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The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: Book Review

I have my review of World Without End by Ken Follett written and ready to post. I refer so much to The Pillars of the Earth that I should probably post that review first. Here it is. To be very simplistic, The Pillars of the Earth is about building a cathedral in the twelfth century in England. But to say that would be doing this book a huge disservice. The building of the cathedral serves as a cornerstone to explore the lives of an intriguing cast of characters and how life was lived at that point in history. I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this. I just had a vague idea that it was about building a cathedral, and let's face it: to a dedicated reader of fiction that sounds pretty dry and boring. But I kept hearing how good it was from people whose opinions I respect, so I decided to give it a shot. I was mostly pleasantly surprised. I'll get to the "mostly" bit in a minute. What made the book for me was the characters. Even the protagonists had flaws that were believable. They persevered despite their flaws and in some cases even tried to overcome them. But each character revealed something of twelfth century life. There was the monk, the young woman, the builder, the earl, and minor roles for figures from history that I've even heard of: think Thomas a Becket and King Henry II. They all added something to the story, and they each felt like a real person. Now for what kept me from giving this five stars. The bad guy was way too bad for my taste. The fact that I despised this character should probably mean that I give the author points, but I got so disgusted…

Soulless by Gail Carriger: Book Review

I have waited entirely too long to write this review and gotten too deeply involved in Ken Follett's World Without End, so this review is going to suck a little. Which is a pity because I had thought of all kinds of witty things I was going to write and now I've lost them. Miss Alexia Tarabotti is soulless. When she touches supernatural beings, she neutralizes their abilities and they become human for a moment. That could be useful to the Bureau of Unnatural Registry if she weren't a lady of good breeding. She refuses to be treated as a wilting lily and goes about, wielding her tricked-out parasol and assisting in any way she can, as new vampires who appear to be entirely clueless about supernatural laws go about wreaking havoc on society. I loved the chemistry between Alexia and Lord Maccon from the moment he threatens to bring her out of a faint with something stronger than smelling salts. He's an Alpha werewolf, but Alexia has enough alpha personality to hold her own against him. Their subtle yet pointed verbal sparring made this book for me. And can you say steamy? It wasn't too graphic, but oh my gosh. *Fanning* Alexia herself was a fantastic character. At twenty-six, she's firmly on the shelf in Victorian society, but she's okay with that. Better to be on the shelf than married to some half-wit who can't keep up with her own intellect and curiosity. She gets enough of that from her family. They don't know she's soulless and put all of her quirks down to the fact that her father was Italian. But they've left her just a little insecure about her appearance and desirability. Just enough to make her feel real. And Lord Maccon. Yum. That's all there is…

Venom by Joan Brady: Book Review

This book is so complicated, I don't even know where to start with a synopsis. David Marion is an ex-con who receives advance notice of a hit on his life. He escapes and learns that a mega-corporation, UCAI, was behind it. At the same time, Dr. Helen Freyl, who has a complicated past with David, learns that UCAI is trying to get their hands on a patent she holds on some honeybee venom and they'll stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Let me say first of all that I received an ARC of this book from the publisher for review. This is a sequel to Bleedout, which I haven't read, but there was a pretty good explanation of what had happened previously, so I don't think I necessarily needed to read these in order. Helen was my biggest problem. I could not bring myself to like her at all. She was a spoiled rich girl who treated the whole thing like a game until she realized that her own life might be at stake. I can't remember how many others had died at that point, but it was enough for me to think that this was an amazingly self-absorbed woman. She had to be at least firmly into her twenties to have her doctorate, but she tended to act more like a teenager. "Oh, let me smoke in this guy's car just to see if he'll say anything." "Oh, let me order the crazy-expensive caviar at this restaurant just to see if he'll say anything." She just liked to push her boundaries and see what she could get away with. She was a tiger while she was pushing away at someone, but the moment that someone pushed back, she was a thoughtless mess of need. I guess…

Truly, Madly by Heather Webber: Book Review

Lucy Valentine has lost the family ability to match people based on their auras, and can now only find lost objects. After some negative publicity, Lucy finds herself in charge of the family matchmaking business for a few weeks. Not realizing what she's getting herself into, she offers to try to find a new client's lost love, then asks the PI in the upstairs office to help her out. Sparks fly as soon as she walks in the door. I'll get my complaints out of the way first. Some of the situations Lucy finds herself in felt very contrived. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll leave it at that. I also saw a lot of the small surprises coming, and I definitely knew what the big surprise/solution at the end was going to be. Overall though, I had a lot of fun with this. It's been a while since I've read a chick lit kind of mystery, and I realized that I've missed it. Lucy was a lot of fun, as was her family, but I have to say that I'm glad Dovie isn't my grandmother. I would die of embarrassment! Sean was hot in all the right ways, but in a personal preference, I wish he wasn't a retired firefighter. I love a man in a uniform, but that doesn't extend to firefighters. Lots of stories there. The chemistry between Lucy and Sean was maybe a little too instant, but that was part of the fun. How many times have I used the word fun in this review? Too many! But that's the best way to describe this book, and I recommend it for a nice little break between heavier reads. I'll be looking for the next book in the series! Total disclosure: My aunt won…

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson: Book Review

Fisherman and WWII veteran Carl Meine is found dead and tangled up in his fishing net one morning. At first glance it appears to be an accident, but the sheriff looks a little closer and starts to wonder. He soon arrests another fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, for murder. Against the backdrop of the murder trial, Guterson explores the roots of the conflict that led to the accusation and the lives of the witnesses in a series of flashbacks. Gorgeous. That's really the best word to describe this book. It's just gorgeous. I normally tear through books pretty quickly, eager to know what happened, but this time I found myself reading slowly, savoring each elegant yet sparse turn of phrase. I still wanted to know what happened, but that was secondary to the beauty of the language. Within this story, San Piedro Island becomes almost as much a character as anyone. The isolation, beauty and harshness of island life has shaped the islanders to become a breed apart. They are often silent, self-reliant, and careful in their interactions with each other. It's hard to avoid someone who becomes an enemy when you both live on an island. Set in 1954, the islanders are still feeling the effects of WWII. A lot of the men are veterans and the Japanese residents were shipped off to an internment camp. Feelings between the communities can occasionally flare up, even nine years after the war's end. The flashbacks to the war and the internment camp were mostly what interested me. I don't know why I love WWII novels, but I do. I was surprised to realize that I had one in my hands with Snow Falling on Cedars. One of the main characters, Ishmael, is a WWII vet who lost his left arm in the war.…

Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani: Book Review

Valentine Roncalli is turning 34 years old, she lives and works with her grandmother, and she's single. She's pretty happy though, until the day her grandmother tells her that the family's custom shoe shop is in financial trouble. Now she finds herself trying to find a way to save the business she loves as she juggles a budding relationship with a hot new restaurateur. I think my expectations for this were skewed by the first few sentences of the book. It begins, "I'm not the pretty sister. I'm not the smart sister either. I am the funny one. I've been called that for so long, for so many years, in fact, that all of my life I thought it was one word: Funnyone." So I thought I was in for a funny book. It wasn't. Valentine stays entirely too stressed out to really be funny. Not that I blame her--she has a lot on her plate. It just wasn't what I expected from the setup. Also, I should probably be ashamed to say this, but I don't really care about shoes. I know, I know! But that's me. So all the descriptions of the cute shoes with the perfect fabrics and darling embellishments were lost on me. The food sounded divine, and I loved the part when Valentine and Gram take off for Italy. I'm ready to go back! They spend time in Tuscany and Capri, and the author's descriptions of both were beautiful. I didn't get to go to Capri when I visited Italy, but I did want to. Now I'm thinking I need to convince my husband that we should go back and spend time south of Rome. I don't think he would need much convincing! I may not be girly about the shoes, but I am loving…

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson: Book Review

The narrator of The Gargoyle (I'm pretty sure we never learn his name) begins his story with a horrific car crash that leaves him burned beyond recognition. He hasn't lived the best life: he's selfish, addicted to drugs, and a porn star. His beautiful, sexy "friends" take one look at him after the accident and never come back. But one day a woman, Marianne Engel, shows up in his room. He's never met her before, but she knows things about him that he's never told anyone, and she claims that theirs is a love going back seven hundred years. I'm not entirely sure what I just read. This was a group read this month for one of my groups on GoodReads. I'm dying to go over there and see what others have to say, but I try very hard to write my reviews before reading other reviews or discussions. I want my thoughts to be my own, and I'm afraid that sneaking a peek somewhere else will change my own honest feelings. For what it's worth, here they are. I really, really, really liked this, but there was a lot going on and there's still a lot left for me to think about. Don't you hate it when you know your review is never going to convey everything that you're thinking and feeling? That's what's going on here. Marianne is a character that I won't forget anytime soon. She's a gifted carver of gargoyles, a gifted linguist, a gifted storyteller, and a woman with infinite love to give away. She teaches the cynical narrator about the true meaning of love through a series of stories about her friends, and a long narrative about the first time they met and loved. He sees what she means when she lives what she…

Lamb by Christopher Moore: Book Review

There are roughly 30 years of Jesus's life that are unaccounted for. Oh, there's the one story about him teaching in the temple when he was 12, but other than that, he was born and then he started his ministry around the age of 30. Christopher Moore has fun imagining what exactly Jesus--or Joshua, as Moore chooses to use the Hebrew name--might have gotten up to in the in-between years. I know what I'm thinking but I'm having trouble finding the right words. I think if you're going to be offended by this book, the title will turn you off right away. And that's obviously okay. But there might be a few people out there like me, who are thinking, "I'm pretty open-minded. I think I can handle it. But I do have lines that I don't want to have crossed, and Moore could cross them easily." I was okay with what he wrote here. Joshua is still absolutely the Son of God, without sin, sent to save mankind from our sins. That is never questioned. If it had been, I would have had to put the book down. But he does have fun, love, and learn from people from many countries and religions. That's the best I can do as far as the is-it-offensive-to-Christians thing. On to the good parts! I loved Biff! I wanted to reach into the pages and smack him upside the head a few times, but usually when that happened another character stepped in and smacked him for me. He was a horny, cheerful smartass who could teach dogs a thing or two about loyalty. He spends his entire life following Joshua around and trying to make sure that he stays out of trouble. He can always get Joshua laughing when he falls into a…

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory: Book Review

The Boleyn Inheritance is the story of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife; Jane Boleyn, her lady-in-waiting and Anne Boleyn's former sister-in-law; and Katherine Howard, a beautiful young maid-in-waiting. By now, Henry is a hugely fat, sick, stinking, paranoid tyrant. These three women try their best to keep him happy and stay safe. I went into this knowing only a tiny bit of these ladies' stories. Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom, is set around this time and the tempestuous life at court was discussed a little bit. Even knowing how this turned out generally, I found myself getting nervous along with the women as Henry's moods turned for the worse. I was sitting there thinking, "Okay, I know this happened. Right? So it's okay. But what if I'm wrong? I could be wrong. I'm so glad I didn't live in this time." And it was an emotional roller coaster all the way through. I was cautiously optimistic when Henry was happy. I got nervous when he got sick or grumpy. When he was bed-ridden or in a foul mood, I would have bitten my nails with anxiety if I were a nail biter. Aside from that, the women came to life for me in these pages. Little Kitty especially. She reminded me of Eartha Kitt singing "Santa Baby." "Slip a sable under the tree--for me. I've been an awful good girl." That was pretty little Kitty. Another character compared her to a magpie, collecting shiny things. That fit too. She was vain and couldn't think of anyone or anything outside herself and her wants, but I couldn't help but like her. There was no true malice in her. Every one of her chapters started off with, "Let me see, what do I have?" and then she enumerated her possessions. It…

Under the Dome by Stephen King: Book Review

A giant dome suddenly appears over the town of Chester's Mill, Maine one beautiful October day, and the townspeople are left to their own devices. That's a lame synopsis, but I don't want to give anything more away. What would you do if you were cut off from the rest of the world? Perhaps more importantly--what would your neighbors do? Would everyone pitch in together to get through the crisis the best way they could? Would everything dissolve into complete anarchy? What would you do? As I read this, I kept mentally comparing it to Lord of the Flies, which I hated. I hated almost everything I had to read for class though, so I don't know what that says. Anyway, as I recall, in Lord of the Flies, the boys run wild and only bad things happen and I'm supposed to buy that that's the way people in general would act if all authority and rules disappeared. I can't buy it. I just can't. Call me a deluded optimist if you want. Oh, I'll give you that some people will get up to nasty things. But there will always be people who do the best they can, for themselves and their neighbors. And that's what Stephen King got right here. Sure, it is what it is and a lot of terrible things happen. But there is also a core group of good people. I loved them and I loved King for creating them. There was Barbie (a man), who might have been a little too good to be believable, but I still liked him. There was Julia, who never backed down. There was Piper, struggling with her faith, but still trying to minister to people's emotional needs. There was Andrea. I respected the hell out of that woman. And…