Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Summary: Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

Review: So... The premise of this novel doesn't actually sound that amazing to me. I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't appeal. I read it anyway, though, and have since come to the conclusion that if Rainbow Rowell decided one day to write nothing but the back of cereal boxes, I'd read them.

She's that good.

What is it about her writing? I know she's wildly popular, but that popularity is backed up by a lot of talent.

I enjoyed Landline a lot. Not as much as Attachments, which had the benefit of an intriguing premise, but I didn't want to put it down. I felt for Georgie.

I liked Neal's characterization. I liked learning about him, and I like that he isn't just some faceless Romantic Leading Man.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, funny, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman

Rating: 

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Summary: In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes full-color art and an excerpt from Winter, the next book in the Lunar Chronicles series.

Review: So the whole time I was reading this one, I kept thinking about Levana's obsession with Evret and comparing it to the way Scarlett O'Hara is obsessed with Ashleigh. Am I alone here?

Also, is it bad that my favorite part of Fairest was the preview of Winter at the end?

That being said, I liked it more than I thought it would. I liked the insight into Levana's psyche. It explained her motivations and her "how she got this way" story without making trying to make me sympathetic for her. This story actually provided a good explanation for my issue from back in Cinder, about why she practices such crappy diplomacy, which was nice.

Although this isn't my favorite of the Lunar Chronicles by a long shot, I'm sure some of the things I learned from it will be relevant in Winter-- and that makes it worthwhile.

PS. I remember seeing an animated version of the cover at some point... Does anybody know where I might have seen it? Am I making this up?

Goodreads Shelves: bechdel-test, fluffy, nook-ya, pretentious

Rating: 

Burial Rites by Hanna Kent

Summary: A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.

Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Review: What a lovely book. Reading the description, I'm not really sure why I wanted to read it. It doesn't really sound like my kind of book, but when I thought about what kind of book it would be like, it really did sound like something I'd enjoy.

And I did enjoy it. Despite the problems I had with it, which come to me the more I think about it, now that the book's done. At the time, it was a very enjoyable book to read. It was interesting and riveting, and I'd read more by Hannah Kent.

Although. Although. I don't know. It's a little convenient, isn't it, that the spurned lover of a murdered man has such a convenient story of how little she was involved with the actual murder, don't you think? But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Because she goes on and on in the beginning about how she's gonna protect herself and not open up and tell people the truth about who she is. But it didn't seem to me like it took much effort to get her to change her mind and start spilling her guts. UNTIL I remember one of the first things she says to Reverend Tóti, which is, "I could tell you anything."

Which makes me think, maybe she's not such a reliable narrator after all? And few things intrigue me more than an unreliable narrator.

I do wish there had been more of the main story. The first half of the book is about 70/30, but the second half (basically once she gets to the juicy part of the flashbacks), that ratio is pretty much reversed. I guess because there's only so much interesting stuff that can happen on a small farm in the middle of nowhere, beyond listening to a convicted murderer tell a crazy story about the guy she supposedly murdered.

Overall, I was a big fan. I liked reading about Agnes's gradual acceptance into her temporary home, and I liked getting glimpses into her mind. Despite the grisly subject matter, it was a nice book to read.

Goodreads Shelves: bechdel-test, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Summary: On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Clearly history (and Kate Atkinson) have plans for her: In Ursula rests nothing less than the fate of civilization.

Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best, playing with time and history, telling a story that is breathtaking for both its audacity and its endless satisfactions.

Review: It's been about a week since I finished this book, and I finally feel like I have enough distance to talk about it.

It's a beautiful book. It's extremely well thought-out, and very skillfully written. The story is incredibly complex, and I have to give Atkinson props for keeping it all straight.

I have a couple of things to talk about-- I feel like the summary gives the promise of closure for the book, which the book then fails to deliver. The teaser at the beginning of the novel also did that, but I liked where she took it later on.

Also, I'm super bummed about Ursula's search for love. Clearly it's not as high a priority for Ursula herself, and this book also doesn't have ANY examples of actual True Love (except with Ursula's siblings -- the only constant is how close she is with her older sister and younger brother), but I was always waiting for her to fall in love and stay in love. Although that's also the point of the book, I think -- nothing's forever.

My other big issue was the fact that it's set, for the most part, during World War II. I'm just not that into stories about WWII -- that doesn't make me a bad person, does it? It's not that they're not interesting, because they are, but I'm just not that into them.

[SPOILER] I do have one more spoilerly thing to talk about -- I saw a theory on Goodreads that I really liked, that says that maybe her mother can start over again like Ursula can, and she can remember her past lives sometimes, too. Because of the part at the end where she says, Practice makes perfect. I really like that idea, because it explains how Ursula's not the only thing that changes every time-- outside factors are affected by other people having more chances as well. Although that sends me down a depressing theological rabbit-hole when I contemplate that Atkinson seems to be saying that we all just repeat our lives-- what, forever and ever? There's no end, just this, always? Ugh, it makes me tired just to think about. (PS, if other people besides Ursula could remember past lives the way she could, don't you think there would be a huge mob at the hospital the day Hitler was born? It reminds me of Asimov's idea that if time travel were possible we'd be surrounded by tourists from the future.)[/SPOILER]

Anyway, clearly this book gave me a lot to think about.

Goodreads Shelves: bechdel-test, funny, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, pretentious, snark-attack, thought-provoking

Rating: 

Paper Towns by John Green

Summary: Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life–dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge–he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues–and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

Review: It's like this: When I'm constantly hearing people talk about something, be it a book or a movie or whatever, I can only go so long before I need to check it out for myself.

Which is basically why I read Paper Towns. John Green kept filming vlogbrothers videos from the set of the movie, so I figured it was time to read the book. (Which is also why I bought and reread The Fault in Our Stars that one time.)

I think I've mentioned previously that I'm kind of over John Green's Preciously Clever Teenagers. But mostly because I used to be one, and those days are pretty much over for me (what with my ten-year high school reunion coming up this summer. Seriously, where does the time go?). In fact, I was thinking how weird it is that there are always these characters with a nickname that has literally nothing to do with their name, but every single person calls them by that nickname and knows some weird story about why they got it. And I was like, who is like that? Who even does that? And then I remembered a friend I went to high school with who went by Hot Sauce for no apparent reason but every single person called him that. And also a kid who was such a big fan of University of Alabama football that he went by Bama, and there were kids who didn't even know that his real name was Josh. So... John Green gets a pass, because I guess that really happens.

Paper Towns was interesting. It said some things to me about people, and about how you never really know what's going on inside someone's head. It also kind of made me want to read Leaves of Grass, maybe?

I liked Margo. I liked how Quentin worked so hard to figure her out, and he thought he saw beyond what she showed people and saw deep into her soul and stuff, and then at the end he realized that he'd done it wrong and read too much into a ton of random stuff. Margo, as seen by Quentin, is a lot more real and complicated than she seems, but also less mysterious and unattainable than she seems, too.

Random thought: I HATE books that are written in first person, but you don't know what the main character's name is. Like, after you've finished it. Have you read books like that? Where you can't remember the MC's name because the book was in first person and they just didn't say their name enough? This book isn't like that, although it's kind of close: I kept getting thrown off every time somebody called him "Q," because he called himself Quentin too much. I always thought of that as his name. Anyway.

I've said it before, but bear with me: I think I'm getting a little too old for YA books. My unofficial New Year resolution (I know it's February, but I finished Paper Towns back in December) is to read more grown-up type books. (Spoiler: So far it's going well.)

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, funny, is-a-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, nook-ya, pretentious, thought-provoking

Rating:

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Summary: After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Review: So I was excited about this one, but also iffy. On the one hand, I'm a fan of the Harry Potter books, so I was expecting great things. But on the other hand, I've read some reviews that were pretty underwhelmed. So I went in with mixed expectations.

And I liked it! It wasn't as groundbreaking as the HP books, but it was a solid mystery novel. I liked Strike; he's smart and tough and also a little insecure, and he's a really good PI. I liked his relationship with Robin -- Robin was great. I'm such a fan of Robin. (Although I really REALLY don't want them to have a romantic relationship. Am I alone in this? I LIKE their dynamic too much to be interested in them doing something as boring as falling in love.)

Plot-wise, it was pretty good. I'm not usually very interested in guessing whodunit, because I tend to be wrong. (And because I don't like to guess, I don't get better at it. It's a vicious cycle.) But I felt like all the little details and clues got explained really well -- it was intricate enough to actually describe as intricate, which I liked a lot.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, my-kind-of-woman

Rating: 

The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg

Summary: HOW HAD MRS. OLINSKI CHOSEN her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they make such a good team?

It was a surprise to a lot of people when Mrs. Olinski's team won the sixth-grade Academic Bowl contest at Epiphany Middle School. It was an even bigger surprise when they beat the seventh grade and the eighth grade, too. And when they went on to even greater victories, everyone began to ask: How did it happen?

It happened at least partly because Noah had been the best man (quite by accident) at the wedding of Ethan's grandmother and Nadia's grandfather. It happened because Nadia discovered that she could not let a lot of baby turtles die. It happened when Ethan could not let Julian face disaster alone. And it happened because Julian valued something important in himself and saw in the other three something he also valued.

Mrs. Olinski, returning to teaching after having been injured in an automobile accident, found that her Academic Bowl team became her answer to finding confidence and success. What she did not know, at least at first, was that her team knew more than she did the answer to why they had been chosen.

This is a tale about a team, a class, a school, a series of contests and, set in the midst of this, four jewel-like short stories -- one for each of the team members -- that ask questions and demonstrate surprising answers.

Review: So it's been years and years since the first time I read this one. I remember liking it a whole lot, and when I saw the NookBook on sale on Barnes and Noble, I jumped at the chance to get it.

I'm not sure it was as amazing as I remember it? Like, I like the premise, and it's well executed and stuff. But... I dunno. It felt a little simplified, maybe? Like it was written for children, perhaps? (Heeeeyy....)

It does have elements of which I'm a fan, though. Quiz-bowl teams, which brings back fond high school memories. A ragtag group of friends. And I liked the way they helped their teacher get her confidence back.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, i-own-it, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

Guest Review: Death Sworn by Leah Cypess

This review is brought to you by my amazing sister, Kelli. You can find her on her blog and on Goodreads.

Summary: When Ileni lost her magic, she lost everything: her place in society, her purpose in life, and the man she had expected to spend her life with. So when the Elders sent her to be magic tutor to a secret sect of assassins, she went willingly, even though the last two tutors had died under mysterious circumstances.

But beneath the assassins’ caves, Ileni will discover a new place and a new purpose… and a new and dangerous love. She will struggle to keep her lost magic a secret while teaching it to her deadly students, and to find out what happened to the two tutors who preceded her. But what she discovers will change not only her future, but the future of her people, the assassins… and possibly the entire world.

Review: I desperately wanted to give this 5 stars because I loved the ending, but Ileni was seriously SO woe-is-me pity party for so much of the book that I just couldn't round my 4.5 stars up.  Having said that, her self-pity is pretty much the only thing that really annoyed me, and that was all internal.  To the outside, she presented a pretty kick-a$$ heroine who was haughty and powerful.  And I loved that despite her admittedly crappy position, in the final evaluation, she acted from a position of strength and reasoning rather than her feelings of betrayal, anger, and sorrow.

And I'll go ahead and admit up-front that for some reason I'm a sucker for stories with assassin main characters.  Books like Throne of Glass, Graceling, Poison Study, Grave Mercy are all 4- and 5-star books for me.  But the heroine isn't an assassin, and in fact is pretty disdainful of the assassins.  It's interesting because in reality, I think murder is horrible, too, so I can easily relate to her.  The author's timing is well-done as she introduces more facts and plot-points to develop Ileni's sympathy for their position.

This is clearly a first in a series, but I felt there was sufficient closure to not be considered a cliff-hanger.  There's more story to tell, but I look forward to reading it in another book rather than feeling like I was cheated out of the last half of the story.

The part of the book that made me want to stand up and cheer is actually on the last page or two and would be a huge spoiler, so all I can say is that I wanted to call all my friends and rave about this book and demand they go read it so I could talk about why without spoiling a huge plot point.  So go ahead and read it, then hit me up and see if you can guess what I loved.

Rating: 

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Summary: Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Review: I think... I think I'm addicted to these books. Seriously, I have wanted nothing more than to read Cress since the minute I finished Scarlet. It's $8.89 on both Kindle and Nook, which is a lot more than I'm willing to pay for an ebook (and a lot more than I paid for the first two Lunar Chronicles), but if the hold list at the library weren't so short, I'd be sorely tempted. On to the review, though.

Confession: I'm not into "Little Red Riding Hood." Even though her song is one of the best ones in Into The Woods, I'm just not feeling it. The story itself is just "meh" for me, as are most retellings I've read/seen. It's just... yeah, not my thing.

But Scarlet was pretty great. Despite the source material (which, ok, I ignored enough to be surprised by a couple of the twists in the story -- *shame*), the plot had me riveted. I was expecting to be so focused on Cinder's story that following Scarlet's story would be boring to me, but I was equally entertained by both. Neither felt weaker than the other, which was refreshing (and rare, in my experience).

The only weak link, as it were, was Kai's chapters, since Kai, at this point, is frustratingly ignorant of important spoilers information, and therefore is not informed enough to make good decisions. Bad intelligence, people. It's a killer. (But this is a spoiler-free zone, never fear. I don't mean "killer" literally. Or do I??) I was happy, though, that he seemed to have acquired another advisor (even though the existence of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-type character was already implied (yeah, I looked up what that person is called in the US military)).

Anyway, as for new characters in the story, I love Scarlet. She's tough, loyal, trusting, a little naive, a little too impulsive. A great person to have around in a fight, but also not afraid to show weakness. Fantastic.

Wolf was hard to get a handle on, which is intentional, so props there, and I'd never want to date him, because, baggage. But I appreciate that Scarlet does? So good for her.

I really like Captain Thorne, though. Maybe Meyer tries a little too hard to make him "charming", but I think that tune will change when I see him through Cress's eyes, don't you?

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, excuse-me-half-the-book-is-missing, fluffy, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, nook-ya

Rating: 

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Summary: Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Review: Ugh, can we please stop having "big twists" that the audience figures out in the first chapter? Seriously. There's this big "reveal" that happens pretty much in the last 5 pages, and literally every single person who reads this book heaves a huge sigh and is like, "yeah, I already knew that, thanks." Not to mention that this "big twist" is hinted at in the summary of the book! Can we stop doing that? Please? #kthxbai

*steps off soapbox*

Now that that's out of the way, what a cute book! Futuristic, cyborg retelling of Cinderella. I am totally down with that. I knew I'd love it, but I'm not sure why I hadn't read it sooner.

Cinder was pretty adorable. She's tough and capable, but also loyal and sweet. And even though she lies to Kai, by not telling him she's a cyborg, I can understand why. And the two people in her "family" (I don't know if I legitimize her domestic situation by calling it a family, but you know-- the people she lives with) that she loves and are nice to her (her younger stepsister Peony and her android Iko) are actually people that I would like, too. (As opposed to Annoyingly Sweet characters -- it's always nice when the protagonist's friends are actually likable.)

Kai is also cute... to a point. I like his crush on Cinder, and I imagine that the reason he pursues her for so long is the whole "Thrill of the Chase" thing guys are always talking about in books and movies (and in real life sometimes, to be fair). But... for a prince, especially the heir to the throne, he seems to have a lot of free time on his hands. I mean, shouldn't he be meeting with ministers and governors and heads of parliament all the time? And why does he seem to only have one advisor, who ALSO has tons of free time (as evidenced by the fact that he has enough time on his hands to attend EVERY meeting Kai takes)? And shouldn't Kai, as heir to the throne, already have received a TON of training in leadership and diplomacy and management and stuff? And how, in some post-apocalyptic world in which there are only six countries left on Earth anyway, did we manage to keep an actual, honest-to-goodness monarchy, with rulers who are more than just ceremonial heads of state? Wait-- that might actually explain why Kai has so much free time. But if so, shouldn't his Prime Minister be the one negotiating a peace treaty with the moon?

And while we're on the subject of politics, I found Levana's diplomacy to be... well, pretty horrible. She invites herself to his palace with absolutely NO notice, makes demands of Kai's police and security forces, attempts to discipline his servants (with corporal punishment, no less -- not just bad diplomacy, but also super tacky), and tries to arrest his citizens! And then tries to maintain the charade that she might not declare war. Sorry, honey, but you pretty much already have.

However. Once I suspend my disbelief on the subject of politics, the book was quite riveting. I LOVED all the Cinder/Kai stuff, as is my way, and was super excited by the story -- it turned into quite a nail-biter. I'm excited to read the rest of the series.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, excuse-me-half-the-book-is-missing, fluffy, funny, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, nook-ya

Rating:

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

Summary: Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.

Review: So... am I getting old? Because while the story in this novel is cute, I feel like I'm not quite as charmed by it as I should have been.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm a fully grown adult. Or the many times I moved away from friends (and boyfriends) during my own adolescence. But I kind of want to give Lucy and Owen a talking to. One that boils down to "get over it, my young friends."

Does that make me old?

I'm a little preoccupied with the question.

Anyway, despite their weird kind-of-relationship thing, I liked the book. I liked Owen and his dad's (heartbreaking) story; their journey towards healing from Owen's mom's death was strong storytelling. And I liked Lucy's story and how her relationship with her parents plays out. (Although stories that end with "if you'd only asked, I would have..." tend to break my heart a little bit.)

Overall, once I got over the way their relationship makes me want to yell at some kids and tell them to get off my lawn, I rather liked it.

Goodreads Shelves: bechdel-test, fluffy, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, pretentious

Rating: 

Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins and Jamie Hogan

Summary: In her Bangladesh village, ten-year-old Naima excels at painting designs called alpanas, but to help her impoverished family financially she would have to be a boy--or disguise herself as one.

Review: As I'm preparing to move to Bangladesh in a few months, one of the things I'm doing is reading books about it. I'm reading books for older people, like A Golden Age, but I'm also reading as many children's books about Bangladesh as possible, because a) I can read children's books faster and b) there just aren't that many books about Bangladesh out there.

Rickshaw Girl was good. Written at about a 2nd grade reading level, it tells a story of Naima, who is crazy frustrated by gender restrictions. She desperately wants to help her family earn money, but she can't because (in her village at least) girls and women don't work or earn money. Despite how predictable her story is, I was happy to see her find a role model by the end, who helps her overcome gender roles in her community by giving her a chance.

I could feel the love Naima and her family have for each other, and my heart broke with Naima when, in the process of trying to help her family financially, she accidentally makes it worse.

Overall, I feel like this book helped me gain a perspective for what life is like in rural Bangladesh. I think it would be a great story to share with kids (and grown-ups) who want to learn about and understand other cultures.

Goodreads Shelves: be-proactive, bechdel-test, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Summary: Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Review: So this is actually a reread for me; I read it for the first time last year, while I was taking a blog break. My first impression, those many moons ago, was that it was just ok, but I admitted that I did get emotionally invested enough to cry.

This reading was a little different, maybe because I was enough removed to observe more. I didn't cry this time around (a point of pride, perhaps?), but I did appreciate the wit more. (Side note: I've watched so many vlogbrothers videos in the last year that the first couple pages were narrated in my head by John Green himself. Which I found to be hilarious.)

I liked everything better pre-Amsterdam, which makes sense because everything after Amsterdam is a huge downer.

Also, I understand that "Okay, okay" is like their Thing, or something, but pointing out that something is poignant doesn't really make it so. Maybe it just bothers me because the first I ever even heard about this "Okay" thing was in the comments of a Lizzie Bennet Diaries video, and I resented the fact that what sounded to me like perfectly normal dialogue that I myself have used HUNDREDS of times in my life is all of a sudden some special reference just for Special John Green Fans. Like, ok, nerdfighters are great and stuff, but now you OWN the word "Okay"? Seriously? So then I read the book to find out what all the fuss is about, and as explained by the book, it's pretty much a huge letdown. Because they just say "Okay" to each other all the time. That's literally all there is to it.

ANYWAY, another thing I liked was how Augustus talks about Hazel looking like Natalie Portman, because the movie just came out (I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's good) and Shailene Woodley, who plays Hazel, totally does look like Natalie Portman. Good casting, guys. Way to go.

So all that being said, if you like sad books about kids who have cancer and fall in love, or if you like clever, snappy dialogue and don't mind sad books about kids who have cancer and fall in love, you should give it a read.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, funny, i-have-the-ebook, is-a-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

Agent of Change by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Summary: Once a brilliant First-in Scout, Val Con yos'Phelium was "recruited" by the mysterious Liaden Department of Interior and brainwashed into an Agent of Change—a ruthless covert operative who kills without remorse.

Fleeing the scene of his latest murderous mission, he finds himself saving the life of ex-mercenary Miri Robertson, a tough Terran on the run from a team of interplanetary assassins. Thrown together by circumstances, Val Con and Miri struggle to elude their enemies and stay alive without slaying each other—or surrendering to the unexpected passion that flares between them.

Review: So I have this habit when I read books, which is that I get about three-fourths of the way through them, and then I get online and look at reviews. I guess... I dunno, I'm trying to figure out whether my impressions so far are correct? Whether people agree with me, when I like certain characters or whatever? Maybe I'm trying to see how I should feel about what I've read so far. (I should probably stop letting other people tell me what I think.)

That being said, one of the reviews I looked up for this book pointed out that within the first two chapters or so, both main characters have killed enough people to definitely count as serial killers. And I thought... yeah. Pretty much. Which doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on the book, per se, because I've certainly killed plenty of random bad guys playing Legend of Zelda. So basically, this book has tons of storm troopers. Random, faceless, expendable Bad Guys.

Besides the senseless violence, there was a love story that took me a while to get into. I dunno... the description of the book told me that Val Con was this heartless assassin, which I found to be kind of a misnomer? I mean, at the beginning, he's fairly heartless, but pretty much as soon as he meets Miri (like, in chapter two) he becomes a Really Decent Guy who has Skills. Like, if Jason Bourne, instead of getting shot  and losing his memory, just met a cute redhead. So if he's such a decent guy, why was he assassinating someone in the first scene? And if he's so heartless, why is he suddenly abandoning the government that controls him?
All of which, to be honest, can be explained (to me) by the fact that the book was written in the eighties, when complex back story and world building were not necessary to make a book enjoyable. (For instance, this book, and this one. Both excellent.) I guess I'm expecting more characterization and interplanetary politics in later books.

One part of the book that I did love, though, was the turtles. Think about it. A culture of giant 8-foot turtles? Who are slow and live for centuries and are super polite and sweet? And grow knives like crystals? I loved them so much. I want a tribe of turtles to be my older brothers. Please tell me they show up in later books.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman

Rating: 

PS If you want to read it for yourself, it's in the Baen Free Library! Download the ebook here.

Split Second by Kasie West

Summary: Addie has always been able to see the future when faced with a choice, but that doesn't make her present any easier. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. So when Addie's dad invites her to spend her winter break with him in the Norm world, she jumps at the chance. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He's a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. She wants to change that.

Laila, her best friend, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie's memories . . . once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don't want this to happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

In the suspenseful sequel to Pivot Point, Addie tries desperately to retrieve her lost memories and piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot.

Review: I liked it! I mean, I read it in approximately two days, so clearly.

I like Trevor. He takes the whole Supernatural Abilities thing really well, like we all wish we could, and is basically the most chill guy ever. (Like Oz from Buffy. Anyone remember how super chill that guy was?) I was pretty surprised by how cool he was with Addie's admission about being in love with him in an alternate timeline, but I guess since he already had a thing for her, he was able to take it in stride.

Laila's storyline took me a little more time to get into. Connor's whole Teddy Bear on the Inside thing didn't really do it for me... I feel like a disproportionate amount of angry guys turn out to actually be sensitive sweet guys in books. N'est pas? (And is he in the first book? I don't remember his deal.)

Overall, it was a pleasant way to spend two days or so.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman

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Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Summary: "Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time."

Review: So... this one was DIFFERENT. I mean, I had expectations from this book. Plot-wise. And this was... unexpected.

The distinction I keep seeing in reviews of this book is that this book is a love story, not a romance. Which is true. But I feel like it's also a book that just happens to have a love story in it. It's more of a meditation on life and death, and on what makes a life worth living.

I really liked how gradually the love story played out. I've been reading a lot of shorter books lately, and short books don't have a lot of time to develop a relationship. So people meet and pretty much fall in love right away. But because this book is longer, it was able to take its time with that and be subtle, so I as the reader was able to catch on to how Lou and Will felt about each other before they did.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, be-proactive, bechdel-test, funny, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

Aunt Dimity's Death by Nancy Atherton

Summary: "Lori Shepherd thought Aunt Dimity was just a character in a bedtime story...Until the Dickensian law firm of Willis & Willis summons her to a reading of the woman's will. Down-on-her-luck Lori learns she's about to inherit a sizable estate--if she can discover the secret hidden in a treasure trove of letters in Dimity's English country cottage. What begins as a fairy tale becomes a mystery--and a ghost story--in an improbably cozy setting, as Aunt Dimity's indomitable spirit leads Lori on an otherworldly quest to discover how, in this life, true love can conquer all."

Review: So I finally got around to giving these a try. I've gotta say, I liked it. I like Lori and how she's not afraid to be prickly with people. She's going through a big loss, and she needs time to recover from it.

I like that the mystery isn't a murder mystery; my friend who likes these books likes them for that reason. Even though it's a mystery that you're trying to solve, it's not terribly scary or nightmare-inducing.

I think I'm gonna try to keep reading this series.

Goodreads Shelves: addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman

Rating: 

Longbourn by Jo Baker

Use Grammarly for online proofreading because only you can prevent metaphorical forest fires of grammatical ignorance! 

Summary: "• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them. In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice,the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own."

Review: So my first exposure to this novel came from this, my reaction to which was along the lines of, "haven't we had enough of Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice? Except, apparently, combining them..." followed by a weary sigh. In addition to my amazement that the movie had ALREADY been optioned, despite the fact that the book wasn't finished being written yet...

That being said, it turns out to be a pretty good book. I like seeing the day-to-day operations of the house and understanding the sort of work that goes into keeping a house like that running. It's interesting to see the Bennet family from the servants' point of view, and to understand that even though they consider themselves "poor" as compared to their peers, they're still firmly upper-class as compared to their servants.

The plot is interesting to me; at the time, it's fascinating and engrossing, but looking back at it, it's pretty straightforward and simple. Which is rather Austen-esque, now that I think of it. You get caught up in it, and then look back and realize not much happened.

Goodreads Shelves: bechdel-test, is-or-would-be-a-good-movie, is-this-a-kissing-book, my-kind-of-woman, thought-provoking

Rating: 

The Four Doors by Richard Paul Evans

Summary: "Bestselling novelist Richard Paul Evans has met hundreds of thousands of people and heard many of their stories in his travels over the past two decades. Most of the people he meets are hungry for inspiration; they love his novels because his characters are also searching for meaning and understanding.

The Four Doors is Evans’s message to those who seek inspiration in their lives. It began as a talk he gave on the spur of the moment, and over the course of ten years, it has evolved into a message he has shared with successful business people, students, and even addicts and prisoners. It includes stories his readers have told him, stories about great achievers who overcame hardships, and stories about his own struggle growing up in a large family with financial difficulties and a suicidal mother, and about his diagnosis of Tourette’s Syndrome later in life. These inspiring stories are woven through his identification and careful explanation of the four doors to a more fulfilling life:

BELIEVE THERE’S A REASON YOU WERE BORN

FREE YOURSELF FROM LIMITATION

MAGNIFY YOUR LIFE

DEVELOP A LOVE-CENTERED MAP

Evans believes that we all want to know the meaning of our lives. In The Four Doors, he shows how even the most quiet life can be full of purpose and joy, if we choose to take that first step over the threshold."

Review: So I've never read anything by Richard Paul Evans, and to be honest, his books always struck me as being kind of cheesy. (Pretty much anything that can be described as "heartwarming" does; it's just a prejudice I have.) I might have to start reading his fiction, though, because I really liked this one.

This is a pretty great book. It's short, which means there isn't much to it, but what IS there is really good stuff. Just a few pieces of advice for ways to make your life what you want it to be, instead of what it is. If you feel like you don't have control over the things in your life and like you don't like where life has brought you, you should give this book a shot. It might be the little nudge you need to get yourself somewhere you'd rather be.

Lately I'm really loving books that motivate me. I've been having motivation problems in my life, so I really like books like this one, that make me want to DO things to make my life (and MYSELF) better.

Goodreads Shelves: be-proactive, i-feel-so-smart-now, thought-provoking

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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Summary: "Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people—at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

*Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives
*Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters
*Purpose—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas—the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live."

Review: I'm so proud of myself for actually finishing this book!

I actually started it a couple years ago when the company I was working for started an informal "lunchtime book club" thing... but I left before we had our discussion about this one, and I never went back and finished reading it. Until now.

Fascinating stuff. I've always worried about myself a little, because I have a hard time motivating myself to do things. Some of this I credit to the theory Pink talks about from Dr. Carol Dweck, who says that sometimes smart people don't try hard because instead of seeing problems as opportunities to grow, they see them as tests of smartness. If intelligence is a quality you're born with in a finite amount, then when you see a problem you can't solve, it becomes a sign that you don't have enough intelligence to solve it. However, if intelligence is seen as a quality that can be enhanced through hard work, then tests merely become opportunities to learn.

This book really helps me see myself in a motivation paradigm beyond "if I do this I can have this reward," which is a relief because I've never felt that I respond strongly to that motivational style.

Reading this book is also what helped motivate me to start up my book blog again. As I read, I thought about how I'd kind of abandoned the blog when my life had some big changes, and how I always wished I could go back and start it up again. And now I have! :)

Goodreads Shelves: i-feel-so-smart-now, nook-book, read, thought-provoking

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