Book Reviews Archive - Page 33 of 79

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman: Book Review

Seraphina is working at the royal court when a prince is murdered. Even though her country has been at peace with the dragons for decades, many people believe a dragon killed the prince. Tensions start rising in the city just as the dragon ruler is due for a state visit to celebrate the signing of the peace treaty. Seraphina starts investigating what happened to the prince and following up on rumors of a rogue dragon in the countryside. But can she hide her own secrets while ferreting out someone else's? I honestly hadn't heard of this until my husband decided to buy it for me for my birthday last year. He's a brave man; choosing books that I haven't asked for can go terribly wrong but he picked a winner! I really liked Seraphina. She's trying so hard to do the right thing for everyone and the secrets that she's keeping are some big ones. She feels bad for lying all the time but she doesn't see any way around it. In her shoes, I wouldn't either. She's a smart girl though and she's much braver than she gives herself credit for. She might not decide to be brave on her own behalf but she's a lion when it comes to looking out for the underdog. I love that about her. Of course there's a love interest. I'll keep his name to myself. But I loved him too. He's also brave and curious and trying to do the right thing. He has some major twists and turns to deal with and I found his reactions to be pitch perfect. Not immediately accepting but not close-minded either. I like him a lot. I did not see the ending coming at all! I'm so happy nowadays when I can say that! There's…

Sweet Nothings by Janis Thomas: Book Review

Ruby McMillan's husband announces out of the blue that he's leaving one morning. She has her initial meltdown, of course, but then she starts getting on with her life. Walter has left their finances in a shambles and Ruby has to scramble to hold everything together as he sails off into the sunset with his new lover. I had a blast reading this book. Even as I knew I should be feeling bad for Ruby, I would have to laugh as her neighbors kept her apprised of Walter's latest exploits via his Facebook poetry. Oh, it was bad. I wanted to slap his face just for the poetry! She tries her best, finds her new groove as a single woman, and has some encounters with some seriously steamy men. What's not to love? While I felt that Ruby moved on awfully fast, the author explains that by saying that Rational Ruby rationally chose Walter as her husband; she was never head-over-heels for him. It was still a little hard to buy. That aside, I enjoyed watching Ruby expand her limits and learn to believe in love. The one thing I felt was really missing from the book was a recipe section. Ruby is a fabulous baker and it's just not fair to describe all her mouth-watering creations without giving me a chance to try them for myself! If you're looking for a bit of escapism, Ruby and her kids and friends definitely fit the bill. Give this a try when you need a pick-me-up. Thanks to the publicist for sending me a copy for review. Read an excerpt. Find author Janis Thomas on her website, her blog, and Twitter. Buy Sweet Nothings at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located…

The Trivia Lover’s Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found by Gary Fuller: Book Review

Professor Gary Fuller sets out to fill in the gaps in your geography knowledge. I would guess that I know a little more geography than the average American but I'll be the first to admit that I'm still woefully lacking. I downloaded this book on a nook Free Friday (I believe), thinking that I might learn a thing or two. I sure did! I wish more of it had stuck with me, but I now know that camels originated in North America, the first country you come to if you go directly south of Detroit is Canada (I'm ashamed that I didn't know that one) and if you go directly south of Chicago, you'll run into the Pacific ocean, not South America (again, I'm ashamed that I didn't know that). There were lots more facts packed into this little book, all presented in a fun, entertaining way. I actually had a hard time putting the book down! The format of the book worked really well for me. The chapters were short and began with a series of questions. That's the one thing I didn't like. By the time I got to the answer, I'd forgotten what the question was and there often wasn't much of a contextual clue. I would have had an easier time with a physical copy, just marking the question page, but I wasn't willing to go clicking back through the pages on my nook. Trivia lovers should really enjoy this book, and I highly recommend it! Read an excerpt. Buy The Trivia Lover's Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission…

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak: Book Review

Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver with no prospects. He's the very picture of your average young man. But someone has chosen him to carry out some tasks that require him to be anything but average. I was incredibly nervous about reading this book after reading The Book Thief. That book immediately became my favorite. I knew there was no way this one could live up to it. But after starting Messenger, I realized that the books are so very different that there was no way and no need to compare them. Basically, Zusak is telling us that we can all make a difference in other peoples' lives. If ordinary Ed Kennedy can do it, so can we. And he makes it clear that it doesn't really take a lot of effort to do so. Granted, Ed gets some huge assignments, but mostly they boiled down to taking the time to notice others and having the courage and the compassion to act on the needs he sees. "It's not a big thing, but I guess it's true--big things are often just small things that are noticed." While not as consistently beautiful as The Book Thief, (sorry, I can't help it), there were moments of aching clarity and beauty in here. Zusak seems to be reminding us to look for the beauty in small, everyday moments. "Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are." And that brings us to my biggest complaint. The short, one-sentence paragraphs drove me up the wall. There were passages like the one above every page or two, if not more often. I eventually overlooked it and saw it as Ed's style, but at the beginning, it was killing me. Overall, this was a quick read with…

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi: Book Review

Synopsis from GoodReads: Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Undercover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko... Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, crèche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. I didn't love this one. I'm not really a fan of dystopian novels in general so that could be the problem. Mostly though, I didn't like anybody. There was one guy that I kind of liked, really wanted to like, but his role turns out to be fairly small. The other characters were just jerks. And since everybody was a jerk, I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be rooting for. I don't think there was really a good guy. There was just bad and less-bad. Maybe this world felt a little too...possible. It's set in a future where the big food companies basically control everything. We think the guys with the money control the…

The Commitment by Dan Savage: Book Review

As the "gay marriage debate" was heating up back in oh, 2005, Dan Savage and his boyfriend (they dislike the word partner) were in the middle of their own debate. Should they or shouldn't they? They'd been together ten years, they'd adopted a son together, neither had any intention of leaving the relationship, they fully believed that gays and lesbians should have the right to get married, they just weren't sure that marriage was for them. They talk it over, going back and forth, receiving lots of input in favor of marriage from Dan's mom, and against marriage from their 5-year-old son. Honestly, I read this for a book challenge I'm trying to complete before the end of the year. I think I saw Dan Savage once on Real Time with Bill Maher but other than that he's not on my radar. I keep my political opinions to myself. Has anyone ever changed the mind of someone else in a political argument? I think not. So let's just say that I'm a happily-married heterosexual female who thinks that gay people should be allowed to get married. And that's all I'll say about that. Savage's memoir is, for the most part, hilarious, brutally honest, and straight to the point. He points out the fallacies in the tired old arguments trotted out against gay marriage, takes some potshots at its most vocal opponents, and chronicles his own personal debate within the debate. I laughed most of the way through it. It did irritate me that Savage has no compunction about casting people around him in broad stereotypes, but at least he admits that he's a close-minded liberal (or something like that anyway). Apparently the entire population of South Dakota is fat, wants to kick his butt simply because he's gay, and doesn't…

Naked in Death by J. D. Robb: Book Review

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is assigned to lead a high-profile murder investigation into the death of a Senator's granddaughter. But the granddaughter was a "licensed companion," i.e. prostitute, and she was murdered in a pretty graphic way. Working mostly alone, Dallas must find the murderer before he kills again. I had such a love/hate relationship with this book at times. Mostly, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. But then Roarke, the drop-dead gorgeous bazillionaire and number 1 suspect (with an Irish accent, no less!), would do something that was supposed to be all hot and dominating, I assume, and irritate the absolute hell out of me. As a completely made-up example, let me offer this: "No, I'm not trying to seduce you right now, Lieutenant. When I do decide to seduce you, I won't be trying, I'll be doing it. And you'll like it more than you've ever liked anything in your life." Again, that is completely my own fabrication but it is true to how I perceived Roarke. I was hoping Eve would kick him in the balls a few times, just to bring his ego down to size. Either he got better as the book progressed or I resigned myself to him, but either way it didn't bother me as much by the end. I actually liked him a lot when he gave all that crap a rest. Roarke's ego aside, I have to admit that I couldn't wait to get in my car and continue listening to this book. I don't really read romance novels, I guess because I assume it's all "heaving bosoms," etc. and my sense of humor would get in the way of all that mess. So I started this with some trepidation. I was hooked in the first half-hour. I really…

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery: Book Review

I hesitated over this book for a long time. I'd somewhere picked up the idea that it involves a lot of Philosophy, which I read as Big, Boring Thoughts That Have No Practical Application to Anyone's Life. Is that bad? Probably. But I came across it in Will Schwalbe's memoir, The End of Your Life Book Club and it piqued my...

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie: Book Review

Two young men, children of parents that the Communist government in China deems enemies of the state, are basically exiled to a remote mountain for "re-education." Their parents' "crimes" don't even warrant the word; they're basically just too educated for the government's comfort. The teens find a harsh life waiting for them on the mountain. They must plow fields and dig in mines and haul human waste around. If the local party leader is upset with them, he makes their lives even more miserable. They eventually meet a local tailor's daughter. The little seamstress, as she's known, is the most beautiful girl on the mountain. One of the teens of course tries to win her heart. He takes a novel approach and starts telling her stories out of Western literature, in an effort to make her better company for himself. And so time passes as the boys wait to see if their period of "re-education" will ever end. This is so hard for me to review! I had some issues with the boys throughout. Luo, the one who tries to win the girl, is basically a nice guy but--c'mon. He's trying to "improve" the little seamstress? So she'll be a better girlfriend? Who does he think he is? I was listening to this so maybe I misunderstood something, but I really don't think so. But then--I got to the ending. And I loved it. And that's all I can say. I also loved B. D. Wong's narration. He has a nice voice and a nice delivery. If my library has any more audio books that he's narrated, I'll gladly give them a try. I enjoyed the imagery in the book as well. It was very short, maybe 4 hours, and enough happened to keep my attention, but at the same…

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins: Book Review

Walter Hartright finds a woman, all in white, wandering down the road to London in the middle of the night. As they talk and walk, she mentions that her happiest times were spent at Limmeridge House as a child. By coincidence, Walter is leaving to become a drawing teacher at this house the very next day. In talking this over, it's revealed that the woman in white has been badly mistreated and there are many more secrets surrounding her. I find it hard to judge a book by how it would have been received in its time. I can only judge by my modern-day standards. That being said, I was disappointed in this book. I really expected more. I found the mystery to be mostly predictable. There were a few twists and turns that honestly surprised me, but I saw the big picture from pretty far out. I know this book was supposed to be one of the first mystery novels and should receive a lot of respect for that. But my problem is that I found a lot of the elements to have become cliches. I realize that this isn't being fair to this particular book, but there you go. It hasn't weathered that well for me, personally. The way that Collins wrote about women drove me crazy. He has one very strong, very intelligent female character who is always spouting off about how "we women can't be quiet" and stuff like that. Having a woman say it doesn't make it okay. I know this might have been pretty standard fare for the time period, but I didn't care for it. It doesn't help me feel any better when we realize that the smart woman is ugly and mostly overlooked as a romantic prospect, while her boring, weak but…