Review

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A quick and easy read. Storyline was good but not your typical Carlos Ruiz Zafon. He does mention in the beginning that this is one of his earliest works which I think kinda shows but either way it is hard to compare it to The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game.

View all my reviews

First Review of the New Year: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender

Rating: 3/5 Stars
Pages: 292
Format: Trade Paperback ARC
ISBN: 9780385720960
1st Published: May 2004
Read in: January 2012
Every one's Choice: January 2012
Genre: Fiction

Well, I am trying to catch up on all of my reading since I have seriously fallen behind since my move a few months back. I have said it numerous of times but my commute was cut by 90% and so did my reading.

This book was chosen by one of my Goodreads groups, Every one's Choice, for January 2012 and since my goal is to at least read one book from my online group and one book from my face to face group at work. So one down and here are my thoughts:

It was a nice little book. I really enjoy cooking, even if I am not the best, and I love all my cooking shows so this one touched me a little. It is a sad story and what gave it all it's sadness was pretty much every character. The family is so separated and so hidden that everyone is left behind and there is no real believable love. I can't really explain the sadness in the family but I think you will understand -once you read it. Everyone is so far beyond reach and when they do reach out it seems like at the last possible moment but there still is some beauty in it. Like, I finally get it! I know I kinda ramble but really, this is just a way for me to understand myself and maybe someone can understand me too and get where I am going with this.

All in all, it is a simple book with mysterious people who have great hidden talent and don't understand how it is possible and to what to do with it. The ending was beautiful but I still was stuck at a 3 star rating. Maybe one day I can come back to this and re-rate it and re-evaluate it in my head more clearer.

Review: The Pirate's Daughter - Margaret Cezair-Thompson

Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780812979428
Pages: 390
Published October 2007
Format: Trade Paperback
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
Read: September 2011
Book Club Read

This book was up and down to me. It was a nice read but sometimes I was missing something. It needed more and less. Does that make sense? There were times when I wanted more information and then there were things that could have been left out and served no purpose. I loved the whole entwining Errol Flynn and Jamaica. How many stories are set in Jamaica? AND the best part was the Bob Marley was not mentioned until page 300. It was a shock! I thought for sure it would have been mentioned in the title.

This was an interesting read and I am glad I read it. I had to google more about Errol Flynn though (In like Flynn). I knew about him and his playboy life but I had to get a better image of him and I think that the author did a great job with weaving fact and fiction. It was what made the book so interesting. Everything else was mere "meh" but because she wove in Flynn it just gave it more magic. It is definitely a good book club book. It makes for great conversation and it is truly a comfort read.

Review: On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307386175
Pages: 203
Format: Trade Paperback
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Read in: July 2011

Just a joy to read. First , it is a good quick read. Definitely a beach read. It is beautifully written and simply "breathtaking". I love the purity of it all and the simple messages it holds. You would have to read it to completely agree. I love the line at the end "This is how the entire course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing." I thought it summed up the whole book and I thought it was a genius way to wrap up the book.

This is such a simple book that carries so much meaning. I really recommend it.

Review: If I Stay - Gayle Forman

Genre: YA Fiction

Pages: 234

ISBN: 9780142415436

Format: Trade Paperback

Rating 4.5/5 stars

Why didn't I give this 5 stars? I am still not sure myself but something unforeseen was holding me back. I really did enjoy the story and it took me seconds to read. I loved it and I would like to think that I would be just like Mia's parents when my girl's grow up except for the whole car crash thing!

This is about a story of a young girl of 17 to has a wonderful life and family and it all ends in an instant when her parents and her younger brother all perish in a car crash. She is lying in ICU and walking between the space of life and death. She sees and hears everything around her but it's up to her if she should live or die. All through her decision making she goes over her life and tells us bits and pieces of her story and it is so compelling and heartwarming and of course sad but it is such a good quick story and I am very happy that it is becoming a series and the next installment Where She Went will be out this April.

I do recommend this book to young adults and adults alike. It is truly a great story and I must admit I was a sucker for it.

Review: The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 357

ISBN: 9780156006219

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Not one of my favorite books but it was readable. I liked how it was a different kind of story and not one that you may have found in many other books. It's about a woman named Sabine who married a gay guy who was a magician and of course she was his assistant as well. They have been doing magic together for well over 20 years and she lived with him, Parisfal, and his boyfriend, Phan. They didn't get married until many years later. It was more for legal purposes because he knew he was going to die. There are many more things going on of course but that's the basics. She finds out after his death that is past was not of what he told her. He had another name and another life years before. Why he lied is beyond me. They give an answer why but it doesn't make much sense to go as far as he did.

Sabine meets his family that she thought were dead and blah blah. There was just a lot of things that could have made it better. There were things that were left unsaid and unanswered and I feel that this book had a lot more potential and that's why I continued to read it but the ending made me angry. Some of it was good but I thought that it was leading up to something bigger. I could ramble on and on about what I wanted to hear and what I got but read it for yourself and then we can chat!

Little Bee - Chris Cleave

Genre: Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback

ISBN: 9781416589648

Rating: 4/5 Stars

I struggled to rate this book. I wanted to give it 3.5 stars but decided it was best to give it 4 rather than 3. I really did enjoy this book. It was very intense and emotional. I really liked how normal lives can get so tangled and change so much from one instant. Charlie had to be my favorite because him being Batman throughout the whole thing made me feel better about their lives. I think he was a metaphor for the whole story. Little Bee was great. She was so strong and at times I just couldn't believe her character but I kept going back to her at the detention center. Her learning the Queen's English made sense. I kept thinking she speaks so well but with all that time, I guess anyone can learn something.

Sarah was hard for me to believe too. I guess I am not like her so I can't relate. She seemed too aggressive and too high maintenance. She is just hard to explain and I guess that's where I just felt no connection to her.

I am glad that Andrew was explained better. I was wondering about him since he did play a large role. I wanted to feel connected to him and I thought that wouldn't happen and then it did and I felt better. It was hard to read but at least I got a better picture of him.

I think t ended well because I don't think I wanted to know what happens next and if I did, i could paint my own picture and I would be satisfied.

Overall, I really did enjoy the book. I just felt something just wasn't right and I just don't l know what. I will probably think about it at a later point in which I guess I will just have to update me review.

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Paperback

ISBN:9780330449601

Pages: 645

Rating 4.5 Stars

I loved this book so much but the only reading why I give it 4.5 stars and not a total 5 is because it was very coincidental and very predictable but it was such a great and wonderful story. It was such a touching story and I thought at first I would not like it but I found myself pushing everything aside just to keep reading. I knew what the ending was as soon as all the characters starting appearing. As I said, it was very predictable, but I still wanted to hear it for myself. I absolutely love Eliza's stories and want to have my own copy of them, complete with Nathaniel's sketches! I also love how they are like her real life stories.

I love all the characters but I didn't like how everything was way too coincidental. Everyone knew one another, even if it was 80- years ago. Somehow they have all met. I know some of it can be possible but it was just too many people knowing too many people. For example: Christan and Nell. Really? That was a stretch. I hated the story of Nick and Leo. Not because it didn't belong, it may well have, I just hated to read such a horror.

I really could go on forever but who wants to read what I write??? Go out and read what Kate wrote! She also wrote a book before this entitled The House at Riverton also known as The Shifting Fog. Her new novel The Distant Hours will be released in November 2010. But as I am a crazed book-er, I would have to wait until that one is on Paperback just to buy it to make my collection purdy! I will get to The House at Riverton soon after my thesis is through (if that ever happens).

Shanghai Girls - Lisa See

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Softcover/Library

Pages: 309

ISBN: 9780812980530

Rating 4/5 Stars

I don't know why I can't give it 5 stars but it came very VERY close to it. There were so many times where I wanted to throw my book across the room because I was all too excited or angry with something in the book. Not in a bad way. I love when that happens. I was so animated throughout the whole book. I constantly made faces, whether happy or sad or whatever. There were so many twists and turns and a lot of unexpected things that happened but there were also a few things that I knew were coming. I love to read historical fiction. It paints a picture of a history that you were not a part of but of how it changes the way we know things and how it shapes our lives.

I loved this book and I am very excited to find out that there may just be a sequel which is good because the ending drove me nuts! It was such a cliff hanger! It is a nice marketing strategy but I hate that! I hate when you are left with nothing and are forced to wait until many months later until the next installment comes along but at least I got that. I would have rated the book lower if I had not known about the impending sequel.

I have Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love but have yet to read them but I do hear so many great things so I am excited about getting to them in the near future.

The Zahir - Paulo Coelho

Genre: Fiction

Format: Softcover

Pages: 296

ISBN: 9780060832810

Rating 4/5 Stars

I read Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life - The Authorized Biography by Fernando Morais back in January 2010. I won an ARC from Goodreads and I just fell in love with him. I love that an author can be a celebrity. Here in the states, everyone writes a book, from Justin Bieber to Laurena Bobbett so when people read a great piece of work it's just like "ahh, a refreshing book" but no one ever really thinks of the author so much and after reading The Zahir it makes me look at writer's in a whole new light. I have always thought of writers as being celebrities but many writers don't feel that way. I met a few authors and they just act like it's another day in the office but then again how do I expect them to act? I remember meeting a bunch of author's and thinking" Wow, why am I the only one who is excited and nervous?" and when I asked the other people who were with me how they felt about meeting him/her they just shrugged it off. Why go and meet an author if you aren't gonna be completely celebrity-shocked? I never reacted out of the ordinary when meeting anyone famous but I did respect that they do something that I could never do, such as write, act, or even sing.

Anyway, I may be getting a little ahead of myself. I loved The Zahir and I love how it is one man's journey of finding his wife who left him because she loved him so much that she did not want their "usual" relationship to get in the way of their marriage. Usual by means of comfort and losing touch with what is important and what is true and real. People become so used to their way of life that they forget the most important things and take advantage of what is most important. I found myself writing all his quotes in my little book so that I could never forget his words but I know that writing it was a waste because I will always know his words and always understand what he means when he says them. I can totally understand now why he is such a celebrity. His writings and ideologies are fascinating and true that encourages me to read everything he writes. I follow his blog and get his tweets but having his books on my shelves seem to hold more meaning.

To quote form The Zahir "...if a book isn't self-explanatory, then it isn't worth reading."

Wedlock - Wendy Moore

Genre: Historical non-ficiton

Format: Hardcover / Library

Pages: 324 (not including awknowledgments, notes, and bibliography)

ISBN: 9780307383365

Rating 3.5/5 stars

It took me some time to read this book for 3 reasons:

1- It didn't grab me in the very beginning

2- It's summer. I am always tired and lazy

3- I was reading 4 books at once.

After all that I started to get into it and dedicated more time into reading it. I feel that it was a good read and a nice change. It shows you had it really was in the 1700's. I just couldn't believe the maddness and the choas it all became. Stoney was just an unbearable human being and he was such a conniving A-hole! But I am glad that Mary was so smart and it may have taken some time but she got to help herself from going truly insane! I just love that it was a true story, I mean I wasn't happy to find out that people (especially women) were treated as such, but I did like how the author tied in facts and dug deep to gain more insight to the truths and she did a very good job. She writes beautifully and sophisticativly. I wish that there were pictures but it may have been a copyrighted issue but she explained it to where you could see it in your head.

I was never really into reading about the 18th Century but I do enjoy watching films based on this time period so when reading this I played it all in my head. I searched Wikipedia and Google to gain images and to compare notes and I found it all fascinating.

Here is the link to the Wikipedia pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Eleanor_Bowes,_Countess_of_Strathmore_and_Kinghorne

Here are some images:

Mary Eleanor Bowes Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes

Honolulu -Alan Brennert

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Softcover

Pages: 431

ISBN: 9780312606343

Rating 4/5 Stars

I did very much like this book and at times I just couldn't put it down. It has been some time since I read a good book like this. I have been reading so many YA's lately that it was a nice change. As for Honolulu, I liked it enough to rate it 4 stars but not enough to give it the full 5 because there were times when I felt like I was reading footnotes mixed into the book. I know Brennert had to give more detailed information due to the many mixtures of cultures but at times it just drove me nuts. I also think it was annoying that I didn't really believe the main character, I mean, she didn't have any education and yet she "used" big words and it just didn't sound like it was her voice. I know it may be a problem writing from a man to a woman's voice and although I think he did a decent job I just don't think he did such a perfect one. I did like how he wove in true tales and real people and kinda recreated their former lives. It was very interested to read and I liked how he had pictures of them in the back of the book.

I had the privilege to talk with Brennert a while back in regards to Moloka'i and he was still in the works with Honolulu and he said that he fell in love with Hawaii and also loves their history as well as history in general so I was not surprised when I read Honolulu. He really did it justice and told a wonderful and beautiful story of the real American culture.

Forever... - Judy Blume

Genre: YA Fiction
Pages: 192

ISBN: 9781416934004

Rating: 4/5 Stars

People also sopke of Judy Blume and constantly told me to read her and I remember my friends reading her but I always felt that it was too "grilish" for me. I used to love R.L Stine and I liked the "gore" but now that I am older, older people are telling me to read it. So someone suggested that I read Forever... first, so I did and here is what I thought:

It brought me back to that age and I remember those feelings and it was kinda nice but also sad knowing that that innocence is lost and I will never know those clumsy, shy feelings but then again I like having these comforting feelings too but it just goes to show you that you grow old and things change you. Even the decisions you make when you are 15 or 18 years old. Granted some of the characters weren't so well rounded but I see that point Blume was trying to make and I think she hit it head on and it just makes me kinda sad and nostalgic. Oh, and it also scares the crap outta me knowing that my daughters will have to face these things when they get older. I mean, Blume wrote this in 1975 and even then s=things were racy but with ever turn of a century sex just gets more and more in your face and we can't run from it and it makes me nervous to know that my girls will have to face such challenges but I will just have to come up with ideas to help them through it. My parents were not like Kath's in the book (Whose parents really are now a days?) but they were pretty good and I think they did a decent job!

I can go on and on about this subject but I am sure we all have heard it before!

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Genre: Fiction
Pages: 444
ISBN: 9780399155345
Rating: 4/5 Stars

This was a good read. It kept you reading throughout the entire story. I am sure everyone has said it or heard about The Help but I gotta admit I didn't love it, was just good. At first I got annoyed of having a white woman speak in a black voice but then I realized that men write in women's voices all the time (and of course that annoys all of us women) so then what is the difference right? No one can really, truly write in the opposite anything voice so I had to just give up on that and move along. I tell myself that it is a story and I should read it that way instead of really analyzing it. I gave it 4/5 stars because I didn't fall in love with it but I did enjoy it all the same. But for some odd reason I really don't understand all the hype about this book. I mean, I know it brave, and dangerous on both sides but still I just saw it as an average good read and pretty much nothing more than that. There are so many other books that have similar situations or worse and they don't get as much praise as this one. But yet I still give it 4/5!

I kinda liked the whole idea of putting her spin on it. It was kinda like reading the story of how this book came about within the actual pages of this book. I guess you would really understand what I mean unless you have already read it but I do like how she Incorporated her life in Jackson, Mississippi to a life of "someone else". I also liked her little story at the end just to tie things up. It really put a close on the book. I had so many thoughts throughout the book and I guess it is a good thing that this book is not only my personal book club online at Goodreads but it is also one of the monthly book reads for my work book club so there will be lots to chat about.

Goodreads

I am sure you are all well aware that I am an active member of Goodreads aka GR. I have my own GR group called Everyone's Choice. Please feel free to join in on the discussions and/or simply create your own. There we do Book Challenges of all sorts. If you have tried it yet, I highly recommend it. I have use Shelfari and LibraryThing but GR is better by far.

I have also won 9 books from the site so far. They have the contests that you enter and what you have to do, besides enter, is put it in a folder (or bookshelf) and name it First Reads and by entering in the contest you are required to post your review as soon as you finish it. The more you do this the more you win. It is a great way to spread the word of new books and also it is great for the authors and publishing companies to hear reviews before the are officially released to the public. I love to see which books I win. They are so random! Here is a list of what I've won thus far

1- Hummingbirds: A Novel by Joshua Gaylord

2- Eating Animals by Jonathan Safon Foer

3- Courage of Fear by Barbara Foyer

4- Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life - The Authorized Biography by Fernando Morais

5- Truly, Madly by Heather Webber

6- Sleep No More by Susan Crandall

7- The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

8- The River in Winter by Matt Dean (to be read)

9- Heavy Metal Pulp: Pleasure Model: Netherworld Book One by Christopher Rowley (to be read)

I always mark them ARC's (even if they are not) when I review them here so that people now that it may not be released yet.

I hope this helps and I hope you join my group. It is very comfy and cozy!