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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Book Review - Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know, I think I read more YA fiction now than I did when I was in the YA age range (by that point I'd moved on to "adult" books.) I mean, I read Sweet Valley High and such, but why wasn't there YA fiction like this around when I was that age?

I guess it was so I could read it now.

Uglies takes place in a post-apocolyptic world where war and conflict has been eliminated. The small population goes through surgery to make everyone aesthetically pleasing, and somehow, this makes life better. Well, no, it's not quite that easy. Because people just don't seem the same once they become a "pretty". They seem to forget their old friends, and lose their old personalities. So finds Tally, when her best friend Peris turns pretty and seems to have left her friendship behind.

Tally has a few months to kill before her 16th birthday - the day of the operation - and befriends Shay, a fellow Ugly, waiting in the dorms with her to become what society means her to be. Only, she's not sure she wants to be pretty, or vapid, or dull. Instead, she as other ideas and Tally gets pulled into the mix, which includes the mysterious David, who tells tales of a world where no one is an Ugly, and no one is a Pretty, but everyone is beautiful.

This was an interesting, incredibly fast read. Two nights before bed and I was done. And I'm really drawn to the premise of this book, so I think I'll be starting the next one pretty shortly.

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Book Review - Specials

Specials by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Third in the "Uglies" saga, Specials picks up not long after the ending of "Pretties", with Tally back in the city, under the eye - and hands - of the devious Dr. Cable, who is determined to turn her into one of the unique breed of young Special Circumstances agents called "Cutters", run by Tally's friend Shay.

While I liked Specials much better than Pretties, I didn't like it nearly as well as Uglies. This is another super-fast read, finished in two reading sessions for me, and it's quick moving, with more action than the previous books. We've gotten about as far in character development as we were going to get in the series, and there aren't any significant new characters introduced here. In fact, be prepared to say goodbye to one significant character. Usually this would make me cry, but the way it was handled made it almost emotionless for me, as it had grown pretty inevitable. Mostly, Specials is about capers (tricks) and chases, war (yes, really, war!) and Tally's adjustment to her new "Special" status.

The book seemed to wrap up just about every dangling story line you can imagine, which makes me really wonder about the existence of "Extras", the next book in the series. It almost seems (I haven't looked it up to be certain) that this was meant to be a trilogy and the last book was tacked on to capitalize on the success of the others. Truly, I'm considering not reading the last book, because I like the way things were tied up, and don't necessarily want to see more icky things happen to poor Tally, who has really been through the ringer in this series.

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Book Review - Wild

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cheryl Strayed's excellent memoir of her time hiking the Pacific Crest trail is a journey not just on aching feet and with a heavy pack on her back, but through the trail of grief left behind by her mother's passing and the subsequent dissolution of the family unit she'd always called home.

Newly divorced, floating from job to job, idly doing drugs and sleeping with men, working service jobs here and there, Cheryl is lost. So lost, in fact, that when signing her divorce papers she chooses her own, new last name. Strayed, because she feels like a stray, drifting in the world.

The beginning of the hike is an impulse, and almost seems without purpose, but as she leaves miles of wilderness behind her, she falls into herself in amazing ways.

I loved this book. I related to this book in a significant way, although the journeys I took in my life on impulse were slightly different (and LOTS easier on my feet!). It's a wonderful coming-of-age tale, worth reading by those fascinated by the wilderness and those not.

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Book Review - Afraid

Afraid by Jack Kilborn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, I had pretty mixed feelings about this book. I started listening to the audiobook a few months ago, and after the first audiodisk I returned it to the library. It was just so violent, and so gross, and so off-putting that I couldn't keep going.

But there were a couple of characters that I was worried about. In one way, I didn't want to finish the book because I was pretty sure the icky and gross things would be the end of them. But I finally had to go back. I got the ebook and finally finished it. A little at a time.

Afraid takes place in small-town Wisconsin, where a helicopter crash has let loose a band of psychopathic, sadistic, nutjob murderers who seem determined to rip every citizen limb from limb. This book is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of blood and gore, and I skipped large sections of paragraphs of it because it was too much, even for me, the intrepid Stephen King and Dean Koontz fan. There's just too much of it, in my opinion, so even though this book and it's characters were so incredibly engaging that I had to go back to it, I could only rate it three stars.

I mean, taken at face value, this is trashy fiction. But I do like trashy fiction; even trashy fiction is better for entertainment than trashy tv, and we all have our vices. But the characters, for trashy fiction, are actually extremely well written, and one important twist in the book was one that even an avid mytery reader like me - who usually guesses all the twists way in advance - didn't see coming. Though I did guess one of the other "big twists" early on, so there's that. Still, this is worth a read if you either don't mind icky violence or are able to skip it without getting too squicked out. Especially if you like adorable animals like chirpy monkeys and cute beagles named Woof who turn out to be big heroes.

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