kansas City on Saturday morning. Well, at my appointment on Friday, the GI doctor said that the MRI showed an abscess in my colon and he really wanted me to have surgery at Mayo as soon as possible. He said that if I could do it on Monday, then the chief of colo-rectal surgery would be the one performing it. That was an offer too good to pass up – a chief surgeon at Mayo is practically a celebrity in the medical world. BUT I missed my boys terribly so I still drove back this past weekend, saw them for a bit and then my husband drove back up to Rochester with me Sunday afternoon.

Our arrival time for surgery Monday morning was 5:45am. That is just rude! Luckily our hotel was right across the street so our commute time was minimal. To make a long story short – the surgeon looked and looked all over my gut and found nothing. No abscess. That’s good in that I didn’t have to have a drain put in but that means we still aren’t any closer to figuring out what is causing the fever that I’ve had since July. The GI did start me on a couple of new medications for my Crohn’s disease. If the inflammation from the Crohn’s is causing the fever, then hopefully these new meds will do the trick.

Enough about me – back to bookish things tomorrow!

Book Review: Around the World in Stilettos

Around the World in Stilettos by Natalie-Jane Revell
Narrator: Cori Samuel
Length: 6 hours and 12 minutes
Publisher: Iambik Audio Inc
Release Date: October 13, 2011

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sophie is a 23 year-old travel writer who loves shoes. She’s also extremely clumsy and flighty. She has a secret crush on her writing and traveling partner Dan. Unfortunately, he has a serious girlfriend even though it seems at times that he is interested in Sophie. Things get complicated for Sophie when she meets James. Should she wait for Dan to come to his senses and leave his girlfriend for her or should she pursue a relationship with James?

This book is written by a British author and set in England. I felt like it was trying too hard to be like Bridget Jones’s Diary or the Shopaholic books. Sophie was charming and I found her antics mildly amusing but the humor seemed forced at times. I was confused because Dan kept telling Sophie that James was a jerk and she was too good for him in a manner that suggested he knew something about James that Sophie didn’t. Sophie’s roommate also acted like she knew something about James. Nothing about James was ever revealed though.

I listened to the audio version of this book which was narrated by Cori Samuel. She did a great job even with the voices of the male characters. This was a good book to listen to in the car because it didn’t require a lot of concentration.

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(I received this audio book courtesy of the Solid Gold Reviewers program at Audio Jukebox.)

I Did It! – NaBloPoMo

Whew! I can’t believe I came up with something to post every day in November! I don’t think I can keep up posting every single day long term but I would like to post Monday-Friday from now on. Next week I’ll be at the Mayo Clinic* and I have no idea what kind of tests they’ll be running on me or what kind of drugs I’ll be on (hopefully lots of good ones!) so I might have to wait til after that to try and post five days a week.

*I have Crohn’s disease and I’m going to the Mayo Clinic on the recommendation of my local GI doctor to see if they have any new or revolutionary treatments for me since the medicine that used to work so fabulously for me has quit working.

Book Review: Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Warning: This review assumes that you have read the first two books in the Queen of Babble series and may have spoilers for them if you have not.

The Queen of Babble Gets Hitched picks up right where the last book left off. Lizzie has woken up in her apartment next to Chaz and Luke is pounding on the door. Luke has come to propose to Lizzie – and she accepts! She starts to prepare for her wedding but something doesn’t seem quite right. In the meantime, she is in high demand at Chez Henry bridal gown restorations after doing a fantastic job restoring a wedding dress for Jill Higgins who was marrying into high New York society.

I thought this book wrapped up the series beautifully. Lizzie is growing and becoming a serious business woman but she is still just as charming and funny as ever. I can’t really go into too many details about the plot without giving too much away.

I listened to the audio version of this book, narrated by Justine Eyre as the other two are. She does a wonderful job as usual. She had a great, quirky voice for Ava Geck, a Paris Hilton type character introduced in this book.

Queen of Babble (Book 1)
Queen of Babble in the Big City (Book 2)

Buy this book at:
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Week In Review: Nov 21-27

I had med school gigs on both Monday night and Tuesday morning this week which were fun but made getting ready for Thanksgiving even more hectic. (I’m a standardized patient at two local medical schools.)

Tuesday I made homemade dinner rolls for Thanksgiving. I was going to make buttermilk rolls but my grocery store was out of wheat germ so I just made regular white. Is wheat germ a popular Thanksgiving item?

Wednesday I made the mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole. The boys were off school and super wound up about Thanksgiving. I’m lucky I got anything done. That afternoon the boys and I picked up my very best friend since kindergarten at the airport. She was just in for a short weekend with her family so I was able to spend time with her by picking her up and then driving her the hour and a half to our home town. (I dropped the boys off at Travis’s office on the way.) I hadn’t seen her in about four years!

On Thursday we had my mom and brothers, Travis’s mom and sister and my mom’s boyfriend and his mother over for Thanksgiving. Since West doesn’t take an afternoon nap anymore, I scheduled dinner a little later and I didn’t have to get up til 8am to get the turkey in. My mom’s boyfriend’s mom, Norma, is sort of senile. She told us that she has a Stradivarius violin worth millions of dollars which I do not think is true. At one point she cornered my mom and was badgering her about when my mom, who is in her sixties, was going to get married to her boyfriend (Norma’s son).  I thought that was hilarious! Even when you’re in your sixties, you can’t escape the pressure to get married!

Friday was a day for relaxation! You could not pay me enough to get out there in the Black Friday craziness. We did leave the house to watch The Muppets in the afternoon. That was a great movie – we all liked it. Even West, who is VERY easily scared by most movies (even Finding Nemo), thought that it was good and didn’t get scared at all.

Saturday we decorated our tree and then we went on a journey looking for Santa. First we went to a shopping center just about a mile from our house that has a great Santa, only to find out that Santa doesn’t come there until December 3. We resigned ourselves to going to the pathetic Santa at a dead mall a couple of miles in the other direction when one of my friends reminded me that there is a good Santa at Bass Pro Shop. We headed over there and found the line was two hours long! Luckily they have a “Bass Pass” that lets you cut to the front of the line if you come back later, like the Fast Pass at Walt Disney World. We came back after we went out to dinner and didn’t have to wait at all.

Sunday I woke up feeling worse than usual so I spent most of the day after church in bed snuggled up with my new electric blanket. (Why have I never had one before – it’s awesome!) I’m so glad that my Mayo Clinic visit is only a week away now.

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2011 Wrap-Up

I didn’t get very much reading in today because I took a VERY long nap after church. I did start on Soulless but I’m not even close to being finished with it. I think I still read more than I would have if I wouldn’t have had this event to make me conscious of getting reading time in. Thanks to Jenn’s Bookshelves for hosting!

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2011 Day 2

I just wanted to pop in quickly with an update – it’s been a long day and I’m exhausted! I finished The Girl With The Pearl Earring this morning and I will probably start Soulless tonight. I’ll post details and pictures of decorating the tree and visiting Santa soon!