Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The replacement - Brenna Yovanoff


I enjoyed this book a lot. I couldn't put it down. Mackie is trying to be invisable. Kind of hard to do when you aren't human. Especially hard when you are in high school and things like metal, and blood send you into a fainting spell. But he makes the best of it, and has some really wonderful friends. Unfortuantly, he is getting sick. Its getting harder to handle the steel, blood, and other things that harm him. He is getting weaker. He finally find people who have answers, unfortnantly, they are the ones he wants. Now he must choose between getting better, or doing what's right. 
This was a fascinating book. I really loved how it took place in his point of view, instead of a humans. I look forward to more books by her.

Paranormalacy - Kiersten White

This book was fun - as my sister said, it was fluffy but it had a good plot, and a good story behind it.

Evie is a paranormal detector guess you would call her, and she works with a company that tracks down and tags all paranormal. Her best friend is a mermaid, he ex is a fey and she has a crush on a shape-shifter, oh and she is being tutored by a werewolf. Her biggest fantasy is to go to school and have a real locker, and real high school experiences. Instead she is tracking down vampires, who don't look cute at all under their glamor, and if they get rough, she had to tase them with her pink taser. All in the day of glamours life. Until paranormals start getting killed by something awful. When it comes on her doorstep, she starts to learn more of who she is, where she came from, and what kind of a future she wants for herself.

Like I said, it was fluffy, but it was a very enjoyable read. I would recommend it to..Twilight fans and the light. I think its enjoyable for that group of people. Especially some of her descriptions on vampires, loved it.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Delirium - Lauren Oliver

"And so it goes Till the day you die This thing they call love It's gonna make you cry" ~ J. Geils Band 

"Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and marks Any heart not tough or strong enough To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain" ~Nazareth 

...and probably a thousand other songs, poems, stories, paintings dedicated to the very pain that love can cause. It does hurt. It down right sucks. You feel like you can fly, like there is nothing in this world that can bring you down, when you are in love. When you are in love, the person you are with makes you feel like there is no one else. When they leave (or you leave), the pain is close to unbearable. The future is bleak. Things that held joy no longer do. Ask anyone who has loved and lost and they will mostly likely say, "better to have love and lost then to have never have loved at all." I agree. I have loved with everything I have, and I have lost myself in that love and in turn, lost myself when that love ended. I have mourned over futures that would not happen. I can't imagine a world without love. That is what Delirium is. Its set in a world where we have "cured" love. Where people no longer have to worry about that evil virus love. Its not spoken. People marry according to their statitistics not feelings. Mothers and fathers care for the children in a respectable distant way. No hugs, no kisses. 

This entire book made me angry. From the first page to the last. I couldn't bear to read one more sentence and then the book was over and I couldn't bear to turn the cover. I fell in love with the characters. I loved the writing style, I loved the idea. I think anyone who has an interest in dystopian future books would greatly enjoy this book. It didn't focus on the government or society and 'beating' it, it was more two people, who found love, in a forbidden world and how there really is no going back, once you no longer own your heart. 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Matched - Ally Condie



Should I have chicken or beef tonight? For snack do I eat popcorn or chips? Soda or water? Watch Desperate Housewives or House? Work in Retail or Road Construction? Two children or none? We have all of choices. Some of them are the hardest we can imagine making. Some are easy. But image a world where you don't have to make choices. Imagine a world where they tell you who to marry, what to eat...This is the world that Cassia lives in. This is all she knows. When its her time for her Matching Ceremony, she is so excited but then everything changes and she starts to question the perfect system.

I am so looking forward to the next book, Crossed. I am looking forward to anything that she comes out with...

Plaque - Michael Grant

The fourth book in the Gone series. 
I enjoyed this book. I don't want to say to much, I don't want to give any thing away. I will say that we find the characters more or less in the same place. Grant has a way of taking a bad situation and making it worse. Making it seem like its okay then oh no not so much. I am really wondering how this series is going to end. I am looking forward to the last two books! 


Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Clare

I am writing this review assuming that you have read the first three book's in the series. If you haven't close this, do not read anymore. If you have...continue on. 

Okay so where were we when we left off? Simon's a vampire, Clary and Jace aren't bother and sister (whew), Valentine's dead, (yay), and evil has been beaten again! So what's to write about?


Now they are all back in New York. Simon's dating two girls, Clary is training to be a shadow hunter. Jace is battling with some inner demons (heh heh...oh I crack myself up), and Valentine may be dead but that, doesn't mean that there aren't people or things ready to step in his place and take over his work.

We meet some new characters, which add new life to this story. New plot twists and old characters doing new things that add more detail.

All in all, I like this book and am looking forward to the next two. I think even though you wouldn't think that there should be more, this does tide things up a bit.

Friday, May 6, 2011

The Stand - Stephen King



Oh yeah I went there. I know I put this on my read this before you die list, but since I have re-read it, I thought I should honor you, with a blog post.

This is book is by far one of my favorites. Every time I re-read it I find something new to love. I think, for me, this is my favorite work by one of my favorite authors, so reading it is like sitting down with him and getting advice on writing a great novel. He interweaves a story unlike any other writer I have read, and it does it in a way that doesn't bore you to tears. (Yes it took them three years to dig Gage's grave, and Flagg's boot heals clicking on the pavement in the hot summer night can get a little...tiring) BUT necessary to the whole feel, plot flow of the book.

The Plot: A super flu virus made by the government is lose and spreads like wild fire through out the world. This bug has a mortality rate of 99.4% or something. Which means, yes all but .06% of the world...will die. After the month of plague the survivors are left to pick up the pieces. Little do they all know, that something much bigger is in store for them.

The Characters - I am not going to give ALL of them, for time BUT these are the biggies.

Mother Abigail Freemantle - She's 108 year old black woman who still makes her own bread. She is the leader of the side of 'good' or "God" if you will.

Randal Flagg - The walking Dude, The Dark Man. He is something close to a demon. In fact he is referred to as legion at one point in the book. Mr. Glen Batman refers to him as the last magician of rational thought. Mayhap he is and mayhap he ain't. He is one mean son of a gun.

Stuart  Redman - A quiet man from East Texas. He was the part of the first group to get quarantined and tested for super flu. He went to Atlanta then Vermont plaque centers. The government tried to kill him, why, cause it seemed like a good idea at the time. He escaped and made his way to mother Abigale - later he becomes on of the Boulder Zone's committee members and sheriff. And even later still, he is one of the four chosen to make a stand against Flagg.

Fran Goldsmith - She is important - but honestly (book and movie) she drives me crazy. So I am just going to say this. She is carrying the first child to born after the plaque. The first pre-plague conceived. So she is important. Also she is the love interest of Harold Lauder who is important and I am getting there.

Larry Underwood - a new rock star, small time druggie gets into a jam in California so he puts on his boogie shoes and heads home to his mom in New York. Just in time for Captain Tripps. After the plaque he loses his mind a little, well a lot. He finally comes out the other end. A kind of shedding of the skin. In Boulder he is another committee member and respected man. Later he is one of the four sent to kill Flagg, at this point he makes one final transformation a meeting of the two Larry's. He believes, the best of himself. (I agree).

Nick Adros - A deaf/mute with one hell of a brain. He is one of my favorite characters. When the story begins he is drifter, when the plague hits he is deputy of a small town in Arkansas, after he becomes on the committee members of the Free Zone.

Tom Cullen - M-O-O-N That spells tom Cullen! Everyone knows that. Tom is my favorite character. He shows more strength, more inner innocents and beauty, more reason to live then any other character. He is simple but smart.

Nadine Cross - Randall Flagg's bride to be. She starts out...nice and slowly starts to succumb to the darkness that is in her soul. You can almost hate her for all the she does, until you realize that its not all her. Not at all, and she gets hers. Laws yes.

Harold Lauder - One the one hand you feel for this kid, on the other you can't stand him. Through out the book they both come into play. He plays a huge roll in this book both after the plague and during the "settlement" time.

Lloyd Hendreid - Flagg's right hand man. Course any one of us might be too, if Flagg saved us from a prison cell weeks after the plaque. He sold his soul for a hamburger. He was a dumb outlaw who never would have gotten into anything more then small time shit, until Flagg came along.

Trashcan Man - This man is...a weapons expert, he is a human bloodhound when it comes to finding all the toys the military left behind...he is okay a little bit of a pyromaniac and slightly mentally challenged to say the least. But he will give his life over to the darkman. My life for you.

These and many, many more make up the amazing rich story of The Stand.

I have already gone on and on and on with this. Let me conclude that in the world of writers, Stephen King is in a world of his own.

Read. This. Book. :)