Book Review: The Diviners - Book One

The Diviners

By: Libba Bray

Genre: YA fiction

Pages: 578

Published: 2012

Read: January

Stars: 3 out of 5

I have heard Libba Bray speak at the Austin Teen Book Festival in September 2012. I mention this fact because since the novel is written in 3rd person, I "heard" Bray’s voice narratoring the novel. While I wasn’t connecting enthusiastically with the story until over half way through I had felt Bray did a great job developing the characters and by the last half of the novel I felt I knew the characters and their voices. I was hoping to see more of Memphis and Theta in the story line, but perhaps that is part of book 2 in the trilogy. While the book’s main focus is the special and unique divining skills of the main characters there is a great mystery too. I look forward to the rest of the trilogy as now I feel connected with the characters and can’t wait to see the rest of their story unravel. 

  

Visit Libby at www.LibbyBray.com

First book review of 2013: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By: Rebecca Skloot

Genre: nonfiction

Pages: 370

Published: 2010

Read: January

Stars: 4 out of 5

This nonfiction novel is truly eye-opening with an amazing personal touch. The reader doesn't need to be a biology enthusiast to enjoy the impact of this book. The story is focused on the opinions of Henrietta’s children and how they discovered that doctors have been keeping their mother’s cells alive for 20 years before her own children discovered this very fact. You will be enthralled with the voice of Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter. Henrietta had another daughter, but she was institutionalized. Skloot entwined the facts of the scientific methods developed and the illnesses the HeLa cells cured with the personal facts of Henrietta and her family’s story of their growing up, mostly without the present of their mother due to her early death. While Skloot has written many works of literature this is her first and only novel thus far. I would love to see more from her in the future.

Rebecca Skloot's website is www.rebeccaskloot.com

New Year's Resolution

This may seem like a weird one, but my fellow book lovers will understand. I have set a goal to read 50 books this year. Besides that goal, I am going to write reviews on all 50 (or more books) I read this year. I will post those reviews both on my blog and on Goodreads.com.

Now a word about the reviews I will write:

A professional review, in which, you would find in literary magazines and/or websites have to be only 100 to 150 words. As I have been working on earning my Masters in Information and Library Science I have had to follow these guides, therefore I will be writing my reviews this year in this manner. Furthermore, professional reviews are to a critical critique of the literature rather then a summary of the material. I will probably on most of my reviews this year include a short summary due to the fact that on my blog there is not a link to a summary of the novel.

I hope you all will enjoy my reviews and please feel free to make comments or questions on my reviews and I will try to answer them. Also, please note I also offer FREE reviews of any books. This can either be drafts or final copies, or self-published or not. I would just need some format of the book emailed to me. Just comment here and I will send you my email address.

I will also take ANY suggestions of books you would like to see me review. Now I have read and finished 2 books in 2013 so I will write those up. Got to stay on task J Hopefully, from time to time, I will be able to write blogs on my life other than book reviews. This is also my last semester of school and I hope to graduate in May. Then I’m getting married this upcoming September.

BOOK REVIEW: The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

TITLE: The Night Bookmobile

 

BY: Audrey Niffenegger

GENRE: Adult graphic novel

PUBLISHED: 2010

PAGES: 40

STARS: 1 out of 5

                                                 **THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**

             This book was a MAJOR disappointment for me. I honestly can't believe an author would write such a book - Where a person can be so obsessed with books that she kills herself. To back up, I LOVE Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife - It is one of my all-time favorite books and I highly recommend it. I also enjoyed, but not nearly as much her other novel, The Fearful Symmetry. HOWEVER, I can't believe she wrote The Night Bookmobile AND the book had so much promise at the beginning.

It is the first half of the book that I even gave it 1 stars, It had such good promise. I was LOVING the premise of the story - A mysterious bookmobile that only shows up sporadically and when you least expect it from dusk to dawn. This book houses all the materials that the patron has very read, including personal diaries. It was mysterious, fun and she wanted to work at the bookmobile. It was so inspiration and really felt like my own story - she ends up going to library school and being a real library, but still seeks at the mysterious night bookmobile.

THEN the story crashes - she becomes so obsessed she kills herself (she does end a relationship early in book because of obsession, but I was able to forgive that) - THEN, AND only THEN  is she able to be the librarian for the Night Bookmobile - see only the decreased can run the bookmobile and they are assigned there own patrons.

On top of all this, the graphic are horrible and poorly drawn. The second time she sees the night bookmobile the story states it's in a McDonald's parking lot in Chicago (of the fact that it took place in Chicago was kind of cool); however the picture showed it in front of Wrigley Stadium and NO McDee's any where to be found.

 SO....morals of story - DON'T BECOME SO OBSESSED WITH BOOKS THAT YOU KILL YOURSELF

                                  - BOOK OBSESSION CAN OVERCOME YOUR LIFE AND YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING BUT YOUR BOOKS

                                  - ACHIEVING ONES GOAL OF BECOMING A LIBRARIAN ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH - YOU MUST BE THE ULTIMATE LIBRARIAN

                                   - BOOK LOVERS CAN NOT HOLD RELATIONSHIPS OR JOBS BECAUSE OF THEIR OBSESSION - LET'S TALK ABOUT CRAZY BOOK LADY

Sorry, Niffenegger - I'm not buying it !!

Book Review : Twelve Months by Steven Mancester

 

Steven Manchester

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Pages: 324

2 out of 5 stars

This book was good, but nothing that hasn’t been written before. With this type of plot, you know the person is going to die at the end and although it is sad the story is about how to celebrate one’s life with the last of the time God has granted you. So with that in mind, there should be some kind of revelation, excitement, or climax to differentiate from all the other “last months to live” books out there.  This book just did not do anything for me. I felt the characters weren’t very developed for a novel that was more based on emotions and family connections; yet would go into great detail of the different deeds that Don accomplished.

SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS

SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS
BY: Guadalupe Garcia McCall
PUBLISHED: 2012
GENRE: Young Adult fiction
PAGES: 352
STARS: 4 out of 5

I had the great please of meeting Guadalupe Garcia McCall at the Austin Teen Book Festival this past September. Then I had the please of reading her book while on vacation in Cabo, Mexico. It couldn't have been much more fitting.

Cinco Hermanitas! Five Sisters! Together forever. Told by the view of the oldest sister, Odilia, this magical story of five Mexican American sisters traveling across the border from Texas to Mexico to deliver a dead body, visit their Abuelita (Grandma), find their father and themselves will have you crying and laughing with the girls. Mexican folklore is weaved throughout the sister’s adventure as they encounter mystical creatures such as chupacabras and lechuzas, along with the legendary La Llorona.  The author creates a beautiful description of the Garza sisters’ mystical adventures to Grandmother’s house and back again. Age 9 and up.

The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

 

The Demon Lover

BY: Juliet Dark (Carol Goodman)

PUBLISHED: 2011

GENRE: Fantasy

PAGES: 416

STARS: 4 out of 5

Being a huge Carol Goodman fan, I knew I would love this book. It definitely has Carol's style, having the setting be a Literary College, but with a gothic/fairy tale twist.  A young graduate author looking for a teaching position takes one away from her beloved New York City to a small Literary College, Fairwick. Goodman’s setting of a small college plot, but with a twist of demons, fairies, witches, etc, takes Callie to a new realization of her dreams she has been having since a young age. She soon learns that her dreams are her reality versus the other way around. Intertwined with mythology, fairy tales, erotica, and other great literature, the reader will be gripping to solve the Fairwick mysteries and the Ballard Curse right along with Callie.

If you are a Carol Goodman fan or have a love for Gothic romance, Paranormal Mystery, Urban Fantasy or any combination of the above, I highly recommend this book for you.

It is the first in the Fairwick Chronicles, so the mysteries continue...