Divergent

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Synopsis:  In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

From GoodReads
Review: This was my second time reading it was just as addicting as the first time I read it.  This story sweeps you up from the get go and carries you through the action of Tris' life.  I've read quite a few dystopian young adult fiction books and I think this is my favorite series.  I love the action, the character development and the conflict that happens.  While I didn't like the methods in Tris' initiation, it was the faction that she chose and it was their way of training their new members. There were also characters that I didn't like but I view that as the author did a great job developing her characters!  Once you finish reading this book, you have to read the next one!  Be prepared to set aside a day or two to read because you'll have a hard time putting it down.

Rating: 5 stars

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Jonathan Safran Foer

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

Review: I loved Oskar's voice and story; he was such a precocious, quirky and charming boy (definitely too smart for a nine-year-old, though, and I wondered the whole time where he was on the autism spectrum).  Watching him come out of his shell to interact with a random and fun assortment of strangers was really enjoyable.  But the storyline involving Oskar's grandparents was too confusingly written; it took over half the book before I figured out who his grandfather even was.  The writing style for the grandparents was distracting, and their story was just too bizarre.

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere But Home

Nowhere But Home

Liza Palmer

Genre: Chick Lit

Summary (from Goodreads):  A brilliant, hilarious, and touching story with a Texas twist from Liza Palmer, author of Conversations With The Fat Girl (optioned for HBO)

Queenie Wake, a country girl from North Star, Texas, has just been fired from her job as a chef for not allowing a customer to use ketchup. Again. Now the only place she has to go is home to North Star. She can hope, maybe things will be different. Maybe her family's reputation as those Wake women will have been forgotten. It's been years since her mother-notorious for stealing your man, your car, and your rent money-was killed. And her sister, who as a teenager was branded as a gold-digging harlot after having a baby with local golden boy Wes McKay, is now the mother of the captain of the high school football team. It can't be that bad…

Who knew that people in small town Texas had such long memories? And of course Queenie wishes that her memory were a little spottier when feelings for her high school love, Everett Coburn, resurface. He broke her heart and made her leave town-can she risk her heart again?

At least she has a new job-sure it's cooking last meals for death row inmates but at least they don't complain!

But when secrets from the past emerge, will Queenie be able to stick by her family or will she leave home again? A fun-filled, touching story of food, football, and fooling around.

Review: Southern small town fiction often seems to be full of prejudiced, gossipy women, and this book was no exception.  All the characters had known each other their whole lives, and no one had managed to change their status or friendships.  Perhaps that's the way small Southern towns are, but it is frustrating to read about and seems unrealistic.  Don't new people ever move to town or old people move out?  Aren't people smart enough to realize that the daughters of a philandering white trash ho can make decent lives for themselves?  Don't snobby, gossipy, cliquish mean girls ever grow up and mature?  Apparently not in this book.

Queenie's new job cooking for death row inmates was the highlight of this story, and I wish more time had been spent on her feelings about cooking last meals and the details involved in this.  I also enjoyed reading about her work with her two sous chefs and the prison guards.  And the descriptions of her food made my mouth water!  I would have enjoyed this book much more if this had been the primary focus of the book, rather than the small-minded small-town conflicts that made up the majority of the story.

Rating: 3 stars

Every Day

Every Day

David Levithan

Genre: Young Adult

Summary (from Goodreads):  Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.

There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

Review: I really liked this book while I was reading it, and would likely have given it at least 4 stars if I had written the review right away.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that certain aspects of the book bothered me, so the rating was down-graded.  I think this would make a fascinating book for a book club discussion.

This was a quick and easy to read book with an engaging and thought-provoking Quantum Leap type plot.  The main character, known only as A, at first seemed like an extremely mature teenager who looked out for the best interests of the bodies he inhabited each day.  I felt sorry for him and the situation he was in, but he coped with it admirably, at least until he met Rhiannon.  He fell in love with her pretty much instantaneously, and while she seemed like a lovely girl, I guess I always have a hard time believing in love at first sight.  And then A's behavior turned stalker-ish, as he dedicated all his time trying to see Rhiannon again, ignoring the wishes of the bodies he was inhabiting at the time.  These tendencies seemed at odds with A's personality as it had been described at the beginning of the book.  The other complaint I had was that, in the two or three weeks the story covered, A inhabited an awful lot of people who had specific issues, like drug abuse, homosexuality, suicide, obesity, etc, and I felt like the author was using this as an opportunity to do a little preaching.  And finally, Rhiannon's reaction to trying to love A when he inhabited a completely different looking body each day seemed completely reasonable, and the fact that A didn't make an effort to understand that was completely unreasonable.

I know this review sounds primarily negative, but it really was a fun and easy book to read, and it made me think a lot.  So all in all, I did like it a lot.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Midwives

Midwives

by Chris Bohjalian

Genre: Drama

Synopsis:  The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for fifteen years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead, and it was Sibyl who inadvertently killed her?

As recounted by Sibyl's precocious fourteen-year-old daughter, Connie, the ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt except for the fact that all its participants are acting from the highest motives—and the defendant increasingly appears to be guilty. As Sibyl Danforth faces the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do.

From GoodReads

Review: I liked the concept of this book and I think it had a good story line, I just think the execution could have been better.  This book was slow to jump into the action.  There was so much background information that the author thought we needed about Sibyl's life and her career as a midwife.  There is also a lot of information that the author felt he needed to give us about Connie.  The trial doesn't start until after half way through the book-it's probably close to 2/3rds of the way through the book.  Once the trial starts, the book moves much more quickly.  I wish that the author had started the trial much earlier in the book and incorporated Sibyl's earlier life in with the trial.  The whole time I thought I knew what the outcome of the trial was going to be and I was surprised by the ending and boy the last page really surprised me even more!

Rating: 3 stars

Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

Jenny Colgan

Genre: Chick Lit

Summary (from Goodreads):  Having grown up in an apartment above her Grandpa Joe's little bakery, Issy Randal has always known how to make something sweet. She's much better at baking than she is at filing, so when she's laid off from her desk job, Issy decides to open up her own little caf . But she soon learns that her piece-of-cake plan will take all her courage and confectionary talent to avert disaster. Funny and sharp, Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe is about how life might not always taste like what you expect, but there's always room for dessert!

Review:  This is a cute little book about a woman who follows her dream of becoming a professional baker.  It's completely formulaic, from the self-centered old boyfriend to the supportive new boyfriend, and Issy's lucky success at opening such a niche business is completely unrealistic.  And personally, the almost 3-year-old boy's dialogue drove me nuts - that's not how 3-year-olds talk!  But it's an escapist novel about a woman who follows her dream, opens a business, ends up with the right man, and helps her friends out along the way.  Plus, it has delicious sounding (and funny to read!) cupcake recipes.  So what's not to like?

Rating: 3.5 stars

Cinnamon and Gunpowder

Cinnamon and Gunpowder

Eli Brown

Genre: Adventure

Summary (from Goodreads):  A gripping adventure, a seaborne romance, and a twist on the tale of Scheherazade—with the best food ever served aboard a pirate’s ship

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.

To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.

But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.
 
Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure’s adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.

Review:  This was a really quirky book that can best be described as Pirates of the Caribbean  meets the Food Network show Chopped.  Which sounds bizarre, doesn't it?  The story got bogged down a little with the opium/tea trade situation between England and China, and the battle scenes tended to be a little gory for my liking.  But overall, I was intrigued to learn a little about the life of a pirate at that time in history, and profoundly grateful not to have been one!  The characters were certainly picturesque, but my main complaint is that Wedgwood was pretty whiny, and stood by his old employer for far longer than he should.  This is not a book I would recommend to everyone, but I think those who like bizarre stories will find this entertaining.

Rating: 4 stars