Book 18: The Storyteller

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Book Summary:
After the death of her mother, Sage Singer becomes an introvert who works through the night, trying to escape her memories and loneliness by doing the one thing she knows, baking bread. When Josef Weber begins coming to the bakery, the two form an unusual friendship. This all changes when he confesses to her that he was a Nazi, and he has spent the last seventy years hiding from his past. He only asks two things, that she forgive him being that she is of Jewish decent and that she kill him. With confusion over her own identity and the idea that her closest friend could have done something so terrible, Sage must make the toughest decision of her life.

My Review:
Let me start by saying that I am not a huge Jodi Picoult fan. It's not that her books are awful because she's actually a very good writer; it's just that all her books seem like a lifetime movie in the making. This one is no different. It was very well written, and I liked the idea behind it. A former Nazi asking forgiveness of the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor is a great plot. However, this storyline is squeezed in among an affair, a romance, a death, and about ten other subplots. Even though this is the main point of the book, at times it got lost amid all the other things that were going on. I really like that Picoult did so much research before beginning this book. She pretty much learned everything she could about Nazis so she could weave a plausible back-story. She also learned about what someone who actually hunts down Nazis for a living does to find and prosecute World War II criminals. Lastly, she learned the intricacies of bread baking, which being that this is something that I actually know about, I thoroughly appreciated that Sage actually knew her way around baking bread. I think my favorite thing about his book was the ending, and Sage finding out that sometimes people aren't who they seem to be.

Though I enjoyed Minka's story from the war, I felt that it drawn out longer than it needed to be. I honestly skipped pages during her story because it literally went on for well over a hundred pages, and though it had everything to do with her story as a Holocaust survivor, I didn't feel like it was as important to the plot as Josef's story which was not nearly as long. I also did not like the subplot of Sage dating a married man. I don't feel that it added anything to the story other than causing Leo to judge her for it. I understand the reasoning behind the author using this, as it's a device to help us see how much Sage changes from the beginning of the book until the end, I just thought the book would have been fine without it.

Overall, I thought the book was very well written, it just wasn't really my type of book. I think that if you really like Lifetime movies, you would probably thoroughly enjoy this novel. There is some swearing and a good amount of sexual references.

My Rating: 6/10

Book 17: A Discovery of Witches

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Book Summary:
Diana Bishop is an alchemical history professor doing research while at Oxford University. When she requests a manuscript called Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian Library, she believes it to be an ordinary book, that is, until she gets her hands on it. Even though she has tried to keep all magic out of her life, she can tell that this ancient text is bound with it. Insisting that she wants nothing to do with her magic, she makes a few notes and then sends the book back. What she doesn't realize, however, is that this text has been lost for centuries, and the magical community will do anything to get thier hands on it. Soon after, witches, daemons, and vampires begin appearing at the Bodleian. One in particular is Matthew Clairmont, a distinguished scientist who also happens to be a vampire. Once Matthew enters Diana's life, she finds that nothing will ever be the same.

My Review:
If Harry Potter and Twilight were to have a baby, I'm pretty sure it would be this book. That being said, Deborah Harkness is a better writer than Stephanie Meyer, so this was a halfway decent book. I really enjoyed the fact that because Harkness is a history professor by trade, she somehow manages to make a novel that is one part historical fiction and one part modern fantasy. I have very mixed feeling about this book, however, because for some reason I really enjoyed reading it even though so much of it bugged me. Maybe Deborah Harkness put a spell on the book because that is pretty much the only explanation I can come up with.

Though I enjoyed the overall concept of a witch who wants nothing to do with witchcraft who gets violently thrown into that world, I felt that by the end the subplot romance becomes the total driving force for the story. This is fine if you're writing a romance, but I wasn't really wanting to read a romance when I picked up A Discovery of Witches. Also, I feel that though Harkness starts out writing a strong female character who can fully take care of herself, the second Matthew steps into the picture Diana becomes a major damsel in distress. On top of that, Matthew is basically a douche throughout ninety percent of the story, and Diana, after only a couple weeks of knowing him, is completely willing to choose him over her family at every instant. Matthew definitely falls into the stereotypical vampire role of obsession with a woman that turns into the need to posses her fully as if he owns her.  Honestly, I think in general I have issues with vampire romances because they make absolutely no sense unless ultimately the girl is going to become a vampire. If that is not the intention, there is going to come a point where you will look forty years older than your vampire husband. Do characters not take that into account before deciding they want to marry the living dead? On a completely different note, there were definitely some really cheesy lines that I literally laughed out loud at. I also wasn't to keen on the whole genetics side to the story where magical creatures have extra chromosomes, and you can tell what powers a which has based on her DNA. Even in a story about magical beings, this was a little too much of a stretch for me.

All of that being said, I flew through this book and really did enjoy the overall experience of it. Harkness made me care about the characters, and so I fully plan on reading the rest of the series. Maybe this makes me as bad as the twihards or maybe I've just been reading so many books recently that I'm not paying as much attention to writing as I am to the overall story or maybe ever since I first watched Buffy I've just really wanted to fall in love with a vampire, of this I am not sure. Whatever the reason, I definitely want to know what becomes of Diana and Matthew.

As far as family friendliness goes, this is definitely not a book for young teens. There is a decent amount cursing and some semi-graphic scenes both sexual ones and violent ones. I definitely would not let my young teen pick up this book.

My Rating: 5/10

Book 16: Reached

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*Spoiler Alert: This is the third book in a series. If you haven't read the first two books you may want to stop reading*

My review of book one can be found here, and my review of book two can be found here.


Book Summary:
When an epidemic of the plague hits the provinces, the Rising uses their cure to gain hold and overthrow the Society. But when the plague mutates, Cassia, Ky, and Xander must help the Rising and the Pilot find a new cure. They must decide who they can trust. Is the Rising really a rebellion, or are they just the Society under a new name?

Book Review:
It's been a couple months since I read Matched and Crossed, so it took me a couple chapters before I was able to get back into the plot of this series. There were parts of this book that I liked a great deal more than the previous two, but there were also parts that I liked quite a bit less.

First off, I really enjoyed the storyline. I thought this was a much more interesting plot than either of the first two books. Since Cassia, Ky, and Xander are all major players in this book, each chapter is written with one of them as the narrator. As I've said before, I normally don't like when authors do that, but it worked out in this series pretty well. I really liked how in the series as a whole Condie goes from everything being told from Cassia's point of view in the first novel, to going back and forth between Cassia and Ky in the second, and now using all three of them in the third. As far as characters go, I still don't really like Cassia or Ky much; however, I really liked that Xander played such a large role in this story. Since the first book, I've never really gotten the reason behind why Cassia decided she loves Ky so much when she knew next to nothing about him before his face popped up on her microcard. Because of this, I always felt bad for Xander because he truly loves Cassia and had always hoped he would get matched to her someday. Thankfully, though, Xander was given another love interest in Lei, and I really liked seeing that story come to fruition.

Now to the things I didn't like. I thought the last couple chapters were really boring. Honestly, I wasn't such a huge fan of the final wrap up. It's not that the story ended terribly, it's just that I felt that the ending could have been a lot more interesting. It was just kind of a "blah" ending. I also didn't like what happened with Indie. I was really starting to like her, and felt that Condie could have done a lot more with her character. The final thing I didn't really like or even really understand was the whole thing about Cassia and the tablets. I felt like Condie was trying to make us believe that Cassia was really special because the tablets didn't work on her like they did everyone else, but this fell flat for me. I didn't feel like Cassia was special at all. I honestly got tired of reading about her and the tablets, so I ultimately skipped over the parts of the book where she was trying to remember the Red Garden Day.

Overall, I guess the good outweighed the bad in this book. And as far as family friendliness goes, there are very few (if any) curse words and no sexual references.

My Rating: 6/10 - (for the series I would give a 6/10)

Book 15: Me Before You

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes was April's hardback book for one of my goodreads book clubs, so it became book fifteen.

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Book Summary:
Louisa Clark is your average 26-year-old. She's got a great family, a boyfriend whom she will probably marry, and she's never been outside of her small village. But when her boss tells her that he's closing the café and she gets a new job as the caregiver for Will Traynor - a quadriplegic, she finds herself thinking about her life in a completely new way. 

Will Traynor used to be a big shot until he was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street that caused him to become a quadriplegic. He hates what he's become and finds nothing good in his life...that is, until Louisa Clark enters the scene.

My Review:
Oh. My. Goodness. 

If you'd like to stop reading this review now, you totally can because those three words basically sum up everything I feel for this book. It has to be the most beautifully depressing book I've read since The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and I loved every single second of it. Now, before you run out and buy this book, let me give you fair warning that this book gets kind of deep and debates the topic of assisted suicide. If you are okay with that, then I would suggest you read it. 

Now, on to the ins and outs of what I liked and didn't. What I loved most was the writing. Moyes made me want to go read the rest of her books because of how lovely this one was written. I think she does a fantastic job of developing the main characters, and by the end I was so attached to them that I set the book to the side and sobbed for a solid 2-3 minutes. Now, as I've said in a previous review, I don't like when authors go between narrators, but for some reason it really worked in this book. It helped that she didn't do it often (it is primarily told from Louisa's point of view) and that when she did it she put the name of whomever was narrating at the start of the chapter. I actually really liked those few chapters that were told from another's perspective. As I said earlier, this book delves into the subject of assisted suicide, in fact the author speaks of a real place in Switzerland where one who is terminally ill can go to do this. Some may find this issue unbearable to read about, but I found it thought provoking. On top of this, I was constantly contemplating the fact that an accident like Will's could happen to anyone at any moment. Anytime a book gets me to think deeply on issues that I wouldn't normally think about, I definitely deem it a wonderful story.

There really wasn't much that I disliked about Me Before You, the main thing being the character of Patrick, Louisa's boyfriend. I was constantly irritated by him and found myself wondering why Louisa was with such a jerk. And his character just goes from unlikeable to even more unlikeable when he sells Will's story to the press. 

The only other thing I have to say is that I wish the ending had been different. I wasn't surprised by it, but I wished the author had chosen to give us a twist and go a different way. That being said, it did not degrade this story in any way whatsoever. 

As far as family friendliness goes, this is not a book for young teens. There are many curse words and multiple sexual references (not to mention all the suicide talk). 

My Rating: 9/10

Book 14: Midnighters - Blue Noon

I'm still trying to catch up on my reading, so for book 14 I picked the easy read of the final book in the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld titled Blue Noon.

 

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*Spoiler Alert: This is book three is a series, so if you don't want books one and two to be spoiled please stop reading*

To read my reviews of the previous books go here for book one and here for book two.

Book Summary:
Blue Noon continues the story of our midnighters - Jess, Jonathan, Dess, Rex, and Melissa - as they make a new discovery about the midnight hour that threatens to destroy everything. Blue time is now hitting randomly throughout the day, and they scramble to figure out why it's happening. They soon find that the walls between midnight and real time are crumbling, and if they don't find a way stop it, the darklings will finally be free to become the predators they once were. The only thing they know for sure, is that the flame bringer is the key to saving everyone.

Book Review:
I really don't want to spoil too much about this book, but let me just say that I hated the ending. I completely understand why Westerfeld wrote it the way he did, but it wasn't a plot twist I enjoyed at all. Now, normally when I read books I go to the end first to make sure I like the ending, and then I go back and read the book from start to finish. I've always said that the reason I do this is because a bad ending ruins the entire book experience for me, so if I don't like the ending, I won't read the book. Well, I promised myself that I wouldn't do that with this book challenge. I decided I would read all fifty-two books like a normal person. Let me tell you, though, had I read this ending first, I wouldn't have bothered with the series. Now, please don't take that as you shouldn't read this series. I did like the series, and if you aren't someone who gets super disappointed by twist endings, you will probably be fine. I just don't fall into that category.

Now that I've gotten my largest disappointment out of the way let's move on to the things I liked. The plot of this book was really engaging, and I found that I enjoyed it more than the previous two novels. I loved the idea of regular people getting pulled into the midnight hour because it's like when Jessica first discovered the blue time only on a much grander scale. I also really liked that the author used Jessica's sister Beth more in this storyline. I think one of my favorite things, though, was the midnighters learning that there is another side to their history, one that tells of mindcasters bending people's wills to match their own and wiping the minds of anyone who dared not submit to their authority. Before the previous generation was destroyed, midnighters ran the town of Bixby, and they stayed in power because they could control the minds of the regular people who lived there. I liked when Melissa realized that she wasn't the first crazy mindcaster, she was, in fact, the first sane one because she believed that their was a major problem controlling people the way the old mindcasters did.

Obviously the ending was the thing I liked least about this book, but there were a couple other things I didn't really enjoy. I realize that Rex being part human-part darkling was a major plot point for the series and without him they wouldn't have been able to stop the rip, but I really didn't like it. I thought Rex getting all creepy and saying that people smelled like prey was just a little too much for me.  Also, there were parts of the story that were a little slow, and I ended up skimming through chunks of the book because it was kind of boring.

Overall, I did enjoy this book until the last two chapters. As far as language goes, I don't think it's quite as much as book two, but there are definitely some curse words (but no f bombs), and there are still some sexual references, though as with the second book they don't ever come out to say that's what they're talking about. 

On the series in general, I failed to mention that some of the stuff they talk about is a little dated. They still use VCR's and cassette players throughout the series. While this obviously doesn't take away from the series, young ones who weren't very old when those things were phased out may be slightly confused by Melissa using a walkman.

My Rating: 5/10 - (the series as a whole I would give a 6/10)
 

Book 13: Midnighters - Touching Darkness

Since I needed a couple easy reads to get caught up on my book quota, I decided to finish out the Midnighters Series by Scott Westerfeld before I started anything else. So, for book 13 I chose Midnighters - Touching Darkness.

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*Spoiler Alert: This is book two in a series. If you don't want book one spoiled, you should probably stop reading.*

Read my review of book one here.

Book Summary:
Touching Darkness picks up a mere days after The Secret Hour ends. Now that Jessica knows she's a flame bringer, meaning she can use technology during the blue time, she seems to be safe from darkling threats. But when the midnighters find out that the ancient darklings have teamed up with some humans, or stiffs as the team calls them, they aren't sure exactly what to do. Help, however, comes from an unexpected source as the the group uncovers the reason why there is no lore from the last fifty years.

My Review:
Unlike The Secret Hour, which I felt was just setting up plot lines for this story, Touching Darkness does a great job of standing on its own. If I didn't know going in that this was a trilogy, I wouldn't have known just from reading this that there was another book to follow. Westerfeld also gives the reader a lot more background information on the characters. I especially liked how much more we learned about Melissa's ability, as she was kind of to the background a good bit in The Secret Hour. Being a mindcaster is about so much more than just being able to hear people's thoughts, and I didn't completely get that until the character of Madeleine was introduced. Speaking of Madeleine, her character was my favorite aspect about this book, as it enabled the author to answer most of my questions from the first book. My biggest issue with the first book was the idea that somehow there are five midnighters in Bixby who are all teenagers. This was very unbelievable to me. However, this issue was explained in detail throughout Touching Darkness.

As far as what I didn't enjoy, my biggest complaint was that I felt like the ending was rushed just like it was in The Secret Hour. Although the buildup wasn't quite as slow, I still thought the climax of the novel could have been written a little better. I also really began to dislike Rex throughout this story. His jealousy over Melissa touching anyone but him drove me crazy. Plus, his reaction to just about everything Jonathan says made me want to smack him. Lastly, I really didn't like that the swearing was amped up a good bit. I realize that teenagers swear, but since there was basically no swearing in the first book and this takes place like a week after those events, I didn't really understand why all the characters randomly started swearing so much.

Overall, I did enjoy this book at least as much as the first in the series. As I stated above, there is a good bit of swearing, however there are no f-bombs dropped anywhere. As far as sexual references go, there are a few scenes where the characters talk about sex, though they never come right out and say it. There are no graphic scenes, though, and the worst the characters do is kiss.

My Rating: 7/10

Book 12: The End of Your Life Book Club

I am seriously addicted to Goodreads. Since utilizing it a couple months ago, I've read quite a few books that I wouldn't have normally picked up. The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe is one such book, and I am so glad I got my hands on it.

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Book Summary:
The End of Your Life Book Club is a memoir written by a son about the last years of his mom's life. When Mary Anne was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her life became filled with visits to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Deciding to use this time at the center as a way to connect with family and friends, she and her son start a not-so traditional book club. They are the only members, and they rarely read the same books at the same time. In this book, Schwalbe chronicles the remaining two years of his mother's life by the books they read and the discussions they had. Along the way he discovers not only new authors and books, but also things he didn't know about his mother.

My Review:
I'm pretty sure that this was the first memoir I've ever read. And if all memoirs are written like this one, I'm sure it will not be the last. It took me a lot longer to read this than I initially thought it would, but it wasn't because I didn't enjoy it. It was actually because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to soak up every word instead of speed reading my way through it as I do with most books.

The first thing that I loved about this book is that on top of being a beautifully written chronicle of mother and son connecting through an unfortunate circumstance, it's a book about books. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love books, and as Mary Anne says at one point in the story (not a direct quote here because I now can't find the page), how can someone who loves books not like a story about loving books and the importance of the written word. I think the thing that struck me the most about this book, though, is Mary Anne as a person. She is fully devoted to her family while still being fully devoted to all her causes. As she is a huge supporter and volunteer of numerous organizations, she spends much of her life helping raise money and awareness along with flying around the world to volunteer. Mary Anne seriously inspired me while I was reading this. There is one point after she and Will have read the book Suite Française, that Will basically says he feels guilty for not doing more in the world to help others and this is his mother's reply:

"I loved the people I met on all my trips, Will. I loved hearing their stories and getting to know them and finding out what if anything we could all do to help. That's enriched my life more than I can say. Of course you could do more - you can always do more, and you should do more - but still, the important thing is to do what you can, whenever you can. You just do your best, and that's all you can do. Too many people use the excuse that they don't think they can do enough, so they decide they don't have to do anything. There's never a good excuse for not doing anything - even if it's just to sign something, or send a small contribution, or invite a newly settled refugee family over for Thanksgiving."

I loved this quote from the book because after reading this story I feel like I knew Mary Anne, and I feel like this quote is basically how she lived her entire life, doing what she could whenever she could. And that's really how I want to live my life.

There really wasn't much that I disliked about this book. In all honesty as it was a true story written about real people, the things I tended not to like were ultimately places where I just disagreed with the author or Mary Anne. For instance, while talking about feminism, she makes a point to say that although she doesn't disagree with women who decide to be house wives or stay-at-home mothers, she doesn't approve of people getting advanced degrees and then deciding to stay home. Her argument is basically that while you got your degree you took a spot from someone else and that you should do something with that education to help others. While I fully understand her point of view on this, I definitely do not agree with her, especially since in this day and age women tend to have children much later in life. They could have had a great career before they decided to settle down and have a family. Another thing I disliked about this book was that I felt like there was a lot of political stuff in it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and it wasn't like a blaring horn with the politics; I just sort of felt like the author was trying to push his political views onto me inception style. Lastly, I felt as though the author worshiped his mom a little too much while writing this. Although I think it's beautifully written, there were parts where I felt like he was looking through rose colored glasses. Although I'm sure his mother was wonderful, especially through his eyes, I felt like there wasn't anything bad written about her in this story. She never gets angry, and whenever something bad happens to her she first thinks about how it affected others. For example, when she falls in front of her grandkids, she's more concerned that she scared them than she is that she fell. She seemed very Mother Teresa-ish as I read this, and that makes me slightly skeptical.

Overall, I did love this book. It made me cry a couple times (which almost never happens when I'm reading). There are very few curse words and no sexual references (though since she works with refugees there are a couple times where rape comes up but nothing graphic is ever discussed).

My Rating: 8/10