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Review Date: 11/6/2013
I do not normally like memoirs, so you can image my surprise when I realized this is a memoir of sorts. Somehow though Jo Walton has written her quasi memoir as a sci-fi fantasy. The story starts out in 1975 with a small glimpse of Morwenna and her twin sister Mor when they are just 11 years old. The girls are carrying out a quest the fairies have given them. It then moves on to 1979 Mor has died in a car accident, Morwenna was seriously injured and she has run away from her mother who she believes is a witch who caused the car accident that maimed her and killed her sister. She has lived in Wales her entire life, but has now gone to live with her estranged father in England. The father Daniel lives with his three sisters. The sisters decide that Morwenna should attend the same boarding school they attended as girls. Morwenna feels that they dont really want her and even though she hates the school there is no real resentment towards them. The story follows Morwenna through the many SF books she reads. She connects to her father through SF. She has very few friends at school, but she joins a SF book club at the public library and connects and makes friends through SF literature. There is magic and fairies and beautiful descriptions of Welsh and English landscapes. The character Morwenna is also a bit of a foodie. She seems to really love food and she describes when its bad as well as when it's good. All of the characters are really wonderful, they seem so real, but possibly because they are. I loved this book and have looked up a number of writers that are mentioned. I looked forward to discovering new (to me) authors to read.
Review Date: 3/13/2024
Jeremy is the high school nerd with only one friend and little chance of getting the girl he really likes, so he take a âpill.â The pill is a mini computer that will attach to his brain and give him all of life's instructions. But can a computer have nuance or empathy? This was definitely was meant as a message for people as we become more and more dependent on computers/internet/AI. It's a very dangerous slippery slope because we lose individuality and creativity. Even our freedoms will be lost the more dependent we become on technology.
Review Date: 2/1/2010
This version of Beauty and the Beast starts out slowly. I felt that the addition of Arabic and Persian words and their definitions was possibly the reason. There is less of that towards page 50 and then the story begins to pick up. I started to really get into the book when all of a sudden it ended. I had so many questions and was very disappointed in the ending. Overall it was a good book and worth the read.
Review Date: 5/21/2010
This was a wonderful retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
Review Date: 10/29/2009
Because Your Vampire said So, is so much fun. I love this series and this book does not disappoint.
Review Date: 11/6/2013
I love historic fiction and this novel certainly had a fascinating way of bringing history to life. Inspector Grant is stuck in bed with a broken leg and gets horribly bored, so instead of giving into the boredom he decides to solve a murder, a very old one.
Review Date: 1/4/2015
The Elegance of the Hedgehog had me laughing out loud and crying. This is just such a beautiful story told from two points of view. One of the narrators is Renee, a concierge working in a very exclusive apartment building in France. The other is Paloma, a 12 year old girl and one of the tenants in the apartment building. Paloma has declared, at least to the reader that on her thirteenth birthday she will set fire to her family's apartment and then commit suicide. They are like bookends and between them are their volumes of knowledge and philosophy that they share with the reader. Of course Renee's contribution is larger since she is a 54 year old widow, who has lived longer and done a tremendous amount of studying. Their stories are similar because they are both trying to hide who they are for their own personal reasons, and reach the same conclusions when they are brought together by a new tenant. The writing is just so beautiful and that alone would make this an incredible book to read, but the characters and their idiosyncrasies make them come off the page and make you want to know more about them.
Review Date: 5/14/2015
I've never read this long a book with this many cliffhangers. Something could have been resolved. The book takes place mostly in New York City. One of the story lines involved Connie secretly helping Jazz, but the way the character was written in I Hunt Killers you would definitely think she had way more smarts then to get herself in the most dangerous situation you could possibly imagine. Jazz you expect to go in without thought to consequences...see no big surprise there, but then even Howie may be facing danger back at home. Unfortunately we don't know because nothing was resolved and we'll have to wait for book #3.
Review Date: 1/1/2014
Goth Girl was a powerfully written story of Kyra, a teenage girl dealing with the loss of her mother to lung cancer. We met Kyra in The Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, where she befriends Fanboy and helps him to see the opposite sex as more than just an object which in turn helps with the development of his comic book. At the end of the story though Fanboy is frightened that Kyra may try to take her life, so he makes an anonymous call to her dad to warn him. Goth Girl Rising starts with Kyra being released from the "hospital" after a 6 month stay. She ended up there as a direst result of Fanboy's phone call, so she's angry with him and she plans different forms of revenge. She's also reconnecting with her friends and doing a lot of fighting with her father. She has many confrontations with the teachers and vice-principal, but really she's just trying find her way back into the world to what's normal. A few of the chapters are actually letters to Neil Gaiman, because she's made a connection to his Sandman comics, the character, Death especially. She's looking for answers and just feels all alone. This story is a sensitive look at a teenage girl dealing with all that life has to throw at her and Barry Lyga does it so well.
Review Date: 11/6/2013
In this installment of the Dream Hunter Series, Dream Hunter Lydia goes to Asmodea or Hell to rescue her father Solin from the evil Noir, there she meets the Guardian, Seth. At the time Seth is torturing Solin to get the location of the key that will bring all of Olympus down. Seth sees how much Lydia means to Solin so he takes her instead and tells Solin to get the key or Lydia will die. Of course Seth never tortures Lydia and eventually they fall in love, but before that they have lots of fights and lots of blood goes flying. This was Kenyon's usual kick ass romance and as usual it was lots of fun to read.
Review Date: 3/17/2010
This is a really cute book for the Harry Potter lover. It is beautifully illustrated, and definitely captures the magical look and feel of the first book.
Review Date: 12/8/2021
The House in the Cerulean Sea did not disappoint. Readers have been raving about this book and I definitely see why. Cerulean Sea is a beautiful story about a middle age man, Linus Baker who is a case worker in the department of magical youth. His job is to go to âorphanagesâ to check on the magical children for their well being. Linus has been doing the same job for 17 years and is treated very poorly. He doesn't care, he really only cares about the children and as a result the only thing personal in his personal life is a cat. That is until Very Upper Management calls him in for a special, secret assignment. Linus Baker's life changes forever. This story has a relevant message of love and acceptance, people fear what they don't know, so we need to educate. It's a beautiful story.
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf, Bk 1)
Author:
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
154
Author:
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
154
Review Date: 10/19/2023
Mo or Moonflower at almost 30 has run from Mississippi and her controlling hippie parents to live in Grundy Alaska. There she becomes part of a community and found family. Mo is a great cook and starts right away at the local saloon as a cook. She meets Alan, a man perfect on paper but lacks chemistry. Then there is Cooper who gives her all the feels, but is definitely mister wrong because⦠you know a werewolf. How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf is fun, passes the Bechdel test and includes yummy foods/cooking.
Review Date: 11/6/2013
The story begins when the town elders go to the Lord of Erl to ask that they be ruled by magic, the lord sends his only son, Alveric, to Elfland to bring back the King of Elfland's daughter. Alveric takes this challenge by going to the town witch Ziroonderel and has her make a magical lighting sword to take with him. There are a few comical scenes when Alveric barges in on the leather smith,an old man and his wife. Alveric ends up eating their supper and sleeping in their bed. Alveric makes his way east through the mists of Elfland where he cuts down with his magical sword all things in his way of getting to the princess of Elfland. The princess Lirazel ends up rescuing Alveric when her father tries to stop him and she helps him to escape to "the fields we know". They marry and have a son Orion. The books synopsis would have you believe that the magic was bad for Erl Tragically Alveric wants to change Lirazel and take the magic out of her. It's really sad because they really do love each other, but the religious human side of Alveric can't except the magical side of his wife and doesn't realize what he has until it's gone. Of course the story doesn't end there, so you'll need to pick up this book to find out how it ends. Written in 1924 this is precursor to all of the fantasies that have become so popular today, only it's written so beautifully that it's almost like poetry.
Review Date: 3/3/2014
Lord of Light uses amazing visualizations to describe the most beautiful sights or the most truly horrific. The book could be boiled down to good versus evil, but who is good and who is evil? The story is really the oldest ever lived. People have many beliefs and they don't allow others beliefs to exist. What isn't my belief is wrong. A group of people (the Firsts) travel to another world to set themselves up as Gods and they succeed for many... centuries? I'm not sure about the time. They move from body to body to continue their existence. They set up "Heaven" and keep the masses down by denying them any knowledge of technology. If the people happen to discover something like the printing press, the Gods crush the people and technology. There was one among them who believed in "Acceleration". This just meant that the people would be given the knowledge slowly and the people would rise up to be equal with the Gods and therefor no more need for Heaven or Gods. The one who believed this, Sam, had many names and none of them were popular within Heaven and the gods, so there were many battles. Sam is a rather charming and ingenious character. The book started out slowly for me, but picked up pace about three quarters of the way in and built in a battle to the death. One funny aside was the fact that Christianity is fought by zealot leading zombies.
Review Date: 9/29/2009
Helpful Score: 3
This book is wonderful. It is the story of a young man who gets into wizarding college. The difference between this and Harry Potter is that all of these characters are real people who have flaws. This book touches on Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Harry Potter, and a few other major fantasies with a twist. I would recommend this book for people not just into fantasy, but psychological stories as well.
Review Date: 11/6/2013
Helpful Score: 1
Love, sex and paranormals is the basis of this story. The main character Belle Jamison is really annoying, she spends most of the book whining about her new super powers and trying to get Rome Masters in bed. What redeemed the story were the side characters and some great laugh out loud jokes.
Review Date: 8/9/2021
Helpful Score: 1
Charming, is the only way to describe this book, this series and of course Penny and Jeremy. The couple have been requested by Prince Charles himself, to carry out an investigation. They must find a way to save Grandma Beryl's house from shady developers, who will ruin the small seaside town in Cornwall if they have their way. Penny and Jeremy head to Cornwall for the summer to look for any angle they can use to stop the developers and along the way they discover hidden treasures, smugglers and just all around adventure. The best features of the Rather Remarkable series are the travel descriptions, the historic discoveries and of course the lovable and quirky characters.
Review Date: 11/5/2013
This was an awesome and amazing book. It was so creepy in parts it gave me chills and the ending made be want to scream, because now I have to wait until September to find out what's going to happen.
Review Date: 11/14/2010
Rosemary and Rue follows a Changeling, Toby, through her many disastrous adventures. First you wonder how she made this far in life, and why she would have chosen to be a P.I. in the first place. The book was okay. It was a "who done it" and I had that figured out half way in, but Toby is pretty likable and along the way there are a few more characters that grow on you. Overall the book was pretty good and as a series it may get better.
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