Crossed – Ally Condie

Crossed
Ally Condie
Penguin AU
2011, 367p
Read from my local library

At the end of Matched, Cassia and Ky were separated and Cassia vowed to find her way back to him. That goal finds her working her way through the Outer Provinces, picking cotton and desperately looking, searching for some clue of where he might be. When Officials come to take some of the girls she is working with away to an even more far-flung location, Cassia doesn’t hesitate to jump on board the airship even though she wasn’t actually listed to go.

Ky has been sent to an almost certain death – he and others of his classification are sent to the most outer places and used to convince an unknown enemy that the remote villages still contain population. Their job is to work during the day planting cotton (or looking like it) and dodge the shelling and shooting that comes at night. Usually people last merely days but somehow Ky has managed to survive. And now he’s been sent to a place that he knows. It was once home and he is more than familiar with the surrounds. He’s pretty sure that he knows a way he can escape and then he can think about finding Cassia.

Cassia has teamed up with a girl named Indie in order to escape their new location and attempt to find Ky. They’re not exactly friends, more like allies but together they’re piecing together the information about a Resistance to the powers that be in the Society. Cassia wants to find Ky but she finds that she also really wants to find this Resistance and be a part of it. She thinks her grandfather might have left her some clues – like Ky has.

Crossed is the second novel in Ally Condie’s Matched trilogy and to be honest, it’s given me the most trouble I think I’ve ever had writing a review. I was no huge fan of Matched, but once I start something I have to finish it so I requested this one from the library and read it in a night. In one way, I liked it better than I did Matched because it seemed like stuff happened. I had found Matched very level for a first in a trilogy.  However once I’d finished it I realised that it was mostly a trick – very little actually happens in this book! It just seems like it because the characters move around quite a bit.

There’s a lot of romantic prose and poetry quoting and referencing here and I’m sure that some people will be touched by it and find it beautiful, especially when Ky and Cassia are traipsing through some utterly desolate countryside. I’m not sure what it is, but ultimately I don’t buy their romance. I didn’t buy it in Matched and I didn’t buy it in Crossed either. I never really saw their desperation to get back to each other. I understood Ky’s need to escape his situation – he was certainly going to be killed if he stuck around much longer, with these bombings from an unknown Enemy. I’m assuming that more information will be given in the final book about the ‘Enemy’ because that whole storyline came out of no where. I wasn’t even aware there was anything else other than the Society. This book also builds up a Resistance, which proves remarkably easy to find and join. But then again I suppose they always are, otherwise our heroes and heroines wouldn’t have anything to do.

I think fans of Matched will really love Crossed. I was hoping for an improvement on the style and story but ultimately I didn’t get what I was after. There’s one more book to go and I think I will probably read it for reasons I mentioned above – I am nosy. I like to know what happens, especially how things end. It’s why I can’t give up on series books, even after I’ve stopped loving them! The good thing is, Crossed is an easy read. I liked the introduction of the new characters and I liked the dual narration. Ky and Cassia do at least sound different, although I still feel that Ky is about as unrealistic a teenage boy narrator as I’ve ever come across.

All in all, better than Matched, but not something I loved.

5/10

Book #27 of 2012

Top 10 Tuesday – 21st February

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly meme created and hosted by the girls at The Broke & the Bookish. There’s a different question each week and this week we’re talking:

Top 10 Books I’d Save In A Natural (Or Otherwise) Disaster!

To be honest, I really could just cheat here and say all of them. But that’s 800+ books and yeah…I’m not thinking I can carry them out to escape whatever it is!  So I’m going to do my best to pick some out. The first five books are favourites or books that are special to me that I’ve already read. The second five I pulled from my TBR shelf.

1. Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. One of my favourite books of last year and the author sent me a lovely note and signed bookplate after she read my review so that copy is a little bit special to me! I don’t have a huge amount of signed books and that is the only time an author has sent me something lovely just from my review!
2. Forget You, by Jennifer Echols. One of my favourite contemporary YA romances! I read this book over and over when I first got it and I know that it could keep me entertained by reading it over and over again after my house burns down/floods/gets beamed up by aliens/etc and I’ve only got these 10 books I’m choosing in my possession!
3. The Obernewtyn Series, by Isobelle Carmody. Ok still sort of cheating as there’s 6 books here – BUT! They’re all shelved together and I know where that is (and in my house, books are everywhere so finding things quickly will help). The books get exponentially larger until they’re fat brick monstrosities so again, will help keep me occupied. And I love these books. Couldn’t be without them.
4. The Passage, by Justin Cronin. I really loved this book, I raced through it so quickly that I’m bound to have missed things. Plus the sequel is coming out soon so I really should read it again before that happens!
5. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Probably my favourite book of all time.
6. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. The first of the books I haven’t read yet. Jane Eyre is a classic I never did at school, or Uni for that matter and it’s been sitting on my shelf for nearly 3 years and I’ve never read it! I don’t know why. I want to, but I just don’t ever pick it up. Taking it with me during a disaster is one way to make sure it gets read!
7. Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantel. Ok so my bookmark is still stuck at p30 of this 2 years later. But it won a Man Booker! So many people love it! I’ve been told that I just need to get into it and then it is awesome. So I’d take it with me for the same reason as Jane Eyre – it’s probably the only way it’d get read!
8. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson. Yes, I still haven’t read this! But even though I’m not ready for it to end, I can’t face not knowing what happens either, so it’d be one of the books I’d take with me! Nothing like Lisbeth Salander for a bit of motivation after a disaster too.
9. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Who knows? Depending on what sort of natural (or otherwise) disaster I’m facing, it might have some tips! Or I can just imagine Viggo Mortensen while I read it.
10. War And Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. I read Anna Karenina last year and enjoyed it more than I expected. I vowed to tackle War and Peace at some stage and I think it’d be a great book to rescue. It goes forever so I could have something meaty to read that would take me a while and if it’s like Anna Karenina you’d probably get something new out of it every time you read it. So it’d be doubly good at keeping me occupied.

This was a hard question because I have a lot of books and to be honest, it’d break my heart to lose any of them, read or unread! I didn’t include my signed books, other than Attachments but I’d probably take them with me too if ever I had to flee. When Queensland, a state in northern Australia flooded badly last year, and people were given evacuation orders, I did wonder what I’d take. My laptop, DVD wallet with all my burned photos of my wedding, kids and family were both a given. I doubt I’d have time to pack my books if ever something like that happened. I know they can be replaced, unlike pictures, but still – it would suck trying to do that!

One For The Money {Movie} Review

Last night I went to the movies with Marg from Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and another friend of hers to see One For The Money. Having been an avid fan of the series (the first 10 books anyway, the last 8 not so much) I’ve read about the movie being in development for years and years with various people attached to the project and then dropping off. The rights were sold many many years ago and for a long time it looked like it just might be a victim of developmental hell.

Then Katherine Heigl was announced as being cast as Stephanie Plum and it seems like from that time on, things did move pretty quickly! There was a bit of outrage at her being cast (too pretty, etc) but I think in a book-to-movie adaptation, you’re never going to please everyone. Readers all have ‘their’ idea of how they think the characters should look and sometimes casting agents sacrifice looks for chemistry with other actors etc. I’m okay with that – my personal preference for book-to-movie adaptations is that they stick closely to the original plot.

So for a bit of fun I thought I’d review the movie as I have 3 novel review posts to do that just don’t seem to want to write themselves. Procrastination ahoy!

Casting: Unlike a lot of people, I never had much of a problem with Katherine Heigl being cast as Stephanie. She is beautiful but I’ve always found her to be a bit more girl-next-door beautiful than stunning knock out. She does have a rocking body, probably better than Stephanie does but that’s okay! I know a lot of people clamoured for Sandra Bullock to play Steph…but she’s close to 50 years old. She may not look it, but she does look a little too old to be Steph. Apart from an inconsistent accent, I think that Katherine Heigl did a great job playing Steph. She was funny, she had that sort of crazy determination that Steph develops. Although generally useless, Steph is usually portrayed as having both good instincts and luck and I think Heigl managed that combination.

The love interests – I’m Team Ranger and always will be but I’m by no means a Morelli hater. I enjoy him in the books, I don’t mind him and Steph together. However the casting of Morelli did not work for me. I always pictured him as leaner, hotter and well, obviously more Italian. And less angry. I know he’s wanted for murder and all and has the arm-waving crazy Italian thing going on but he seemed pretty bitter. I thought their interactions were a little more fun in the book so I might have to re-read that to see if I’m right or wrong. The casting of Ranger though I think was pretty spot on. He was decent looking without being too pretty although I did notice he was more playing a Ranger character from later on in the series. Ranger in book 1 isn’t all that interesting and I don’t think he was originally intended to play such a role. He’s definitely a character that evolves and given I doubt they’ll make 10 movies, I think it’s okay he was played as more smiley (‘dimply’ as Marg said!) and friendly than he really is in the beginning.

Minors: Grandma Mazur was WRONG! The actress who played her, Debbie Reynolds, is too young, too classy looking and too well put together. She wasn’t crazy enough – she didn’t wear the sort of clothes that Steph does, she didn’t really talk inappropriately. They did keep in the dinner-table shooting scene which was funny. I thought Connie and Lula were spot on – both were pretty much how I pictured them in my head. Vinny wasn’t too bad, I think he could’ve been sleazier though. They cleaned it up a bit – there was no mention of the duck, lol.

Plot: This is where the movie impressed me. It stuck pretty close to the book and kept a lot of the funny moments and didn’t veer off into weird directions to include more forced funny moments than the book contains. They toned down the creepy factor with Ramirez and he’s not really in the movie all that much. They definitely played it as a real genuine comedy more than a crime or mystery (which is generally where the books are shelved). They didn’t go overboard with Lula as a character, keeping her appearances and Grandma’s to a minimum. Big Blue was almost a character in its own right (I’m glad I finally know what that car looks like, I’ve always pictured it differently in my head because I really had no idea what a 1953 Buick looked like) and they modernised a few things. Steph wears an awful lot of spandex in the original novel (even though it was published in about 1994!) so thankfully we were spared her orange spandex shorts and pushdown socks combos! And I really loved the ending! It’s always been one of my favourite parts of the book. My only criticism is that it was probably a tiny bit slow in the beginning.  But it’s really a minor quibble – overall I was pleased with how well it was done and if they ever made Two For The Dough I’d definitely go and see that.

7/10

The Darling Buds Of May – H.E. Bates

The Darling Buds of May
H.E. Bates
Penguin Books
2007 (originally 1958), 136p
Read through inter-library loan

Ma and Pop Larkin and their five children – Mariette, Montgomery, Zinnia, Petunia and Primrose are returning home from a lovely outing to get fish and chips and some ice cream. When they arrive home, eldest Mariette notices a strange man in the yard, looking like he’s been waiting for them.

That man is Cedric Charlton and he’s from the tax office. It seems that Pop Larkin hasn’t lodged his tax form and Cedric (soon nicknamed ‘Charley’ by the family) is here to sort it out, get the form done and lodged. Pop however, has other ideas, inviting him to stay for tea. When Mariette takes a bit of a shine to him, Ma and Pop are quite happy to encourage a match.

Before he knows it, Charley has been introduced to all things country living in the lifestyle of Pop and Ma Larkin – copious copious copious amounts of food and drink, picking strawberries in the summer sun and hosting a gymkhana complete with fireworks. Although Charley can’t quite figure out what Pop Larkin does (he claims to be a farmer) and how he makes his money, any questions he has are soon brushed away in favour of another Dragon’s Blood or bowl of strawberries and cream.

The Darling Buds of May is a lightning read – weighing in at a tiny 137p. I read it for an online book club that I’ve recently just joined and I have to say, it was not what I was expecting at all. I knew there was a TV adaptation some years ago, although I’ve never seen it. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting but safe to say, this was not it.

The book is rich with description:

Ma shook all over, laughing like a jelly. Little rivers of yellow, brown and pinkish-purple cream where running down over her huge lardy hands. In her handsome big black eyes the cloudless blue May sky was reflected, making them dance as she threw out the splendid bank of her bosom, quivering under its salmon jumper.

In a tiny book, so many words are deeply devoted to the characters and food. The plot in all essence, is rather thin – it basically consists of Pop and the other Larkins distracting Charley every time he wants to talk about tax (usually with food, but often with alcohol or their attractive daughter Mariette) and the whole book reads like one 1950′s English country holiday. Picnic baskets, strawberries, whole legs of roasted pork, huge bacon and egg breakfasts, this book is capable of setting off deep cravings you didn’t know existed!

The  characters (mostly Pop and Ma, the children aren’t explored much) are fun-loving but also kind-hearted and generous, sending away people that come to visit with food, such as nice cuts of pork from their pig they just slaughtered. They clearly have fun and enjoy life to the full, being involved in many things and engaging their children in the sort of lifestyle that would make most people envious. There’s also an element of the shifty too, as we never find out what Pop does and where his wads of cash come from! One thing was for certain – the second the Larkin’s got home and saw poor Charley standing there in their yard, he never, ever had a chance.

A lovely little surprising gem of a book. There are a couple more in the series and I am looking forward to reading those as well.

7/10

Book #26 of 2012

Rosebush – Michele Jaffe

Rosebush
Michele Jaffe
Atom Books
2011, 326p
Read from my local library

When Jane wakes up in hospital, she has no recollection of being run over by a car and left for dead by the side of the road. She was out with her friends at a party to celebrate the beginning of the long weekend, but Jane doesn’t know why she left the party and was walking, alone, when she was hit.

Jane is paralyzed for the moment with doctors hopeful that she will regain full use of her limbs in due course, once she has recovered. As abilities begin to come slowly back to her, such as being able to speak or move her hands, they do so by being triggered by traumatic events – a message written in the bathroom mirror of her hospital room, a threatening phone call. When a voice on the other end of the phone threatens to kill her, Jane is forced to realise that her being run over was no accident – she was run down and the culprit is someone she knows, probably someone that is coming to visit her.

However her mother and nurse think these events are just hallucinations that spur her on to regaining use of something (voice, arms etc) and that they’re not real – just figments of her imagination to help her get better. Her mother calls in a top psychiatrist who agrees and Jane is frustrated as no one believes her. Unfortunately for Jane, the more than no one believes her, the more hysterical and crazy sounding she gets, rendering people less likely to even consider believing her.

Jane is popular – one of the very ‘in’ crowd at her school. Her friends are all extremely wealthy, the daughter of a famous person or both. She has a popular boyfriend so immediately Jane assumes that anyone who might want to kill her must be connected to him. As time ticks down, the threats getting more and more blatant and becoming a promise, Jane knows that, trapped in her hospital bed, she has very limited time to find out who is wanting to kill her. She can’t get away (she is still unable to walk) and she can’t defend herself. And most importantly, no one else will believe that she is in any real danger.

I picked up Rosebush off the YA display shelf at my local library where they pop up a few popular or interesting titles. I liked the cover and the little quote on the front of it: “Sometimes the truth is a very thorny thing.”  It looked like it might be a nice little mystery or thriller which would be a welcome break from all the YA dystopian, paranormal etc. Unfortunately this book didn’t deliver the read I was after.

Primarily it was hard to really care about Jane or her friends – so much is spent building them up as pretty little rich popular girls, they nickname themselves ‘the Three Mustkateers’ because whatever they do, everyone else must do it too. They dress up ridiculously for parties, they’re all clearly their own biggest fans. They’re the sort of girls I would’ve avoided at school and I like reading about them now at 30 about as much as I’d have liked being bullied by them at 15. I don’t mind rich, pretty protagonists and friends if they’re interesting. Basically Jane and her friends were not interesting. And the product placement in this book got a bit too much as the girls name-dropped their latest cars, shoes, outfits, etc.

Onto the actual mystery – while the suspense is nicely built and there’s a couple of red herrings, the ultimate ending and attempted murderer really  disappointed me. I felt like there was no background laid, no real indication and it was just straight out of left field with very thin reasoning and poor execution. I’m not a big fan of the classic THIS IS THE MURDERER yay now we can all relax OH WAIT THAT WAS NOT THE REAL MURDERER, THIS IS THE REAL MURDERER-style ending and I felt that in this novel it was particularly clumsy. There was very little about it that made any sense and if I’m going to read a novel where someone is trying to kill the main character then I want the ending to all make sense! I want to gasp and go oh! so that’s why that happened and that’s why they’re doing that. Wow! With this book I went… really? Um…why? What is that person doing there? Is that really a good enough reason? Huh? Not good.

Disappointing – but it was a quick read. A way to pass an afternoon.

5/10

Book #25 of 2012

 

Top 10 Tuesday 14th February

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly feature created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish featuring a different book-related theme each week. This week it’s the anti-Valentine’s Day topic:

Top 10 Books That Broke My Heart A Little

1. Forbidden, by Tabitha Suzuma. Hard to imagine a story all about incest being so heartbreaking but it was. I was so invested in this story and the ending, although I understand why it had to end that way, was devastating to read. I feel like this book is my new ‘appears in every Top 10 Tuesday list ever’ book.
2. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman. This book had heartbreak all over it from beginning to end.
3. Speak, by Laurie Halse-Anderson. Another YA novel that deals with a difficult topic in such an amazing and sensitive way. My heart definitely broke for the MC and all she experienced. High school ostracism is cruel for any means but on top of what she had already experienced, it was doubly wrenching.
4. The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams. I’m on a YA roll here. The story of Kyra, the 13yo girl deemed by the Prophet to become her 60+ year old uncle’s seventh wife and the lengths at what those that serve the Prophet would do to protect their religious community was so powerful. It’s one that will stay with me for a long time.
5. A Stolen Life, by Jaycee Dugard. All the more powerful because it’s non-fiction, there aren’t many people that don’t know the story of Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped and kept captive for nearly 18 years where she was used for sex, bore two children to her captor and lived in basically a shed right under parole officer’s noses. My heart definitely broke many times over reading this book and her frank account of what she went through.
6. Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens. A fictional account this time, of a woman held captive in a remote cabin, raped repeatedly and also forced to bear a child to her captor which ends in utter tragedy. There’s a lot of really tough stuff to read in this book but it’s mostly in the middle. I didn’t like the ending.
7. The Five People You Meet In Heaven, by Mitch Albom. Come on, look at the title! You can just tell it’s going to be cry city!
8. Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes. Anyone who thinks chick lit is vacuous and can’t do emotional depth or issues needs to read this book stat.
9. Love Lies Bleeding, by Kate Thompson. Because I love Rory and Deirdre, the couple from Thompson’s loosely linked books and she won’t stop torturing them! Just let them be happy! Please?
10. Marley and Me, by John Grogan. The last bit….oh God. Bawled. Like. A. Baby. Ugly sobs, too.

Given how easy this list was to construct, I must cry a lot in books! I could’ve had a Top 20 or maybe even a Top 30!

New Arrivals 2012 {1}

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a new arrivals post and that’s unfortunate because now I have a lot of books to load up! I bought up quite a bit at some online local sites where they offload stuff for $5 and I also went to a warehouse where everything is usually $5 but over the holiday it was all 50% off so everything was basically $2.50. I didn’t know that until I paid for my selections, which is probably a good thing otherwise I’d have come home with even more!

So here we go… firstly a couple that are courtesy of their respective publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Catastrophic History of You and Me, by Jess Rothenberg. A YA title about a young girl that dies, literally, of a broken heart. I’m sure there were plenty of us that thought we were going to die of a broken heart as a teenager! After that she seems to be in a heaven of sorts, looking at her family and being guided by someone named Patrick. Looking forward to reading this one.

Mateship With Birds, by Carrie Tiffany. Won through the Goodreads First Reads program. Planning on reading this for The Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012.

Bella’s Run, by Margareta Osborn. Starting this today actually! An Australian rural-lit book due out next month.

All of the following are the $2.50 books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. One of the ones we didn’t already own and that I want to read this year as part of the Graham Greene challenge I am taking part in.

The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham. I actually bought the movie of this about a year ago and haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. When I saw the book in a pile of Vintage books I grabbed it. I always like to read the book first before watching a movie although who knows when I’ll get around to either!

The Woman In White, by Wilkie Collins. I’ve seen reviews for this around on a few blogs and I’ve always wanted to read it. I don’t read a lot of classics but I often have good intentions regarding them! This is a bit of a chunkster though so it might be a while before the urge strikes me. At the moment I’m finding it hard to get into large books, I think because I often have to get up and do things with the kids. I find shorter books easier to leave and get back in to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Choir, The Men & the Girls, and A Passionate Man, by Joanna Trollope. Okay so I’ve never read any Joanna Trollope. Not too long ago I bought Daughters-in-Law by her and then I saw these three and thought that I might as well pick up them too. She seems to be an author that a lot of people like, no matter their personal taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love’s Shadow, by Ada Leverson. How cute are these little Bloomsbury paperbacks? They had a whole range of books in different colours and I probably would’ve bought more if I’d realised they were cheap. This one was the one that sounded the most interesting to me, so that’s why I took it home.

The Man of My Dreams, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I read Sittenfeld’s American Wife last year which I didn’t love but I think that was mostly the characters. I did like the way in which she tells a story – I have wanted to try another of her books but hadn’t gotten around to it. This one looks like a quick read.

Stalin’s Ghost, by Martin Cruz Smith. A novel in the Arkady Renko series. I’ve read 1 or 2 of these and I really like Arkady. Given this is #6 of so in the series, I still have a few more to read before I get to it!

All of the following bunch were $5 each

 

 

 

 

 

 

Player One, by Douglas Coupland. A real time 24-esque novel set in an airport during some sort of disaster. I’ve heard a bit about Coupland but have never read any of his books, although I did once intend to read Girlfriend In A Coma but I think I ended up returning it to the library unread.

The Moth Diaries, by Rachel Klein. YA – boarding school – diary – vampires? Possible vampires? I’m not sure. Even though I often find novels set in boarding schools hopelessly unrealistic, I still love them, perhaps because I wanted to go to boarding school myself (albeit a hopelessly unrealistic version too!).

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart. I’ll be honest, I bought this because I liked the title, haha. I often by books for ridiculous reasons, including the title, cover, author, I read something good/bad/weird about it. I think this is vaguely futuristic in an America where books no longer really exist – in the blurb they are referred to as ‘printed, bound media artifacts’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown. I borrowed this from the library a couple of months ago and had to return it unread – had too many books to read to complete for challenges at the end of 2011 and it had requests on it so I couldn’t renew. I saw it and thought I might as well buy it. A story of 3 sisters, all very different who each return to their childhood home at the same time, unknowing that the other sisters have done so as well. And all have secrets that they don’t want to share.

A Widow’s Story, by Joyce Carol Oates. Also an author I’ve always wanted to try and never gotten around to it! This is a memoir, written about the time the author drove her husband to hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was expected to be released in a day or so, but in less than a week he had passed away. This is her story on how she became a widow unexpectedly and how she came to terms with it. Sounds very sad and one for a day when I feel like a bit of a cry!

Halfhead, by Stuart MacBride. Set in Glasglow in the future where the government lobotomizes criminals and sends them out to do boring jobs in the community as a deterrent to others in a process known as ‘halfheading’. It’s supposed to be permanent but one of the ‘halfheads’ is waking up, surrounded by bodies of men she just killed. And she’s not finished yet. Hmm, sometimes I forget why I buy books and then I read the blurbs again (like I am now) and go oh that sounds good! I want to read that right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daughters Of Rome, by Kate Quinn. Historical fiction set in AD69 amongst the Roman Empire, two sisters, one ambitious one not so. Tragedy.. Sounds fun! And I’ve never read anything set this far back in history before so a new time period is always nice. I’m trying a few different ones since I developed an interest in historical fiction recently.

So Much For That, by Lionel Shriver. I love Lionel Shriver. Okay I’ve only read 2 of her books but they’d rank right up there as 2 of the best books I’ve ever read. This one is a recent one, possibly even her most recent (although she does have a new book due out this year) and it tackles the American health system. Shep has saved up for his retirement and dreams of packing in his American job and going off to live in the Third World somewhere. Before he can, his wife is diagnosed with a serious illness and needs his health insurance to fund her treatment which basically means that Shep isn’t going anywhere – and by the time he can go somewhere, he may no longer have his nest egg.

I’d Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman. When she was 15, Eliza was kidnapped and held hostage for 6 weeks. Her kidnapper is now on death row for the kidnap and murder of his final victim when Eliza receives a letter from him. He seems be trying to make amends and although Eliza doesn’t want anything to do with him, she has questions – such as why he let her live. And she remembers that Walter is at his most difficult when ignored. Once again, Laura Lippman is another author I’ve heard numerous good things about and never gotten around to trying – so hopefully that will change this year! This one sounds good, if a little dramatic!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. I sort of had this irrational hatred of this book because when I was in year 12, my normal English teacher was away the first week and our replacement tried to bully us into reading this book with an all out assault campaign (we chose another). Then I did extension English and the same teacher tried to bully us into choosing it then too, but we chose something else. He punished us by then making us do Chaucer *sigh* Anyway I’ve avoided it ever since. Lately I’ve read a few books that have referenced it and it does actually sound like something I want to read. So I bought it. No doubt I’ll stare at it for a few years before I actually get up and read it!

Shopaholic Abroad, by Sophie Kinsella. The second in the Shopaholic series. I’ve already read this one some time ago but I didn’t own it so I had to buy it when I saw it. The Shopaholic series is one of my guilty pleasures. I love them.

If You Could See Me Now, by Cecelia Ahern. I’ve read P.S I Love You, by Ahern and really liked it but I haven’t read anything else although I do have one of her books on my Kindle, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. This one involves a woman raising her sister’s child but her sister seems to drift in and out a bit. It seems like it has a touch of the magical about it too, so we’ll see how I find it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Preacher, The Stone Cutter and The Hidden Child, by Camilla Lackberg. I read a couple of book review blogs that focus primarily on crime fiction and this author has been getting some pretty nice reviews. As with translated fiction, it can be difficult to see what order the series goes in, etc. These 3 I -think- are 2, 3 and perhaps 5 out of the same series. I have purchased the first book elsewhere (which wasn’t available through this site, it’ll appear further down this post). It’s Swedish crime fiction pairing up a detective and crime writer. My covers also all match – the cover for The Stone Cutter that I have is the same style as the other two, but I couldn’t find that image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan. I keep buying books by Ian McEwan… I’m hopeful that one day I’ll actually read books by Ian McEwan.

The Girl In The Green Raincoat, by Laura Lippman. This is actually #10 or #11 or something in a series, but it’s a tiny novella, only 158p and I think it’s more an interlude than an actual part of the series. It seems like a take on Rear Window - the MC is pregnant and on bedrest and seems to pass the time spying on people and seems to see something go wrong one day and is then determined to solve the problem, even if it has to be from her bedroom. I don’t normally read a series out of order, but I may try this one. Given the fact that the character is immobile, it may not require much background knowledge to tackle it.

The Lake, by Banana Yoshimoto. Remember up there when I said I buy books for stupid reasons? In this case, it was the author’s name that made me buy it. Banana Yoshimoto just might be the most awesome name ever. Anyway I have actually heard a few good things about this Japanese writer and this book also involves someone spending time staring out their window. Also, a cult!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stray, by Rachel Vincent. The cover of this almost pains me, the girl is so ridiculously skinny. It’s the first in a series about weres – the MC is one of 8 female werecats capable of breeding left who was attempting to live a normal life until a Stray (were without a Pride) attacked. I haven’t really read much on weres specifically and I have to admit the last series I attempted to read based on them was an epic fail. So we’ll see.

The Sky Is Everywhere, by Jandy Nelson. Amazing reviews for this, in so many places! I kept checking my local library catalogue to see if they were getting it in, but no. So I saw it on the site and immediately bought it. A YA title, the MC is struggling to deal with her sister’s death and also struggling to balance 2 guys.

e-Squared, by Matt Beaumont. I read e, by Matt Beaumont some years ago so when I saw this one I had to get it. I love books that are written via emails, letters, notes, word docs, etc. That format is enough of a selling point for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Courtesan and the Samurai, by Lesley Downer. Set in Japan in 1868. I’ve been trying to read more books from times and places I’m not familiar with and this one fits into both of those! I’ve read very little fiction set in Japan, especially fiction that isn’t current. A young girl’s husband goes to war, she flees enemy soldiers and ends up forced to train as a courtesan. I’m really looking forward to this one.

The King’s Secret Matter, by Jean Plaidy. Set in Tudor times, focusing on Katherine of Aragon. I’ve never read anything from her perspective before, or about her – it’s all been about Anne Boleyn. It’s actually the 4th in a series, so I may have to see just how necessary it is to read the preceding books, or because it’s based upon a really well known historical time period, I can just read it stand-alone.

The Lost World of the Kalahari, by Laurens van der Post. Non-fiction. My love of all things African atm led to the purchase of this – the story of explorer Laurens van der Post’s journey deep into the Kalahari desert to find a group of tribesmen believed to have retreated there, but also partially thought to be myth as well.

Bought locally

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green. Let’s face it – there’s no one that doesn’t like John Green. There’s no one that doesn’t love all over this book. I just have to find the right time to read it when I won’t freak out my children by bawling everywhere or make my husband laugh in my face.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin. Already read and reviewed here.

The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots, by Loretta Hill. I read this through my local library but loved it so much I had to buy it. My review is here.

Bought elsewhere:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. Like The Girl In Steel-Capped Boots, I read this from the library and then decided I had to own it. My review is here.

The Ice Princess, by Camilla Lackberg. The first novel in the Swedish Patrik Hedstrom series.

Names My Sisters Call Me, by Megan Crane. Found this one in a sale and I’ve had one book by Crane that I really liked and one that was a bit of a miss. I’m hopeful for this one about a wedding that one sister wants to use to bring herself and her sisters back together again. Interestingly enough, it was the last family wedding that wrenched them all apart!

And we’re done! God I hope so anyway!

Cinder – Marissa Meyer

Cinder
Marissa Meyer
Penguin AU
2012, 387p
Read from my local library

After  a catastrophic fourth World War changed the countries as we know them and destroyed whole cities, what came to be known as New Beijing rose from the ashes. Governed by an Emperor,  cyborgs and androids walk the streets with humans.

Cinder is one of those cyborgs, partly human, partly mechanical. Living with her stepmother and two stepsisters, Cinder is a mechanic, fixing androids and the like to earn a paycheque for her ungrateful stepmother. Orphaned when she was young, Cinder was never sure why a man agreed to be her guardian – a man who didn’t live very long afterwards, Cinder’s stepmother has kept her promise to give Cinder a home but she does little else. She takes the money Cinder earns and treats her as little more than a slave, as does one of her stepsisters, Pearl. Cinder however is close to her other stepsister Peony and loves her dearly, Peony and Cinder’s small android Iko the bright spots in her otherwise bleak world.

One day at her market stall where she runs her business as a mechanic, Cinder is astounded when Prince Kai, heir to the ailing Emperor stops by with an outdated android he wants her to fix. Cinder is surprised by how down to earth and likable Prince Kai is, chatting easily to her. She agrees to fix his android, taking care to hide the fact that she is a cyborg from him. Surprised that their paths could ever cross, Cinder finds herself indulging in a little daydream – even though she knows their heir to the Empire would never dally with a cyborg.

When Peony contracts letumosis, the deadly plague that has ravaged the Earth in recent times, Cinder’s furious stepmother volunteers Cinder for guinea pig work at the palace, where scientists use cyborgs to try and help develop an vaccine. Once there, both Cinder and the scientist in charge are shocked by what happens when Cinder is given the virus. As Cinder moves around the palace under the guise of working fixing the medical androids that take care of the plague ridden, she finds herself crossing paths more and more frequently with Prince Kai.

The Prince has his own problems. He’s about to undergo his coronation and the Queen of the Lunar race, a group of moon-dwellers wants to enter into a matrimonial match with him in exchange for peace with Earth. The Lunars possess a sort of magic that allows them to glamour humans into thinking and believing whatever the Lunars want them to think or even see. Kai doesn’t want to enter a marriage with the devil but he feels that he must do so to save his world. The answer to his problems may be a little closer than he (or anyone else) realises though…

Cinder is the first book in the Lunar Chronicles and has been generating quite a lot of interest lately and from just finishing it, I can certainly see why. Sometime in the undefined future, a new civilisation has arisen after another devastating world war. Technology is advanced – people who suffer from illnesses or life threatening accidents can be saved by way of mechanics, becoming a cyborg. Our main character Cinder is one of these, having metal hands and a metal foot as well as a processor chip that does all sorts of nifty things, including indicate to her when someone she is speaking to is lying.

This is obviously, a futuristic telling of the fairytale Cinderella. Cinder is nothing more than a workhorse for her wicked stepmother, but Cinder does have a very strong relationship with one of her stepsisters. Cinder has plans to escape, to do so whilst the whole city is occupied with a customary ball, taking off with just her android Iko. The interactions between Cinder and Iko were some of the high points in this novel – Iko has a personality chip that develops over time and she’s been in service for some years. She’s sassy and fun and provides a lighthearted contrast to Cinder’s seriousness.

The story line here is good – there’s a lot going on with Cinder’s relationship with her stepmother and stepsisters, her desire to escape, her meeting Prince Kai and also learning about the possible threat to the Earth’s peace if Prince Kai doesn’t do the honourable thing and marry the Lunar Queen, who has conveniently come to visit and push her point. Cinder is also the medical lab’s most favourite guinea pig due to her genetic make up and at times things are painfully obvious to the reader and you just wish Cinder would find out the truth about herself already! I think it’s made very obvious exactly who and what Cinder is from very early on in the novel but we have to wait until nearly the end for her to know herself. It’s excruciating at times, but not necessarily in a bad way. Somehow Marissa Meyer keeps things moving and other things happening at a good pace that you do get distracted from wanting Cinder to find out everything. And in thinking that I knew everything I was pleasantly surprised by something that occurred that I didn’t suspect, so it’s always nice to have those moments when reading.

To be honest, when I saw this I thought mmm, not really for me. I don’t usually have a good track record with fairytale retellings (Beastly immediately comes to mind) but I loved the cover. And I talked myself into giving it a go – I am really glad I did! I enjoyed this story so much and it already pains me that the next installment in the series will not be out until sometime in 2013. I’m used to first novels in trilogies or series’ ending in such spectacular fashion with a cliffhanger but this one really makes you wish the next book was already here so you could dive into it. It’s going to be incredible.

8/10

Book #24 of 2012

Demon Lover – Juliet Dark

Demon Lover
Juliet Dark
Random House
2011, 416p
Copy courtesy of the publisher

Callie McFay has recently finished graduate school and is interviewing for positions at several colleges in New York state. Her thesis was well received and published to acclaim and she’s done several guest speaking gigs and toured with her book. Whilst waiting for an offer from New York State, she is interviewed at Fairwick College in a remote part of upstate New York. Although smaller and less prestigious, it is still very well regarded and has an excellent folklore department, which would be Callie’s faculty. She’s offered a job the very next morning and although she intends to put them off until she hears back from NYU, a house across from the bed and breakfast where she is staying draws her eye and Callie finds herself not only accepting the job, but buying the old Victorian house. The former house of a well known early-1900′s Gothic novelist Dahlia LaMotte whose work Callie has read, she hopes that the house will help her creativity, especially as it comes with all the papers and diaries that belonged to the novelist. The catch is they stay with the house – Callie can read them, write about them, publish them etc, but only whilst she resides in the house. Despite her long-term boyfriend Paul, still in graduate school on the opposite side of the country re-writing his thesis disapproving of her choice as it didn’t fit in with their plans, Callie moves all her things quickly and settles in to life in Farwick.

Callie is surprised when she begins having vivid erotic dreams  where a stranger seemingly made of moonlight enters her bedroom and ravishes her. It’s startlingly real and she experiences sore muscles etc the next day just like she had been with a man. Eventually it occurs to Callie that it might not be just a dream – after all her expertise is in folklore and it’s possible her nighttime lover is an incubus, a being that will suck the very life from her by way of sexual draining. And after she comes to this realisation she discovers that her incubus lover isn’t the only unusual creature living in Fairwick. The college is a hotbed of not-so-mythical-anymore creatures – witches, fairies, vampires etc. And the powerful ones are preparing to cast out her incubus before he can drain the life out of more residents. Callie is torn – unsatisfied in her relationship, the incubus filled a void she hadn’t known even existed. In order for the incubus to truly be banished, no one present can want him to stay – even just a little bit. Callie has to draw on her strength and make sure that she isn’t the weak link, or she could pay with her life.

When I requested this one on NetGalley, I originally thought it was a YA novel, given the prevalence of covers for YA novels that consist of faceless girls in pretty dresses. Obviously I didn’t read the synopsis too well! Callie, our main character is in her mid-20′s, having just finished graduate school. She was orphaned at a young age and raised by her well off but rather distant grandmother, who left New York for the west coast the second Callie graduated high school. Callie’s parents often told her elaborate fairytales as a child and that become the focus of her study and ultimately part of the reason she chooses to accept a job at Fairwick College. Other factors come into play the further you get into the novel, but Callie is ultimately unaware of her unusual heritage when she begins her new job.

Such as the Gothic romances Callie references, this novel is rich in atmospheric prose and mystery. As a book lover and avid reader and hoarder of books, I can’t say how much I loved Callie’s constant references to literature and her talk of how many books she owned. In her studio apartment in New York, she had to choose which books to keep and which were to go into storage but when she buys the Victorian in Fairwick she is delighted by its huge library with floor to ceiling bookcases standing empty waiting for her to fill. That sort of room is my dream to have one day!

I did find the novel dragged a bit in places – it seemed to take me forever to get through the middle segment and I got bogged down a few times wondering what the heck was going to happen to shake things up. It probably could’ve been trimmed down a bit, but it was still a good read – and I really didn’t expect the ending! I know it’s the first in a trilogy or a series or something but I was unprepared for the fact that it doesn’t end on a high note or happily. Despite her academic background and although she accepts her unusual heritage discoveries quite easily, Callie is often a bit clueless as to things that are happening and there is kind of a huge plothole in that Fairwick is such a haven for these otherworldly beings but the powers that be fail to recognise when several dangerous ones make their way there and into people’s lives. I also didn’t really think the way that Callie and Paul’s relationship went showed any thought or originality and that was disappointing.

There’s enough here in the writing to keep me interested for the next book but at the same time I hope the plot is tighter next time around.

6/10

Book #23 of 2012

Fifty Shades Of Grey – E.L. James

Fifty Shades Of Grey
E.L. James
The Writer’s Coffee Shop
2011, 372p
Read from my local library

Anastasia (Ana) Steele is a literature student just about to graduate. When her flatmate, journalist student Kate falls ill on the day she is supposed to interview dynamic entrepreneur Christian Grey for their university magazine, she begs Ana to take her place. She has prepared all of the questions and given that this interview took months and months to set up and the enigmatic Grey doesn’t often give interviews, she can’t afford to let it fall through. Although nervous, as she’s very shy, Ana agrees to help Kate, who has always been a good friend to her. Ana is awkward and clumsy during the interview and after it’s completed, she assumes she’ll never see him again – after all, they hardly move in the same social circle.

But Ana is surprised when he turns up in the hardware store she has worked in to help pay the bills for her college education. He buys some unusual items and it isn’t long before Christian Grey is turning up simply everywhere. Ana has never had a boyfriend before but she’s fascinated with Christian and very attracted to him. Christian it seems, is also very attracted to Ana but he also warns her to stay away from him. It seems Ana is unable or unwilling to do this.

Eventually she discovers why she was warned off. Christian doesn’t do relationships, at all. He is a Dominant, who seeks only a submissive to be his to use and control as he chooses, all the terms stipulated out in a very specific contract. Ana had no idea this sort of lifestyle even existed and google turns out to be her best friend and her worst enemy as she spends time brushing up on Christian’s singular sexual taste. Although not comfortable with a lot of what is involved in the contract, she wants to have Christian any way she can, so they negotiate, putting in and taking out clauses to reach a level of service that Christian is happy with but without pushing Ana’s comfort zones too much. Christian also agrees to Ana’s demand of ‘more’ – where he will try his best to actually be in a relationship with her, something he’s never done before.

But still they struggle. Ana can’t get past her insecurity and jealousy over Christian’s first lover, a friend of his mother’s who introduced him to this lifestyle, albeit on the side that Ana is on now. And Christian struggles to rein in his obsessive desire to control. He slowly leaks a few very guarded tidbits of his traumatic childhood that has helped shape him to become the man he is today. Ana is uninterested in wealth and the trappings that come with it, what she’s interested is the man himself. But Grey isn’t used to people wanting to get to know him on that deep a level and he isn’t comfortable with it.

Well the Twilight inspired stuff just keeps coming. Apparently this story started out as a Twilight fan fiction, which I didn’t know until after I’d read it… And I’m sort of glad about that. The idea of reading this as Edward and Bella do it BDSM style is totally disturbing. It does explain quite a few things in this story, such as Ana’s random clumsiness which serves no point to the story whatsoever and yet is mentioned frequently.

Basically you take one very shy main character and pair her up with one mysterious and enigmatic rich CEO type and watch the opposites attract. The narration is mostly Ana’s, although some of it takes place between emails they send back and forth to each other after Christian gives her a laptop purely so she can research the BDSM lifestyle in private and not have to borrow her housemate’s. How anyone made it through a 4 year university degree without a computer of their own baffles me, but anyway. Christian is rich, we are often told Christian is super rich, in fact Christian tells us himself a lot that he’s rich and he likes buying Ana things even though he barely knows her. Ana doesn’t particularly like accepting things so she ridiculously refers to them as ‘on extended loan’. After Ana learns that Christian does want her, but only for her to be his slave in a weekend-only type deal, Ana immerses herself in a ‘will I or won’t I’ back and forth that is really pointless because ultimately she will and everybody knows that. Including her. She does however negotiate a few terms of her own.

If you’re looking for a BDSM read, then don’t actually be fooled because there isn’t much of it in here. It’s very, very tame with only a couple of bondage sessions and one or two light spanking sessions. There’s nothing hardcore in here and Ana writes most of those into her hard limits section of the contract. Whilst not in the lifestyle, I used to read the blog of a 24/7 slave to a Dominant and it’s a fascinating sort of thing. Not for me, I don’t like being told what to do, and I especially don’t like being controlled (or controlling others) but to read from the process of someone immersed in the lifestyle is incredible. Ana, this book states often, is not a natural submissive and that’s true. She rarely submits to Christian other than through sex and their contractual arrangement really little resembles a BDSM arrangement or lifestyle.

I think the huge love of this piece of fan fiction led to a rather hasty publication. I’ve never read anything from this particular publisher before and there were mistakes and typos littered throughout my copy which was very distracting for a finished work. There were also some aspects of character or plot (such as the aforementioned clumsiness) that might have made sense in a Twilight world but didn’t exactly translate in this new incarnation of the story. Despite that it’s still quite a good read – there are two sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. My library doesn’t have any more in paperback form but they’re both available for Kindle so I might check them out.

6/10

Book #22 of 2012