Janet Evanovich is back with the 18th book in her best-selling Stephanie Plum series and the famous female bounty hunter is up to her old tricks once again.
Stephanie Plum's vacation to Hawaii didn't quite go as planned but she made it home to Trenton alive and that's more than the guy in the seat next to her can say. Soon Stephanie finds herself in the middle of an international murder investigation with some pretty shady people tracking her down. She would be nervous about it, but when Joyce Barnhardt moves into her apartment she knows she has bigger things to worry about.
Like all of the Stephanie Plum series, Explosive Eighteen is a fun, face-paced book that keeps you turning pages. The plot follows the same formula as all of the rest of the series (Stephanie trying to catch lame bad guys + real bad guys trying to catch Stephanie + explosions + car issues + pizza + beer + men), but Evanovich's characters make the story compelling. They are colorful and quirky and down right hilarious. These books cause me to laugh out loud...often. And I'll keep reading them as long as she keeps writing them. If you're looking for a laugh, you should definitely check these out.
American Gods is written by best selling author, Neil Gaiman. Clay read this book at the recommendation of his mom and since he really enjoyed it, I gave it a go as well.
For three years, Shadow has been counting down the days until his release from prison. He's kept his head down, done his time and patiently awaited to return home to his wife, his friends, and his job. And just when the end is in sight, his world is flipped upside down.
Left to pick up the pieces of a shattered existence, Shadow is approached by Mr. Wednesday, a man who seems to know everything about him. Despite their strange encounters, or possibly because of them, Mr. Wednesday convinces Shadow to go work for him and their journey down the rabbit hole begins. The path they take leads Shadow far beyond the realm of his own imagination and soon he finds himself in the middle of a conflict where the lines between beliefs and truths are blurred. Shadow must discover the truth before it's too late and decide whose side he's on.
This book lands somewhere in the middle for me. The story is interesting enough. The characters are well written and Gaiman does a nice job of weaving together the mythology of several different religions to create some thought provoking moments. Unfortunately, I'm certain that my lack of mythological knowledge forced some of the book's coolness to be lost on me. Gaiman's pacing of the story was very even keeled and moved the plot along just fine, but there's wasn't a ton of action so nothing really ever felt emotionally charged. Upon reflection, I think the story could have been written so that it was more compelling but overall, I found American Gods to be good...just not great.
After reading Delirium by Lauren Oliver, I decided that I couldn't wait for my library hold on the sequel, Pandemonium. I decided to buy it through amazon with a gift card I received for my birthday, so I ended up having to wait anyway. To pass the days until it got here, I picked up the book hush, hush by Becca Fitzpatrick which was recommended by a good friend of mine. It's the first book by Fitzpatrick and it made the best seller list, so I had high hopes going into it.
For typical teenager Nora Grey it's just another day in biology class, until her teacher reconfigures the seating chart. Now, she's paired with a mysterious boy named Patch whose bad-boy nature is at once both alluring and scary. When Patch starts showing up wherever she goes, Nora begins searching for information that will shed some light on her mysterious new biology partner. As she delves deeper, she finds herself more drawn to Patch, but the truth waiting for her is far more unsettling than she could imagine. Thrust into a world far beyond her own mortality, Nora must decide who to trust and her decision could have fatal consequences.
To be perfectly honest, I see a lot of similarities between hush, hush and the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer- Teenage girl falls in love with a "bad" guy who originally wants to kill her, but then decides he's in love with her instead. They become inseparable. Then enters the real bad guy whose creepy and sadistic and hell-bent on killing the girl in order to hurt the "bad" guy she's in love with.
Having said that, I have to admit that I liked the story overall. (That's shouldn't be too surprising to those of you who know I love the Twilight books.) Fitzpatrick does a nice job of writing suspenseful scenes that are creepy but not overly scary. And while I knew in the end nothing too horrible would happen, her style kept me turning pages late into the night. In my opinion, she could have spent a little more time flushing out some of her ideas. For example, I feel like she didn't really explain why Patch fell in love with Nora in the first place. I get the animal magnetism of it all, but if it's the real deal shouldn't there be some layering of emotion? Anyway, a little more thought could have made it more interesting and less predictable.
As a first time novel I think hush, hush was a pretty good start. I'm currently reading the second book in the series, Crescendo, and I've already noticed that she's stepped up her game. I'm hoping that Silence, book #3, will be continue the trend.
Crossed is the 2nd book in the Matched series by Ally Condie. It continues the story of Cassia and Ky as they search for each other after being torn apart by the society. Along the way they have to put their faith into some unlikely friends in order to find their way through the harsh climate of the outer provinces.
I spent much of my free time last weekend consuming this book and much of my time since then thinking about it. On a whole, I enjoyed the continuation of the story though at times I found it a bit slow. It's hard to root for Cassia and Ky when Xander is such a good person as well and I can't help thinking that Cassia has been manipulated into her interest in Ky, no matter who was behind it.
The menace of the society is not as strong in this book, so the story lacks a little bit with no villain to be running from. On the same note, I can't decide how to feel about the Rising either. Condie gives you the sense that the Rising doesn't care about people, they care about the cause. And while I acknowledge that mentality is needed when fighting for the greater good, I can't help but wonder where the humanity lies in all of this. What does it look like in the light of day?
These ideas make Crossed a thought provoking book that I will continue to think about during my free time and I'm very excited to see how Condie deals with these ideas in the third installment of the series set to be released in November of this year.
The cover of Incarceron by Catherine Fisher caught my eye while I was wondering in the teen fiction area at our local library. The iridescent glow of the key called to me as I reached out and took it off the shelf. I read the inside blurb and was instantly intrigued.
Catherine Fisher is a seasoned English author who has written many novels. Incarceron was published in 2007, winning the Mythopoeic Society of America's Children's Fiction Award. It was also selected by the Times, London as its Children's Book of the Year.
The premise of Incarceron is promising. The story follows two main characters. The first is a teenage boy named Finn who is trapped within Incarceron, a living prison. A prison that thinks and feels and changes in order to rule over its prisoners. The other character is a teenage girl named Claudia, the daughter of the Warden who oversees Incarceron. Each is looking for an opportunity to escape the life they live and their best chance seems to lie within the other.
I enjoyed the rich descriptions of the world inside Incarceron and I was intrigued by the world that existed outside of it. However, I kept finding myself waiting for something more to happen and a better explanation of the things that did happen. The story as is didn't lack for action or adventure, but I couldn't help but feel like there was something missing as though the plot line hadn't been fully flushed out. In the end I felt like bones of the story were solid but the meat wasn't there to sustain me. It's a story that I wish could be written again. This time with some more potatoes.
Interestingly, Catherine Fisher wrote a sequel that was published in 2008. And though I'm curious to see where the author took the story, I just don't know if I can bring myself to read it. Do I give it another try? Or do I spend my time on other things?
I read this book at the recommendation of my scientist husband. He read a EW review of it years ago and picked it up for fun. To this day, it is one of the only books I've ever heard him laugh out loud over, so I admit I was pretty intrigued.
As far as I can tell, this is the first book published by Gideon Defoe. However, there are three more books chronicling other pirate adventures.
The story follows a pirate captain and his misfit crew as they attempt to pillage, plunder, and act out in other piratical ways. Fate brings them together with a couple of famous scientists and a wacky adventure ensues.
Gideon has created characters that are quirky and fun to read. I particularly enjoy with the pirate captain's love of ham. This was a fun little book that was quick to read and truly enjoy. Unfortunately, my local library doesn't carry any of his other adventures. However, I will go to great lengths to find and read
The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists.*The Pirates will soon be on the big screen in Pirates! Band of Misfits
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