Book Reviews Archive - Page 46 of 79

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks: Book Review

Azoth is an 11-year-old boy barely surviving in the streets of Cenaria City. He's part of a brutal gang of children who will do anything in order to survive. But Azoth wants to do more than survive; he wants a way out of the Warrens and he sees an apprenticeship with master assassin Durzo Blint as his ticket. Now if he can just find Durzo and persuade him of the same thing... My sister shoved this book into my hands and said, "Read this. Now. It will be your next book crack fix." That might have set my hopes a little too high, but it was still a great read. The beginning was a bit startling. Fairly or not, I think of my baby sister (who is 30, by the way) as being more innocent than I am. So when the book is suddenly talking about rape as a means of subduing the boys in the gang, I was appalled. It wasn't graphic, but there was no question what was going on. I started texting her about it. She didn't remember it at all. "Oh, maybe that's why The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo didn't bother me." Blink. Blink. Okay.... But the author addresses this in his interview at the end. He says, "Hope isn't vibrant unless it has to be chosen over despair. Redemption is cheap unless there's a suffocating darkness in which even a hero is tempted to hide....without that, light and peace are meaningless, worthless, boring." OK. I get it. I actually make this same argument to my husband whenever he asks why I read "stuff like that." Granted, what I normally read doesn't get this dark, but he has to listen to me working out what's going on within the darker parts of my books. He…

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey: Book Review

4 Stars. This was not what I expected, but I'm not complaining. I expected more of a science-fictiony werewolf story and that's not really what this is. The nonhuman? superhuman? other-than-human? side of Loup definitely defines a large part of her life, but it's not really what drives [...]

Still Alice by Lisa Genova: Book Review

Dr. Alice Howland teaches psychology at Harvard. A brilliant researcher and professor, she has a field-changing body of work behind her and looks forward to many years of pursuing her passion. Then she starts noticing serious lapses in her memory. She finally gets scared when she goes out for a run and gets lost a few blocks from her home, in an area that she has lived in for decades. She goes to the doctor, and is eventually diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease at fifty years of age. I've heard a lot of people talk about how much they loved this book. I decided very early on that it was not for me and forgot about it. Then my book club decided to read it. I have dreaded it. (Sorry, Sonya, but it's true.) I even voted to read it and I still dreaded it. Reading about a brilliant woman losing herself to Alzheimer's? Way too serious and heart-breaking for me. Just so you know where I'm coming from, no one in my family has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I've never had to watch this happen to someone I love. But, working in healthcare for as long as I have, I've seen what it does. It scares the pants off of me. I've never worked anywhere that leaves me caring for the same patient for any amount of time, so I haven't seen the progression in one person. But I've seen the shells that this disease leaves behind. I vividly remember one 46-year-old patient I had with early-onset Alzheimer's. I literally watched that man die of a heart attack. And that seemed the better alternative to what I had seen before he went bad. That same empty shell, who seemed incapable of doing much more than rattling his bed rails.…

The Arabian Nights: Book Review

For those 2 people who don't know, The Arabian Nights is sort of a collection of short stories told in Arabia (which seems to include India and parts of China) waaaaaay back in the day. The framework of the story is about a sultan who caught his wife cheating on him. After he has her killed, he decides to take out his revenge on the entire sex, so he marries a different wife every day and has her killed the next morning. Scheherazade is the Grand Vizier's beautiful, intelligent daughter. She realizes that this can't go on, so she comes up with a plan. She asks to be the next wife of the sultan, and she starts telling him a story on their wedding night. But buried within that story is another story. The sultan is so intrigued by the story that he decides to let her live so he can find out how the story ends. She keeps stringing him along like this, theoretically for 1000 nights, until he relents and gives her a full pardon and takes her for his real wife. But that's only a very small part of the book. The biggest part of the book is the stories Scheherazade tells the sultan. Included are Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and others that we've probably all heard in one form or another. I just picked this up because I wanted to see what it was all about. This version was very readable. It was interesting to see a slice of Arabian life. I would catch myself thinking, "They treat women so badly over there" and then I would remember that when these stories were first told, women were treated badly pretty much everywhere. But then there would be some stories where the women had surprising freedom and…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: Book Review

HeLa cells (named after the woman they came from, Henrietta Lacks) have been used for about 60 years by scientists all over the world for all kinds of cellular research. Yet very few scientists could tell you the real name of the woman the cells came from, much less anything about her. Yet somehow, Rebecca Skloot stumbled onto the cells in a high school biology class. The teacher even got Henrietta's name right. The lesson spawned a years-long fascination with HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks herself, her family, and the ethical questions that arise from the story. This book is the product of that research. I would honestly never have picked this book up on my own, but I've heard so many good things about the audio version that I decided to give it a try. One can't listen to fluff alone! All the praise is well-deserved. There is so much to chew over here. Parts were pretty upsetting, for a lot of different reasons. Henrietta's children had a very hard life after she passed away, and as I told my husband just a bit about it, he cut me off and said, "Why do you always read books like that? Doesn't it depress you?" Yes, it does, but it also reminds me how good I have it in comparison. We all need a little attitude adjustment occasionally, and difficult books like this serve that purpose for me. Aside from the family's personal hardships, it was hard to hear about Henrietta's death. It was not by any means an easy one. And then, less personal but more relevant to most of us, there were the ethical questions raised by Henrietta's story. I know times have changed, but I was appalled by the complete disregard for the family. Privacy was barely a…

The Once and Future King by T.H. White: Book Review

This is the story of King Arthur, Guenever and Lancelot. I think we all know how that goes. I've been reading this off and on for the past six months. I would start to read it, lose interest, and pick up something more interesting. I finally decided that it was time to either give up on it or finish it because I was tired of it taking up space in my nightstand. That was a good place for it because I couldn't read more than a chapter or two without falling asleep. That's not like me at all. The first part of the book is like the Disney movie, The Sword in the Stone. Should be pretty cool, right? I liked that movie. But this is terrible. The basic plot is the same, but the writing is pretty dense and dry. The author keeps referring to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. I don't know if The Once and Future King is supposed to be a "good parts" translation of the first book, but I sort of got the feeling that's how it worked. Either way, it did feel like a long (677 pages in my edition, to be exact) book report. Can't you remember those book reports you wrote when you were a kid? "This happened, then this happened, then something else happened, The End." That's how this felt. The characters never felt real, the place never felt real, and I never really cared about any of it. Probably the best parts of the book didn't even involve the "real" story at all. T. H. White would occasionally go off on tangents about how people and politics really haven't changed so we shouldn't think that we're any better than what we may be tempted to look on as the…

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor: Book Review

Karou is a blue-haired high school art student, living a double life in Prague. By day she deals with her jerk of an ex-boyfriend and hangs out with her best friend Zuzana. By evening, or whenever duty calls, she does odd jobs for her secret family, a group that she calls the Chimera. They seem to exist only in their own little antechamber, accessed from portals all over our world, but not a part of it. They are all part beast and part human. Brimstone is her father figure. Karou doesn't know how she came to be with the Chimera and she doesn't remember any other family. Brimstone incessantly collects teeth from around the world. He trades wishes big and small for them. He often sends Karou out to collect for him. It's not an entirely easy job, so she has learned to watch her own back. And then one day, the angels come. What a crap ending! I have learned to hate cliffhangers! Argh! Seriously, if you're going to write a story for me, please make it a story, not just a fragment! The fact that I care should tell you that I really liked this otherwise. Hush, Hush left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had pretty much sworn off angel books. Seriously. But then one day I was browsing my library's digital catalog looking for my next audio book, and this gorgeous cover caught my eye. I'd heard good things about it in the book blog world. I went tearing over to GoodReads to see what my friends thought. Four- and five stars almost across the board! Okay, you guys haven't steered me wrong before, so I decided to break the angel ban and give this a try. I'm so glad I did! I…

Four to Score by Janet Evanovich: Book Review

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has been given the task of bringing in Maxine Nowicki. It should be a straightforward job. Maxine has a clean record and she only "stole" her boyfriend's car. But Maxine proves strangely elusive. Stephanie's job gets harder when Joyce Barnhardt, a new bounty hunter, starts tracking Maxine as well. Stephanie and Joyce have been rivals before, when Joyce was banging Stephanie's husband. Stephanie is determined that she's not going to lose this time. With the help of Lula the giant ex-prostitute; Sally the drag queen; Morelli, everyone's favorite Italian cop; and Ranger, everyone's favorite Cuban bounty hunter extraordinaire, Stephanie just might be able to get her woman. I always remember that I love this series, but somehow in between books, I forget exactly how much I love them. It doesn't take me long to remember. This is how this one played out. My husband was cooking something for me (he's great that way), and I cracked this book open just to take a quick glance. And I started reading. And grinning. On the first page. My husband said my name (I think only once, but I can't be sure), and when I looked up at him, he asked, "Wow, what is that grin all about?" Me: "I forgot how much I love Stephanie Plum!" and with a giggle and a little wiggle of glee, I dove back into the book, at least until my grilled cheese was ready. I am a giggler, but I'm not a wiggler. Stephanie brings it out in me. Or should I say Morelli? *winkwinknudgenudge* My giggles and wiggles continued throughout the book. I've enjoyed the entire series so far, but I did like this one a little more than Three to Get Deadly. Grandma Mazur doesn't have as large a role…

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger: Book Review

Monte Becket is a postman in Minnesota in 1915. In his spare time, he wrote a swash-buckling adventure that somehow becomes something of a bestseller. No one is more surprised than Monte. As these things do, the success goes to Monte’s head and he quits his day job to become a fulltime author. And he hits a wall. There’s nothing there. He has written all the stories he has in him in this one story. We first encounter Monte when he has been fighting this writer’s block for about five years. He is sitting at his window one day, trying to meet his daily quota of 1000 words, when he glimpses a boatman row into view through the fog. The boatman is rowing standing up and facing forward as he laughs to himself like he has a delightful little secret. Who could resist that particular allure? Monte runs outside and invites the boatman in for coffee. The man just keeps rowing and laughing, but responds, “Some other time.” Eventually, Monte and his wife and young son have the opportunity to become friends with the boatman, whose name is Glendon Hale. As they become closer to Glen, they feel certain that the man has a past he is hiding. One day, Glen confesses to Monte that he was married to a young Mexican girl a long time ago. He left her for reasons of his own, but now he feels like he should find Blue, as he affectionately calls her, and apologize for leaving her the way that he did. He invites Monte to accompany him on his search. Upon his wife’s urging, Monte eventually agrees to go with Glen, and their adventure begins. Okay, let’s just get it out there. This is not Peace Like a River. It’s just not.…

When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde: Book Review

Nathan is in the woods early one October morning, heading out with his faithful dog to go duck hunting. Sadie bounds away from him and starts scratching at the leaves on the forest floor. Sadie is a good dog and this is totally unlike her, so Nathan goes to check out what she's found. It's a newborn, obviously abandoned to die in the woods. Nathan realizes the infant is actually still alive and rushes him to the hospital. He feels compelled to adopt the child, but a grandmother comes forward to take him in instead. Fifteen years later, Nat (named for the man who found him) has become more trouble than his grandmother can handle. He just seems angry at the world. Nathan steps in to care for the teen, who is puzzled by this stranger who does so much for him. I find Catherine Ryan Hyde's books refreshing in that they are ultimately about hope and the innate goodness we humans do have. There is some darkness in the story, but I love that she chooses to portray people at their best. And she does this without getting all sappy. I love me some hope; I gag over sugary sweetness. Nat is a little a lot difficult to like for the most part. He is so angry and defensive. He has reason to be. Just look at his entrance to the world. But he just keeps lashing out, over and over again. Luckily, he does have a softer side, and it shows up just often enough that I didn't wash my hands of him. He's not someone who learns his lessons easily. He does everything the hardest way possible, making his own life more difficult than it has to be. I loved Nathan. He's quiet and reserved and probably…