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3102 reviews
Utopia by Thomas More
3.0
Utopia was written by Sir Thomas More in 1516. For those of you that know your history or at least watched the tv show The Tudors, know that he opposed Henry VIII's separation from the Catholic church and refused to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church of England. Because of this and some say not attending the wedding of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII he was tried for treason and beheaded in 1535. More was a fascinating person and I loved studying European history in college and reading up about the Tudors and the insanity that went on with Henry VIII. That said I really didn't like this book that much.
I know that 1516 was several centuries ago but reading about slavery and how women were treated in the fictional Utopia had me realizing that this was not the best book for me. The first part of the book that has More having a conversation with Raphael Hythloday who begins talking about how best it is to counsel a prince. I thought this part was very well done and it does explore some very interesting thoughts and ideas about how due to "yes men" and those who want to grow rich those who often counsel a prince are not thinking of the good of society as a whole.
Part two I didn't care for that much at all. We have More providing detailed information about the fictional country of Utopia. One thing that I did like was that women worked just like men and farmed. However, we have More discussing that every household has slaves and that many neighboring countries have people who are quite happy to be enslaved in Utopia. That part made me laugh out loud a bit. More also discusses how every religion is tolerated in Utopia and how priests can marry (and priests can be either men or women).
Pretty much Utopia sounds like a fool's paradise that I would visit but would quickly take my leave after a day.
Many people to this day argue about why More wrote Utopia and what was he trying to say. I for one can say I am surprised he wrote this when you see how committed he was to the Catholic church. Having priests marry would have been a radical notion back in the day along with women being allowed to be priests too. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked about priests marrying since there were many Popes that had children and mistresses. For example, Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) had multiple children while a priest (also subject to a television show called the Borgias) and openly acknowledged them as his children. So I wonder if More saw the previous history of the Popes and thought that marrying and having children while a priest wasn't such a bad thing. Or possibly More wrote this in order to show that a perfect society in the England of the time and place he lived was not possible.
I do want to say that since I read this book for the most part on my Amazon Cloud Reader that the text ran together and I didn't have paragraphs to break up the flow which made it harder for me to get through. Once I read it on my Kindle though it was easier to read the paragraphs were there.
I know that 1516 was several centuries ago but reading about slavery and how women were treated in the fictional Utopia had me realizing that this was not the best book for me. The first part of the book that has More having a conversation with Raphael Hythloday who begins talking about how best it is to counsel a prince. I thought this part was very well done and it does explore some very interesting thoughts and ideas about how due to "yes men" and those who want to grow rich those who often counsel a prince are not thinking of the good of society as a whole.
Part two I didn't care for that much at all. We have More providing detailed information about the fictional country of Utopia. One thing that I did like was that women worked just like men and farmed. However, we have More discussing that every household has slaves and that many neighboring countries have people who are quite happy to be enslaved in Utopia. That part made me laugh out loud a bit. More also discusses how every religion is tolerated in Utopia and how priests can marry (and priests can be either men or women).
Pretty much Utopia sounds like a fool's paradise that I would visit but would quickly take my leave after a day.
Many people to this day argue about why More wrote Utopia and what was he trying to say. I for one can say I am surprised he wrote this when you see how committed he was to the Catholic church. Having priests marry would have been a radical notion back in the day along with women being allowed to be priests too. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked about priests marrying since there were many Popes that had children and mistresses. For example, Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) had multiple children while a priest (also subject to a television show called the Borgias) and openly acknowledged them as his children. So I wonder if More saw the previous history of the Popes and thought that marrying and having children while a priest wasn't such a bad thing. Or possibly More wrote this in order to show that a perfect society in the England of the time and place he lived was not possible.
I do want to say that since I read this book for the most part on my Amazon Cloud Reader that the text ran together and I didn't have paragraphs to break up the flow which made it harder for me to get through. Once I read it on my Kindle though it was easier to read the paragraphs were there.
The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
3.0
The beginning of the story begins with a man named Dirk Moeller using an apparatus to allow him to pass gas at an alien species called The Nidu and insult a trade delegate that is Nidu enough to bring about an international incident with this species and Earth.
Through a lot of political maneuvering we find out that the Earth is now in danger because of the fallout from the death of one of the Nidu. The only way to appease the Nidu is for Earth to provide a sheep of the 'Android's Dream' breed for the coronation ceremony of one of the Nidu.
Our main protagonist, Harry Creek, is tasked by his childhood friend to find 'The Android's Dream' in order to save Earth.
The interesting part for me came when we find out exactly what is 'The Android's Dream'. After that things kick into high gear and the story-line does not let up until the very end.
I only rated this book three stars though. The main reasons for that was that it took a long time to even see a semblance of a good plot for me. I got to 35 percent and honestly thought about chucking the book. Luckily I stuck with it.
Additionally, a good portion of the book had way too much techno garble for me and my poor eyes glazed over a lot while reading this book. I need to understand the science behind things of course as a reader but I don't need to understand how microchips work (I am being a bit facetious here).
Also there are way too many characters to keep straight. I think at one point I had to go back 20 pages because I had totally missed who one person was because I thought he was a totally other character.
I did love the character of Harry Creek and the sheep when he found it. I think if this character had been introduced to me earlier in the book I would have liked it more than I did.
I am going to say that I am glad that I didn't read this before I read Red Shirts and Old Man's War since I may have passed on future John Scalzi books.
Through a lot of political maneuvering we find out that the Earth is now in danger because of the fallout from the death of one of the Nidu. The only way to appease the Nidu is for Earth to provide a sheep of the 'Android's Dream' breed for the coronation ceremony of one of the Nidu.
Our main protagonist, Harry Creek, is tasked by his childhood friend to find 'The Android's Dream' in order to save Earth.
The interesting part for me came when we find out exactly what is 'The Android's Dream'. After that things kick into high gear and the story-line does not let up until the very end.
I only rated this book three stars though. The main reasons for that was that it took a long time to even see a semblance of a good plot for me. I got to 35 percent and honestly thought about chucking the book. Luckily I stuck with it.
Additionally, a good portion of the book had way too much techno garble for me and my poor eyes glazed over a lot while reading this book. I need to understand the science behind things of course as a reader but I don't need to understand how microchips work (I am being a bit facetious here).
Also there are way too many characters to keep straight. I think at one point I had to go back 20 pages because I had totally missed who one person was because I thought he was a totally other character.
I did love the character of Harry Creek and the sheep when he found it. I think if this character had been introduced to me earlier in the book I would have liked it more than I did.
I am going to say that I am glad that I didn't read this before I read Red Shirts and Old Man's War since I may have passed on future John Scalzi books.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
4.0
I picked The Turn of the Screw for my 2014 Halloween read. I was thinking that this would be a scary book but did not find it frightening really. Written by Henry James and published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw is a Gothic ghost story novella.
The beginning of the story starts with a man named Douglas reading a manuscript sent to him by his sister's former governess. We have the governess working in the country at the Bly estate charged with taking care of her employer's nephew Miles and niece Flora.There are other servants there but the manuscript only details the governess conversations with the housekeeper Mrs. Grose. Ten year old Miles returns from school with a letter explaining he has been expelled. This causes the governess no end in mental gymnastics wondering what could have occurred that would have been so horrible for him to be expelled. She soon decides that Miles is just as wonderful as his sister Flora and that whatever happened must not have been his fault. Eventually the governess begins to see a man and woman she does not recognize around the Bly estate and becomes increasingly alarmed that they are there for the children.
One of my least favorite things in any books is an unreliable narrator. Probably because it causes you to wonder what was true and what was not true in the book and you find yourself analyzing every little thing until your head hurts. The Turn of the Screw has an unreliable narrator in the form of the governess who writes to Douglas about her experiences. The way it is written by James you have to question was the governess right or in my opinion was she slowly going insane and seeing people that were really not there.
The main reason why I believed that was because her conversations with Mrs. Grose were often done with a lot of double-speak and because it seemed to be the governess became obsessed with the two children and thought of them as hers. She initially in the beginning of the story makes up something monstrous that must have caused Miles to be expelled and her imagination seemed to be turned against her in this case. Her conversations with Mrs. Grose became increasingly irrational and by the end I was 100 percent convinced that she was insane.
The beginning of the story starts with a man named Douglas reading a manuscript sent to him by his sister's former governess. We have the governess working in the country at the Bly estate charged with taking care of her employer's nephew Miles and niece Flora.There are other servants there but the manuscript only details the governess conversations with the housekeeper Mrs. Grose. Ten year old Miles returns from school with a letter explaining he has been expelled. This causes the governess no end in mental gymnastics wondering what could have occurred that would have been so horrible for him to be expelled. She soon decides that Miles is just as wonderful as his sister Flora and that whatever happened must not have been his fault. Eventually the governess begins to see a man and woman she does not recognize around the Bly estate and becomes increasingly alarmed that they are there for the children.
One of my least favorite things in any books is an unreliable narrator. Probably because it causes you to wonder what was true and what was not true in the book and you find yourself analyzing every little thing until your head hurts. The Turn of the Screw has an unreliable narrator in the form of the governess who writes to Douglas about her experiences. The way it is written by James you have to question was the governess right or in my opinion was she slowly going insane and seeing people that were really not there.
The main reason why I believed that was because her conversations with Mrs. Grose were often done with a lot of double-speak and because it seemed to be the governess became obsessed with the two children and thought of them as hers. She initially in the beginning of the story makes up something monstrous that must have caused Miles to be expelled and her imagination seemed to be turned against her in this case. Her conversations with Mrs. Grose became increasingly irrational and by the end I was 100 percent convinced that she was insane.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
5.0
So every year I re-read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
I think all of us who went to school in America are pretty familiar with this story since I think it was required reading every Halloween. You read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Raven, and The Tell Tale Heart. When I got older the teacher would usually switch out The Raven and have us read The Fall of the House of Usher.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is not particularly scary when you are reading it as an adult but as a little kid it did freak me out thinking of a headless man doing his best to remove someone else's head for his own.
Originally published in 1820 by Washington Irving, this short story was initially among a selection of essays that Irving published. The story takes place in 1790 with Irving describing the small settlement where many ghosts were said to inhabit.
The main character in this book is Ichabod Crane who is a schoolteacher in Sleepy Hollow. I loved Irving's description of the character being tall and thin but still being able to eat a ton of food. I remember watching the Disney cartoon version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in elementary school and cracking up at the animators take on Ichabod Crane because they drew him just like I saw him in my own head.
There are not many books I can think of at the top of my head where you hope that the protagonist of the piece to fail in his quest because the author does such a good job of setting up your dislike of the person. Ichabod Crane is a prig to his students (I love that word) but away from them he often had his head in the clouds and wishes to wed Katrina Van Tassel because of her beauty and wealth. Another important point about Ichabod Crane is that he is extremely superstitious.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers for digesting it, were extremely extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.
When you start reading about Ichabod and his dubious love for Katrina Van Tassel you hope that the main antagonist Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt the third in the mini-love triangle will end up winning her hand.
I really do wish that Irving had fleshed out the character of Katrina Van Tassel more. It is quite apparent that though she is a beautiful woman she apparently is quite shrewd and manipulative especially when you see that she knowingly encourages Ichabod Crane in order to make Brom Bones jealous.
When Ichabod eventually proposes to Katrina I loved how nothing of that scene is relayed to the reader but you can imagine it based on the reaction directly afterwards.
Oh these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?
Survey says yes. Although you do have to feel sorry for the character though since he was made to think that Katrina was really interested in him and being used to spur on the suitor she really wanted to propose once again shows how very smarty she was to get what she wanted.It was not a particularly kind thing to do but I am guessing in her brain it made sense to get what she wanted which was her success of engaging herself to Brom.
When Ichabod eventually comes upon "The Headless Horseman" the writing manages to evokes something sinister. When my teacher eventually read this to us back in maybe the 3rd or 4th grade I remember my classmates and I were practically hanging off the desk to hear what would happen next.
"In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler."
We then follow Ichabod's flight away from the presumed to be Headless Horseman. Readers eventually realize that the whole thing was a prank by Brom Bones to scare Ichabod Crane away from Sleepy Hollow and stop his pursuit of Katrina.
This is a very nice short read that can put you in the Halloween mood without scaring the pants off of you.
I think all of us who went to school in America are pretty familiar with this story since I think it was required reading every Halloween. You read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Raven, and The Tell Tale Heart. When I got older the teacher would usually switch out The Raven and have us read The Fall of the House of Usher.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is not particularly scary when you are reading it as an adult but as a little kid it did freak me out thinking of a headless man doing his best to remove someone else's head for his own.
Originally published in 1820 by Washington Irving, this short story was initially among a selection of essays that Irving published. The story takes place in 1790 with Irving describing the small settlement where many ghosts were said to inhabit.
The main character in this book is Ichabod Crane who is a schoolteacher in Sleepy Hollow. I loved Irving's description of the character being tall and thin but still being able to eat a ton of food. I remember watching the Disney cartoon version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in elementary school and cracking up at the animators take on Ichabod Crane because they drew him just like I saw him in my own head.
There are not many books I can think of at the top of my head where you hope that the protagonist of the piece to fail in his quest because the author does such a good job of setting up your dislike of the person. Ichabod Crane is a prig to his students (I love that word) but away from them he often had his head in the clouds and wishes to wed Katrina Van Tassel because of her beauty and wealth. Another important point about Ichabod Crane is that he is extremely superstitious.
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers for digesting it, were extremely extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.
When you start reading about Ichabod and his dubious love for Katrina Van Tassel you hope that the main antagonist Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt the third in the mini-love triangle will end up winning her hand.
I really do wish that Irving had fleshed out the character of Katrina Van Tassel more. It is quite apparent that though she is a beautiful woman she apparently is quite shrewd and manipulative especially when you see that she knowingly encourages Ichabod Crane in order to make Brom Bones jealous.
When Ichabod eventually proposes to Katrina I loved how nothing of that scene is relayed to the reader but you can imagine it based on the reaction directly afterwards.
Oh these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?
Survey says yes. Although you do have to feel sorry for the character though since he was made to think that Katrina was really interested in him and being used to spur on the suitor she really wanted to propose once again shows how very smarty she was to get what she wanted.It was not a particularly kind thing to do but I am guessing in her brain it made sense to get what she wanted which was her success of engaging herself to Brom.
When Ichabod eventually comes upon "The Headless Horseman" the writing manages to evokes something sinister. When my teacher eventually read this to us back in maybe the 3rd or 4th grade I remember my classmates and I were practically hanging off the desk to hear what would happen next.
"In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler."
We then follow Ichabod's flight away from the presumed to be Headless Horseman. Readers eventually realize that the whole thing was a prank by Brom Bones to scare Ichabod Crane away from Sleepy Hollow and stop his pursuit of Katrina.
This is a very nice short read that can put you in the Halloween mood without scaring the pants off of you.
Just Jilted by Cindi Madsen
2.0
The main character is Dakota Halifax who is a wedding planner extraordinaire living in Las Vegas. Eloping with her fiancee Grant on a cruise ship is not what she imagined her dream wedding to be but all she wants is to be married to Grant. Too bad Grant stands her up at the altar.
I really can't say anything besides the fact I found the book boring and shallow in characterization and meaning. I think that there were a lot of elements that should have worked better than they did.
Also this book was split into parts and I honestly could not understand why. To me if you do part one, part two, etc. it is because there is some major plot elements going on that you want to cue the reader to while reading. I just think it was done to make the book look cute. For example, Part III reads:
Wary Canary-Elevated
(Significant Risk of Elevated Blood Pressure, Quickened Heart Rate, Possibility of Tears, And Being in Need of Tissues)
Then there was an Oscar Wilde quote included too. I was fine with the above but included all of that and the a quote about men, women, friendship, and love.
Dakota returns from her jilting and starts hanging out with an old friend from her childhood Brendan and trying to make sense of things with Grant. I felt like a lot of the novel was just filler to get to the happily ever after at the end.
Also Dakota has some serious issues with her mother that I wish had been explored more beyond well that's just my mom. We find out that her mother divorced Dakota's father when she was fairly young and she was barely around while she was growing up. To me this would be a good time to show Dakota gaining some self awareness about her mom and Grant leaving her could have brought everything to a head for the character. Too bad it didn't. I did end up liking the piece of advice her mother gave her towards the end of the book though.
The other characters in this book really were not written with enough depth for me to care about them one way or another. We have Dakota's best friend Jillian who only seems to be around to give her advice. Grant was a big blank space for me the entire time. I had no idea what to make of that guy. Same goes with the character of Brendan. I did not see what made her interested in him at all. A blank wall had more personality than him. Dakota's constant inner monologues about how sexy he was made me roll my eyes after the tenth time it was mentioned.
Also the setting of this book is Las Vegas. You wouldn't really know it though since that city really is just a background that is not really used. I was in Vegas recently and there's no sense of being overwhelmed by the nightly crowd of people, the way the casinos look in the early morning and at night, the fountains in front of the Bellagio, etc.
Besides some throw away lines about meeting people in a casino here and there there was not much to show me this took place in Sin City.
With the ending telegraphed pretty early for me I wasn't surprised by it at all. I just ended up shrugging (literally) when I got to the end of this book and loaned it out to a friend to see if she would like it any better than I did.
I really can't say anything besides the fact I found the book boring and shallow in characterization and meaning. I think that there were a lot of elements that should have worked better than they did.
Also this book was split into parts and I honestly could not understand why. To me if you do part one, part two, etc. it is because there is some major plot elements going on that you want to cue the reader to while reading. I just think it was done to make the book look cute. For example, Part III reads:
Wary Canary-Elevated
(Significant Risk of Elevated Blood Pressure, Quickened Heart Rate, Possibility of Tears, And Being in Need of Tissues)
Then there was an Oscar Wilde quote included too. I was fine with the above but included all of that and the a quote about men, women, friendship, and love.
Dakota returns from her jilting and starts hanging out with an old friend from her childhood Brendan and trying to make sense of things with Grant. I felt like a lot of the novel was just filler to get to the happily ever after at the end.
Also Dakota has some serious issues with her mother that I wish had been explored more beyond well that's just my mom. We find out that her mother divorced Dakota's father when she was fairly young and she was barely around while she was growing up. To me this would be a good time to show Dakota gaining some self awareness about her mom and Grant leaving her could have brought everything to a head for the character. Too bad it didn't. I did end up liking the piece of advice her mother gave her towards the end of the book though.
The other characters in this book really were not written with enough depth for me to care about them one way or another. We have Dakota's best friend Jillian who only seems to be around to give her advice. Grant was a big blank space for me the entire time. I had no idea what to make of that guy. Same goes with the character of Brendan. I did not see what made her interested in him at all. A blank wall had more personality than him. Dakota's constant inner monologues about how sexy he was made me roll my eyes after the tenth time it was mentioned.
Also the setting of this book is Las Vegas. You wouldn't really know it though since that city really is just a background that is not really used. I was in Vegas recently and there's no sense of being overwhelmed by the nightly crowd of people, the way the casinos look in the early morning and at night, the fountains in front of the Bellagio, etc.
Besides some throw away lines about meeting people in a casino here and there there was not much to show me this took place in Sin City.
With the ending telegraphed pretty early for me I wasn't surprised by it at all. I just ended up shrugging (literally) when I got to the end of this book and loaned it out to a friend to see if she would like it any better than I did.
Fat Chance by Nick Spalding
5.0
I have previously read and loved Nick Spalding's Love series books. I was worried that I may not like his newest book since it was not going to be starring my favorite couple, Jamie and Laura. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that was not the case with this new book.
Married couple Zoe and Greg Milton decide to take part of a competition that rewards the couple with the most percentage of weight loss with $50,000.
Told in alternating chapters by Zoe and Greg we have their diary entries that are required as part of Fat Chance that discusses how they gained their weight and their sometimes hilarious struggles with trying to lose that weight for the competition and for themselves.
This book really does remind me of the Love series books with the couple discussing their woes in alternating chapters. And just like this series there are really funny moments we get to read about with both Zoe and Greg trying out new diet fads and their discussions of how much they miss bacon sandwiches. I found the writing at times to be blistering, funny, silly, poignant, and quick witted. I also think that though the alternating chapters format for two characters may get a little bit old in subsequent books it works well here. I honestly did not see any similarities to Jamie and Laura which was nice. I was worried that it would just be similar characters who were heavier.
Spalding can make you laugh one moment and make you ache for these two characters in the next especially when discussing their struggles to lose weight, how they stopped eating out because they were ashamed of their sizes, etc. I think that most people can sympathize with this since you are always hearing about a new diet craze or workout routine that will supposedly make you lose half your body weight in a month. It would be nice to follow up with these characters in the future but based on the ending I don't know how that would work.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
Married couple Zoe and Greg Milton decide to take part of a competition that rewards the couple with the most percentage of weight loss with $50,000.
Told in alternating chapters by Zoe and Greg we have their diary entries that are required as part of Fat Chance that discusses how they gained their weight and their sometimes hilarious struggles with trying to lose that weight for the competition and for themselves.
This book really does remind me of the Love series books with the couple discussing their woes in alternating chapters. And just like this series there are really funny moments we get to read about with both Zoe and Greg trying out new diet fads and their discussions of how much they miss bacon sandwiches. I found the writing at times to be blistering, funny, silly, poignant, and quick witted. I also think that though the alternating chapters format for two characters may get a little bit old in subsequent books it works well here. I honestly did not see any similarities to Jamie and Laura which was nice. I was worried that it would just be similar characters who were heavier.
Spalding can make you laugh one moment and make you ache for these two characters in the next especially when discussing their struggles to lose weight, how they stopped eating out because they were ashamed of their sizes, etc. I think that most people can sympathize with this since you are always hearing about a new diet craze or workout routine that will supposedly make you lose half your body weight in a month. It would be nice to follow up with these characters in the future but based on the ending I don't know how that would work.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
The Firelight Girls: A Novel by Kaya McLaren, Kaya McLaren
3.0
I do want to say that the front of the book initially claims this is a story of five women but it's really a story of four women and a teenager. Also the book synopsis on the back of the version I received was incorrect by saying this was a story of three women and a teenager.
Told from five different points of view we get the main plot revolving around a girl's camp called Camp Firelight being closed in 2012. The former camp director and current member of the board of directors, Ethel, sends out a letter to all former Camp Firelight alumni to come to the camp and say goodbye before it closes its doors forever.
However, only three alumni show up (Ruth, Shannon, and Laura) which is a surprise since you keep reading about all of the fun times the girls and women who stayed there had and how much the camp meant to them all. I of course get why it didn't make a lot of sense to have a book told from about 30-40 different women's perspectives but having only three women showing up kind of negated the whole the camp is very important to everyone thing that was going on with the main story.
The main characters in this story are Ethel, former camp director of Camp Firelight, Ruby her ex best friend, Laura, and Shannon former alumni and teenage Amber who is a runaway that stays at the camp.
Ethel's and Ruby's stories were more interesting to me since you find out that they started going to the camp in the 1940s. Due to Ethel's personal life and choices she and Ruby are estranged for decades. I felt for Ruby more in this story since you understand why things happened the way they did. I think that if the story had just been told from these two women's perspectives with the other characters being secondary characters I would have liked the book much more.
Shannon and Laura's stories honestly bored me to tears.
Laura's story in addition to being boring just aggravated me at turns. Laura is realizing that she has not been in love with her husband for at least 15 years. You read the beginning of their story together and you wonder why things got so badly off course but I was pretty much over this character acting like a victim. Things suddenly change completely in the last few chapters of the story with this character and I almost got whiplash trying to work out how this all happened.
Amber's story is tragic and I felt like this could have been it's own story and really didn't fit with the other women's stories at all. I think to make it a tighter novel and also to allow the reader to get more pertinent details on the four main women Amber's story could have been cut and a follow-up novel could have been written from Amber's point of view.
I think having the novel told from five points of view and jumping from the past to the present constantly just didn't allow me as a reader to get fully as absorbed in the story as I should have been. Also in the case of Shannon and Laura if the heading did not show their names and the years I would have been confused about who was "talking" in those sections. Both of these women sound so very alike that I kept getting their back-stories confused. Ethel and Ruby had very distinct voices and did not sound the same at all which was good. In the end I only rated this novel three stars.
Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
Told from five different points of view we get the main plot revolving around a girl's camp called Camp Firelight being closed in 2012. The former camp director and current member of the board of directors, Ethel, sends out a letter to all former Camp Firelight alumni to come to the camp and say goodbye before it closes its doors forever.
However, only three alumni show up (Ruth, Shannon, and Laura) which is a surprise since you keep reading about all of the fun times the girls and women who stayed there had and how much the camp meant to them all. I of course get why it didn't make a lot of sense to have a book told from about 30-40 different women's perspectives but having only three women showing up kind of negated the whole the camp is very important to everyone thing that was going on with the main story.
The main characters in this story are Ethel, former camp director of Camp Firelight, Ruby her ex best friend, Laura, and Shannon former alumni and teenage Amber who is a runaway that stays at the camp.
Ethel's and Ruby's stories were more interesting to me since you find out that they started going to the camp in the 1940s. Due to Ethel's personal life and choices she and Ruby are estranged for decades. I felt for Ruby more in this story since you understand why things happened the way they did. I think that if the story had just been told from these two women's perspectives with the other characters being secondary characters I would have liked the book much more.
Shannon and Laura's stories honestly bored me to tears.
Laura's story in addition to being boring just aggravated me at turns. Laura is realizing that she has not been in love with her husband for at least 15 years. You read the beginning of their story together and you wonder why things got so badly off course but I was pretty much over this character acting like a victim. Things suddenly change completely in the last few chapters of the story with this character and I almost got whiplash trying to work out how this all happened.
Amber's story is tragic and I felt like this could have been it's own story and really didn't fit with the other women's stories at all. I think to make it a tighter novel and also to allow the reader to get more pertinent details on the four main women Amber's story could have been cut and a follow-up novel could have been written from Amber's point of view.
I think having the novel told from five points of view and jumping from the past to the present constantly just didn't allow me as a reader to get fully as absorbed in the story as I should have been. Also in the case of Shannon and Laura if the heading did not show their names and the years I would have been confused about who was "talking" in those sections. Both of these women sound so very alike that I kept getting their back-stories confused. Ethel and Ruby had very distinct voices and did not sound the same at all which was good. In the end I only rated this novel three stars.
Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
1.0
I honestly don't know what to say here besides this book is all kinds of messed up. This book had neither a great plot or great writing in my opinion. We also have a main character that has an issue with boundaries, stalking, and defends her pack that went around and murdered two humans.
The main character, Vivian, a sixteen year old werewolf moves with her pack to Maryland after the teenage pack members go and kill a human in order to get another pack member out of trouble for murdering a human. Due to Vivian's intervention the five members of the pack that call themselves 'The Five' were not killed for their actions. However, the pack is burned out of their home and this is why they move to Maryland to heal and re-group.
Vivian is apparently the most attractive female in her entire school and is often perplexed that no one wants to be friends with her. She also has long soliloquies about the moon, being a wolf, etc. The entire book is told from Vivian's point of view and she is one messed up teenager.
Eventually Vivian falls for a human named Aiden and she starts dating him over the objection of her mother and 'The Five'. Apparently Vivian's mother problem is not that she could be having sex but having sex with a human. That's the other thing Vivian is pretty much forced to accept gropings, people staring at her, and does her best to be seen as a highly sexually person at all times. She is sixteen. She has a 17 birthday in this book and the ending pretty much grossed me out when you have her being 'mated' to someone. She's 17 years old.
Besides Vivian dating Aiden we also have a member of 'The Five' and the new leader of the pack wanting Vivian and oh we also have some murders thrown into the plot to solve. I am not all for love triangles in novels let alone rectangles but I think if we had stayed on one plot point for the entire book it would have worked much better.
Also I think if the book had shown Vivian vulnerable or torn about being a werewolf, that would have resonated with me more. Instead we have Vivian being just as cruel as 'The Five' and when her relationship with Aiden goes threat level midnight and she decides stalking and trying to force him to be with her is the way to go.
If Vivian had been named Vic I think that a lot of people would have had a bad taste left in their mouth about her actions. Somehow her being a female maybe made it more palatable to a lot of people.
The main character, Vivian, a sixteen year old werewolf moves with her pack to Maryland after the teenage pack members go and kill a human in order to get another pack member out of trouble for murdering a human. Due to Vivian's intervention the five members of the pack that call themselves 'The Five' were not killed for their actions. However, the pack is burned out of their home and this is why they move to Maryland to heal and re-group.
Vivian is apparently the most attractive female in her entire school and is often perplexed that no one wants to be friends with her. She also has long soliloquies about the moon, being a wolf, etc. The entire book is told from Vivian's point of view and she is one messed up teenager.
Eventually Vivian falls for a human named Aiden and she starts dating him over the objection of her mother and 'The Five'. Apparently Vivian's mother problem is not that she could be having sex but having sex with a human. That's the other thing Vivian is pretty much forced to accept gropings, people staring at her, and does her best to be seen as a highly sexually person at all times. She is sixteen. She has a 17 birthday in this book and the ending pretty much grossed me out when you have her being 'mated' to someone. She's 17 years old.
Besides Vivian dating Aiden we also have a member of 'The Five' and the new leader of the pack wanting Vivian and oh we also have some murders thrown into the plot to solve. I am not all for love triangles in novels let alone rectangles but I think if we had stayed on one plot point for the entire book it would have worked much better.
Also I think if the book had shown Vivian vulnerable or torn about being a werewolf, that would have resonated with me more. Instead we have Vivian being just as cruel as 'The Five' and when her relationship with Aiden goes threat level midnight and she decides stalking and trying to force him to be with her is the way to go.
If Vivian had been named Vic I think that a lot of people would have had a bad taste left in their mouth about her actions. Somehow her being a female maybe made it more palatable to a lot of people.
Flings by Justin Taylor
2.0
I only liked two stories in Justin Taylor's Flings. They were 'Flings' and 'After Ellen'. I liked them the most since characters from the first story do appear in the second one. Everything else in this book was a wash. I don't get the appeal of reading about seriously screwed up people, as depicted in 'A Talking Cure' or a story about whatever the heck it is supposed to be about but I think maybe clementines in 'Adon Olam'. Nothing much made sense and I found this to be a boring collection of stories. Sadly all of the narrators seemed to possess the same voice which is a neat trick since sometimes the narrator was a man or a woman or a teenager, etc.
I swear that for me the only three authors that I have found that can write short stories are Stephen King, Dean Koontz (I really wish he do another Strange Highways book) and Maeve Binchy.
It is an art to be able to tell a story in just a few pages and be able to imbue those characters with personality and depth. It takes talent to make me care about them in just a few short pages and wonder about them after I close the book. This collection did none of those things for me at all.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
I swear that for me the only three authors that I have found that can write short stories are Stephen King, Dean Koontz (I really wish he do another Strange Highways book) and Maeve Binchy.
It is an art to be able to tell a story in just a few pages and be able to imbue those characters with personality and depth. It takes talent to make me care about them in just a few short pages and wonder about them after I close the book. This collection did none of those things for me at all.
Please note that I received this book for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
11/22/63 by Stephen King
3.0
Apologies in advance for this long review.
The main character of this book, Jake Epping, is in his early thirties when this story begins. A teacher in Maine he seems lonely since his divorce from his wife Christy. We then go into a long soliloquy about how the man doesn't cry and that eventually changed in the future. After a request from Al, the owner of a diner that Jake frequents, Jake meets up with Al and is told a fantastical story about Al's ability to walk into the past to 1958. Al appears to not have long to live and asks that Jake go back to the past and stop the Kennedy assassination.
in the end I gave this book 2.5 stars because of the following:
This really didn't feel at all like a Stephen King book to me. He often mixes romance with horror and romance with science fiction or horror with science fiction, etc. but besides the time travel aspect this book read like a romance novel. There is nothing wrong with that since I read a lot of romance novels but it was hard to wrap my mind around a bit. Additionally it felt as if I was reading two versions of a book. The first half of the book felt like old school Stephen King. I could even see a bit of Richard Bachman in his writing. However, the latter part was pretty much all over the place and reminded me a lot of the pacing and characterization problems I had with Under the Dome. When you read Stephen King's Afterword to this book and you find out he started this book in 1972 I got why the book read as if two different Stephen King's wrote this book and didn't quite know what to do to make this thing work. The issue was that in essence two different Kings did write this book. I can see why this book and the theme was important to Stephen King since he was born in 1947 and would have been 16 years old when Kennedy was shot. I am sure as a teenager that did break him and his fellow students. It had to be a scary time in American history. However, the same incident doesn't have the same impact on people born and raised decades later at all.
Jake and Al's acquaintance with one another does not automatically mean that you would then go and do something because the one man asked you to. There is nothing at all in this book that shows me why Al would call upon Jake to do anything. It's not like the book in any of its 849 pages shows that these two men are particularly close. Stephen King had 849 pages to play with and he didn't even show any flashbacks to the two men hanging out and discussing the Kennedy assassination or why Al was so fixated on it.
In my opinion, Jake is not old enough to have the Kennedy assassination even be something that he would be fixated on or would think he should go back in time to try to stop. He is in his early thirties at the beginning of this book. I can see why Al is fixated on the Kennedy assassination since this happened at an age that it would have stuck with him. For someone Jake's age 9/11 would have made more sense for him to go back in time to stop. This could have been fixed by once again showing this discussed by the two men, or that Jake was a history teacher who was fixated on this point in American history, something. I think that King could have fixed this by either following Al in the past and that being part one and then part two being Jake going in the past and deciding to just go back and change the past for the person that he knew from teaching like he originally did.
Jake was boring and there was no depth to him in this book. I can recall the main character from every Stephen King book I read and I kept forgetting his last name and having him use a fake name in the past didn't help. Jake seemed like a non-entity in the present and didn't stand out really. However, once he goes back to the past he is the best teacher that has ever lived and brings out something in his students. If I saw hints of that brilliance when he was in the present it would have made some sense to me.
The secondary characters in the book were more interesting to me than the main character. We got introduced to characters like Sadie, Mimi, Ellen, Coach Borman, and Deke. The real life people in this book were not written very well and felt flat to me. We had Jake speaking to real life people like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jacqueline Kennedy and anytime we had that character talking to these people it just felt really fake.
When we find out who and what the Yellow Card Man is it ended up being a straight up disappointment to me. I honestly expected better from Stephen King.
The book took a really long time to work itself back to the prevention of the Kennedy assassination. When we get there and back to the present day we just get info dumped which is always my favorite thing to wade through as a reader (sarcasm).
I liked the original ending better than the ending that was published in the book. The ending in the book was bittersweet but did kind of make me roll my eyes a bit. A character who was shy and quiet in the books and really didn't come out of their shell until they met Jake all of a sudden has a complete 180 transformation and is running for Mayor and becoming politically active? I don't buy it a bit.
The main character of this book, Jake Epping, is in his early thirties when this story begins. A teacher in Maine he seems lonely since his divorce from his wife Christy. We then go into a long soliloquy about how the man doesn't cry and that eventually changed in the future. After a request from Al, the owner of a diner that Jake frequents, Jake meets up with Al and is told a fantastical story about Al's ability to walk into the past to 1958. Al appears to not have long to live and asks that Jake go back to the past and stop the Kennedy assassination.
in the end I gave this book 2.5 stars because of the following:
This really didn't feel at all like a Stephen King book to me. He often mixes romance with horror and romance with science fiction or horror with science fiction, etc. but besides the time travel aspect this book read like a romance novel. There is nothing wrong with that since I read a lot of romance novels but it was hard to wrap my mind around a bit. Additionally it felt as if I was reading two versions of a book. The first half of the book felt like old school Stephen King. I could even see a bit of Richard Bachman in his writing. However, the latter part was pretty much all over the place and reminded me a lot of the pacing and characterization problems I had with Under the Dome. When you read Stephen King's Afterword to this book and you find out he started this book in 1972 I got why the book read as if two different Stephen King's wrote this book and didn't quite know what to do to make this thing work. The issue was that in essence two different Kings did write this book. I can see why this book and the theme was important to Stephen King since he was born in 1947 and would have been 16 years old when Kennedy was shot. I am sure as a teenager that did break him and his fellow students. It had to be a scary time in American history. However, the same incident doesn't have the same impact on people born and raised decades later at all.
Jake and Al's acquaintance with one another does not automatically mean that you would then go and do something because the one man asked you to. There is nothing at all in this book that shows me why Al would call upon Jake to do anything. It's not like the book in any of its 849 pages shows that these two men are particularly close. Stephen King had 849 pages to play with and he didn't even show any flashbacks to the two men hanging out and discussing the Kennedy assassination or why Al was so fixated on it.
In my opinion, Jake is not old enough to have the Kennedy assassination even be something that he would be fixated on or would think he should go back in time to try to stop. He is in his early thirties at the beginning of this book. I can see why Al is fixated on the Kennedy assassination since this happened at an age that it would have stuck with him. For someone Jake's age 9/11 would have made more sense for him to go back in time to stop. This could have been fixed by once again showing this discussed by the two men, or that Jake was a history teacher who was fixated on this point in American history, something. I think that King could have fixed this by either following Al in the past and that being part one and then part two being Jake going in the past and deciding to just go back and change the past for the person that he knew from teaching like he originally did.
Jake was boring and there was no depth to him in this book. I can recall the main character from every Stephen King book I read and I kept forgetting his last name and having him use a fake name in the past didn't help. Jake seemed like a non-entity in the present and didn't stand out really. However, once he goes back to the past he is the best teacher that has ever lived and brings out something in his students. If I saw hints of that brilliance when he was in the present it would have made some sense to me.
The secondary characters in the book were more interesting to me than the main character. We got introduced to characters like Sadie, Mimi, Ellen, Coach Borman, and Deke. The real life people in this book were not written very well and felt flat to me. We had Jake speaking to real life people like Lee Harvey Oswald and Jacqueline Kennedy and anytime we had that character talking to these people it just felt really fake.
When we find out who and what the Yellow Card Man is it ended up being a straight up disappointment to me. I honestly expected better from Stephen King.
The book took a really long time to work itself back to the prevention of the Kennedy assassination. When we get there and back to the present day we just get info dumped which is always my favorite thing to wade through as a reader (sarcasm).
I liked the original ending better than the ending that was published in the book. The ending in the book was bittersweet but did kind of make me roll my eyes a bit. A character who was shy and quiet in the books and really didn't come out of their shell until they met Jake all of a sudden has a complete 180 transformation and is running for Mayor and becoming politically active? I don't buy it a bit.