Get Lost in Literature

  "Your assumptions are windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in." Nessie gets up one day and leaves her house in a walking coma, seemingly impervious to all external stimuli. Soon Nessie is joined by others like her, as they begin their journey to God knows where. They are the flock. Shana, Nessie's sister, gives up everything to care for her sister and is soon joined by other devoted friends and relatives of the flock. These are the shepherds. Both shepherds and flock are closely monitored by Benji Ray and his coworkers from the CDC as a secondary outbreak occurs, more deadly and insidious than the first. I loved certain things about this book. The mystery of the flock: what happened to them and where are they going and why are they going there. The shepherds' dedication and sacrifice, the forging of bonds in the time of mass hysteria, as the caravan travels in blind faith. Equal parts suspense and cautionary tale, it

  "The hotel room was pain and noise and chaos. Victor came to, dazed, trapped between the school lab and the hotel room, Angie's scream in his head and Sydney's in his ears. Sydney? But the girl was nowhere to be seen..." The book blurb for this story, describe Victor and Eli as "brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys..." but that's an understatement. Victor and Eli are psychopaths who meet in college; they're both geniuses, top of the class, with the world at their fingertips and they're both hungry for power. Victor is a loner, who's world famous psychologists parents have abandoned him for book tours, leaving him to his studies in neuroscience. He doesn't try to fit in, he doesn't want to... But he finds himself drawn to Eli- a charismatic, athletic, pre-med student, who enjoys being the center of attention. Working together, they figure out that the key to having all the power they want is surviving. I love an antihero story, and here

“Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.” ― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies In this futuristic world, there are Uglies and there are Pretties. Main character, Tally is an Ugly, who can't wait for her sixteenth birthday, that magical birthday when all newly 16-year-olds get to undergo plastic surgery to become a Pretty. Once Pretty, she gets to go to New Prettytown, where a Pretty's only job is to have fun. Everything looks like it's going to go according to Tally's plan, until her friend Shay, decides to run away rather than become pretty...And Tally is given the task of tracking her down and bringing her back to civilization. I didn't love this book from start to finish, but some parts were definitely more lovable than others. At first, the story was hard to get into: Even though the story is told by Tally, who is almost sixteen, her voice seemed to belong to someone much younger than a teenager approaching adulthood. In

  “Tell your secret to the wind, but don’t blame it for telling the trees.” ― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns This book was very moving. It chronicles the lives of two women Miriam and Laila, who will become child brides under very different circumstances, to the same man. Takes place from the time of Soviet occupation to Taliban and finally Al-Queda. I feel like I want to focus on some of the more abhorrent character interactions for this review, the things that sensitive readers are bound to hate (and there's nothing wrong with that, if it isn't your cup of tea). Miriam is given to a man significantly older than herself by a family who is ashamed of her, while Laila chooses to marry this man to cover up that she had a family that loved her. Rasheed then proceeds to consummate the marriage, which by our modern day, first world standards, is a crime. By basic humanitarian standards, this is a crime. It's statutory rape, it's legal pedophilia. This is also a th

  "'It wasn't rabies, if that's what you're worried about," Grace said. "She had some kind of blood poisoning...'" This is the story of Patricia Cambell. Belittled and patronized by a distant husband, subject to the typical abuse that only moody teenagers can dish out, and sick of keeping house and caring for her mother-in-law whose rapidly declining mental health is making life difficult for everybody. She's become a bit of a bored housewife, tired of her regularly scheduled day to day. Looking for a change, she joins a book club that only reads trashy true crime novels and dreams of a mystery in her sleepy little neighborhood...Until she gets one. Believing that there is now a serial killer living in her own backyard, she becomes fixated, so much so that her friends and family write her off as suffering from some sort of hysteria, leaving her to fight the evil alone. I thought that this would be straight up, non-stop horror. And while it o

  "I'd rather face an honest skeptic than a hundred who believe they know God, but are really in thrall to their own piety."  In their latest adventure, Detectives Strike and Robin are hired by a worried father to find dirt on the Universal Humanitarian Church (cult) so his son can be freed. Robin chooses to go undercover at the local branch, Chapman Farm, subjecting herself to, and witnessing first-hand the abuses of the church. Meanwhile, Strike is trying to keep his other active cases progressing forward without the help of his trusted partner and discovers his job under threat by his usual too beautiful, scorned lovers and an incompetent surveillance team of unknown origin.    The book starts slow, with a series of letters between Strike's client, his son, and his lawyer. So slow in fact, I doubted the book would ever speed up. But speed up it does, making 900+ pages read like a hundred. I couldn't put the book down once it got rolling. The concept of a cult i

  “He had thought love as a policy made a lot of sense for those who could manage it, and anyone who could manage it belonged in religious life. The rest of us have to struggle with more ordinary love, the common or garden variety: love as a crippling condition. Love as a syndrome.” ― Gregory Maguire, The Next Queen of Heaven So my Q entry is a bit of a stretch, but I hadn't read a book that starts with Q and I settled for a title with a Q in it. Today's review is short and to the point. What do I think about this book? I think anyone who gave it a rating of two stars or less, doesn't understand satire or is too deeply devout to laugh at themselves. I thought it was fantastic to use humor to bring a bit of reality to light; the constant press for moral conformity from religious groups and the conflicts with the flawed individuals who attend. I also thought the parallels between Jeremy's long failed relationship with Willem and Tabitha's recently failed relationship

  “That version, as with so many of the stories we tell about our history, erased a woman- a plain, bad heroine- in favor of a less messy and more palatable yarn about two feuding brothers from New England.” ― Emily M. Danforth, Plain Bad Heroines Plain Bad Heroines is a book with two settings; the story begins in 1902 Rhode Island, at Brookhants School for Girls. The girls at the school become infatuated with each other, and obsessed with a memoir by teen author, Mary MacLane. They start a society that worships the book and, eventually, die tragically with the book in their company. Libbie Brookhants and her long time girlfriend, Alexandra Trills are trying to unravel the mystery before they themselves become unraveled. The second setting is in modern day Hollywood, where actresses Harper Harper and Audrey Wells have been cast to play leading roles in an upcoming horror movie titled: Happenings at Brookhants , based on the novel written by teen writer Merritt Emmons who will be consu

“I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.” ― Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz  Civil unrest doesn't quite cover the state of Oz as Dorothy re-enters, as Rain grows up. The world of Oz is at war, The Free State of Munchkinland versus Everyone Else. Rain spends half her childhood in hiding and alone, the other half spent on the run with the Company of the Clock of the Time Dragon. By adolescence she's reunited with her family, unsure how to love, fearless, and angry. Out of Oz ties up the series beautifully. The story starts with its fair share of tragedies; Rain seemingly orphaned, Lady Glinda a prisoner of war, Sir Brr and Nor in a union destined for doom, and hapless Dorothy riding an earthquake into Munchkinland just as Munchkinland needs a scapegoat. Emperor Shell has declared himself a deity. Liir and Candle struggle to do what's right by their daughter, when they hardly know what's right for themselves. Trism, Commander Cher

  “You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.” Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves. A mysterious, one-of-a-kind circus that, "Opens at nightfall, closes at dawn," and is filled with wondrously impossible exhibits. Hector Bowen and Alexander choose their prodigies, Celia and Marco, and manipulate them into participating in a game with the circus as their venue. This is no ordinary circus and it isn't just a venue; this is a battleground where magicians wage war in plain sight of people who don't believe in magic. This is about the people who play the game, those who witness it, and those swept along in the unforgiving, enchanting wake of the night circus. First things first. There is absolutely, no way to review this book without praising the attention to detail. Everyo

The Mongoliad (Book 1) by  Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo "Boys who had been brandishing wooden swords a moment ago were suddenly armed with long steel." I don't know why, in my head, I thought this story was going to be a fantasy. Not that it wasn't fantastic, it was just surprising to find this is more along the lines of historical/speculative fiction. And there's a lot going on this book. Mongol's have taken over Europe and Asia. Cnan a Binder--a Binder is someone who helps people find their paths--is sent to guide a small band of knights on their quest to overthrow the Khan of Khans. Gansuhk, is a mongol warrior, ordered away from his comforts of roaming the steppes on horseback to the court of the Khan of Khans...Why? To control the Khan's drinking habit. I admit, I'm not familiar with any of the authors of this book, so I have the luxury of not being able to pick out one author'

  "Chaos cannot be permitted here. There are too many people. The atmosphere must be calm and pleasant." This is probably one of my all-time favorite authors and that can be a real pain in the butt as his books are published in Sweden and can be hard to find in English. And since he is one of my favorites, I feel both comfortable, and probably biased, saying that JAL has written another page turner. I also will also say it is, hands down, one of the scariest novels I've ever read. When Theres was a baby, someone tried to bury her alive. A couple of has-been musicians find her and try to raise her in secret as their musical prodigy but discover something not quite right with the girl. She is developmentally behind and prone to violent outbursts. Teresa, a girl with no imagination and no friends, suffering from depression, is looking for her place in a world that terrifies her. Theres offers Teresa friendship and Teresa can't resist. The thing that makes Lindqvist's

  The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness   "That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on your own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed." Todd Hewwit knows a lot of things: he knows a group of settlers left the Old World for the New World, to live a simpler existence away from the evils of society. He knows there was a war between the native people, The Spackles, and the humans. He knows The Spackles used Germ Warfare; releasing bugs that turned the internal monologues of men into never ending Noise, while killing off all the women, and giving animals the power to speak. He knows The Spackles were eventually defeated, leaving Prentisstown the only surviving settlement. Todd, the youngest member of Prentisstown, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his thirteenth birthday, where he will officially be considered a man. But when Todd and his dog Manchee discover a hole in the Noise, he learns

  “There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.” ― Peter Benchley, Jaws Amity Island thrives off tourism. The local businesses are run off of "summer people" who are visiting for the beautiful beaches. But when a Great White chooses Amity as its new hunting ground, people die, tourism fails, and the economy stumbles. The responsibility falls to Amity Police Chief Martin Brody to protect the people and figure out how to get rid of the shark. The book is decidedly not that scary by modern day expectations. There's an anti-elitist theme underlying the work; Brody's a working-class man with "traditional values" and he doesn't particularly care for the rich tourists his town depends on for survival. His wife Ellen, is a "traditional housewife" from an affluent family and he's become resentful that she might miss

"They would use your life as if it were oil for a proper lamp. You must defy them, but you must defy them with purity and confidence." Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice This is the story of Louis, a vampire from New Orleans -- which is the perfect place for a vampire to come from IMHO. It’s of his maker, Lestat, and his companions Claudia and Armand. I find there are two types of vampires in pop culture. The first type is the ruthless killer who embraces its vampire nature, like in classic story Dracula or newer NOS4A2 . You also have the brooding vampire, overly emotional, like in Twilight or Vampire Diaries . Lestat is the former, Louis the latter. Lestat is greedy, flamboyant, reveling in his own nature; coldly and sometimes erratically trying to teach Louis what it means to be a vampire. “Let the flesh instruct the mind.” Louis is aghast at what he’s become and hesitant to start killing humans because he’s retained more of his human nature… I say hesitant because

“You want to know what weakness is? Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.” ― Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing SPOILER ALERT!  I couldn't make myself cut down my review to avoid them. I feel like this book should be taught in schools. It's basically about the birth of racism in America. It starts in Africa, where villagers on the Gold Coast strike a deal with the Europeans. The locals are willing to facilitate the trade of other Africans from other villages in exchange for payment. Effia and Esi, two sisters who will never meet, are unfortunately worlds apart. Effia will marry into a life of luxury, while Esi will be sold into slavery. I couldn't really figure out how to review this book, without giving spoilers. I had a US History teacher lecture once on slavery: He said during the days of slave trade, a black woman had more value to a plantation owner than a black man because a woman could be used to make mo

  Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch   by Terry Pratchett ,  Neil Gaiman “Hell may have all the best composers, but heaven has all the best choreographers.” The end is here...or nearing here. Heaven and Hell are quite excited about the apocalypse but they're the only ones. Demon Crowly and Angel Aziraphale have been sent to Earth to meddle in the affairs of humans for thousands of years...and they don't want the world to end... We have crapes, Queen, and books. The Antichrist is here to bring in the end of times but where exactly is here? Charged with watching over him, Crowly and Aziraphale are left panicked when they realize they lost the Antichrist. And a witch named Anathema Device teams up with luckless witch hunter Newton Pulsifer to find him. So this is to date, one of the funniest books I've ever read, which maybe isn't saying too much because I don't read a lot of comedies. But I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. I feel l

  Happy Sunday! Welcome to my Sunday Post, a weekly blog news meme hosted by caffeinatedbookreviewer . I'll be posting the first Sunday of each month and I hope you join me. For my monthly weather report, there's only one thing I want to say: infinite rain. The month of March was decidedly uneventful. I skipped a week of blogging, the 17th through the 24th (not that I'm Ms. Consistency) to acquaint myself with Kindle Paperwhite, on which I immediately downloaded Spare by Prince Harry.  We had a very happy Easter, I hope you did too. I did wind up reviewing the following stories in March: The Conference of the Birds by Ransom Riggs Salem's Cipher by Jess Lourey The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie This month, I'm participating in April's A-Z Challenge  and will be posting 26 different reviews for each letter of the alphabet, so my regularly schedule Monday Reviews will be on hold until May. Some of my A-Z posts will recap past reviews, others will be entirely new

  "Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow." Robert Walton failed writer turned sailor, opens the story by writing to his sister Margaret. He is sailing far north, when the crew rescue Victor Frankenstein who is lost upon an ice flow. Victor is a broken man with a story to tell. Even if you haven't seen the movies, even if you haven't read the book, you're probably familiar with the concept of Frankenstein: a mad scientist sews a body together and restores life to dead limbs, creating a hideous monster. This book wasn't at all what I was expecting. After Victor's mother dies he is sent away to university where he studies science and discovers how to reanimate the dead. He becomes obsessed with his science experiment, shunning all social contact an

"All his work of the past three days had led to this moment. He took a last steadying breath and -- an explosion shattered the night." Eragon by Christopher Paolini   Eragon, a poor farm boy from Carvahall, finds a beautiful blue gem while out hunting in the mountains near his home. His intention is to sell it at market, but the gem hatches, revealing a baby dragon. Literally overnight, his life is changed forever as he becomes one of the mythical Dragon Riders. This is a young adult novel, written by a young adult, and as such reads like a young adult novel, and the reader shouldn't expect it to read any other way. And because I read it when I was roughly the same age as CP when he started writing it, it wound up holding a special place in my heart. My original rating of it, was as a five star novel, but this time around I dropped it down to a four. It's real reason for dropping down to a four star rating though is CP's overuse of over used fantasy character ster

  “Desire, love hate, fear, repulsion--you feel these things in your muscle and bones, not just in your mind. That is how this little heartbreak felt: like a physical injury, deep inside my body, an internal bleeding, a nick that would continue to seep.” One morning, a young boy is found murdered, stabbed to death in the park. It’s a horrifying crime in suburban Massachusetts, but it’s business as usual for Assistant District Attorney Andrew Barber. Andy sets out to investigate and prosecute the crime himself, but an ambitious young colleague is about to blindside him. Neal Logiudice is climbing his way to the top; he knows the case is high profile and he sees his chance to make a name for himself. Neal wants to follow the evidence straight back to Andy’s own son, Jacob. Andrew, finding himself pushed out of a job, must figure out how to save his son and hold his family together… I couldn’t put this book down. I admit it’s a slow burner; it isn’t a fast paced, overwhelmingly eventful c

  "Straight away he raced, with Dolly, panting and frothing, one leap behind; nor could she gain on him, so great was his terror, nor could he leave her, so great was her madness." Call of the Wild by Jack London If I could only take 5 books with me to live on a desert island, this book would be top of the list. There has always been something about this book that calls to me like a wolf in the night. This is the story of Buck, pampered pet, stolen and sold into a life of toil in the wild North. And as he is introduced to the "law of the primitive," that a man with a weapon is a dangerous thing, and a fair fight becomes a thing of the past as survival of the fittest becomes paramount, he begins his transformation from the picture of domestication to a feral creature of the wilds. Jack London has been gone a long time, but his stories of the Yukon live on. Pitting man against nature has been a constant theme in his works and in this story, we learn about it through

 “Every morning is an afterlife. Every evening, I die anew in the trenches amid nightmares of artillery finding their target.” - Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey Beacon 23 is a “lighthouse,” a one-man space-station anchored on the fringes of an asteroid field, there to guide space travelers safely through danger. The man who runs Beacon 23 is nameless, one of many stationed to a solitary life, making sure NASA’s never fail Beacons never fail… Until one day, his does. So this book will delight sci-fi nerds. If it’s space travel, intergalactic war, and aliens that you like, this book has it. If you like explosions, quick impulsive decisions, and crazy characters, this book’s got those. It’s a fast read, if you like that kind of thing, and if you do, that’s okay and this book’s for you. But if you’re the type of reader who likes to read a little deeper, this one might also be for you, too. Beacon 23 appears to be anti-war propaganda wrapped in a fast-paced space opera. The main character whose rea

“It was not that he was feckless, more that he had simply not been around the day they handed out feck.”― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys Charles Nancy is an unlucky sort of fellow; he prefers to be called Charles or Charlie but everyone calls him Fat Charlie, whether he likes it or not because that was the name his father gave him. With a wedding on the horizon, Rosie thinks it's time for Fat Charlie to start mending those old embarrassing bridges and invite his family to the wedding. Unable to say no, Charlie reaches out to Mrs. Higgler, a family friend who might know how to contact his old man... But he's too late. Mr. Nancy is dead and Mrs. Higgler's got news for Charlie. His father wasn't just a trickster, he was trickster God and Charlie has a long-lost brother who communicates through spiders... This book started out laugh out loud funny. I loved the glimpse into what an ancient God's idea of parenting would be, and those parenting skills then topped by the peculiar

  "The world changes, Glokta, the world changes. The old order crumbles. Loyalty, duty, pride, honour. Notions that have fallen far from fashion. What has replaced them?" He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, and his lip curled. "Greed..."  This book was a collection of fascinating characters. There's Logan the Bloody Nine, a barbarian warrior who has lost everything. Bayez, First of the Magi, wise and powerful. There's Jezal, spoiled rich boy who's in love with Ardee, a woman who hides her feelings behind alcohol and cruelty. There's Glokta the torturer and Ferro the escaped slave, and Ferro's rescuer Yulwei who may or may not also be magi.  With characters such as these you'd think the plot would be outrageous, and in a way, it is...As far as I could tell, there is no plot. Bayez calls upon Logan for help but doesn't explain with what and Logan never asks. Yulwei saves Ferro in return for a favor, but we aren't told what the f

  "They stepped into the chilly November afternoon, the tangerine and gold of the setting sun at odds with all the darkness in their lives." This is a story about Salem, an agoraphobic cryptoanalysist, and her best friend Bel. Their mothers Vida and Grace go missing one night, leaving behind clues as to what happened to them. It's up to Salem and Bel to crack the code and find their missing moms. The first thing that stands out to me is how fast-paced this is, unlike the few follow-the-breadcrumbs stories I've read. Salem and Bel discover a clue and immediately decode it to move onto the next. In fact, it seems almost too easy; too easy to find the clues and too easy to break them. Jess Lourey knew the story she wanted to write, but I'm not sure she made the puzzle hard enough... Or maybe the speed is a blessing, the story not taking up too much of your life to be worth reading. In between clues, the story keeps itself moving by the switching of the POVs. There