Vampire Academy

After I read those books in the below post I was itching for a little bit of my usual fare of supernatural. I read Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. It was weird but not too bad. It was about Rose, a half human half vampire- (a 'dhampir') and the living mortal vampire ('Moroi') princess Lissa that she is sworn to protect from the evil undead immortal vamires ('Strigoi'). After running away from their boarding school they are captured and sent back. Rose is bonded to Lissa and must protect her from the strange things that have been happening.
Have you ever read a novel that's part of a series, out of order of a series? well that's kinda what reading this book was like...constantly referencing to things that have happened in the past. You don't know what's going on, but everything is told by the end. But it just seemed a little jumbled to me. Hopefully the next one is better...but I think it will be. It's a very popular series after all!

L. McDaniel & C. Cooney

Went to the library last Thursday, the one in Braselton near my mom's house. I talked to the girl at the checkout...she loves YA books too. She suggested a couple authors to try so I checked some out. I read two of them in one day: Telling Christina Goodbye and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep by Lurlene McDaniel. I remember I used to read her books in highschool. Super easy reads about kids dealing with tragedy or disease. Telling Christina Goodbye is about a girl who is in a car wreck with her friends and having to deal with the loss of her best friend, the anmesia of her boyfriend, and the animosity she feels to the driver (who was her best friends boyfriend). Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep was about a girl who is in remission from cancer when her friend from her support group's cancer comes back. It's impossible to treat. He goes into hospice and her and both families have to cope with the events. These were ok books, not as sad as I remember them in high school. they didn't move me to tears, unlike the book I read the next day...

A Friend at Midnight, by Caroline B Cooney. Another fast read, I read it in a day. But literally, I couldn't stop reading it. It starts off with a little boy 8 years old, being dumped off at the airport(no luggage, no ticket, nothing)! You find out it's his father that does this. He calls his sister, 15 year old Lily who is the main character of the book. She rescues him but keeps the secret of what really happened at her brother's request. It is a religious book but it's not too preachy. The last chapter had me in tears. I don't know why this book touched me so much, other than me thinking about the little boy being abandoned by his father...now that I have kids myself the thought of anything like that happen makes me . I will look forward to reading more by this author; I hope they are all as good as this one. It's probably for a younger audience BUT I enjoyed it anyways.

Hush, Hush and Skeleton Creek

last night after finishing Harvest Home, I started Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. I finished it today. It's a good book for a first time author, a very fast read....although it has some flaws I enjoyed it regardless. It was about a girl named Nora. She is drawn to a new boy at school Patch...and struggles with her attraction but also her fear of him. After some strange and dangerous happenings, she finds out who, and what, Patch really is...a fallen angel. I liked the ending, and I look forward to reading the next one. Some things don't make a lot of sense, and Nora can make some stupid decisions...but really, if a character did everything they way you think they should have, you wouldn't have the book now would you? like a movie where you're screaming, don't go through that door! and they do, if they didn't then the monster wouldn't have got them, but it needed to FOR THE STORY.

After I finished Hush, Hush, I picked up a book I got from the library yesterday. It's a REALLY quick read: Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman. It's written in journal format, complete with ruled lines on the pages, and a font that looks like hadwriting. Ryan is the journal's author: a teen who has recently been in the hospital after breaking his leg after snooping around with his best friend Sarah (they are trying to figure out why their town is names Skeleton Creek). They are forbidden by their parents to have contact but they manage through email and Sarah sends Ryan passwords to go onto a site and see the videos she has posted online. What's different about this book is that you can actually log onto the internet, enter the passwords, and see the videos yourself. I think that was really neat...I've never seen any other book do that before. I think it's great...and I think it will encourage a lot of young readers to check out this novel. I finished in in less than 2 hours. It's spooky and makes you want to run to the bookstore and get the next one. Not deep by any stretch BUT fun.

Harvest Home

I just finished Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. It was written in 1973. It'a about a family from new York who go to live in a small isolated town in the country. The villagers are very old fashioned and it's easy to see they are hiding something. By the time Ned, the protagonist, finds out what...he is, let's say, severely punished.

It takes a LONG time to get to the interesting part of the novel. Parts of it were very graphic, and I didn't like that too much. It was slow in parts (mainly first half to 2/3rds of the book!)...I found myself skimming in places. It reminded me of (why do all these books remind me of movies?) the Nicholas Cage movie The Wicker Man. which was kinda interesting, the original Wicker Man movie had been filmed the year before this novel but had not been released yet, but very similar themes. I'll have to see the original, it's supposed to be A LOT better...so much that the director and people involved with the first, completely disassociated themselves from the remake!

but I digress. This book is ok, but not for the faint of heart. It's very adult themed (rape, murder, etc). Not something I will re-read, but not something I regret reading either.

Where I am now....

See here, that's what I get for not blogging...I forget what I read. I know I read something else between Going Bovine, and Abarat, but i cant' remember what it is. Some YA books I'm sure. well all I can do is just start keeping track again and hope I don't forget any more, maybe if I think hard I can recall the ones I've read in the last month or so.
I just finished Horns by Joe Hill. My librarian said I should also read his other novel, Heart Shaped Box. I read a blurb about it and realized, I HAVE read it already! I didn't realize then that Joe Hill is Stephen King's son though. Horns was pretty good, I liked the plot though it was a bit crude in spots. I guess I really do prefer YA for it's relative cleanness: none of the YA books I've read ever gets that... crude. (can't think of a better word to describe it)

Right now I am reading Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. Another grown up book! LOL I am about 100 pages in and still haven't gotten the point of the book yet. Keep wondering when the conflict's gonna start! Usually 100 pages is at least enough to get moving at least a bit.

OOHH my gosh, I remember now one of the books I read after Going Bovine now. It was Secret Whispers, a VC Andrews novel. Possibly the worst book I've read in a few years. This novel... it was vapid, empty, the evil stepmom that I suppose was the antagonist of the story never really even did anything bad. It's one of the reasons I'm trying to read a few heavier books lately. Need to get all that fluff out of my head. ~shudders~

Edit: OH! I also read Blue Moon by Alyson Noel. It was pretty good. can't wait to see what happens in the next book.

trailer for Linger, by Maggie Stiefvater

The kids have been really sick lately so I haven't had much time to read. I also have a cold now but hopefully get this book list of mine caught up soon. In the mean time, please check out this awesome trailer from one of my FAVORITE authors, Maggie Stiefvater.