Life as we Knew it - Susan Beth Pfeffer

Genre: YA Fiction
Pages: 337

Format: Softcover

ISBN: 9780152061548
Rating: 4/5

I gotta admit I really did enjoy this one. I didn't know it was a series until I got to the end and I was very excited. There were some flaws of course but in the end I rated it based on the entertainment factor. I read it in 1.5 days and it kept me awake and I wanted to continue reading it so...

It is based on a young teenage girl, Miranda, who writes in her journal and I think it is an easy way to write a book because there are many details that you can leave out. It begins with her living a normal life with her friends and family and there are talks and news about a meteor that is expected to hit the moon and when it does it literally pushes the moon closer to earth and all these catastrophic events unravel and it's like the world comes to an end. All these things happen, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcano eruptions. Half of the known world is pretty much gone and it is in Miranda's journal that we learn this much but that it all we know which also makes the story good because it is pretty much all she knows too. There are no more news and how will she get any more information? It is definitely a good story and I am very much happy to get to the next installment< The Dead and the Gone, which is another teenage boy who lives in NYC and it is now his story of how these events effect him.

I gotta admit this is one of the few YA's that I truly enjoy and I wish I would have known how good it was before for I would have brought the box set! I wonder if there will be more after the 3?? Perhaps in the making...????

City of Bones - Cassandra Clare

Genre: YA SiFi Fantasy

Pages: 485

ISBN: 9781416955078 (softcover)

Rating: 4 Stars

It took me longer than usual to read this book because of school and weddings but I am done now and here are my thoughts:

I really enjoyed it for reasons I cannot explain. I hated the Twilight series and I kept thinking what makes this different in terms of reality? I don't like the idea of science fiction fantasy but for some reason this one brought me to liking it and accepting it. I already have the set of three (the fourth has yet to be released).

I really liked the characters. I like how it played more to the now except it was really hard for me to believe that 16-years-old's knew so much or maybe I knew too little at the age. I also loved that they were in NYC. I love to read about my area because it is better for me to picture it. The ending was a little creepy and I wanted to bring the rating down to 3 stars but I kept pushing forward and told myself that I loved everything else so why lower it? I would rather have given it 3.75 stars but I had to choose.

This book, to me, wasn't suspenseful nor was it a true love story. It was a story with a lot of twists and turns and I thought it was captivating and inviting. Things seemed to be believable although it is obviously not. It is always hard to write reviews when I hate to do spoilers. it is my job to try to sell a book to other people and hope that they will read it but I figure let others make decisions. I read what I want to read and I read what my book clubs choose or take recommendations. I would never force someone to read a book but I would tell them to give it a chance.

Stieg Larsson

So I finally finished up on Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and I gave it a total of 4 stars. I really enjoyed it but I wouldn't give it a full 5 stars. There are just some important things I feel that he left out (and for obvious reasons) Sometimes I felt that he thought very highly of himself maybe cocky? Oh well I guess in some ways he has the right to be.

I am now starting the late Stieg Larsson's second book The Girl who Played with Fire it is the second of the trilogy (The Girl wit the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, & The Girl who Kicked the Hornets nest - yet to be translated). Mr. Larsson died shortly after his books were published. He lived in Sweden. The first of his books were great but it was very hard to get into at first because of all the business jargon but once you got passed the first few chapters it was quite good. This book grabbed you the minute you opened it. So far I can't put it down! It is too bad that the author passed away (and at a young age too - mid-fifties) because I think he would've kept writing and delivering such great books but we will just have to thank him for what he did leave us!