A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Loved it!  It's a bit wacky and kind of a mishmash of Twilight (vampires) and Gabaldon Outlander series (time travel) and the addition of witchcraft ... but I couldn't put it down.  Which was tough, because it's a pretty serious book!  It is also clearly a book number one of who knows how many, and I wish that I had started reading it after the next one had already come out!  But alas, I did not, and I can't snap my fingers and bring it forth, nor can I suck your blood.  Because I am not a witch or a vampire!

I don't know why, but these vampire tales suck me right in (he he).  I can't for the life of me fathom why a cold, heartless, bloodsucking paleface is appealing, but Matthew does cartwheels over Edward (Twilight series) in terms of personality.  While Edward is stuck repeating high school for all eternity, Matthew has been around since the beginning of time and has been friends with the best of them.  The first book leaves us with Diana and Matthew timewalking back in time to get away from all of the daemons, witches and vampires that are after them.  But before that, they fell in love, and who doesn't love a good love story?  They still haven't had sex yet (vampires are clearly not fueled by testosterone, which might be why they are so appealing to us warmbloods.  They just want to cuddle!) but they have certainly gotten close!

Can't wait for the next one.  No, seriously, I can't wait.



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Water Witches

Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I enjoyed the story and the premise and found it to be a very enjoyable read.  However, his use of short paragraphs that jump from one what would be a chapter in a normal book, to another small paragraph I found a bit annoying.

The clouds outside are an indication of rain, and yet, it hasn't rained in days.  If only it would rain.

He drove his car into the driveway....alas, I can't even give an example because my brain doesn't work that way!  Which is why it was hard for me to have to kind of kick myself ... ooops, we are no longer at the wedding, we are now three months later, even if we are on the middle of the same page as the wedding!





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To Be Sung Underwater

This book enticed me by the name and it ended up being a fairly good read though defintely heartwrenching with the ending. It's about a summer romance between a back country Nebraska guy and a young 18 year old girl and though they have a summer of love and would comtemplate marriage once she goes off to college two separate lives occurred. Of course 20 years down the road she realizes she isn't happy in her marriage and she can't stop thinking about the Nebraska guy, Will, and calls him up to see how he is doing. She finds out that he has spent most of his life being a complete alcoholic, not a mean one, but is now slowly dying with liver disease and all the associated things that come from nonstop drinking. she ends up going out to visit him and they have a lovely time before a very surprising event occurs! I did enjoy the book but it is a very hard ending to take in and I had just watched a movie with a very similar gut-wrenching ending so I think that sort of skewed my perception. I would still suggest it though!

All Over the Map

This was a nice fun read. the book is mainly about the female main character who's career as a writer allows her to travel to multiple places around the world and write about different topics that interest or amuse her. We enter the story right around her 40th birthday where she has recently just gotten divorced and is trying to figure out where her life should go now that she is husbandless, no children, and not even a house to call her own. WE travel to multiple spots around the world with her and though the writing and description of the places she visits and food she eats is very fun to read her character herself seemed to drag. I understand how experiences such as divorce and getting older are unsettling but alot of the book was her focusing on just that and it seemed sort of whiny. Overall she ends up buying a cute little home in Mexico and becoming one of those amazing independent woman which is a great ending!

Good read, the experiences and good parts of the book far outweigh the slow progress of the evolving woman! I would def suggest it!

A Discovery of Witches

This was an INCREDIBLE read!!! I absolutely devoured it as fast as I possibly could! The storyline includes vampires, witches, deamons, etc but is set in a lovely England setting where the two main characters are widely recognized historians and lots of old books and libraries. The romance that ensues between the main character Diana who is a witch and a vampire, Matthew, is thrilling and exciting! They have many obstacles to pass and of course the crazy other world things is a huge part of it but all of the characters were so fun to read about and empathize with not too mention that you are on the seat of your pants the whole time waiting to see what is going to happen. I can't wait for the sequel due out in Summer 2012!!!! READ THIS NOW!

When she Woke

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a pure good read with a slight hint of The Hunger Games. I gobbled it up. The premise is some undetermined date in the future when women are penalized when having abortions by being injected with a virus that turns their skin red. They become "Reds," which means to the world that they killed a baby. This is a serious crime in a time when the U.S. population has been greatly reduced by the "scourge," a sexually transmitted disease that renders females fertile (if it doesn't kill them).

The father of the aborted fetus is a handsome and charismatic preacher who actually has a backbone, eventually.

READ IT!!!

HALLIE: I started and finished this book all in one day! It completely sucks you in and the main character is such a great heroine! Standing up for her aborted fetus's father because it would ruin his life to give his name, gaining extra punishment years for that fact and then discovering that a man's love isn't really all it's cracked up to be. The book goes from incredibly strong and heartwrenching scenes one after another that just makes you think how is this girl EVER going to make it?!? but make it she does and I would hope that a sequel would be written! def read it.



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Gone To Green

Gone to Green by Judy Christie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was another cheap book that I didn't really research before shelling out the ninety nine cents.  It was perfectly fine, it was just another Christian-based theme that came out of nowhere!  (I mean, if you intentionally seek out christian fiction, that is one thing.  But the constant praying to God, asking God for all the answers, having him speak to you ... it's just not what I am looking for.  So I read it, because it did have a plot line outside of the God line, but I wouldn't read any more.) 



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In the Garden of Beasts

 In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I liked it ... but I have always been very interested in the holocaust and the events leading up to it, so this was a different perspective and where at first I thought it was going to have more of a story element to it; once I knew for sure that it would not, I was able to read it for what it is.  Which is a piecing together of various bits of research and history and journals and interviews.

A lot of it is astonishing in that during such a crucial time in history a college professor with no experience whatsoever was sent to Berlin as ambassador to the United States.  But then again, that didn't really surprise me.  None of it did. 

One of my greatest questions about the holocaust was why would the Jewish people all stand around in great masses of thousands of people with only a handful of soldiers training guns on them and not revolt?  What I hadn't realized was that the discrimination against them had been so absolute for their entire lives that almost somewhere in the back of their heads they must have come to believe that they were as inferior as the German aryan race said they were. 

I was also not surprised that our American government was well apprised of what Hitler was doing, but once again, it was all about money:  Our Great American Banks had lent money to Germany and they wanted it back.  And they weren't going to piss anyone off, not even a mass murderer, if there was even the smallest teeniest chance that that money would make its way back into their fat cat pockets.  It would make me sick if it had surprised me.  But it didn't.

Do we learn from history?  I think not.



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11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What did I think?  I think I lost a weekend and there is no way to go back in time to get it because I don't know where the rabbit hole is!  But would I?  Would I change having read this book?  No way!

I was a huge Stephen King fan in high school and gobbled up all of his books.  Until ... they went from cool weird to over-the-top weird.  Suddenly coke machines were your worst enemy and there seemed to be a less emotional element mixed with the macabre (think Pet Cematary) and it was just a bunch of words filling up pages talking about near nonsense.  I stopped following King.  Plain and simple.  But over the years I have meandered up his path from time to time ... and found The Dome was along those lines of his original work.  But this?  This was FANTABULOUS!  Right from the get-go the premise draws you in.  Who wouldn't want to know what the world would be like if John F. Kennedy hadn't been shot?  But this is Stephen King, and he's not taking you to bed for good without a boatload of foreplay.  I was snagged from page one, and I too was greatly concerned about what happens to the future if you mess up the past! 

I guess it couldn't end any other way ... and I was a little confused as to the events that supposedly would take place if Kennedy hadn't died ... but I don't want to say anymore.  You must read this book and you must understand you will have no other desire to do anything else until it is finished!!



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Dead and Berried

Dead and Berried by Karen MacInerney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well, it was very poorly written in that there were so many mistakes (things repeated for example) and every single action of making a brownie was printed verbatim, etc. I thought I would go nuts.  Unfortunately I pretty much have to finish a book when I start it.  This was one of the cheapo books from Amazon and I thought it might be okay.  No.  There was never any common sense applied -- there was a murderer after this girl and she thought nothing of putting herself in harms way over and over.  Why would you want to read about someone that stupid?  In addition, her cheating fiancee returns to woo her back, but he never pays any attention to her -- and yet, she still considers his offer of marriage.  Huh?  I should really give this one star -- but here is the thing -- despite its really awful everything, it was readable, and I finished it wondering what was going to happen!  Ya gotta give the author credit for that.  (But take a hint, edit your books before you publish them!)



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