Book Review - The Bird Sisters

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a sad, sweet, melancholy and beautiful story. Two elderly spinsters are known in their town as the bird sisters, as they tend to injured birds with the help of an ancient medical bag and rehab the creatures with love and devotion. Few people come to their farm to visit, now, and they only have each other in the world, but it wasn't always this way.

During the summer when Millie was sixteen and Twiss fourteen, their eighteen year old cousin came to stay at their farm, where their mother reigned distractedly over the household and their father spent much time obsessing over golf. Millie had a sweetheart. The family had friends, and the possibility of a fascinating future - of travel and adventure for Twiss, marriage and children for beautiful Millie,,seemed laid out before them like a banquet. Til some letters on yellow writing paper changed everything, for everyone, for always.

I loved the authors delicate sense of style in writing. She doesn't use words clumsily or have awkward turns of phrase. Her writing is the equivalent of fine lace tablecloths and china tea sets. It's lovely. And yes, the story is sad some stories, like some lives, are. It's still pretty and humble and human, though. And that makes it wonderful.

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Book Review - Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a fun and suspenseful ride this book is! I just loved it!

Set in a future ravaged by energy wars and crises, global warming and overpopulation, the only escape from the horrors of life is Oasis, an immersive Virtual Reality world where you can do or be anything you can dream of. Kids now go to school there. People meet and marry there. Sports tournaments take place there. And now, the creator of Oasis has hidden an Easter egg there, and the player who finds it will inherit his vast estate, including ownership of Oasis. The game is on. But Wade is just a broke high school student. How can he compete with teams sponsored by corporate giants willing to spend millions to inherit billions?

I loved this book so much that I'm trying to get my husband to read it, too. The characters are funny and raw and real, the action, both in and out of Oasis, is exciting and the story is full of suspense.

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Book Review - Dust and Decay

Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like these books. Oh I really do. In fact, I realized halfway through this book that I had developed a serious book-character crush on Tom Imura, be still my little heart. He is a hero like nobody's business, and that's a good thing, because despite how dire the dangers seemed in the first book in the series, they've only gotten worse. Gameland is back in business, and with Charlie Pinkeye and Marion Hammer gone, all he'll has broken loose as other forces vie for his territory.

Benny is growing into his own as a warrior, and into his relationship with Nix, while Chong has developed a sweet, puppy dog type crush on Lilah, who has moved in with his family in the town of Mountainside. Morgie has continued to train with his friends, but doesn't share their desire to get out of town and follow the trail of the jet they've seen in the sky eastward. He, like the rest of town, has that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude that has left them living in a cage, while the others yearn for freedom. After they set out into the Rot and Ruin, however, their world tips on its axis. All the things they thought they knew about the nature of the world is called into question, and their chances for survival begin to grow smaller and smaller.

I didn't like this book quite as much as the first, but I did really enjoy some of the new characters that were introduced, and I hope we get to see more of them in the future. There wasn't a lot of movement plot wise; they didn't get very far in their journey. There was, on the other hand, lots of action. Unfortunately a lot of it was pretty bloody and gross.

As fort he ending? I was pissed. And I mean, extremely pissed. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say it was unnecessary, and if I hadn't already requested the book from the library, I probably would have stopped reading the series. It was even worse than my anger at a similar point in the Deadline series, which I also loved, probably more than these books. I yelled at the book. I shook it a little... But not too much. I was reading it on my iPad and she's named Precious for a reason. I cried.

I'm still mad at the author. He better make it up to me in the next book somehow...

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