Book Review - Mr. And Miss. Anonymous

Mr. and Miss Anonymous by Fern Michaels
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay, so I didn't love this book. It went just a tiny bit too far with a little weirdness I couldn't reconcile.

Mr. and Miss. Anonymous is the tale of two donors - college students who make those extra few bucks they need to pay tuition by donating sperm and eggs to a fertility clinic near the Berkley campus. They both eschew the offered counseling, and find themselves suffering from terrible regrets twenty years later, when they run into one another at an airport while heading back to Berkley for a fundraising event. Their paths had only crossed briefly when they were students, but they never forgot one another. While in the airport, footage of a school shooting comes on the news and a child that looks remarkably like the gentleman donor is billed as an escapee of the melee.

The two set off to find out where there donations wound up, breaking all kinds of laws along the way, and track down the kid who looked so familiar on TV. Along the way they uncover a huge plethora of conspiracies, corrupt government officials, hitmen, scary old men, and ghosts.

Yeah, it was the ghosts, of all things, that bothered me. I couldn't figure out why they had to muddy the waters of my nice, neat little mystery novel.

It was an okay read, but nothing spectacular, and left me feeling a bit unsettled.

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Book Review - Identity Theft and Other Stories

Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful surprise this book was.

I grabbed it at the library, on impulse. I didn't even read the blurb before grabbing it, and I was surprised to find that it was sci-fi (I think I expected some kind of mystery/thriller from the title!).

Not only sci-fi, but sci-fi with a noir detective. It would be an understatement to say that my last foray into fiction with both of those elements did not go well. (A vast, vast understatement of epic proportions. So much so that I would have thrown this book aside if it hadn't been dark, and if I hadn't already been tucked into bed and wary of waking a snoring husband).

Boy am I glad I gave this book a chance. It was awesome! Funny, smart, witty in all the right ways, full of action, and kept my interest the whole way through. Yep, I loved it. Go figure.

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Book Review - I've Got Your Number

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Why, hello Flavia!??

Okay, confession time here - this was an audiobook read for me. And the voice actor is the same person who narrates the Flavia De Luce series - all of which I've also listened to on audiobook. As a result, I found myself often thinking "how did Flavia grow up and get engaged and where are her sisters and-" well you get the picture. This may or may not have coloured my impressions of the book. I can't really tell.

While this was a fun, chicklit romp of a novel, I did find it to stretch it's credibility at points with me. I can understand exactly how a romance can develop, in this digital age of ours, through emails and texts. I can sort of understand how you might find a discarded cell and take control of it, at least in an emergency and at least for a few hours. What I can't understand is why the owner of that phone, when they discovered you had it, wouldn't cut off service to it. I also can't understand some of the developments later on in this book that just made me blink and go "Whaaa?"

I like Kinsella's books in general,and there are many that I consider solid, fun, five star reads. This was not one of them. There were a few plot inconsistencies, some character development that seemed totally off-base, a few bizarre twists that made me roll my eyes, and some very not-real moments. That said, there were also some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, some very witty dialogue exchanges, some interesting, quirky characters, and some down-to-earth, very real moments too.

With all that said, it left me smack in the middle of the road. I did like the book overall, but didn't love it. I would recommend it maybe as a side read, but not to someone who doesn't have a lot of time to read and wants their books to have real punch. It's okay. And sometimes that's enough.

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Book Review - Attaching in Adoption

Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents by Deborah D. Gray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read so many adoption books in the last couple of years that they are starting to run together in some respects. They often give the same advice, in different words, and to that degree, this book is not much different from others I have read. And yet, it kept my attention riveted much more so than most of the others.

The reason? Well, I suspect that it's the real-life vignettes that pepper every chapter. It's difficult to imagine, before you are even in these situations, what it might really be like to face the challenges that professionals outline. However, when you're reading the stories of real parents and real children, it hits home in a different way than a list of possible problems and therapies does.

Attaching in Adoption gives a clear, concise outline as to what issues children may face, the different stages of attachment and how children react when attachment bonds are lost during each stage, and how to attach to children in any of those stages, including those who are having attachment difficulties. Some problems are of course exacerbated by additional problems, such as delays in development and/or affects from neglect, abuse and more, and this book also covers those issues, as well as the scary buzzword that throws fear into the hearts of all adoption-hopeful parents, "RAD."

This book was interesting, but I'm afraid I didn't retain as much of the information as I should have. I'm going to read it again once our kids are home, to hopefully absorb the information most pertinent to them in a more thorough manner. Going in and not knowing what issues we're going to face makes it all very overwhelming, but I appreciate that this author sees no situation as "hopeless" and gives practical methods to overcome all attachment obstacles.

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Book Review - A Grown-up Kind of Pretty

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every fifteen years of her life, there has been a year of horror for Jenny Slocumb. When she was fifteen, she wound up pregnant, deserted by the baby's father and pushed out on her own by her parents. When she was thirty, her own 15 year old daughter Liza, already experimenting with drugs, found herself pregnant. Then she took off, leaving Jenny to wonder for years what happened to her baby and her grandbaby.

Now she's 45. Her daughter returned home years ago with her granddaughter, Mosey, who Jenny is terrified is going to repeat the cycle of getting pregnant at fifteen. Liza suffered a recent stroke and is recovering, albeit slowly, under Jenny's care. What else can go wrong, she thinks? Oh, little does she know... when she hires someone to remove the willow tree from her back yard in hopes of installing an in-ground pool to assist in her daughter's recovery, the unearthing reveals a small silver box... filled with bones.

As the mystery of whose bones were buried under the willow begins to unravel, the history of these three, wonderful, curious, strong southern women emerges. It's a fascinating tale of motherhood, sisterhood, friendship and betrayal. It's about how wonderful and how terrible small towns can be for anyone slightly "different" and how family bonds are made and kept.

There were moments of frustration for me with this book, because one of the characters - Mosey, to be specific - had some trains of thoughts that made me want to shake her. But, of course, all that is perfectly normal for 15 year old girls, despite their best efforts. This was well-written, and all of the characters were outstanding and very richly detailed. I loved, in particular, the little quirks of southern living that cropped up from time to time and reminded me of my own time living in the southern US.

This is a book that might make you cry if you're tender-hearted, but will definitely make you smile if you have a soul. It has enough mystery to keep you guessing, and enough exploration of deep issues to make you feel as if you've really accomplished something wonderful when it's finished. All around, this book is one of those wonderful experiences that will haunt you long after you turn the last page.

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Book Review - Blackout

Blackout by Mira Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was so sad to reach the last page of this book. I'm so sad that the trilogy is over and I'm closing the door on some amazing characters and a fascinating world that I absolutely loved visiting. Oh! But wait! I just discovered there are some prequel type books available in ebook format for this series. Yay! Okay, now back to reviewing, where I can be in a happier place than I would be if it really was OVER over, yanno? Yeah.

Okay, so, if you've read the previous two books in this series, you're aware that there's been a pretty scary zombie war, but that the government has sort of recovered, the populace has been locked down in a society where we enter rooms one at a time through blood test activated doors that are prepared to smother us in decontaminant foam if we show the slightest indication of "amplification" or, to be precise, zombification.

This novel picks up not long after the end of the last. The blogger news crew, or the remains of it after the ravages they faced in the previous two books, are still holed up with their favourite mad scientist up in the woods of the northwest. As usual, there are zombies, and conspiracies, and mad chases and explosions.

When I say as usual, don't take that to mean the book is repetitive or boring. It's not. I love Mira Grant's writing style, and I positively adore these characters. The book is fast, action-oriented, and written in an accessible but intelligent way. It is a lot of fun, and like the others in the series, is kind of like being on a constant thrill ride.

There was a point, on page 389 to be precise, where I got all mad at the author, yelled, "What the fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!??!!" and scared all the animals and particularly my husband, who knows that while I rarely curse, it usually indicates a severe bodily injury when it occurs. Naturally, he thought I was dying. No, I was just having a seriously skin-crawly minute. I had to put down the book (for the record, I did not throw it. I wasn't mad, just shocked) and walk away for a while.

After an hour I was back. I couldn't leave my favourite characters' fates in the balance any longer, and I'd gotten over my shock and dismay, and realized that really? That was probably going to happen all along and I had to get over it. Yes, I was skeeved out. But it was inevitable and I had to deal. It changed my opinion on the book, the series in general, the author a little bit, and the characters in a big, big way.

I'm not telling you what happened. It's just too big of a spoiler, and if someone had spoiled me on this, I really don't know if I'd have read the book.

You're going to have to say goodbye to a character you like in this book (nothing new in this series) as they make a big damn hero of themselves. And you're going to feel good about the ending, I think. I did, anyway.

There's some more anger at the Mason's adoptive parents, and that part always hits a little close to home to me. I accept the fact that some adoptive parents suck, just like some birth parents suck, but theirs in particular tick me off. I don't know if I'm mad at the characters, or at the author for creating them, but it does still bug me. There's a clear indication, as there was in previous books, that these adoptive parents don't love their adopted children the way they loved their birth child. And, you know, the author isn't saying all adoptive parents are like that, but some people like to paint everyone with such a broad brush. I just wish there was some balance in the portrayal.

But you can't always get *everything* you want out of one book series, and this book clearly delivers on every other front. I loved it. It closed the story arc that has built through the previous two books, tied up some loose ends, and gave, while not a happily-ever-after ending, an ending that I thought fit the book and the characters very, very well.

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Book Review - The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The marriage plot is a literary device that was used often in fiction written in an earlier era. In Austen, for example, a woman's entire future might turn on her choice of a husband, as well as the fate of her family. In The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides takes on the idea of the device of the marriage plot as it might occur in the modern era. Or, near modern as it were, since the novel takes place in 1982. That might be the modern era to Eugenides, but I don't recall much of that year being as it was a part of my childhood. In fact, I was tempted to mark this book as historical fiction.

I had a harder time getting into this book than I have had with previous books by this author. I just found myself not relating to any of the characters in the beginning. Madeleine seemed like a spoiled rich girl who was rude to her parents and took her friends for granted. Okay, she didn't just seem that way, she actually was that way, and I didn't like her. But I wasn't such a great person when I was college-aged either, and I was pretty curious about Mitchell, and later Leonard, who became the two male forces in her life.

Madeline is largely oblivious to the feelings of the more obviously "better" choice among the two, and is oblivious by choice to the problems of the more troublesome choice. Like many women, when trouble starts to surface, she sticks her head in the sand and holds tight to her infatuation, while the love of a friend pulses in the background of her life, even as he does his best to distance himself from her, both emotionally and geographically.

The post-college lives of the three are interesting, almost iconic for the era in which they lived. I was tickled by some of the music references, which I remembered my parents and older cousins listening to back then. The political and cultural climate seemed to be right on target, as far as I could recall, though as I said, my memories from that particular time are a little hazy due to my age.

I grew to care more and more about Madeleine as time went by and I got to know her better. It was one of those rare moments in fiction where a character becomes like a friend. I understood her motivations, I figured out why she acted the way she did toward her parents, and why she needed to "save" the man she loved. I came to understand her innocence, rather than her spoilage, was behind some of her behaviour and I came to like her. That made the second half of the book a much, much faster read than the first and much more enjoyable. If you're having the issue of not liking or understanding Madeleine at first, I urge you to keep reading. The payoff in the lovely, fascinating, sad ending of the book is very much worth it.

I really enjoyed this book, though I dropped one star from the rating because of not having as good of a time with the very beginning. Still, it's a very well-written literary novel with a unique take on an age-old plot.

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Book Review - The Sister Wife

The Sister Wife by Diane Noble
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Right off the top I'm going to confess something: I did not finish reading this book. Life is too short for boring books that also make you really angry. Reading the "whole thing" would not have changed my opinions on what happened early on in this book. It would only have prolonged my agony.

The Sister Wife is a tale of early Mormonism. I'm kind of fascinated by the history of the Moromons as well as their current lifestyles with plural marriage. It started with watching Big Love, progressed into memoirs of former Mormons who have left the church, and is now a guilty pleasure (Sister Wives) of reality tv and sensational novels. I thought this was going to be one of the latter.

It was not.

I have this pact I've made with myself. I require myself to put in at least 100 pages toward a book before I give up. I found myself dragging through the first 100 pages of this book. I just didn't care about the characters, I was bored by their experiences, I wasn't interested in their futures. I pressed on, because there have been times that once I gave a book a chance I wound up really enjoying it. Some books start slow. So I gave it 100 pages.

And when I got just past that part, I still was considering giving up on it, but then they put the one character I did like - Bronwyn, the nanny - in some peril. She's sort of a minor character but I had started to like her, so I kept reading. And it got kind of exciting. She had gone into pre-term labor below decks in a clipper ship during a horrible storm. And the baby was breach. I thought she might die. I thought they might not find a midwife aboard ship. I thought perhaps the baby was in danger. I read on.

And the midwife did all she could, and the situation was bleak. Then the leader of the mormons came in, and they prayed over her. And everyone could see the baby move into proper position and Bronwyn was better, because prayer fixes everything.

No. I threw the book across the room. It hit the wall - I'm not usually so mean to library books. But I was *livid*.

You want to know why? Because it's these kinds of books that encourage the tactless people who say things like "If you had prayed more, maybe your daughter would have lived." I lost my daughter. Praying wasn't going to fix her. It wasn't going to fix me. And people read garbage like this in fictional novels and then blame people for the loss of their children, because clearly if they'd been better, or prayed harder, or been higher in God's esteem, they and their child would have been fine.

No. It doesn't work that way.

I'm not saying I don't believe in the power of prayer, positive thoughts, or other influences in the universe, but I'm saying that this kind of writing pisses me off. It makes it look like some people have a hotline to Jesus, and if you're good enough he listens. If not, it's clearly your own fault.

Screw that, and screw this book. It did nothing but bore me, then tick me off more than I thought a book could.

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Book Review - The Waiting Child

The Waiting Child: How the Faith and Love of One Orphan Saved the Life of Another by Cindy Champnella
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are books that make you cry, and there are books that make you so angry at the world that you feel like throwing the book and storming off, and there are books that make you incredibly secure in your path in life. This book is all three, at least for me.

The Waiting Child is a memoir of adoption, one of many I've read along the path of our own adoption journey, and one of the most touching, as far as I was concerned. It may have been because it was about the adoption of an older child, rather than a baby, as we're adopting older as well. It may have been because Jaclyn - the small girl that they adopted - was so headstrong and had such a wonderfully strong personality. But I think really, what touched me the most, was her impatience.

Yes, really! Jaclyn was desperately impatient, once she had found a Mama to call her own, to bring "her baby" - Xiao Mei Mei, who she took care of at the orphanage - home, to find him a Mama and family to love him as well. I have dealt with more than a little impatience along our journey. Right now we're in a place where we have waited months - yes months! - for ONE small piece of paper to be signed at some beauracratic office in the US and returned to Canada. All our hopes and dreams and wishes for the future have been stalled because of one piece of paper sitting on some poor overworked social worker's desk. I'm sure he or she doesn't know how angry I get at the world because I have to wait. I'm sure they aren't being malicious, but it hurts just the same.

And so I related to Jaclyn. Oh, I related to her mom, too, and her whole family, but I understood Jaclyn somehow. I know what it's like to have the future of someone you love stuck in someone else's hands. I know how it feels to be frustrated by government. I know how unfair it can all feel sometimes.

Though this book is written by Jaclyn's adoptive mom, it is really Jaclyn's story - a little girl who was willing to move heaven and earth to get a little boy she loved a home. She was successful in the end; Xiao Mei Mei became her cousin, Lee, an all-American little boy who became vastly different from the quiet and beaten-down little orphan they all knew from China. It's a triumphant story, and a sad one. It made me want to rescue *all the children!* - something that happened to me similarly after our adoption training here.

The book is studded with photographs from the journey of adoption this family followed, which are touching and strike straight to the heart. It was hard for me to imagine that this little girl, in words and pictures - was now a teenager and almost an adult. Her story, however, is timeless and poignant.

If you're following your own adoption path, I think it's likely you'll love this book. In fact, if you have a heart at all, I think it's likely you'll like it quite a bit.

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Book Review - The 500

The 500 by Matthew Quirk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No one has an equal shot in life. Some kids have it particularly tough. When your dad loses his business and turns to the life of a con man to try to keep a roof over your family's head, only to wind up in prison when you're still young. When your older brother follows in his footsteps and winds up so heartless he's only interested in using his little brother for what he can get out of him. When your mom dies of cancer when you're still young, and you don't have insurance to get her proper care, and she still leaves behind such a mountain of hospital bills that it seems like you'll never be able to scale that mountain. When you're smart and determined enough to work your way through Harvard law as a bartender only to get rejected by potential employers because of your checkered past.

When you've got all of that hanging over your head, is it any wonder that when someone comes along and promises you the good life that you've always wanted, you'd jump at the chance? You wouldn't investigate too closely the job you'll be doing or the man you'll be working for, because the promises are so incredibly dear - the high class job that gets you respect, the home in the nice neighbourhood, the beautiful, intelligent, upper-class girlfriend, the chance to rebuild a relationship with your dad by getting him a wished-for parole after 16 years in prison. You wouldn't worry about what goes on behind the curtain, until it reaches that point where you just can't ignore it any more.

And when it gets to be too much for your newly minted morality and you cross that powerful boss of yours? You'd better get ready to fight, and run. You'd better be ready to not trust anyone in your life and you'd better be ready to lose everything you had, and more.

The 500 refers to the 500 most powerful people in Washington, D.C. - the men who wield the power that actually runs the country. The ones with the dirtiest secrets and the most to lose, who have the power to bury you if you cross them. This book takes you on a full-throttle action ride through navigating through those people, and trying to come out the other side alive.

Big recommend - a fast read and a fun, nicely-paced adventure to lose yourself in.

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Book Review - Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel as if I've aged about oh, forty years while reading this book.

Firefly Lane is the story of two girls, best friends "no matter what" who meet in the mid-70's. They're 14, both troubled in their own ways, one the product of a traditional, happy home, one the product of a nonconformist woman of the 60's who cared more about drugs and having a great time than caring for her child. They meet when starting high school, a troubling time for most girls, and certainly that for both of them. Though they seem like unlikely friends at first - tough, cool, fashionable Tully who isn't afraid of anything and geeky, uncertain, less-mature Katie with her unruly brows and shy disposition - they soon discover that there couldn't be a more natural pairing.

I haven't had a friendship like Tully and Katie's in my life. I have had no one singular friend with me through all my journeys. But while reading this book? Honestly, I'm okay with that. Sure, I was jealous sometimes of having someone around who knew you that well, but at other times, it broke my heart how harshly they managed to skewer one another's hearts.

I haven't read a fiction book that tugged this hard on my heartstrings in a while. Oh, I've had books make me cry (which, to be honest, isn't so hard to do. I cry at commercials, cute puppies, and cat head-bonks too). But I haven't had them haunt me while I was reading them the way this book did. I felt every triumph, every heartbreak, every soaring emotion and crumbling defeat in their lives. It hurt me when they were angry with one another. It shattered me when the man one of them loved loved the other of them. It made me ache inside when I thought they would never be able to forgive one another.

This book is an emotional roller coaster. It is full of funny musical references - I was a little young for most of them to have affected me in quite the same ways, but remembered them from childhood and adolescence all the same - and ripe with cultural icons of every era from the 70's onward. It's an intimate look at the lives of women; how they intersect and affect one another, and the lives of mothers and daughters, and what a huge toll they can have on one another as well.

I loved this book. Sometimes I hated it for playing with my feelings, but mostly I loved it. I loved Katie, and Tully, and Johnny. Especially Johnny I think. You'll probably love it if you're anything like me.

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Book Review - Becoming Sister Wives

Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage by Kody Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have a few "guilty pleasures" that have to do with reality tv, which my husband thinks is mind-numbing and should be banned. One of those pleasures is The Bachelor. The other, I'll admit it, is Sister Wives, a TLC production about a family from a polygamous Mormon sect in the western US. This book is purported to tell the history of that family and explain some of the background that the TV show does not.

The problem is, the book reads a lot less like a memoir than it does a therapy session where each member of the family is writing apologies and explanations to the others. There's a lot of "it's my fault my sister wife was mad at me for X though I didn't know it would make her mad at the time and gee I wish we could make up now". And there's some "I saw that this emotional reaction was stemming from X but there was nothing I could do to stop it, and I'm sorry that I let us all explode." And other stuff of that nature.

And when that's not going on, there's a lot of repetitiveness. I get it, the basis of the book is for each of the women to tell the story of their background, their relationships, and their launch to fame in their own words. Cool. But you know what? When they tell the same stories in only very slightly different ways I get bored. And I wonder what was wrong with their editor, that they couldn't scrape out some of the different versions of the same scene for something even slightly different and more interesting.

Those are the bad parts.

The good parts are that you can clearly hear the voices you are familiar with from the show in their written words. You learn a little bit more about their history. I've seen probably 75% of the shows that have aired in the series, and already knew about 50 - 60% of the material in the book. If you follow the show, you'll have the same issue. But that means that almost half or so is new stuff, and some of that gave me some insight into the family that had been severely lacking when I was watching the show. Yeah, I already knew about Christine's blow up over the Robyn's-wedding-dress issue, but didn't know she'd walked off set for three days. I already knew that they'd courted others in the past, but didn't know one was only 17 (Granted, Meri and Kody were young then, too!) since they are so against underage brides. So yeah, there's some dirt. There's some interesting stuff.

But you probably aren't going to be all that interested unless you're already a fan. There's not enough drama for an audience who isn't already invested in this story. It's okay for fans. It's a very fast, light read. I did enjoy it in more places than I didn't, I think, so if you are curious give it a go, but be prepared to skim sections that get slow.

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Book Review - Escape

Escape by Barbara Delinsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Makin' your way in the world today takes everything you got. Takin' a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you gotta go where everybody knows your name.... Emily needed a Cheers. I'm just sayin'. I kept singing the theme song to myself while I read the book.

From the outside, it looks like Emily has it all. She's got the gorgeous husband, the expensive home, the high-paying job at the top-notch law firm. But New York hasn't been kind to Emily. She feels lost and forgotten - don't we all sometimes? She realizes that she doesn't have one good friend she can turn to, one person who will understand her, one shoulder she can lean on. She actually hates her job, where she doesn't get to use her excellent skills as an attorney, instead having become a glorified data entry clerk, taking calls from potential clients who are having the most devastating time in their lives due to corporate negligence. She thinks her husband may be having an affair, and even her book group, that barely sees each other for an hour a month, isn't an escape, everyone busy on their phones or with their lives and never really connecting.

So Emily escapes to the small town she stayed in the summer between college and law school, drawn back by dreams of a coyote she saw in the woods once upon a time, by a long-neglected friendship with the one woman in her life as close as a sister, and by the lure of possibly seeing her first love, Jude, one more time.

I really enjoyed Escape. I think everyone has had a moment or two when they've wanted to just walk out of their job and not look back, get in their car and drive somewhere beautiful, where you don't have responsibilities or stress. I could relate to Emily and her struggles, her disappointments in life, and the way she managed to put the pieces back together again after walking away and shattering the image of a happy life.

This isn't high literature, but it's a departure from some Delinsky novels style wise, in that while it had romantic elements, the primary storyline of the book was a search for oneself. It isn't a heavy read, but there are definitely moments that make you contemplate your own life. I like books that make me think a bit, and I wasn't expecting this one to do that, but it certainly delivered on the consider-your-outcome angle.

I would also like to take a moment to say that Delinsky's sex scenes? Yeah, I actually like them. I usually skip them in books, honestly, because I find them either boring or distasteful (No, I'm not secretly an 11 year old prude, I just prefer doing to reading about - hah!). I found the ones in Escape, as I have in other Delinsky books - to be lovely, romantic, not over-the-top but still very sensual. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to create an incredible sensual atmosphere without being overly graphic or cliched.

Overall, this was a great late summer/early fall read. Much of it was read lounging on the deck on crisp afternoons with a cup of tea, and it was ridiculously perfect for that. An excellent "get away" book when you can't take off yourself.

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Book Review - Suspiciously Reserved

Suspiciously Reserved: A Twist on Jane Austen's Emma by Samantha Adkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Honestly, I would have technically given this book 4.5 stars if there were an option for that here, because while I absolutely adored great swaths of the book, there were a few tiny issues here and there.

Suspiciously Reserved takes on the tale of Jane Fairfax, the lovely and sweet orphaned girl from Jane Austen's Emma, who gets shuffled a bit into the background in the initial tome. By setting the story in modern day Canada, the author makes the story accessible to a whole new audience and creates characters that anyone can relate to. The one - well not really a problem, more like a curious note - about this is that there were moments, particularly in dialogue, where I forgot that I wasn't reading a regency era piece. Adkins is so skilled at picking up the style of speech and the writing style of authors like Austen that my brain drifted right back to the original now and then, only to be brought back to "reality* when I realized someone was emailing. Or playing on a Wii. Hah! It made it a fun read, and I really loved that aspect of it.

The romance in this novel is sweet, and while filled with tension and drama, it reads as natural and evolves in such a way that you feel your heart soaring - and sinking - along with Jane's. There were times I wanted to hug Frank, and times I wanted to slug him. I was awfully emotionally involved in the story, as it really captured me. Because of that, maybe, I found the ending a little rushed. The number of typos and errors seemed to increase toward the ending as well, though there wasn't a significant number for a self-published book (I caught maybe half a dozen through the whole book, with four in the last 15% or so). Overall, this is a fabulous read, whether or not you were a fan of Jane Austen's Emma (who is a minor character in the book as well). Sweet, romantic and a nice getaway from a hectic life.



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Book Review - Goodbye for Now

Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book, even if it did break my heart just a little.

Sam is a great computer programmer. So great, in fact, that he creates an algorithm for his workplace - a computer dating service - that actually lets people find their soulmates. And fast. He tests it, and finds his own soulmate, Meredith, who he falls hard for (and vice versa) from the first date. The only problem is, when everyone finds their soulmate right off the bat, the company collects no monthly membership fees. You see where this is going, don't you? Sam gets fired.

While he's filling his days jogging, playing with Meredith's dogs and learning to cook, his relationship grows. But then, tragedy strikes and Meredith's grandma passes away. She is so broken that all he can think of is that he needs to find a way to help her reconnect with her loved one, especially when she says she'd give anything for just one more email. Back to the drawing board goes Sam, who creates this time a program that sees who a person really is through all their online activity - much like his soulmate program - and composes an email for Meredith.

Oh this book is so lovely. I adored Sam and Meredith both, and heck, even Livvie, the departed Grandma. I loved the world they were in, and I loved the premise of it all. Since in the real world, I love an IT guy myself, it touched me even more. The writing style was comfortable and conversational, but with some really amazing moments that elevate it to the art form it's meant to be. The characters are fantastic and very real. And I could see exactly how these programs would work, unlike some who've mentioned in reviews that they had trouble suspending disbelief, because I know how programs work, basically. It sparked a lot of conversations between my husband and I about the nature of human relationships and how the advent of AI will alter our realities.

In short, loved, loved, loved this book. I'll be looking for more from this author. I'd recommend this one to anyone who can read, it's that wonderful, but especially anyone with a relation to the computer industry.

*Book received at no cost through the GoodReads First Reads program

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Book Review - Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Live as TV's Most Influential Guru Advises

Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Live as TV's Most Influential Guru Advises by Robyn Okrant
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Oh dear, what can I say about this book that crashed my high expectations? I saw this on a to-read list of a friend on GoodReads, and it immediately appealed to me. I love experiment books. I love Oprah. A combination could only be the high spot of reading, no? I expected funny. I expected witty. I expected a light, entertaining read that would tickle me.

I didn't get that. Okrant did, indeed, watch every Oprah show for a year. She did, indeed, read every episode of O magazine. And she attempted to do every single thing that Oprah told her to do. But holy dang did she take herself and this experiment way too seriously, and did she ever stress out way too much over entertainment.

The basis for her experiment was the idea that no person could do everything Oprah wants them to do without going broke and insane. Well, no. Because I genuinely don't think Oprah - or any other maven of advising how to live a great life, like Martha Stewart, for example, who I also love and who the author holds up as a favourite of hers as well - actually wants you to attempt to do everything that they suggest. Some things aren't going to work for you, or appeal to you, or fit into your life. And so, those are the things that you don't do. Whereas others will make your life better, and those are the things you should do.

I thought this was pretty simple.

I usually watched every episode of Oprah, too, while it was on the air. Well, no, I DVR'ed every episode. Then I deleted the reruns, the shows about celebs I didn't care about, the shows about books I wasn't planning to read, the shows about stuff that didn't apply to me and I watched. Unlike Okrant, I did not watch the commercials, as I really didn't consider them a part of the whole "experience." I considered them annoying commercials.

I wanted to put this down multiple times. I kept waiting for that epiphany to hit. I kept waiting for her to get enlightened or something. I kept waiting for the big reveal or the big explosion of knowledge, or *something*, anything to happen. I kept waiting to get through the tediousness of how awful it was to go clothes shopping or have a husband who patiently allows you to buy quirky chairs for every room (if we were broke, mine would so not be on board. I even asked), or how much it costs to cook from recipes instead of throwing together what's already in your kitchen. Since I already cook from recipes I couldn't relate. I was annoyed. I was bored. But I kept reading because I had hope.

In the last two sections - November and December - I started skimming huge swaths of text, just looking for the payoff, but it never came.

I would have rated this as 1.5 stars if I could have. There were parts that were okay, and the premise is interesting, and maybe others will get stuff out of it that I didn't, but mostly... yeah, I didn't like it.

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Book Review - Crewel World

Crewel World by Monica Ferris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an okay read. If you know me, you know that I'm a needlecraft fiend. I even have a series of videos on youtube - check out CraftyDivaKat some time over there if you're so inclined. And so, after seeing my mom give this book a good review, along with others in the series, I thought I'd pick it up and give it a go.

Betsy is newly divorced from her cheater of a husband, and has sold all her worldly possessions to restart her life. The first step on that journey is a visit to her sister, so she makes the trek from California to Minnesota, where Margot owns a needlecraft shop called "Crewel World" in a little town outside of the twin cities. When Margot is murdered during the visit, it turns Betsy's world and her plans upside down. Not content with a police force that brushes off the crime as a burglary gone wrong, Betsy is determined to solve her sister's murder herself, and begins with the customers and employees of her sister's beloved shop.

The book was okay. I liked it; as far as cozy mysteries go this is fair enough. There were no overt problems with the writing itself, though it also didn't wow me. I liked the world of the needlecraft shop and could relate to many of the characters. I didn't, on the other hand, need lessons in what was what in that arena, so that got a little tedious sometimes. The characters were likable, but a little bit older and more stodgy than my preference usually is for reading. I'm not sure if I'll read others in the series.

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Book Review - A Piece of Me

A Piece of Me by Mechi Renee
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I took a while to review this book, because I felt bad that I couldn't in good conscience give it a higher rating. I finally went through each poem based on the goodreads program, decided whether I thought "it was okay" or "I liked it" and figured out the majority. The majority I thought were okay.

As someone who writes poetry myself, I feel for this poet. A lot of my poetry is much like hers, which is to say, honest and real and open and emotional, but not necessarily the most lyrical or well-written. This book is about coming to terms with womanhood and sexuality. It's about balancing a spiritual life with a fulfilling life loving other women. It's agonizing in places, where you can feel the loneliness and pain of the author, and it's triumphant in places, where her raw pleasure in life itself is clearly on view.

Technically, it's not fantastic poetry. But I do think that many women will relate to this poetry and will relate to Mechi and her journey in life.

*Book received at no cost through the GoodReads First Reads program.

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Book Review - Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After finishing this novel, I'm left wondering if the author is a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan movies. I suspect she may be.

Insurgent is book two of the Divergent trilogy and picks up the action immediately where Divergent left off. This left me a little bit stumbling and grasping in the first few chapters. It'd been a while since I'd read Divergent and I had to scour my memory for what exactly had been going on in those last pages. While I'm always complaining about serial authors putting too much exposition into books, having none isn't balanced either. You'll never be able to figure this book out if you haven't read Divergent. Don't even try. You'll just pull your hair out. And if you read Divergent more than say, six months ago, you may want to re-skim the last few chapters so you don't feel quite as lost and confused as I did at first.

Insurgent takes a different path than Divergent, which I think is to blame for so many people hating it. Divergent was a rebellious, adventurous romp until the last few chapters. It was pretty standard YA dystopia and while it had it's moments of violence and tragedy, they weren't overwhelming. Insurgent, on the other hand, is extremely violent, extremely tragic, and is a war story more than anything else. Like any war, people are going to be injured, and they are going to die. There's going to be so gratuitous violence that makes you shake your head.

There's also some emotional immaturity that is going to make you shake your head. Not because the teenagers are acting like teenagers, but because they're acting like 20-somethings who act like twelve year olds. We all know those people, who can't hold a relationship together to save their lives and are constantly posting their drama on Facebook and fighting in public and you just roll your eyes. Yeah, those people. I hate dealing with those people, and I had to in order to read this book.

So, I didn't think this was terrible, and I will very likely read the third book in this series. I also didn't think it was amazing or wonderful, though I thought very highly of Divergent. It was pretty good, it kept my attention, and it was very entertaining. A solid kill-some-time read.

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Book Review - Lock and Key

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book a lot. For a YA novel, it has a depth of emotional intelligence and full, real characters to rival any "adult" novel. I've been more and more into YA stuff lately, and this kind of book is exactly why. It's stylishly written, with a well-executed plot and it drew me in from the very start, which opens with a super likeable protagonist.

Ruby is pretty independent for a 17 year old. She deals with her mom, who is alternately dependent and dismissive of her daughter, taking her with to her job delivering lost luggage for airlines late at night and leaving her behind while she goes off to drink in bars and date men. When Ruby wakes up one day to find she's been left to deal with life all on her own, that independence gets tested. Bills? Laundry? Landlords? She thinks she has it covered until one day her secret solitary life is uncovered, and she's sent off to live with her older sister, whom she hasn't seen in years.

Lock and Key is, above all else, a story of what family means. It is about how the people who we surround ourselves with define us, and how we define them. It's about when it's okay to intervene, and when it's necessary to reach out to a friend, and when you have to step back and let people make choices on their own. It's about love, and where we can find it in our lives, and it's about who we depend on. It's a wonderful book for teens and adults alike, and I highly recommend it.

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Book Review - Winter Garden

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a ridiculously amazing novel.

Anya has two lovely daughters who are in the middle of living very different lives. Nina is a well-known photojournalist who travels the world and has barely enough time to occasionally make love to her gorgeous boyfriend, let alone set down roots anywhere. Meredith, by contrast, is firmly rooted right in her family's apple orchard, where she's taken over the business from her father, living on the land where he developed and grew his apples, married to her childhood sweetheart with two grown, college-age daughters. But when Anya's husband dies, it tosses her into a maelstrom of emotion, into the hidden memories of a past she has done everything she can to shield, to barricade away from her present day life. But it becomes impossible to bear the weight of hiding so much any longer, under the persistent care and questioning of her daughters, and so, she begins to unravel her past.

I couldn't put this book down. It is perhaps not the most well-styled book out there, but it is a phenomenal story, reaching back into history, into the days of pre-WWII Russia and the seige of Leningrad, through the German attacks and into the recovery after the war. It is tragic and horrifying, full of emotion and heartbreak, and it is life-affirming and beautiful, full of intimacy and love.

I adored this book. It made me cry. It made me laugh out loud a time or two. It made me appreciate how very, very blessed my life has been; even when tragedy has struck it has never been more than I could bear, never to the level that some families are devastated. It made me thankful. It made me randomly kiss my husband all over his face. It made me stay up until 4:30 in the morning to finish it :)

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Book Review - Two Little GIrls: A Memoir of Adoption

Two Little Girls: A Memoir of Adoption by Theresa Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Adoption books are special to me, as we're going through the process of adopting right now. Sometimes they're hard for me to read, which this one was, because I'm impatient with the process and want to bring my kids home. Sometimes they're beautiful love stories of families becoming what they are. Sometimes they make me angry, because I second-guess the choices that the parents make. This book was all of those and more, and it was a very well-written and lovely book.

Two Little Girls is the story of one couple who experience infertility after waiting until they are older to attempt to conceive. They are not particularly driven to be parents, but believe that it would enrich their lives, so they pursue international adoption to bring home their children. They wind up with a lovely family of two beautiful girls, but to get there, they take a long and very difficult road.

My husband and I considered international adoption. It is very expensive, something that wasn't a hurdle to the very well-off couple in this book. It is very time consuming and requires taking long periods of time away from work, sometimes on very short notice. This is also not a problem for this pair, but would have been impossible for us. Those are only two of the issues that made us *not* choose international adoption. The last was that we aren't super-concerned with many of the things that drives this couple. They want little children, toddler age or younger. They want a clean bill of health without special needs. They want children that look like them. They specifically want girls.

The times where I got angry with this couple usually involved their almost obsession with the way the children looked or whether or not they had special needs. To parents like us, who are looking for children with special needs and who could not care less if they looked like us physically, it's a little mind-boggling. We know - my husband and I - that there are absolutely no guarantees in life. None. You could bring home a perfectly healthy baby that could turn out to have leukemia in a few years, or who is profoundly autistic, or a whole bunch of other stuff. Refusing children with special needs bothers me, because you just never know. And basing it on looks? I'm not even going to get started on that one.

So yes, I got angry. But you know, through reading this book I came to be less angry and more compassionate about the whole situation. You can only handle what you can handle. There are kids out there whose biological parents put them up for adoption or surrender them to social services because they have special needs. This isn't an adoptive-parent-only issue. And there *are* some special needs that we have said we can't handle right now, mainly because of where we live, but if we were truly altruistic, wouldn't we address that in some way? So yes, I came to understand.

If you're in the process of adopting, and are curious about other methods of adoption and the hurdles they include, this would be a good choice for you. If you are considering eastern European adoption, this would be a great book for you, as it has a pretty clear overview of what visiting these orphanages and staying in these countries involves. Overall, it's a brutally honest memoir of one couple's story, the good and the bad, and is compelling and very involving.

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Book Review - Flashback

Flashback by Dan Simmons
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Awful. So awful I couldn't finish it. Life is way too short for books you hate.

Are you looking for a book full of conservative propaganda? Do you want a book that tells you the world will fall apart if liberals are in power? Maybe you're particularly racist against middle-eastern or Japanese people? Yes? Then you'll love this book.

You could read the feelings of the author through this novel. Now, I don't mind bigoted characters. I don't even care whether or not characters are republican or democrat or independent or love Ross Perot. I really don't. But when a book reads like the author has an agenda he's trying to put across, when derogatory terms are used toward other cultures not just in dialogue but in the knit-together writing of the book, I can't take it.

I'm not a book burner. I'm really not. I don't want to get rid of books that oppose my own views. So read this, if that kind of thing floats your boat. It's great to live in a world where you can read whatever suits your fancy. But oh my word this was not the book for me. By any means.

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Book Review - Nan's Story

Nan's Story by Paige Farmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes you read a book where the main character reaches out and grabs your heart. You think, "This person could be my friend. This person could be me." The character is real in a way that some people in books are not. They are real in a way that makes you think of your neighbour or your grandparent or your teacher at school. That's who Nan was to me.

Nan is a product of an unstable home in a stable time in history. During the idyllic fifties, she is living in a home with an angry, critical mother and an unstable, alcoholic father as well as older brothers that seem to alternately bully and caretake her. Is it any wonder that she becomes her own worst enemy? Nan sabotages much in her life, partly from entropy. It seems easier for her to just go along with the world, with what others want, rather than take a stand for her own life. And so, slowly, her world begins to crumble around her. Mistake after mistake seems to create a compound effect, until she is a shell of herself, living in her mother and stepfather's home, sometimes almost nonfunctional, and ignoring her child, CJ, who needs a mother so desperately that he has turned to his grandmother for nearly all of his emotional wants.

The first couple of chapters of this book are a little shaky, but it's very clear that the author refined her craft as she wrote, as her style evolved through the book to become much more polished. She's a good storyteller with a tale that catches hold and won't let go - unfortunately it waits til past the halfway point to give that real catch. It's worth the wait, though, as eventually it reaches the "can't put it down" stage and at that point, you're really in for an interesting ride.

I found myself really caught up in Nan's emotional traumas and turmoils. I felt for her, which is unique - to have created a character that people relate to in such an intimate way is a gift. I'm kind of surprised that a big publishing house hasn't picked this up, but since it's really "novella" size - which isn't super popular right now - I guess I shouldn't be. A nice read, touching and emotional in all the right places.

*Book received through Goodreads First Reads program

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Book Review - Torch

Torch by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up Torch from the library because I loved loved loved "Wild," Cheryl Strayed's memoir of her trek along the Pacific Coast Trail. I identified with her. I liked her style, I liked her writing, and I loved her story. When I found out that she'd published a work of fiction some seven years ago, I couldn't resist!

I might should have resisted.

It's not so much that this is a bad book, but this is a very thinly veiled memoir of what actually happened to Strayed, much of which you will already know if you've read "Wild" previously. So, I knew the story, but not all the details. I decided to persevere with the book anyway, because I had faith in Strayed's storytelling ability. I knew the book would be sad. I knew it would make me cry. I didn't know it would also make me angry. I actually threw the book across the room at one point and decided to stop reading it.

But I still persevered.

There was a moment at the end where I thought I was going to have to relive what, for me, was one of the saddest moments in "Wild," having to do with her mother's horse, Lady. When reading "Wild," this particular section affected me so much that my husband stopped what he was doing (in the middle of playing an MMORPG, and that, ladies and gentlemen, means he thought it was an emergency) to come to the bedroom and investigate why his wife was bawling like the world was ending.

But I still persevered.

And I kind of wish I hadn't. I really liked Strayed after Wild, and now I'm kind of ambivalent. I don't know how true these details were to her story, but it was pretty clear that much of it was ripped directly from her life. It made me alternately angry at people in her life and at her. It was heartbreaking in places, and in other places I just boggled at the choices people made. It seemed hyper-real, in the way that sometimes, when I tell people about the "year of hell" in our lives they can't believe that that would actually happen to a person. Sometimes, when too much happens, it seems like it has to be fiction. It has to be fake. And I'm well aware by my own experience that it's not always the case, but it still stretches that part of our brain that is desperately trying to suspend disbelief.

I think that Strayed's writing style of writing has certainly evolved since writing "Torch". She is much more eloquent in "Wild" and has learned the art of the narrative through trial and error, partly through writing "Torch" it seems.

This was an okay book. It isn't brilliant enough to make it one I'd recommend, because it also is a very provoking book, but it was definitely... okay.

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Book Review - Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not sure how I feel about this book, really. I gave it four stars because it is beautifully and sensitively written, and because, all things being equal, this is a very good book. But I also hate this book. I hate it for ripping into my heart the way it did. I hate it for touching on the very very sensitive emotions inside of me that still can have me bursting into tears at the strangest moments.

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas is a love story. It's a love story that is difficult for Katie, our protagonist, to read, because it is the love story of Matt, her boyfriend, and his wife Suzanne, and their beautiful child, Nicholas. Matt has given Katie a copy of Suzanne's diary to read and has disappeared, just when she was about to give him what she thought was some of the happiest news anyone has to share; Katie is pregnant. And now she is alone with the love story of Matt and Suzanne and unsure of how to deal with the emotions it brings up for her.

I suspected very early on that Suzanne was dead. Despite the wonderings about whether Matt had been cheating on her (very unlikely, how would he have stolen her diary to give to Katie if Suzanne were still alive and kicking?) or whether they were divorced now (again, how would he have the diary?) I knew. It was clear. So I was prepared for tragedy. But I was unprepared for the depths to which that tragedy would go, and how it would affect me.

If you have lost a spouse, or a child, someone who is irreplaceable in your life, this book may make you hate it as well, because it is written with such a poignant knowledge of what those emotions can do to a person. So I hate this book. And I still give it four stars, even though it has me doing the ugly cry right now at two thirty in the morning.

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Book Review - The After Wife

The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me by GoodReads. I was checking out what the site thought I should be reading based on my shelves and spied this cover among the others. It caught my eye. I'm a sucker for great cover art, and this one piqued my curiosity. I noted that it was about a widow, but I didn't read past the first few words in the description. I flipped tabs onto the library website, punched the title in and requested the book.

My husband, who works at the library system headquarters, brought it home the next day after a co-worker dropped it off at his desk. This is how most of my reading comes home, so everyone always knows what I'm reading, but that's neither here nor there. What I mean to be explaining is that I didn't know much of anything about this book before I plunged in. I thought it would be okay, but I didn't expect it to get to me the way it did.

Let me start off by saying that the start made me weep. And when I say weep, I mean the ugly cry. The one where your face is all red and you're starting to hiccup and the cat is prodding you to see if you're about to die, and you're looking for a paper towel to blow your nose in because you've used up all the kleenex. That kind of weeping. I was touched so incredibly deeply by not only the storyline, not only the loss of this widow, but about the relationship between the husband and wife before she became a widow.

Oh, it was so real. It was so me and my husband. It made me ache even at the thought of someone losing her partner in life so suddenly. I couldn't handle it.

But, really, though this book is about a widow, it's not about loss. It's about life. And talking to dead people.

See, I didn't see that coming either, how cool is that? I don't know if it's a spoiler or not because I still haven't read the back of the book, but I can't imagine that it is. It's what the bulk of the book is about. Because after being touched by death in a horribly immediate and intimate way, our heroine gains the remarkable ability to see and talk to the dead that inhabit our world along with us. And not just people, either. I'm talking horses that nudge her barista when she's trying to get a cuppa joe. I'm talking sweet little doggies in happy visions.

This is kind of cool. Once you make it past the part where it makes your heart feel like it's going to fall out of your chest, you start to smile. And even laugh a little. Because this shit is actually pretty funny. Can you imagine trying to get your career back on track after grieving the worst loss of your life, and at your first meeting, the room is full of dead people who want your attention? Oh, yeah it's black humour for sure, but if your sense of humour is wry and your appreciation of wit tends to the sharp side of things, you're going to love this book.

Much fun, and a quick read.

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Book Review - Autumn: Aftermath

Autumn: Aftermath by David Moody
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I used to hate serial fiction. I'd get all annoyed with getting hammered with "this happened previously" which authors do, understandably, to educate people new to their series. I love that David Moody doesn't do that. Each of his books, including this one, could stand on it's own easily enough without all that pointless exposition. They have complete story arcs. They have character development, as much as you expect in an after-the-zombies apocalyptic novel anyway.

But oh my god I was so happy to see some familiar faces in this book. If you've read others in this series, you know that uncomfortable feeling when they introduce new people; are the old ones dead? Oh my god. Are they going to find their bodies? Is this going to be the community center all over again?

Okay, so you have to have read the others in this series to get that, but I think you know where I'm going here. And Autumn: Aftermath set my mind to rest in many ways. As a final book, it did the series wonderful justice by letting us peek in on our favourite bands of survivors. If it didn't highlight everyone, it at least gave you an idea where they might have ended up or how their lives are going right now. No, it didn't tie things up with a happily ever after bow - it wouldn't be a David Moody book if it did that - but it did tell us where the world of Autumn was going, what the fate of the planet might be, and it was, of course, full of action, adventure, fear, adventure and zombies.

I love zombie books. If you do too, you'll like this series. And especially Autumn: Aftermath.

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Book Review - A Working Theory of Love

A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Neill has been chatting with his father. They talk about the old days, when Neill was a boy growing up in the south. They talk about Neill's mom and brother, about the neighbour down the road, and about his dad's medical practice.

The only catch is, Neill's dad killed himself in 1995, when Neill was still in college, before Neill was married and divorced, before he moved to California, before he took up permanent bachelorhood. Neill's dad now resides inside of a computer, an attempt at creating AI from the contents of the extensive journals that his father kept during his life. And it's Neill's job to talk to him.

I love the San Francisco of Neill's world. I relate to his conflicts with his own morality where it comes to this computerized version of his father. I really relate to his young, barely-out-of-her-teens girlfriend, because I was lost like her when I was her age. I made many of the same mistakes and had many similar problems. This book is engaging, vivid, and exquisitely real. It feels like glimpsing into the lives of someone you ran into at the coffee shop or chatted with at a dinner party.

Scott Hutchins has a gift for inner dialogue. Many writers can capture dialogue between characters well but become either overly philosophical or shallowly superficial when it comes to relating what's honestly going on inside a character's head. But here, you get a sense of Neill that is more than personal. I really felt as though I knew him, in an intimate and intense way. I rarely feel as close to a character as I did with Neill, and it made me wish the book would never end.

That said, the ending left me happy. It ended as it should, with a clear path to envision the road ahead, and enough of a wrap-up to leave a reader feeling satisfied without the triteness that comes along with the "happily ever after" epilogues that leave nothing to the reader's imagination.

This is an excellent book for those who like contemporary literary fiction, and I recommend it highly.

*Book received through Goodreads First Reads program

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Book Review - Cut, Crop & Die

Cut, Crop & Die by Joanna Campbell Slan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had a bit of a hard time getting into this, the second Kiki Lowenstein cozy mystery from Joanna Campbell Slan, filled with bits and bobs about scrapbooking - one of my own favourite hobbies - as well as curious twists and turns surrounding the death of a scrapper at a crop that Time In a Bottle (or TinaB for those in the know), the shop where Kiki is employed, was sponsoring.

The dead woman is one of Kiki's rivals, a scrapbooker who has recently won a prestigious scrapping contest, and apparently has stepped all over everyone in Kiki's life to get here. From her best friend and former cleaning woman Mert, who had once been fired and blacklisted by the woman, to her boss Dodie, who had kicked her out of the store and banned her from shopping there, to some of her most loyal customers (including one who was having an affair with the dead woman's husband), everyone seems to have had a motive for murder. So whodunit? Is it Kiki's new co-employee with a possibly shady past? Was Yvonne's husband looking to start his life over? Could it be the owner of a rival scrapbooking store, looking to generate a buzz?

It took about 90 pages in before I was invested enough to take more time with this book than it took to get through a couple pages at a time. And I was reading this on my eReader, which usually means I zip through a book like nobody's business, because my Kobo goes with me *everywhere*. But this time I found it a little hard to concentrate.

Whatever it was about the first Kiki book that drew me in and got me hooked immediately wasn't quite there for me with this one. Maybe the charm had worn off a little, or maybe I picked this one up too quickly after finishing the last and my head just wasn't ready for it yet, I don't know. Or, maybe, just maybe, it wasn't quite as captivating as the first. I still liked it, and it was still a fun read, though I was sad that there weren't as many new and different scrapbooking techniques and tips at the ends of the chapters. If I really wanted to know about tea and such I'd read a different sort of book. Still, it's fun to read about characters that seem like they could be your friends from your own little scrapbooking store in your home town, so I'll probably read the next soon enough. After all, it's already Kobo-loaded :)

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Book Review - Fear the Worst

Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is an excellent example of the suspense genre. It is alternately exciting and moving, written with honesty and compassion and the knowledge of what it means to be a parent. It's a very good book.

What would you do if your daughter went missing? What if the people at the job she went to every day denied ever meeting her? What if your ex-wife's new boyfriend's son seemed suspiciously involved, lying to you and hiding in his bedroom on his computer for hours on end, refusing to talk about what he's doing?

Caught between an ex-wife that he still loves, a paranoid new girlfriend who sees conspiracy theories everywhere, and his daughter's friends who seem alternately helpful and annoying, all Tim wants is to bring his teenage daughter home. But the police are unhelpful, and the "security expert" that Bob - the ex-wife's boyfriend - hires seems even worse when it comes out that his expertise means he had a job as a night watchman. Tim's own investigations turn up twist after twist that seem impossible to put together.

This book shocked me with a few of the twists and turns, which is not easy to do, and kept me guessing to the end (well, except for the part where I figured out who the mastermind bad guy was in the first few chapters, LOL! But I read a lot of suspense, I'm hard to mislead). This book was a fun, fast read that kept me up late unable to put it down!

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Book Review - Sanctus

Sanctus by Simon Toyne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you're a fan of international religious suspense intrigue a'la Dan Brown's DaVinci Code books or the Genesis Project books, you're going to love Sanctus by Simon Toyne.

I received a copy of the second book in this series - The Key - from GoodReads and decided after the first page that I really wanted to read this book first. It seemed less stand-alone than the Dan Brown books and, besides, I was really interested in the background of the story.

I'm so glad that I did. This book is a fabulous ride, full of intrigue, suspense, exotic locations, scary monks with guns, bizarre and unexplainable medical mysteries, explosions, a cop who is not only cool but reminds me in some ways of my husband (at least when he talks to/about his wife), and a twisty and intriguing plot that doesn't let go until the last page. And maybe not even then.

This isn't particularly a character-driven story, but there are some very relatable and fun characters here, which makes it all the more fun to root for them as time passes and the plot gets thicker and more interesting. It isn't high literature, but it isn't meant to be; it's meant to be entertaining and it does that very, very well.

I'd love to see this made into a movie. It would be fantastic in that format.

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Book Review - East of Denver

East of Denver by Gregory Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first started reading this book, I thought "Brilliant! I'm going to give it five stars! I love character-driven novels and these characters are so compelling! They remind me of people down home in southern Illinois. They're lovely and charming and unique and frustrating and annoying and so heartbreakingly real. Oh, this is going to be such a lovely relaxing read with more depth than action, and a nice break from the suspense and horror I've been reading lately!"

When I got about halfway through this book, I thought, "Hmmm. Okay, maybe only four stars. While I appreciate the delicacy that's used to outline these characters in their day to day life, it's starting to get a bit tedious. Just how many doorknobs can you fix, anyway?". At that point, I'd forgotten that I'd read the back cover of the book - I know, I know, but it really is possible.

So, when the main character suddenly decides to rob his hometown bank, I literally sat up in bed, where I'd been reading in hopes of reading my overstimulated brain to sleep, and said "Oh my god!" and got poked by a mostly sleeping husband who was rather annoyed. So I took the book out to the sofa, because I knew then and there that I would not be sleeping until I finished it. That is also why I'm writing this review at almost two thirty in the morning.

As the book went on, I found myself ever more frustrated and confused by the choices some of the characters make. In some places, I had issues with suspension of disbelief and actually rolled my eyes. I decided about three-quarters of the way through the book that I was only going to give it a three-star review, because some of it was driving me crazy, and I wondered at some points if now the author was just playing a joke on me. What happened to my sweet little character driven before-bed book?

And then, as I finished the book and realized I desperately didn't want it to end, and that it had kept me incredibly engaged, I knew that three stars just wasn't enough. It deserved four for the sharply drawn characters, the lyrical prose, and the story that kept me awake and drawn to this book until I pushed through to the end of it. It is lovely and sweet in places, raw and unforgiving in others. It takes a hard look at antipathy and what entropy can do to a life, and a world, and a home. It's fascinating and riveting, and worth reading.

*Book received at no cost through Goodreads First Reads program

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Book Review - Autumn: Disintigration

Autumn: Disintegration by David Moody
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ever finish a book and say to yourself, "Whew, what a ride!" ?

That's how I feel right now.

The fourth installment in the Autumn Zombie series by David Moody, Autumn: Disintegration takes you off in an entirely new direction than the previous books. I had bemoaned the fact that my previous read in the series, billed as 3.5, told me the ending of what happened to the previous group of survivors, worried it would spoil the rest of the books for me. I was soon to discover that wasn't the case.

Though I was cranky when book two introduced new survivors instead of carrying on the original storyline, here I was thrilled. I guess that things had gone about as far as they could be taken, for me, in the other story line, and this opened up fresh new characters and perspectives in this post-apocalyptic world overrun by the living dead.

It's somehow fresh and interesting, fun and exciting, and full of action and wild suspense. It's a rocky ride, and I still get cranky when I see someone use the word "germ" as many times as this author does, and some of the characters are a little cliché, but overall it's exactly what it's meant to be: pure entertainment.

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Book Review - Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter

Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me start out by saying that I would have pushed this to three and a half stars if that were possible here, but I just couldn't push it to a four.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a knitting blogger. Yarn Harlot is, I'm guessing, scraped from blog content. That's not necessarily a bad thing; there are books of that type that I've loved, and that have introduced me to blogs that I now follow and am a huge fan of. But I wasn't expecting it with this book, and for some reason, the disjointed nature of the blog posts turned into book chapters bothered me here and there.

Aside from that, this book is actually really funny. I snorted in bed with laughter loudly enough one night to wake up a snoring husband and earn myself a dirty look. If you're a non-knitter or into multiple crafts, there's a few digs here and there; McPhee is a capital-K Knitter and doesn't abide those who crochet.

Or those who are allergic to wool, unfortunately. I wonder what she'd think of me, as I can't wear or work with the stuff!!

At any rate, it was funny. The chapters are short, and unconnected, which makes this a great book to pick up and put down in between other reads. Or during TV commercial breaks. Or when in the bathroom. Not that I did any of that, honest. It's a fast read, fairly short, and does have some great funny moments that other crafty types will relate to.

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Book Review - Paper, Scissors, Death

Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had so much fun with this book.

Have you ever read a book where you're absolutely certain you could be besties with the main character? That's how I feel about Kiki Lowenstein. With my long history of scrapbooking, I can't believe it took me this long to discover that there's a nice cozy set of mysteries wrapped up in the world of scrapbooking!

This book is a treat. It's a fun, sometimes silly romp. There are some characters that will set your temperature steaming, and others, like the adorable adopted rescue Great Dane Gracie who will melt your heart. It's not a serious book, and as such, it's a super fast read. It's not literature, no, but it's extremely, extremely entertaining.

And it contains scrapbooking tips and ideas. I've never done a negative space title before but I have a feeling it's going to be showing up in a layout some time soon!

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Book Review - A Red Herring Without Mustard

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Crime solving chemist (and kid) Flavia DeLuce is at it again in this, the third installment of the Flavia DeLuce mysteries from Alan Bradley. Set in post World War II England, Flavia is the youngest daughter of a widower on a bankrupt estate. As the situation grows more dire for her family, a gypsy woman turns up looking for a place to camp, and the ever effable Flavia offers her a place on their estate of Buckshore.

When the woman is nearly beaten to death, discovered of course by a midnight jaunt of our intrepid girl detective, things start to get really interesting.

If you liked the other two Flavia novels, this one won't disappoint you. It's sharp and witty and fun to read. Overall, an excellent novel with a flair for dramatic mystery.

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Book Review - Pretties

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The follow-up to "Uglies" (which I really enjoyed), Pretties continues the tale of Tally, Shay, Peris, and the others met in the first book, post Tally's return to the city to become a Pretty, which came at the end of Uglies.

If I never read the words "bubbly" or "bogus" again, I may recover from this book.

While the story is engaging, the dialogue, plot lines, and characters drove me a little crazy. Yes, I know pretties are vapid. Yes, I know they do shallow things and live shallow lives, but good heavens, the book didn't have to! There was so much depth that could have been explored here that wasn't.

While I thought the story was okay, I can't say I enjoyed it half as much as the first in the series. Still, I'll be reading "Specials" soon, so it may have done it's job, pushing me on to the next book with just enough of my questions hanging after this book to prompt me.

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