Thursday, November 28, 2013

Plague

Plague
by Michael Grant



Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Fantasy

Synopsis: It's been eight months since all the adults disappeared.  Gone.

They've survived hunger.  They've survived lies.  But the stakes keep rising, and the dystopian horror keeps building.  Yet despite the simmering unrest left behind by so many battles, power struggles, and angry divides, there is a momentary calm in Perdido Beach.

But enemies in the FAYZ don't just fade away, and in the quiet, deadly things are stirring, mutating, and finding their way free.  The Darkness has found its way into the mind of its Nemesis at last and is controlling it through a haze of delirium and confusion.  A highly contagious, fatal illness spreads at an alarming rate.  Sinister, predatory insects terrorize Perdido Beach.  And Sam, Astrid, Diana, and Caine are plagued by a growing doubt that they'll escape-or even survive-life in the FAYZ.  With so much turmoil surrounding them, what desperate  choices will they make when it comes to saving themselves and those they love?

Review:  After reading the last book of the series, Lies, I couldn't wait to read the next book.  This book did not disappoint.  It kept me engaged and didn't let me put the book down.  It was full of action and struggle.  It did get weird though with the insects and disturbing with the flu and insects.  We seem to know a little more about the darkness and we get more of an understanding of Little Pete.  I'm curious to know where this series is going.  I want it to end well but I'm not sure that it can.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Monday, November 25, 2013

Words in the Dust

Words in the Dust
by Trent Reedy


Genre: Juvenile Fiction

Synopsis:  Zulaikha hopes.  She hopes for peace in Afghanistan, now that the Taliban have been driven from her country.  She hopes for a good relationship with her hard stepmother.  She even hopes that one day she could go to school, or have her cleft lip corrected-inshallah, God willing.

Then she meets Meena, who agrees to teach her to read.  And American soldiers come to her village, offering not just new opportunities and dangers, but also surgery to fix her face.  These changes could mean a whole new life for Zulaikha-but can she dare to hope they'll come true?

Review:  I'm having a hard time figuring out what to say for this book.  Was it an outstanding, amazing book?  No.  Was it badly written with a terrible story?  No.  Was it a good, decent, clean written book?  Yes.  But I can't pinpoint why it wasn't amazing.  It is a young adult novel and it was very easy to read and perhaps that is why I'm a little perplexed.  I've read fantastic young adult novels so this one fell flat for me.  I think it was written for a much younger crowd than the young adult books I normally read.  I liked the story line of Zulaikha and how she was embarrassed by her cleft lip and how she wanted to read.  I did feel bad for the women in the story as a woman's life in Afghanistan is so different and empty of opportunities like we have here.  The story was a bit predictable for me.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars

Saturday, November 23, 2013

The Wedding Gift

The Wedding Gift
by Marlen Suyapa Bodden


Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  Despite their disparate circumstances, the lives of these two women in 1852 Alabama are inextricably entwined: Sarah, a slave who is the daughter of the master of a vast plantation, and Theodora, his wife.  Their journey is one that both binds them together and sets them free.

When prestigious plantation owner Cornelius Allen gives his daughter's hand in marriage, she takes with her a gift: Sarah-her slave and half sister.  Theodora knows that her daughter, Clarissa, is not the proper Southern belle she appears to be, with ambitions of loving whom she chooses.  Sarah, in turn hides behind the facade of being a docile house slave as she plots to escape.  Both women bring these tumultuous secrets and desires with them to their new home, igniting events that spiral into a tale beyond what you ever imagined possible, and it will leave you enraptured until the very end.
From the book jacket

Review:  This is a much more honest book about slavery than the other ones I've read.  It talked about about some of the horrific treatments of slaves but also about how kind some of the masters could be.  While it was honest, it wasn't too hard to read because it didn't focus on those events-you could skim past those events if you are really squeamish.  The book focuses on the lives of the two women who are connected together by the plantation.  This story wasn't action packed but it did keep my attention and made it hard for me to put the book down.  There was some suspense that you could try to guess but wasn't confirmed until the very last page when Sarah talks about what she had to do.  I felt this book fell a little bit short because of the characters.  I didn't have an emotional connection to them as I have in other books.  I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened to them but I didn't feel their emotions.

Rating: 4 stars

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Lies

Lies
by Michael Grant


Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Fantasy

Synopsis:  It's been seven months since all the adults disappeared.  Gone.

It happens in one night.  A girl who died now walks among the living; Zil and the Human crew set fire to Perdido Beach; and amid the flames and smoke, Sam sees the figure of the boy he fears the most: Drake.  But Drake is dead.  Sam and Caine defeated him along with the Darkness-or so they thought.

As Perdido Beach burns, battles rage: Astrid against the Town Council; the Human Crew versus the mutants; and Sam against Drake, who is back from the dead and ready to finish where he and Sam left off.  And all the while deadly rumors are raging like the fire itself, spread by the prophetess Orsay and her companion, Nerezza.  They say that death is a way to escape the FAYZ.  Conditions are worse than ever and kids are desperate to get out.  But are they desperate enough to believe that death will set them free?
From the book jacket

Review:  This has been my favorite book out of the series so far.  It seemed like we were given more information in this book than in others and the characters for the most part were not as contemptible-we don't see Drake that much, and that is a good thing!  This book gives you hope that there is something about the FAYZ but then consider the title.  Do we really know what is out there?  We can hope, right?  This book is fairly fast paced and luckily not as long as the last book!  This book leaves me wanting to read the next book.

Rating: 4 stars

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Shatter Me

Shatter Me
by Tahereh Mafi


Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Synopsis:  "You can't touch me," I whisper.

I'm lying, is what I don't tell him.

He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him.

Please touch me, is what I want to tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

Dead things.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her.  Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans of her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time-and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

Review: Sigh, I've started on another trilogy.  I didn't know that going into the book.  But after finishing the book and the end not being an end but a beginning to another chapter in Juliette's life, I figured there must be more.  And there are, 2 more-Unravel Me and Ignite Me which is due out in February of 2014.  This book grew on me.  At the beginning when Juliette is in an insane asylum because her touch is fatal, she crosses sentences out left and right and that became really annoying because I didn't always see the value in it.  In fact, I rarely saw the value in it.  Luckily that stopped being so frequent later on in the book.  It also bothered me that the author used constant metaphors, similes, figurative language one after the other after the other.  It was just TOO much.  I just learned a word for it!  She wrote in the style of purple prose-prose that is far too flowery, ornate and melodramatic for it's own good.  Luckily that did get better half way through when the story started to pick up.  This book does take place in a dystopian society but there is a romance that is in the forefront throughout the story.  While I know I'm criticizing the book a lot, something about it grabbed me and kept me reading.  Something makes me want to read the next books-maybe it's that Juliette was given hope regarding her "gift" and I want to know how she uses it in the future.  The second half of the book really saved my rating.

Rating: 3 stars

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Letters from Home

Letters from Home
Kristina McMorris

Letters From Home

Genre: Women's Fiction, Historical Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange--cut short by the soldier's evident interest in Betty--but Liz can't forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Thousands of miles away, Morgan struggles to adjust to the brutality of war. His letters from "Betty" are a comfort, their soul-baring correspondence a revelation to them both. While Liz is torn by her feelings for a man who doesn't know her true identity, Betty and Julia each become immersed in their own romantic entanglements. And as the war draws to a close, all three will face heart-wrenching choices, painful losses, and the bittersweet joy of new beginnings.

Beautifully rendered and deeply moving, Letters from Home is a story of hope and connection, of sacrifices made in love and war--and the chance encounters that change us forever.


Review: This was a good book, but it took me a while to get into it, and I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight.  The beginning is pretty slow, and the three main female characters all seemed to have similar voices.  The story pick up halfway through, and the characters had differentiated themselves based on their experiences at least, so I found myself eager to read the last half of the book.  The letters between Liz and Morgan were beautifully written, and made me wish people still wrote letters like that!  But at times, the writing style was a little overly dramatic for me.  While I found the chapters written from Morgan's perspective to be interesting, the dialogue of his wartime buddies seemed a little stereotypical.  All-in-all, an interesting story, but not earth-shattering.

Rating: 3 stars

The Union Street Bakery

The Union Street Bakery
Mary Ellen Taylor

The Union Street Bakery

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  Life can turn on a dime. It’s a common cliché, and I’d heard it often enough. People die or move away. Investments go south. Affairs end. Loved ones betray us...Stuff happens.
Daisy McCrae’s life is in tatters. She’s lost her job, broken up with her boyfriend, and has been reduced to living in the attic above her family’s store, the Union Street Bakery, while learning the business. Unfortunately, the bakery is in serious hardship. Making things worse is the constant feeling of not being a “real” McCrae since she was adopted as a child and has a less-than-perfect relationship with her two sisters.

Then a long-standing elderly customer passes away, and for some reason bequeaths Daisy a journal dating back to the 1850s, written by a slave girl named Susie. As she reads, Daisy learns more about her family—and her own heritage—than she ever dreamed. Haunted by dreams of the young Susie, who beckons Daisy to “find her,” she is compelled to look further into the past of the town and her family.

What she finds are the answers she has longed for her entire life, and a chance to begin again with the courage and desire she thought she lost for good.


Review: I enjoyed reading this book about Daisy finding her place in her family and adapting to life working in the family bakery.  I know I'm a sucker for books about bakeries, but I really did enjoy learning about all the hard work that goes into owning one.  The recipes at the end sounded delicious!  I guess I found the setting to be a little more compelling than the plot, which had a weak mystery element and an interesting family/sister dynamic.  I found the big reveal about Daisy's birth mother completely predictable.  This review seems a little critical, but it was easy to read and entertaining.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Gold

Gold
Chris Cleave

Gold

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  IF your dreams pull you in one direction and your heart in another, which should you follow? This is the question that haunts Kate Meadows, a world champion athlete whose eight-year-old daughter Sophie is battling a recurrence of childhood leukemia just as Kate is about to compete for her last chance at an Olympic gold medal. For years, Kate has sacrificed everything for her family and watched her best friend and closest rival, Zoe Castle, conquer the world stage. Kate has never won gold and will have to go through Zoe--who has everything to lose--to get it. Now her child is facing a life-threatening illness, and the stakes are higher than ever. How can she do what is right for her daughter without abandoning all of her dreams?

Review: Clearly I do not have the proper mindset to be an Olympic level athlete, because I could not understand or sympathize with the decisions that Kate, Zoe and even Jack made in this novel.  Having said that, it was interesting to read about what goes on behind the scenes when training for the Olympics.  The friendship between Kate and Zoe was confusing to me, since they didn't seem to have a real friendship in any way.  I found Sophie to be the most sympathetic character.

Rating: 3 stars

The Lost Wife

The Lost Wife
Alyson Richman

The Lost Wife

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  A rapturous novel of first love in a time of war-from the celebrated author of The Rhythm of Memory and The Last Van Gogh.

In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers...

Providence is giving Lenka and Josef one more chance. From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the Occupation, to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit- and the strength of memory.


Review: I could not put this beautifully written novel down!  And that's saying a lot right now, since I'm having a hard time focusing on anything.  Lenka's story of pre-war Prague and her time in the concentration camp of Terezin presented an unfamiliar viewpoint of the Holocaust; it was interesting to learn about the work the artists did and the risks they took to provide arts and cultural experiences for the children and other inmates.  While I enjoyed the love story between Lenka and Josef, I felt that Lenka's story was so much more powerful and moving than Josef's.  I found myself trying to read through his sections quickly so I could get back to Lenka's story - I would have given this 5 stars if his story had been as emotional as Lenka's.  I was also disappointed by the ending; I wanted to know more!

You can read Becky's review here.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Emma's Secret

Emma's Secret
by Steena Holmes



Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  For two years, Megan, Peter, and their two older daughters, Alexis and Hannah, dream of nothing but being reunited with the family's youngest child, Emma, who is kidnapped just before her third birthday.  When Emma is miraculously found living with an elderly couple just miles from the family's home, they are hopeful that her return will heal the wounds her disappearance created.

But Emma is vastly different from the sunny toddler they remember.  She barely remembers her parents or her older sisters.  She is quiet and withdrawn, and, worst of all, longs for the very people who kidnapped her.

Megan is consumed with bitterness, while Peter works later and later nights in the company of his gorgeous business partner.  And in the middle of everything, Megan's best friend has become suddenly distance and secretive.

Then a chance encounter in town leads to a secret that changes everything again for Emma.  And Peter must decide between the happiness of his youngest daughter and the trust of his family.
From GoodReads

Review:  I love that there was a follow up to Finding Emma.  I fell in love with the family in that book and wanted to know how they coped with having their daughter back after 2 years and how Emma was able to fit into the family again.  My heart also ached for Jack, the man Emma knows as Papa as his life has completely been taken away from him.  He was such a kind, old man who made the toughest but yet best decision he could.   I wanted his happiness as well.  This story told of the trials everyone had being reunited with Emma.  It talks about the tough transitions and also how hard it was on Megan and Peter's relationship as they both seemed to think different things would help Emma.  I felt like the part with Emma's best friend was superfluous but other than that, I thought it was a great sequel.

Rating: 4 stars

Finding Emma

Finding Emma
by Steena Holmes


Genre: Mystery, Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  Megan sees her daughter Emma everywhere.  She's the little girl standing in the supermarket, the child waiting for the swings at the playground, the girl with the ice cream dripping down her face.  But it's never Emma.

Emma's been missing for two years.

Unable to handle the constant heartache of all the false sightings, Megan''s husband threatens to walk away unless Megan can agree to accept Emma is gone.  Megan's life and marriage is crumbling all around her and she realizes she may have to do the thing she dreads most: move on.

When Megan takes a photo of a little girl with an elderly couple at the town fair, she believes it to be her missing daughter.  Unable to let go, she sets in motion a sequence of events that could destroy both families lives.
From GoodReads

Review:  The first of two books in this series is emotionally charged and captivating.  The story goes straight to your heart and draws you into reading the book.  The story is one that so many of us fear to have happen to us and it is heart wrenching to see what the mother and family are going through in this book.  I felt for all the characters in this book, not just the mother and her family.  Holmes did a great job bringing the characters to life and making us feel not only the pain but the hope that this book provides.  A very enjoyable read!

Rating: 4 stars

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Ghost Bride

Ghost Bride
by Yangsze Choo



Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.

Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.

After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever.

From GoodReads

Review:  This book was fascinating to me.  The story mainly takes place in the ghostly world of the Chinese afterlife.  It is so interesting to read different culture's views of what happens after a person dies.  Li Lan is able to visit this world even though she isn't really dead.  This novel is part romance, part paranormal, part mystery as well as historical fiction.  You might think that it is weird to read about a character who is in in spirit form the majority of the book but it really wasn't because the story of Li Lan is very captivating.  I couldn't wait to read where Li Lan was going to go next and what she was going to be able to discover.  The ending was a little weak for me.  We know what choice she made at the end but I really did want to know more!  Overall a very good read!

Rating: 4 stars