![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
danialand.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
christianreaderOkay, let's try this again. Don't know what happened before when I posted this, but it was acting all funky.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
This is the second book in The Hunger Games series. I'm a huge fan of series book reading, and I was pleased to find that the story picks up quickly in the second book without too much time wasted on back story. The story focuses on what happens to Katniss and Peeta's life after returning home from the Hunger Games, and the unhappiness from the government for the way that they played the game. It's hard to really say too much about the book without giving things away, but I really enjoyed it, and it stayed pretty fast paced and kept my interest the whole time. Now the problem will be waiting until August for last one to come out!
Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs
I picked up this book because the main character is Dr Temperance Brennan, that the show Bones is based off of. I really enjoy the dynamic of the characters on the show, and was hoping for something similar in the books. After the first chapter or two I realized that the only similarity between the show, and the book is that there's a forensic anthropologist named Dr Brennan who helps to solve murders based on bone evidence. None of the characters from the show are present in the books, and even the personality and life of Tempe are totally difference. Once I got passed that part, and let myself just read it for what it was, a murder mystery about some young women's bodies that were found in a pizza restaurant basement it was really well written. The series of events that she goes through in solving the murder aren't overly obvious and the interactions between Dr Brennan and her colleagues to solve the mystery were interesting enough to keep me going, and wanting to get to the bottom of it. (totally unrelated, but I thought it was creepy when the story takes a turn, and one of the murder suspects ends up being from my home town, Yuba City, since it's not like we are really famous for anything and not that big of a town to begin with).
Beach Road by James Patterson
Beach Road is about Tom Dunleavy a small-time lawyer who lands a big case when three young men he plays basketball with are found shot to death execution-style at a billionaire's basketball court. I listened to this one as an audio book and I'm kind of glad that I did. This is one of the first books that I've listened to that had a full cast of actors playing the different roles of the people in the book. As the chapters continued the story is told from the different points of view of the characters, and I liked hearing what was going on based on each character's assumptions of the truth of the story. The story was really well written, and I was surprised by the ending, totally unexpected for me.
Swimsuit by James Patterson
Swimsuit is about a former cop turned reporter, who travels to Hawaii to look into the disappearance of model Kim McDaniels, who has disappeared following a photo shoot. The kidnapper, seems to be the master of disguise, because he continually changes his appearance well enough to fool everyone, including this former cop, Ben Hawkins, who should totally be more observant. I wasn't really in love with this book because it just had a lot of really unrealistic turns of events and it left me thinking "whatever, like that would really ever happen". It just felt like the author was trying too hard. In addition, the book spends a lot of time graphically describing violent acts, a little over the top for me.
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Dead Tossed waves is the second book in the Forest of Hands and Teeth series. The first book in this series was one of my favorites from last year, and I had to wait what felt like a lifetime for the second book to come out. The second book is set about 10 years into the future of where the last book left off. Though some of the characters from the first book are present, the main character in this sequel is a teen named Gabry. The small town that she lives in is surrounded by fences, keeping the town people in, and the "Unconsecrated" zombie-like people out. The people are kept behind these barriers to prevent being infected by the zombie-like people who have an uncontrollable urge to bite human flesh and infect them as well. Like the first book, there's a struggle between living in a sheltered existence that has been formed out of fear, and the bigger picture of how widespread the infection has become, as well as the history of what got them to this point and what hope the people have for a future. I loved this book as much as the first, and even weeks after reading it, I still sometimes have crazy dreams that I'm being chased through the forest by these flesh hungry zombies. Totally freaky but good.
Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot
The third book in the Queen of Babble books with main character Lizzie Nichols who does wedding dress restoration. Her wealthy ex-boyfriend, Luke, has decided their breakup was a mistake and has finally proposed. In the meantime, she's formed a pretty close bond with Luke's best friend Chaz, and might have feelings for him. I have to say that I'm kind of disappointed in the behavior of the characters in this story, just a lot of people cheating on other people, that somehow ends in happily ever after. Blech. I love Meg Cabot's writing style, and she's super funny to read, but I just wanted to be done with this one early on, because I could tell where it was going and wasn't thrilled.
Dead and Gone(Sookie Stackhouse Book 9; Dead in the Family(Sookie Stackhouse Book 10) by Charlaine Harris
I read Dead and Gone last year, but I waited so long before reading Dead in the Family that I'd forgotten a lot of key storyline, so I had to go back and re-read Dead and Gone again. These books tackle the continuing saga of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic bartender who lives in fictional Bon Temps, Louisiana several years after vampires have come out of hiding and are living in mainstream society after the creation of synthetic blood, that prevents them from needing to feed on humans to survive. Now other supernatural characters are ready to make themselves known, werewolves and other two natured humans are coming forward and this creates new drama to deal with. I remember now, from reading Dead and Gone last year that the book just felt rushed and too short for the portion of the story it was covering, it felt that way when I re-read it too. I also had the same impression of the next one, just too much crammed into not enough pages. I think it took me a day to read each one.
Books for May: 8
Books for 2010: 40
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
This is the second book in The Hunger Games series. I'm a huge fan of series book reading, and I was pleased to find that the story picks up quickly in the second book without too much time wasted on back story. The story focuses on what happens to Katniss and Peeta's life after returning home from the Hunger Games, and the unhappiness from the government for the way that they played the game. It's hard to really say too much about the book without giving things away, but I really enjoyed it, and it stayed pretty fast paced and kept my interest the whole time. Now the problem will be waiting until August for last one to come out!
Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs
I picked up this book because the main character is Dr Temperance Brennan, that the show Bones is based off of. I really enjoy the dynamic of the characters on the show, and was hoping for something similar in the books. After the first chapter or two I realized that the only similarity between the show, and the book is that there's a forensic anthropologist named Dr Brennan who helps to solve murders based on bone evidence. None of the characters from the show are present in the books, and even the personality and life of Tempe are totally difference. Once I got passed that part, and let myself just read it for what it was, a murder mystery about some young women's bodies that were found in a pizza restaurant basement it was really well written. The series of events that she goes through in solving the murder aren't overly obvious and the interactions between Dr Brennan and her colleagues to solve the mystery were interesting enough to keep me going, and wanting to get to the bottom of it. (totally unrelated, but I thought it was creepy when the story takes a turn, and one of the murder suspects ends up being from my home town, Yuba City, since it's not like we are really famous for anything and not that big of a town to begin with).
Beach Road by James Patterson
Beach Road is about Tom Dunleavy a small-time lawyer who lands a big case when three young men he plays basketball with are found shot to death execution-style at a billionaire's basketball court. I listened to this one as an audio book and I'm kind of glad that I did. This is one of the first books that I've listened to that had a full cast of actors playing the different roles of the people in the book. As the chapters continued the story is told from the different points of view of the characters, and I liked hearing what was going on based on each character's assumptions of the truth of the story. The story was really well written, and I was surprised by the ending, totally unexpected for me.
Swimsuit by James Patterson
Swimsuit is about a former cop turned reporter, who travels to Hawaii to look into the disappearance of model Kim McDaniels, who has disappeared following a photo shoot. The kidnapper, seems to be the master of disguise, because he continually changes his appearance well enough to fool everyone, including this former cop, Ben Hawkins, who should totally be more observant. I wasn't really in love with this book because it just had a lot of really unrealistic turns of events and it left me thinking "whatever, like that would really ever happen". It just felt like the author was trying too hard. In addition, the book spends a lot of time graphically describing violent acts, a little over the top for me.
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Dead Tossed waves is the second book in the Forest of Hands and Teeth series. The first book in this series was one of my favorites from last year, and I had to wait what felt like a lifetime for the second book to come out. The second book is set about 10 years into the future of where the last book left off. Though some of the characters from the first book are present, the main character in this sequel is a teen named Gabry. The small town that she lives in is surrounded by fences, keeping the town people in, and the "Unconsecrated" zombie-like people out. The people are kept behind these barriers to prevent being infected by the zombie-like people who have an uncontrollable urge to bite human flesh and infect them as well. Like the first book, there's a struggle between living in a sheltered existence that has been formed out of fear, and the bigger picture of how widespread the infection has become, as well as the history of what got them to this point and what hope the people have for a future. I loved this book as much as the first, and even weeks after reading it, I still sometimes have crazy dreams that I'm being chased through the forest by these flesh hungry zombies. Totally freaky but good.
Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot
The third book in the Queen of Babble books with main character Lizzie Nichols who does wedding dress restoration. Her wealthy ex-boyfriend, Luke, has decided their breakup was a mistake and has finally proposed. In the meantime, she's formed a pretty close bond with Luke's best friend Chaz, and might have feelings for him. I have to say that I'm kind of disappointed in the behavior of the characters in this story, just a lot of people cheating on other people, that somehow ends in happily ever after. Blech. I love Meg Cabot's writing style, and she's super funny to read, but I just wanted to be done with this one early on, because I could tell where it was going and wasn't thrilled.
Dead and Gone(Sookie Stackhouse Book 9; Dead in the Family(Sookie Stackhouse Book 10) by Charlaine Harris
I read Dead and Gone last year, but I waited so long before reading Dead in the Family that I'd forgotten a lot of key storyline, so I had to go back and re-read Dead and Gone again. These books tackle the continuing saga of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic bartender who lives in fictional Bon Temps, Louisiana several years after vampires have come out of hiding and are living in mainstream society after the creation of synthetic blood, that prevents them from needing to feed on humans to survive. Now other supernatural characters are ready to make themselves known, werewolves and other two natured humans are coming forward and this creates new drama to deal with. I remember now, from reading Dead and Gone last year that the book just felt rushed and too short for the portion of the story it was covering, it felt that way when I re-read it too. I also had the same impression of the next one, just too much crammed into not enough pages. I think it took me a day to read each one.
Books for May: 8
Books for 2010: 40
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}