I'm all fired up and ready to read. Well...I've been reading all along but have fallen down on the posting about it bit. My husband got me a kindle for our 10th year wedding anniversary so I am going to renew myself this time and keep up with all my reading notes. I'm really loving the kindle. I've gotten so many free books...it's awesome! So not only will I review the best selling books I get from the library, but will be telling you all about some good but not 'huge' authors and indie authors as well. So! Look for many posts to come.

Ok, wow. I haven't updated in over two months. Eeek. I know I'll forget to list some of the books I've read. I haven't been reading as much, with cubby starting preschool and I'm trying to get the house organized. I've been doing a little nonfiction reading as well...mainly parenting, motivational type stuff but I don't blog about that. Ok lets see... I read Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) and Still Sucks to Be Me: More All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton Smith, Teen Vampire These were cute books, light easy readying of the obviously teen vamp genre. I actually won an autographed copy of the 2nd novel. That was pretty cool! And I also read the last (currently) Vampire Academy books, Spirit Bound. There's another coming out this winter, which really is the last...at least the last centered on Rose. (good cause I'm a little bit tired of this story line. A bit drawn out). I've read there is going to be a spin off of the series. OK I know I've read a few more books than that I just have to think about what they are. It's still too early for me to think right now LOL. As I said on facebook the other day: It's not that I am not a 'morning person'...I'm not an 'awake person'.
Ciao!

2 more down

Ok... I haven't read too much the last week. But I finished Rick Riordan's Red Pyramid. I liked it although not quite as much as the Percy Jackson series. It followed a brother and sister, Carter and Sadie Kane who are descendants of great Egyptian pharaohs. After their father releases 5 Eqyptian gods, they are able to host 2 of the gods, and have magical abilities. they have to travel to Phoenix to destroy Set, the evil god and the pyramid he is building to gain the power to turn the US (or beyond) into a desert, and hopefully save their father as well. I liked some of the minor characters more than Carter and Sadie though!

I also read Shadowland by Alyson Noel. It was the 3rd one in the Immortals series. It was pretty good although poor Ever just can't listen to what people advise her. If she listened to others she wouldn't get in half the trouble she ends up in. It was good although it didn't solve the problem that was created in the LAST novel...they haven't found the antidote to the cursed antidote. Luckily the next novel (Dark Flame) came out this summer and it's on hold at the library. Yay! Just gotta figure out what to read next. It should be easy though....I have a lovely stack of books I've checked out recently.

7/8/2010

well as it seems I **obviously** can't find the willpower to post after every book I read I will try for weekly updates. Maybe that's more a more realistic goal? Well here is what I've read since my last update. And I've been reading a lot...
* The Secret Zoo by Brian Chick
* Blood Promise by Richelle Mead
* Heart to Heart by Lurlene McDaniel
* The Long Wait for Tomorrow by Joaquin Dorfman
* The Smoke Thief by Shana Abe
* Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures: Stories by Vincent Lam
* Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien

The Secret Zoo was a bit too juvenile for my tastes....and the Smoke Thief was a bit too adult. By juvenile, I don't mean as a bad thing, just more of a kids book. And The Smoke Thief had several sex scenes in it...which I don't like to read about. Romance, sure, just not...details. Ug. I just skipped over those parts. I mean it did have a good fantasy plot, about a race of dragons that can change to human and smoke form...it's not a trash romance with fabio making out with someone on the cover, but still. I don't know if I'll read anymore of it or not. Most likely not. Just stick with my YA books. Which usually don't go into graphic details.

Continuing with the vampire Academy Series, in Blood Promise Rose is tracking down Dimitri to kill him after he was turned into a strigio. She travels to Siberia and after spending some time in his clutches she kills him, or so she thinks. When she gets back to Lissa at their school, she finds out that it wasn't successful. Can't wait for the next one...it's on hold at the library and hopefully won't take too long> i like this series.


Heart to Heart was a quick read about a girl whose best friend died in a car accident. Her organs were donated and the recipient begins to develop some of the same likes and feelings of the donor. It explored the 'cellular memory' theory that some (especially heart recipients) feel after transplant.

The Long Wait for Tomorrow by Joaquin Dorfman was a combo of the movies Seventeen Again, Donnie Darko, and The Butterfly Effect. It's weird how books remind me of movies. A teen starts acting weirdly and claims he's forty years old and in a mental institution...and is in a dream of his youth or then thinks he's gone back to prevent some tragedy from occurring. it's got a suspenseful edge that keeps you reading to find out what happens. Some parts are a little confusing and it doesn't wrap up as neatly as I'd like though.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures: Stories by Vincent Lam follows 4 people, Fitzpatrick, Ming, Chen and Sri as they go from college to med school and beyond. It was a good book, not my favorite though. I couldn't help picturing the characters as ones from the show ER though. Fitz was carter, Ming was Neela (although Ming is Chinese, Neela was more in my head). It's short stories rather than one continuous novel, but it was about the same people so it read to me more like a choppy novel that switched points of view.

I just finished Birthmarked. It's a dystopian (for some reason I really dislike that word, dystopian...bleh) tale..."Gaia's world is outside the wall. She is a midwife and those outside the wall are required to give up three of their babies to the enclave inside the wall where they will live the privileged life every month. When Gaia's parents go missing she suddenly questions her existence and the rules that her society has always followed. She breaks into the enclave and finds that things there aren't as perfect as they've always seemed." It was good, I'll be looking forward to the next one.

Whew. I am currently reading The Red Pyramid, the first of Rick Riordan's newest series (The Kane Chronicles). Not very far into it though. I'll post again in a week or so. ciao~

what I've been reading.....

Ok, let's see. What have I read? Lament, which is the book after Ballad, by Maggie Steifvater. Loved it:) It threw me off because I was expecting it to be from Dee's point of view, but it was about James. That doesn't happen often that I've seen. But it was still very good. I like having a male protagonist. The vast majority of YA fiction have female leads, main characters. Target audience, I guess. Girls read more than guys(?) The next two books in the Vampire Academy series (Frost Bite and Shadow Kiss). I few graphic novels, and one graphic autobiographical book, which I won't even count. I just finished The Reckoning, which is the third novel in the Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelly Armstrong. I'm sad that's over...it was really starting to get good. Derek was finally able to Change and become a werewolf in the last 3rd of the book. Him and Chloe were finally starting to connect. Then bye bye. Something about werewolves, I really like. I was always a Jacob fan in Twilight. Then I read Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, got me totally hooked on them. Not wild crazy drooling werewolves but you know, the sweet sensitive ones. LOL. I'm a little afraid to tackle some non-YA werewolf stuff though. Not really into reading about sex in books. Love the falling and romantic stuff, just not anything more. right now I'm in between two books, The Secret Zoo...which is a JF book about a boy whose sister is missing and he and his friends are trying to save her, from a secret hidden world (literally) connected to his local zoo. I'd have Darrell start reading it to Corbin but it's kinda long. the other book I am reading is The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. It's about Charlie St. Cloud's choice between keeping a promise he made to his brother, who died in a car accident, or going after the girl he loves. I checked it out because I saw a preview of the movie that's coming out and it looked good. So far, it's ok....some bits are boring but I'll trudge through it because I suspect that the ending is gonna be amazing. One thing I do have to say the characters in the book are much older than the ones in the movie. It will be interesting to see how that changes the dynamic, if at all. (The movie stars Zac Efron who was 21 when the film was made, and already looks younger than he is, but Charlie is 28 in the book). I suppose to appeal to a younger audience. Well gotta go for now and take care of the chicklets so I'll update more later.
ciao!

i HAVE been reading....

Read a few books over the last week or so.
*Neil Gainman's The Graveyard Book (Boy raised in graveyard by ghosts after family is murdered)
*Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' Hawksong (Girl-hawk shape-shifter and boy-snake shape-shifter must marry to stop a centuries long war between their two kinds)
*William P Young's The Shack (man returns to place of his young daughter's murder to meet with God)

These were all good books. The Shack is thought provoking, and was something that I'll like to read again one day. The conversations between Mack and the different parts of God (think: trinity) were great...I'd re-read it again just for those parts. Hawksong was romantic, and you really root for both sides. I can't wait to read the next one. And The Graveyard Book was good, although I'm not such a huge fan of his as some...I mean the praise is fairly well heaped on the back of the book, but i guess they only do use the most exuberant ones LOL.

I have several books in transit at the library and I really hope some come in tomorrow.

Oh and something really cool! I won an autographed copy of Still Sucks to be Me by Kimberly Pauley. It's a teen vampire novel. Now I just gotta get the first one from the library to read it first!

The Devil's Labyrinth

Just forced myself to finish The Devil's Labyrinth by John Saul. I've read several of his books, in fact in high school Creature was one of my favorites. I just couldn't get into this book. Ug, I don't want to even try to come up with a synopsis...but let me try to be as succinct as possible. (warning: spoiler-ish) Boy gets sent to catholic boarding school after being beat at school...mom's new boyfriend (boy's dad dies in war 2 years earlier) is not who he seems and neither are the priests. Priest trying to do exorcisms...or are they?! Evil plot to kill the Pope by the priest who is really a muslim!
Too many questions in this book are left unanswered and the ending is really abrupt and unfulfilling. I don't recommend this book.