January books

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Happy new year, community! How's the reading going? I hope that you all will continue/start to post your book lists here. I really enjoy reading them and getting ideas from them. Feel free to advertise this community to your friends if you think they'd enjoy it. Thanks!

Scarlet - Marissa Meyer
Sequel to Cinder, and second of apparently four books. I definitely didn't enjoy this as much as Cinder, but it was still good and I'm eager to continue the series. Even though a lot happened in this book, the story didn't really progress very much from the end of Cinder, which was kind of disappointing. This one also seemed to have a lot more violence and slightly gruesome scenes for a YA book.

Strange Bedpersons - Jennifer Crusie
After enjoying a light-hearted Crusie book, I checked out several others available on audio without really looking at them. This one started out very similarly to the first one I read by her: Nick's conservative boss looks more highly on men who are married, so Nick asks his liberal, outspoken ex-girlfriend Tess to play his fiance so he can get the partnership at the law firm. (I'm not sure why this is a common situation in books--how often do job possibilities in the US actually depend on being married?) But the story branched off a little to make it slightly less like the other, though there were still similarities. I enjoyed it enough to be entertained, but it unfortunately had way too many sex scenes that I felt were unnecessary. I think I've read enough Crusie for now.

January books: 2
2014 books: 2

You know, in case you couldn't count.

January Book List

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Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet by John Bradshaw (2.5 stars)
This was a Netgalley, so a separate review is coming soon. For now, I'll say that while there was some good information here, I found the delivery very dry and repetitive.

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares (4 stars)
I reviewed this here. Note: I finished it almost three weeks ago and am still thinking about it and some of the questions it raises.

Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Live I Didn't Expect by Connally Gilliam (4 stars)
A fantastic memoir/advice-type book about the struggles of "later," unintentional single life. I've never seen or heard some of these topics addressed before. The chapter about fragmentation, especially, filled me with relief that this is A Thing and not my own personal neurosis. She defines it so much better than I've been able to thus far. While her tone can be a little prim, I really admire her honesty, insightfulness, and refusal to place herself above her readers. If you want to understand what single Christians are facing today, read this!

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick (4 stars)
For years, Samantha has been fascinated with the large Garrett family next door. Their bustling, happy home couldn't be more different from the silent mansion she lives in, with her older sister graduated and her emotionally unavailable senator mother campaigning for re-election. But then Jase Garrett appears on her balcony, and suddenly her days of spectating are over. Although Jase is pretty dreamy, this isn't just a love story. It's about family and the costs of doing the right thing.

Stitches: a handbook on meaning, hope, and repair by Anne Lamott (5 stars)
This was a great, tone-setting first book of 2014! It's not very long, but every sentence is a gem - just classic Anne Lamott talking about hope and life and stuff.

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider (4 stars)
I'm thankful Kathy gave me this novel for Christmas, because somehow, I had never heard of it. Ezra was a star athlete, class president, and general ruler of the school at the end of his junior year. Then his wrist and knee were shattered in a hit-and-run car accident. As senior year begins, he knows he can't go back to his old life, but has no idea who he's supposed to be. Then he reconnects with his less-popular childhood best friend and his fellow debate team members, including the witty and mysterious Cassidy. This is a funny, real, and profound novel with John Green overtones. It's about coming out from behind your mask and accepting who you've been all along.

Books for January/2014 year to date: 6

January Reading List

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This wasn't one of my more impressive months, reading-wise, but I want to get back into doing these lists. I feel left out on the months I forget them!

Henry Tilney's Diary by Amanda Grange
I haven't read any of Amanda Grange's other Jane Austen hero diaries, so I can't say whether this one is typical or not, but I found it very disappointing. Nothing much is added to the story of Northanger Abbey - a few minor characters are given names, and Captain Tilney's motives for flirting with Isabella Thorpe are fleshed out a little, but Henry comes across as rather feminine and unconvincing. I wasn't impressed.

My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison
The second in Rallison's series about a fairy godmother who hasn't passed her exams yet and so is only "fair". Her extra credit shenanigans this time involve bringing Robin Hood and his Merry Men to modern day Arizona, and then sending the heroine and her entire family back in time to the Middle Ages to live out the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale. It was fun, and funny, but not quite as good as the first book.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
This one I picked up very randomly, and it's not the sort of book I would normally read, but it ended up being the one I enjoyed most this month! The unnamed narrator is a housekeeper who is hired to care for a former professor of mathematics who lost his short-term memory in a car accident. He can only remember things for 80 minutes, and spends his days solving math problems for contests in a magazine. Nothing much happens in this story, but it's a gentle, quiet tale of lonely people finding each other and forming bonds despite the difficulties facing them. (It's not a romance; she's 28 and he's 60-something; just a story of friendship.)

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
The premise sounded intriguing - the Napoleonic War, with dragons - but the execution was dull and plodding. Captain Will Laurence unexpectedly bonds with a newly hatched dragon and leaves the Navy for the not-so-glamorous Air Force, but he's such a...oh, what's the word? Gary Stu? Larry Sue? Whatever the male equivalent of Mary Sue is. Somehow he's the only person in hundreds of years to realize that the dragons do better when they're treated kindly and with respect? He knows instinctively what to do despite having no experience with dragons at all? And of course that's no ordinary dragon egg, it's an Imperial Chinese dragon, rare and awe-inspiring. It was all just a bit too much for my taste.


Balthazar by Claudia Gray
I read this a few years ago and picked it up on impulse at Barnes and Noble over Christmas break. I never much liked Gray's Evernight series, but this companion story is fun. It's sort of a cross between Twilight and The Vampire Diaries - Balthazar the vampire has lived for centuries with the guilt of being the reason his girlfriend died and his sister also became a vampire. He tries to avoid ties to humans, but when he's asked to protect Skye Tierney, who's been having visions of gruesome deaths and is also being stalked by the ruthless vampire who turned Balthazar, he gets close to her against his will. It's nothing fantabulous, but I enjoyed re-reading it nonetheless.

The Shrouded Way by Janet Caird
Two Goodreads friends whose taste in books is normally top-notch rated this one five stars, but I was very underwhelmed by it. The mystery is well-plotted and quite scary, but the characters are barely more than quickly-sketched caricatures. By the end I still had no idea who Elizabeth, the heroine, was, or what motivated her, or even why she would fall in love with Crane (what a dreadful name, don't you think?) instead of Rory.

The Runaway Princess by Hester Browne
Rounding out a month of overall lackluster reading, I tried to re-read Hester Browne's latest. I have a love-hate relationship with her books - The Finishing Touches and Swept Off Her Feet are two of my all-time favorite books, but her Little Lady Agency trilogy, and this one, don't do much for me. I think the problem with this one is that once Amy and Leo become a couple, the story focuses too much on her family drama and the stress of becoming a princess, and less on the romance. And the romance was what drew me in the first place. Also, so many of the things Amy does make no sense. When Leo's brother's girlfriend dumps water on her at a party, rather than telling anyone what happened she runs away and lies about having to take her dog to the vet. And then she can't figure out why Leo is upset, and refuses to confess until several days later! It's just very silly.