February books

[myrna-nora.livejournal.com]

February total: 5
2010 total: 11

( more... )

January and February books

[sonneta.livejournal.com]

( six under the cut )

January and February Books

[danialand.livejournal.com]

I just realized that I never got around to posting my January books, so I guess I'll post both months at the same time. Man, February was way too short for me and I didn't get anywhere near as much reading in as I had hoped. Sorry, but the LJ cut feature is not functioning when I use Semagic on Windows 7, I need to figure out what the deal is.

January Books

Eyes Like Stars-Lisa Mantchev
This book was on my wish list on Amazon for a while, I can't remember why, I think maybe it was listed under the "books that people also purchased" section under something that I liked before. I was very disappointed with Eyes Like Stars I just had a really hard time getting into the story. The basic idea of it was thoughtful, an orphan living at the theater interacting with classical characters, but I just don't think it was executed well and I just got bored, and it apparently has a sequel, because the book was left on a cliffhanger, but I'm not interested in finding out what happens next.

Impossible- Nancy Werlin
A story about a teenager, Lucy Scarborough, who was raised by foster parents because her mother went crazy around the time that she was born. She then discovers that the craziness is due to a family curse, and that it will likely happen to her as well, but the only way to break the curse is to go through three seemingly impossible tasks. It's filled with difficulty, romantic tension and fairy tale. I really liked it!

The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
This book doesn't require as much of a description, since it just came out in movie form like a month ago...but briefly, it's about a girl, Susie Salmon(like the fish) who gets murdered and after this the experiences that the people who knew her go through, as they grieve, and attempt to determine what happened to her, and attempt to move on, while Susie still has the ability to watch her family and follow their lives. Alice Sebold has a writing style that is smooth and flowing and sometimes I was surprised by how many pages I'd read through in one sitting. I really enjoyed the story, though I think she spent a little too much time on the life of the family members after Susie's death. Usually I'm not satisfied as much with the movie version of books, but in this case, the movie version seemed to capture this part of the story in a better way by focusing more on the murder.

Nightlight- The Harvard Lampoon
This book was intended as a parody of Twilight, and I picked it up with the thought in mind that it would be entertaining to read a book poking fun at Twilight even though I enjoyed the series. Nightlight was not at all funny, it was just dumb. I get what they were trying to do with the story, but there wasn't anything funny or interesting in any way. Lame.

Twelve Sharp- Janet Evanovich
Book number 12 in the Stephanie Plumb book series. Stephanie is a bounty hunter in New Jersey, trying to catch locals who have skipped out on their court date and need to be apprehended and returned to jail. I started reading this series last year, and they've continued to be good. Stephanie is probably the worst bounty hunter in the world, and always getting herself into the craziest situations, but still manages to get the job done. The books are funny, and the cast of characters keep me interested, and I always wonder how far into the book one of her cars will get blown up. I also read her next book Lean Mean Thirteen in January.

Going Bovine- Libba Bray
A book about a boy named Cameron, always an outcast in school discovers that he has Mad Cow disease and that he's going to die. Until an angel named Dulcie starts visiting him, and telling him about a mission that he can go on, and that he can be cured if he succeeds. Though in my opinion this book is no where near as good as Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle series, I still liked it. During the whole story, there's this back and forth of not knowing if the boy is just suffering delusions from the Mad Cow disease, or if he truly is on a mission to save himself.

The House At Riverton- Kate Morton
This was probably the best book that I read during the month of January. It was also the cheapest book that I purchased this month($4.98) because I bought it when our book store in the mall was going out of business, and I was super happy because it has been on my wish list for a while. The book is written from the perspective of Grace, a 98 year old woman, who is in her last days in a nursing home who is visited by a movie director who is making a film about the aristocratic family she worked for in the early 1900's and a mysterious death that occurred at the time. The story is told in a series of flashbacks, with Grace in her younger days learning to be a maid and her closeness to the family that she worked for and the secrets that she kept for them. I loved the suspense of knowing that someone was going to die and reading as the whole thing unfolds, waiting to see what would happen next.

Books for January : 8
Best book: The House At Riverton
Worst book: Nightlight

February Books

Fearless Fourteen- Janet Evanovich
Another from the Stephanie Plum series, still as good as the ones in the past as mentioned above. I also read Plum Lucky by the same author this month, it's a shorter novel based on the Stephanie Plum series but it's just a side story that doesn't effect the flow of the regular series. It was good, but I prefer the full length ones best.

The Lightning Thief- Rick Riordan
I mainly read this first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series because the movie was coming out, and I always enjoy a good book series, so I was hopeful that I'd like the books and want to read them all. It was just kind of okay in my opinion. I had trouble getting into the whole mythology thing, I've never been a huge fan so I really wasn't that interested. I'm not going to say the book was bad, just that it didn't appeal to me. The concept is good, Percy Jackson discovers that he is the son of Poseidon and must go on a quest to retrieve Zeus's stolen lightning bolt, and all of the challenges that a quest includes....

Girl Missing- Tess Gerrisen
Kat Novak a medical examiner investigates the mystery behind a series of Jane Doe deaths that appear to be caused by drug overdose, only the drug is still in testing and has not been released for use. The closer she gets to discovering who is behind the murders, the more her life is threatened and the riskier it gets for her. This was well written, though there are times when the medical examiner side of it got a little too detailed and unnecessary, but that was okay.

The Cold Room- J.T. Ellison
This book is the fourth from the Taylor Jackson book series, but I didn't realize it was part of a series until I was a few chapters in, and I didn't want to wait and go back to the first book, so I read it anyway. There were enough helpful references to things that had happened before to keep me from being lost, thankfully. Taylor Jackson is a homicide detective whose latest case to solve includes murder victims who have been starved to death and then posed to reenact famous paintings. She teams up with her fiance, a FBI profiler to solve the crimes. It kind of reminds me of the TV show Criminal Minds, because her fiance works for the BAU, and just like Criminal Minds there's that total creepiness about the crimes, and the psychology behind a person who would do this, as well as that fast paced determination to catch him before he kills another victim. After finishing the book I went to J.T Ellison's website to read more about the author and her other books, and she has the first one from the series All The Pretty Girls available online as a free ebook, which I find pretty cool and unexpected.
Books for February: 5
Best book: The Cold Room
Worst book: The Lightning Thief
Books for 2010 so far: 13

 

Kiwiria's books for February

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

Cross-posted from my own journal.

14 books read, meaning one finished every second day! That's not too shabby, eh? ;)

( Reviews )

Book of the month: The Hunger Games
Biggest disappointment: The King of the Trees