Okay if I don't stop getting so many books I will never get to the end of my pile. The library has continued to get in books way faster than their predictions. So imagine my surprise when I showed up last Thursday to pick up a book and they had 5 books for me to pick up...geez.
From the Library:
A retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I love retellings of classic fairy tales and am looking forward to this one.
Yep, still reading this series too. Rumor is it will all be over soon. I thought "A Lick of Frost" was okay so maybe this one will be even better.
This is the sequel to "Evernight" I am hoping that it is an excellent read.
Another book in a series I think has been mediocre at best. Maybe I will give the series up after this book; we will see. Still it is one of the only series with classic fairies in it.
Another series where I read the first book and thought it was okay. I have the second book to read and then this one. Hopefully it will be a good read.
From Paperbackswap.com
This is the sequel to "Night Calls"; which I own but haven't read yet. I have heard great things about this series though.
I got this book soley because someone want to swap me books directly and this was one they had that sounded interesting. It will go on the shelf as an oddity for me to read when I get a chance (Like that will ever happen).
This book just sounded funny and entertaining...and it had Zombies...so I had to have it.
From Amazon Vine:
I got this from Vine. I am about 50 pages into it and absolutely loving it; it is a gritty book that reminds me a bit of a classic comic book story with a little Jim Butcher and Niel Gaiman thrown in :-)
A book I got through Vine for my son. It is okay a little wordy but the pictures are nice. I can't get my son to sit through it though.
Well that's it for this week! And I think that is more than enough :-)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Just Another Judgment Day by Simon Green (5/5 stars)
This is book 9 in the Nightside series by Simon Green. I love this series and I loved this book. Last I heard there are going to be 12 books in this series; I hope it is more because I enjoy this series immensley.
The Nightside has a new Authority in place but the New Authories have a problem. Walker comes begging John Taylor to deal with it. You see the Walking Man is coming to the Nightside. The Walking Man is a human man that delivers the wrath of God upon humanity. The Walking man sees in black and whites, no greys. People are either bad or good and, the Nightside being what it is, everyone in it is in trouble. In fact the Walking Man is bent on destroying the whole darn place. The New Authorities need John to find the Walking Man and...deal with him.
This was a great book. As usual it opens with a small case that John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie have to solve; this case is just as interesting and creative as the rest of the book. These books continue to be wilding entertaining, bizarrely creative, and an all around great ride. I love the way Green throws in off-handed comments about the strangest things. Just the fact that the book starts in Strangefellows bar with The Tribe of Gay Barbarians doing the Cancan is enough to make me eagerly devour the whole book. Too bad it was over so quickly.
In this book Shotgun Suzie joins John for part of the journey but John's closest friend is a monster hunter from the Middle East named Chandra. Chandra is a great character. We learn even more about Walker and where his power originates. John and Suzie come to more of an understanding in their "relationship". Madness and mayhem are everywhere. And of course John has to face the Wrath of God.
These books continue to be hilarious, fast-paced, action packed, surprising, creative, and all around hugely entertaining. I was sad when it ended and am eagerly awaiting the next book.
The Nightside has a new Authority in place but the New Authories have a problem. Walker comes begging John Taylor to deal with it. You see the Walking Man is coming to the Nightside. The Walking Man is a human man that delivers the wrath of God upon humanity. The Walking man sees in black and whites, no greys. People are either bad or good and, the Nightside being what it is, everyone in it is in trouble. In fact the Walking Man is bent on destroying the whole darn place. The New Authorities need John to find the Walking Man and...deal with him.
This was a great book. As usual it opens with a small case that John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie have to solve; this case is just as interesting and creative as the rest of the book. These books continue to be wilding entertaining, bizarrely creative, and an all around great ride. I love the way Green throws in off-handed comments about the strangest things. Just the fact that the book starts in Strangefellows bar with The Tribe of Gay Barbarians doing the Cancan is enough to make me eagerly devour the whole book. Too bad it was over so quickly.
In this book Shotgun Suzie joins John for part of the journey but John's closest friend is a monster hunter from the Middle East named Chandra. Chandra is a great character. We learn even more about Walker and where his power originates. John and Suzie come to more of an understanding in their "relationship". Madness and mayhem are everywhere. And of course John has to face the Wrath of God.
These books continue to be hilarious, fast-paced, action packed, surprising, creative, and all around hugely entertaining. I was sad when it ended and am eagerly awaiting the next book.
Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn (4/5 stars)
This is book 6 in the Kitty Norville series. I thought this book was better than the last book and a great addition to the series.
In this book Kitty returns to Denver to try and live a normal life with her new husband Ben. Well, of course things don't stay normal. Kitty's pack is being hunted by a horrible, invisible, fire-loving supernatural creature of some sort and Kitty thinks it might be tied to the events that happened in Las Vegas in Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand.
This was a great addition to this series. For once Kitty is in charge; she is making smart (if not always informed) decisions and carrying out plans. Her wry sense of humor is still in force, there is a lot of action in this book and it clicks along as a super fast pace. I was happy that the storyline dealing with the Las Vegas shapeshifters was expanded on and Odysseus Rex was part of that wonderful storyline. Rick is a great character and another new mysterious vampire enters the scene.
I love that this book propelled itself forward without needing all the emotional baggage that comes along with the unstable relationships featured in a lot of paranormal series. Kitty and Ben have a happy, stable relationship and it is nice to see a good story where the characters are well-adjusted caring individuals.
The latest news I heard was that there was only going to be 7 books in this series. I am not sure if that is still true or not. Either way I am looking forward to the next book.
In this book Kitty returns to Denver to try and live a normal life with her new husband Ben. Well, of course things don't stay normal. Kitty's pack is being hunted by a horrible, invisible, fire-loving supernatural creature of some sort and Kitty thinks it might be tied to the events that happened in Las Vegas in Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand.
This was a great addition to this series. For once Kitty is in charge; she is making smart (if not always informed) decisions and carrying out plans. Her wry sense of humor is still in force, there is a lot of action in this book and it clicks along as a super fast pace. I was happy that the storyline dealing with the Las Vegas shapeshifters was expanded on and Odysseus Rex was part of that wonderful storyline. Rick is a great character and another new mysterious vampire enters the scene.
I love that this book propelled itself forward without needing all the emotional baggage that comes along with the unstable relationships featured in a lot of paranormal series. Kitty and Ben have a happy, stable relationship and it is nice to see a good story where the characters are well-adjusted caring individuals.
The latest news I heard was that there was only going to be 7 books in this series. I am not sure if that is still true or not. Either way I am looking forward to the next book.
Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr (3/5 stars)
This is the second book by Melissa Marr. It is in the same world as "Wicked Lovely" and many of the same characters are present. It happens after the events in "Wicked Lovely" but follows the story of Leslie one of Ash's friends.
Leslie is having a rough time; with a dad who constantly drinks and a brother who is always high, she has a tough time keeping it together. Things change when she decides to get a tattoo and gets drawn into a world of darkness she never even knew existed.
I liked Leslie's character better than Ash's character. Leslie had more depth and struggled against a darkness in her nature that was interesting. As for the rest of the story it was okay. The book is a quick read and I was never bored. Still there is something two-dimensional about Marr's writing style. The characters still feel a bit flat and the story is predictable. I don't really think the world is all that creative either. The deal with the tattoo was interesting and probably the most creative part of the book. The writing style is very straight-forward; nothing lush or even all that descriptive.
I feel like this is the beginning of a series involving Leslie. This book (although wrapping up the main story line) left many things hanging and left the reader wondering. I didn't feel like the story was as complete as "Wicked Lovely" was.
Overall, I am finding that Marr writes books that are quick, brainless, summer reads. They are okay and kind of engaging but nothing all that special. I am again going to recommend Holly Black's Fairy Tale series as a great replacement to this series. Also Charles DeLint's Moonheart duology is another great fairy book. In fact I like Pike's "Wings" better than this book too. So if you are looking for a good modern fairy tale I would check out those books.
Will I read the next book, "Fragile Eternity"? Maybe. I will probably get it from the library. As I said these are super quick reads, 3-4 hours tops, so it's not a huge investment for a little fun.
Leslie is having a rough time; with a dad who constantly drinks and a brother who is always high, she has a tough time keeping it together. Things change when she decides to get a tattoo and gets drawn into a world of darkness she never even knew existed.
I liked Leslie's character better than Ash's character. Leslie had more depth and struggled against a darkness in her nature that was interesting. As for the rest of the story it was okay. The book is a quick read and I was never bored. Still there is something two-dimensional about Marr's writing style. The characters still feel a bit flat and the story is predictable. I don't really think the world is all that creative either. The deal with the tattoo was interesting and probably the most creative part of the book. The writing style is very straight-forward; nothing lush or even all that descriptive.
I feel like this is the beginning of a series involving Leslie. This book (although wrapping up the main story line) left many things hanging and left the reader wondering. I didn't feel like the story was as complete as "Wicked Lovely" was.
Overall, I am finding that Marr writes books that are quick, brainless, summer reads. They are okay and kind of engaging but nothing all that special. I am again going to recommend Holly Black's Fairy Tale series as a great replacement to this series. Also Charles DeLint's Moonheart duology is another great fairy book. In fact I like Pike's "Wings" better than this book too. So if you are looking for a good modern fairy tale I would check out those books.
Will I read the next book, "Fragile Eternity"? Maybe. I will probably get it from the library. As I said these are super quick reads, 3-4 hours tops, so it's not a huge investment for a little fun.
Monday Weekly Book Haul
I got another round of books last week. Mostly from the Library; the Library is much quicker about getting books I want to read than I though they would be! So Kudos to them on revitalizing my faith in my local library.
From the Library This Week:
I have been waiting to read this book and am so excited to finish it.
I haven't been thrilled with this series but the books are okay and a fun, fast summer read.
Yes, I am still reading this series. Shame on me. But, notice I am no longer buying the books...not even used.
From Amazon Vine:
There was a special Amazon Vine edition this week featuring business books. Since I am interested in everything I though, why not?!
I acquired this indirectly from Vine; as me and my mom swapped Vine books.
From Paperbackswa.com:
I am very excited to read this book by Brandon Sanderson. I loved "Warbreaker" and am excited to read more of his works.
This book has on my paperbackswap.com wish list forever. Hopefully it will be as good as it sounds.
Well that is all for this week! How am I ever going to keep up with all of these books coming in? I don't know but getting them is always exciting!
From the Library This Week:
I have been waiting to read this book and am so excited to finish it.
I haven't been thrilled with this series but the books are okay and a fun, fast summer read.
Yes, I am still reading this series. Shame on me. But, notice I am no longer buying the books...not even used.
From Amazon Vine:
There was a special Amazon Vine edition this week featuring business books. Since I am interested in everything I though, why not?!
I acquired this indirectly from Vine; as me and my mom swapped Vine books.
From Paperbackswa.com:
I am very excited to read this book by Brandon Sanderson. I loved "Warbreaker" and am excited to read more of his works.
This book has on my paperbackswap.com wish list forever. Hopefully it will be as good as it sounds.
Well that is all for this week! How am I ever going to keep up with all of these books coming in? I don't know but getting them is always exciting!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Aurelia's Colors by Jeffery Overstreet (2/5 stars)
I was excited to read this book based on the reviews I had read. It is written in a lush and poetic style; which I usually love. However somehow this book managed to make the characters and setting somehow seem stiff and unreal despite the delicate prose of the book.
Aurelia was found as a toddler by a river. She is raised by the Gatherers, people who have been thrown out of the walls of the city for various crimes. Many years ago the Queen forbade colors; all color belongs only to the upper class. Unfortunately for Aurelia she excels in finding color in everything and the palace wants her for the their own. Will Aurelia succeed in giving the commonfolk back their colors?
As I said the writing is beautifully done. The story unfortunately did not grab me. The writer constantly switches viewpoint between tons of different characters and I found that very distracting. It was hard to get involved or really care about any of the characters. The writing style, despite its beauty, did little to bring the scenes in the book alive for me. I also found the story in general to be a very dull read, it moved forward at a very deliberate pace. I had a lot of trouble getting through this book.
The imagine my shock (not knowing Overstreet is a Christian writer) when the whole story drops any pretense of creativity and becomes just another retelling of the story of Christ. The parallels between the story of Christ and Aurelia were painfully transparent and the ending of the book had my eyeballs rolling as the characters and story were pushed aside to pull everything together into a perfect retelling of the classic religious story.
In summary, the story starts out beautifully written but the writing and characters are dry, the plot creeps along and is a bit schizophrenic because of the multitude of viewpoints it is told from. I had a lot of trouble getting through this book. Then when the whole pretense of a creative story was dropped to re-deliver a story of Christ that has been delivered a million times before it just added to my ire. I won't be reading anymore of Overstreet's books; they are just too boring and preachy for me.
Aurelia was found as a toddler by a river. She is raised by the Gatherers, people who have been thrown out of the walls of the city for various crimes. Many years ago the Queen forbade colors; all color belongs only to the upper class. Unfortunately for Aurelia she excels in finding color in everything and the palace wants her for the their own. Will Aurelia succeed in giving the commonfolk back their colors?
As I said the writing is beautifully done. The story unfortunately did not grab me. The writer constantly switches viewpoint between tons of different characters and I found that very distracting. It was hard to get involved or really care about any of the characters. The writing style, despite its beauty, did little to bring the scenes in the book alive for me. I also found the story in general to be a very dull read, it moved forward at a very deliberate pace. I had a lot of trouble getting through this book.
The imagine my shock (not knowing Overstreet is a Christian writer) when the whole story drops any pretense of creativity and becomes just another retelling of the story of Christ. The parallels between the story of Christ and Aurelia were painfully transparent and the ending of the book had my eyeballs rolling as the characters and story were pushed aside to pull everything together into a perfect retelling of the classic religious story.
In summary, the story starts out beautifully written but the writing and characters are dry, the plot creeps along and is a bit schizophrenic because of the multitude of viewpoints it is told from. I had a lot of trouble getting through this book. Then when the whole pretense of a creative story was dropped to re-deliver a story of Christ that has been delivered a million times before it just added to my ire. I won't be reading anymore of Overstreet's books; they are just too boring and preachy for me.
White Witch, Black Curse (The Hollows, Book 7) by Kim Harrison (2/5 stars)
This is the 7th book in the Hollows series by Kim Harrison. In a series that has consistently blown me away with its great writing quality and fast pace this book was a huge disappointment. I really feel like Kim Harrison was forced to write this book and forced to wrap up the whole Kisten mystery and didn't want to; this book just drags. Quick side note: I listened to this on audio book and the audio book quality was great.
In this book Rachel is trying to remember what happened on the night when Kisten was murdered. Ford is along to try and help her jog her memories. Ivy is still trying to solve the Kisten murder in her own way. Then they get called on a case that ends up involving a mother Banshee who may be killing to feed her child. Oh and Pierce (you know the guy in the short story done in the anthology "Holidays from Hell") pops into Rachel's life. Also like usual Rachel is having trouble with Al (her demon teacher) and is trying to keep things with Marshall on a "strictly friends" basis.
As you can tell from the above things were kind of jumbled together; Rachel didn't seem to know what she was doing most of the book. There are so many things that bothered me about this book. First and foremost is Rachel's whining. I mean you probably could have cut 50 pages out if you had eliminated some of the whining; I felt like counting the number of times Rachel said "But, I'm a White witch!" with an honest to god foot-stomping whine...the number of times this was said had to be in the double digits at least; were they trying to drive home the book title? Rachel acted pathetic throughout the book and constantly said she would change things while she constantly made the same horrible decisions over and over again. It just wasn't interesting to read about that.
Next issue is the Kisten thing. All this build up over multiple books over who Kisten's killer was...it was very anti-climatic. The conclusion to the Kisten murder was weird too (I won't give anything away) but it was very rushed and very unsatisfying and really felt forced; like someone told Harrison she had to wrap up this plot point so she grudgingly did it. My only positive reaction to this part of the story is that we finally can (hopefully) stop hearing "Who was Kisten's killer?".
Then there is the appearance of Pierce, a minor character in a short story in an anthology half of the readers of this series probably haven't read. Pierce takes a major part in this story and I thought it was odd that he suddenly plays such a big role in Rachel's life. His inclusion felt forced and unnatural. The Banshee character Mia was also unsatisfying; there was so much "we have her, we lost her, we have her, we lost her" that I just got bored with the whole story. Rachel's whole moral struggle with bringing in Mia was odd, it was like Rachel completely lost her sense of right and wrong and wandered around confused for most of the Mia investigations.
Of course, to bring even more pain into the mix Harrison had to (again) bring up Ivy and Rachel's blood balance. I had really, really hoped we were done hearing about this. In fact it seemed pretty tied up in the last book and I was disappointed to see it rear its ugly head again. Bringing this up, yet again, added to my boredom and made me roll my eyes...I mean come on let the characters move on and get on with the story. Same with Marshall, what was up with his relationship with Rachel, is it there just to take up page space?
There were a couple good pieces to the story. Pierce is actually an interesting character and I am eager to see more of him. Eddings and Glenn were great characters and added more to the story than any of the other characters. Al stole the scenes he was in too. Also Bis was awesome and I hope the gargoyle is in the story more in the future. Rynn Cormel is an intriguing master vamp and I am also eager to find out what his future actions are. In fact all of these characters were way more interesting than Rachel and Ivy; maybe Rachel's character is just getting tired. All I know is something has to change or I will be getting rid of all the books in this series and dropping it.
All in all a disappointment. This was a long, long book that felt forced and chased itself in circles a lot. There were a couple bright spots, but overall I just wanted the book to be over.
In this book Rachel is trying to remember what happened on the night when Kisten was murdered. Ford is along to try and help her jog her memories. Ivy is still trying to solve the Kisten murder in her own way. Then they get called on a case that ends up involving a mother Banshee who may be killing to feed her child. Oh and Pierce (you know the guy in the short story done in the anthology "Holidays from Hell") pops into Rachel's life. Also like usual Rachel is having trouble with Al (her demon teacher) and is trying to keep things with Marshall on a "strictly friends" basis.
As you can tell from the above things were kind of jumbled together; Rachel didn't seem to know what she was doing most of the book. There are so many things that bothered me about this book. First and foremost is Rachel's whining. I mean you probably could have cut 50 pages out if you had eliminated some of the whining; I felt like counting the number of times Rachel said "But, I'm a White witch!" with an honest to god foot-stomping whine...the number of times this was said had to be in the double digits at least; were they trying to drive home the book title? Rachel acted pathetic throughout the book and constantly said she would change things while she constantly made the same horrible decisions over and over again. It just wasn't interesting to read about that.
Next issue is the Kisten thing. All this build up over multiple books over who Kisten's killer was...it was very anti-climatic. The conclusion to the Kisten murder was weird too (I won't give anything away) but it was very rushed and very unsatisfying and really felt forced; like someone told Harrison she had to wrap up this plot point so she grudgingly did it. My only positive reaction to this part of the story is that we finally can (hopefully) stop hearing "Who was Kisten's killer?".
Then there is the appearance of Pierce, a minor character in a short story in an anthology half of the readers of this series probably haven't read. Pierce takes a major part in this story and I thought it was odd that he suddenly plays such a big role in Rachel's life. His inclusion felt forced and unnatural. The Banshee character Mia was also unsatisfying; there was so much "we have her, we lost her, we have her, we lost her" that I just got bored with the whole story. Rachel's whole moral struggle with bringing in Mia was odd, it was like Rachel completely lost her sense of right and wrong and wandered around confused for most of the Mia investigations.
Of course, to bring even more pain into the mix Harrison had to (again) bring up Ivy and Rachel's blood balance. I had really, really hoped we were done hearing about this. In fact it seemed pretty tied up in the last book and I was disappointed to see it rear its ugly head again. Bringing this up, yet again, added to my boredom and made me roll my eyes...I mean come on let the characters move on and get on with the story. Same with Marshall, what was up with his relationship with Rachel, is it there just to take up page space?
There were a couple good pieces to the story. Pierce is actually an interesting character and I am eager to see more of him. Eddings and Glenn were great characters and added more to the story than any of the other characters. Al stole the scenes he was in too. Also Bis was awesome and I hope the gargoyle is in the story more in the future. Rynn Cormel is an intriguing master vamp and I am also eager to find out what his future actions are. In fact all of these characters were way more interesting than Rachel and Ivy; maybe Rachel's character is just getting tired. All I know is something has to change or I will be getting rid of all the books in this series and dropping it.
All in all a disappointment. This was a long, long book that felt forced and chased itself in circles a lot. There were a couple bright spots, but overall I just wanted the book to be over.
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