The Love of Her Life by Harriet Evans

Publisher: Downtown Press

Ratings:

Source: Borrowed

Synopsis:

Thirty-year-old Kate Miller fled London two years ago when her life fell apart spectacularly. Living in New York with her mother and stepfather and working half-heartedly as a literary agent, Kate must return to London when her father, a famous classical musician, undergoes a kidney transplant. She’s only returning for a short visit, or so she thinks. But once in London, she faces the friends who are bound with her forever as a result of one day when life changed for all of them. What really happened before Kate left London? And can she pick up the pieces and allow herself to love her own life again?

I love reading brit lit so I was super excited when my friend lent me this book and told me how much she loved it. The Love of her Life by Harriet Evans is a fun and entertaining book and it definitely hit the spot if you’re looking for a chick lit novel with a bit of British flare to it.

Personally, I thought the book started a little slow, but that was mainly because I wasn’t completely in love with Kate. I don’t know what it is about this year, but it just seems like I can’t fall in love with any of the characters. Maybe I’m just getting too picky. I did finally warm up to Kate a bit as the book progressed and I had no problem with the characterization and development of her character, but there was just something about her that made me hold back.

On the other hand, I absolutely loved and adore Mac. Quite honestly, I thought he was too good for her by the time the book ended. He had to be the most patient, loving, big hearted person in the whole wide world to be able to forgive her so many times and stick around until the end.

The novel moved back and forth between the present and the past as the author slowly uncovered the reason behind Kate’s departure to New York. The plot was a little predictable, but the novel was still fun and enjoyable nevertheless. I would recommend it to those who are looking for a good chick lit novel.

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Archon: The Books of Raziel by Sabrina Benulis

Publisher: William Morrow

Ratings:

Source: Publisher

Synopsis:

Angela Mathers is plagued by visions of angels, supernatural creatures who haunt her thoughts by day and seduce her dreams by night. Newly released from a mental institution where she was locked away for two years, she hopes that her time at the Vatican’s university, the West Wood Academy, will give her a chance at a normal life. Unlike ordinary humans, Angela is a blood head — a freak, a monster, the possible fulfillment of a terrifying prophecy of overwhelming death and destruction. Only in Luz, the Vatican’s wondrous enclave, are blood heads accepted and encouraged to discover what kind of powers or special abilities they might possess.

But within West Wood, a secret coven plots, and demons and angels roam the streets searching for the key to open Raziel’s book — a secret tome from a lost archangel. Some are determined to destroy Raziel, while others, like the beautiful Supernal Israfel, one of the highest of the high, wish to free him. And when the Archon — the human chosen to possess the spirit of a dead angel — rises as foretold, they will control the supernatural universe.

Torn between mortal love and angelic obsession, Angela holds the key to Heaven and Hell — and both will stop at nothing to possess her.

The year 2012 is turning into a year of reading outside of my comfort zone.  I do enjoy reading fantasy and paranormal books, but it’s been so hard to find a good one in that genre that I typically steer clear of it. When I was offered Archon by Sabrina Benulis, I was captivated by the cover as well as the synopsis and decided to give it a go.

I actually finished reading this book a few weeks ago, but I’ve had a hard time trying to review it and put my thoughts and feelings into words. Even as I sit here to review it, I’m having trouble describing how I felt about this book. I guess the easiest way to put my feelings about this would be to say I’m indifferent about it, which sometimes I think is worse than hating a book. In general, the book just didn’t draw a strong emotion out of me. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. I thought it was just okay.

I thought the idea behind the book was really interesting, but the execution could have used some work. What I did like about the book was that there wasn’t any information dumping. The story unfolded slowly and we were told what we needed to know without going into excessive detail. It kept the book suspenseful and made me want to keep reading to find out what was going on. On the downside though, I was really confused about what was happening for much of the book. Even after the book ended I was still scratching my head a bit over what happened. There are a lot of religious references and as someone who is not quite knowledgeable in that area, I was definitely lost. I know it’s the first book in the series so perhaps the answers to my questions will be revealed in the following books.

Also this was one of those books where I felt like a lot happened and yet nothing happened at the same time. I’m not exactly sure how to explain it, but I just felt like the plot wasn’t really moving along even though things were taking place. I’m probably not making any sense right now, but I think that’s the best that I can do. Also, I wasn’t too fond of any of the characters in the book. The characterization could definitely of been improved in my opinion and there wasn’t one character that I really grew attached to.

Overall, I’m a little indifferent towards Archon by Sabrina Benulis. I think I’ll pick up the next book just to see where the story goes if I have time for it. Life is too short to read books that aren’t enjoyable.

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The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1 by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Publisher: IT Books

Source: Publisher

From the publisher:

To create The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Joseph Gordon-Levitt–known within the hitRECord.org community as RegularJOE–directs thousands of collaborators to tell tiny stories through words and art. With the help of the entire creative collective, Joe culls, edits and curates the massive numbers of contributions into this finely tuned collection. Reminiscent of the 6-Word Memoir series and the PostSecret books, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories brings together art and voices from around the world to unite and tell stories that defy size.

WOW! What an incredible book, despite its size. True to its word, the book is quite tiny, but it’s so wonderful and magnificent! My only issue with the book was that it was way too short! The writing is quite clever and witty and the illustrations are amazing. I’m a pretty terrible artist though so if you can draw something beyond stick figures then I pretty much consider you a Van Gogh.

Most of the stories are only about one or two pages long, but the meaning behind the stories are profound and ingenious. I love the clever play on old clichés and sayings. This was definitely a fun book to read by yourself, but I think it would be an even better book to read with others and discuss it.

I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it for everyone! Not to mention it would make a great gift too if you can’t think of anything to give your friends and family.

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The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees

Publisher: William Morrow

Ratings:

Source: Publisher

Synopsis:

The Demi-Monde is the most advanced simulation ever devised. Thirty million people ruled by history’s cruelest tyrants, locked in eternal civil conflict. The intention: to create the closest thing to Hell, and prepare soldiers for the nightmarish environment of war.

But something has gone badly wrong. Reinhard Heydrich or at least a simulacrum resembling the Nazi monster has kidnapped the President’s daughter from the Real-World and concealed her within the Demi-Monde, making it impossible for the program to be switched off. This achieved, he has cut off all contact with reality.

It falls to Ella Thomas, a young jazz singer, to infiltrate Heydrich’s virtual domain and rescue the missing girl. But once inside she will discover that everything in the Demi-Monde is not as it seems, and that the Real-World may be in more danger than everyone outside realizes.

The Demi-Monde by Rod Rees, part Matrix, part Hunger Games, pure entertainment and fun. I’ll be the first to admit that I was a little intimidated by this book when it first landed on my doorstep. Sitting at a little under 600 pages, I was definitely worried that I wouldn’t be able to get through this book. Of course, after a few chapters in, I was hooked and my worries about not finishing it quickly vanished.

I’m not a huge sci-fi nut and I don’t read a ton of it, but every now and then, a book just happens to catch my eye and makes me want to read it. I thought the creation of the Demi-Monde and the idea behind it was unique and different. I don’t think I’ve read anything like this before and I really enjoyed the dystopian world that Rees created. The plot was exciting and thrilling and kept me flipping the pages well into the night.

My only complaint for the book would be the characters. You know I love my characters and I love seeing how a character develops throughout the course of a book so I was definitely disappointed by the characters presented in Demi-Monde. I don’t think there was one character in this book that I was particularly fond of by the end of the book. The president’s daughter, Norma, was snobby and pretentious throughout the book; Ella didn’t seem to change at all in the book; and Trixie Dashwood turned into a killing machine that reminded me much of Gale in Mockinjay of the Hunger Games Trilogy.

Although I’m not completely in love with the characters, I  did enjoy the book enough to want to read the rest of the saga. The book ended on quite a cliffhanger, so I’m eager for the next book to see what happens to our characters. If you’re looking for a thrilling science fiction, historical fiction, steampunk, then you may just want to pick up Demi-Monde by Rod Rees. The plot moves along quite nicely and despite its bulky size, I never thought the book dragged or anything.

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Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Ratings:

Source: Purchased

Synopsis:

Darkly hilarious and unexpectedly profound, Citizen Vince is an irresistible tale about the price of freedom and the mystery of salvation, by an emerging writer of boundless talent.

Eight days before the 1980 presidential election, Vince Camden wakes up at 1:59 A.M. in a quiet house in Spokane, Washington. Pocketing his stash of stolen credit cards, he drops by an all-night poker game before heading to his witness-protection job dusting crullers at Donut Make You Hungry. This is the sum of Vince’s new life: donuts and forged credit cards—not to mention a neurotic hooker girlfriend.

But when a familiar face shows up in town, Vince realizes that his sordid past is still close behind him. During the next unforgettable week, on the run from Spokane to New York, Vince Camden will negotiate a maze of obsessive cops, eager politicians, and assorted mobsters, only to find that redemption might just exist—of all places—in the voting booth. Sharp and refreshing, Citizen Vince is the story of a charming crook chasing the biggest score of his life: a second chance.

I don’t think I could have picked a more perfect book to kick off my 2012 year. I know it’s early to say this, but I’m absolutely positively sure that this Citizen Vince is going to end up on my best of 2012 list. After reading The Financial Lives of the Poets, I immediately became a huge fan of Jess Walter. I have a few of his books that were on his backlist sitting on my shelf, but it always seems like there’s another book to read until now.

So what makes this book so incredibly awesome? Well for starters; this really is the perfect book to read during an election year. The book takes place during 1980, an election year between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Walter manages to highlight the importance of the election and voting, while keeping the story funny, brilliant, and entertaining.

I love the characters in this book! Who would have thought I would be rooting for an ex-convict, who was placed in the witness protection program and makes donuts as his day job, but steals credit cards and sells pot on the side. Vince isn’t suppose to be likeable, and yet somehow, I was rooting for him throughout the book. I loved the characters in this book despite the fact that most of them are mobsters or prostitutes that fall on the other side of the track. I have to give much credit to Jess Walter for making that possible.

Vince had his first juvenile felony conviction at 14 and everything started to snowball from there. He didn’t realize it at the time, but once you’re a convicted felon, you lose the right to vote. He’s never been able to vote before. After he entered the witness protection program though, his right to vote was given back to him and he gets a brand new slate.  What follows is Vince’s personal journey towards discovery the importance of voting as he tries to escape the hit man that was sent to kill him. At it’s core is also the question of whether or not someone can really start over? If they deserve the chance to start new and in essence become a ghost and redo life.

Citizen Vince was such a brilliant, funny, and witty book. It made me realize how many of us take voting for granted when there’s people out there who don’t even have the right to vote. And it also made me think about how do you figure out who to vote for. I thought Ronald Reagan brought up a good point during his campaign when he asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” It’s something to think about as we will be bombarded with campaigning information in the months to come.

I don’t know if there’s anything else I can say about this book to convince you to read it other than, what are you waiting for?

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I still have a few books that I’ve read, but need to review to wrap up my year so I decided to just do some mini reviews for these books. Plus I don’t have much to say about these books either so I guess it works out for the best. So without further ado, my final few reviews for 2011.

Sunrise of Avalon by Anna Elliott
Publisher: Touchstone
Ratings:
Source: Publisher

Thoughts: A good wrap up to the series, but not my favorite book of the trilogy. Overall, I enjoyed reading all of the books and Elliott manage to reach a balance between political intrigue and romance. The biggest setback for me is the lack of book time for the two characters together. It seemed like for a great majority of the books the two were always separated. Trystan was off fighting in the war, and Isolde was stuck at the safe house because she was pregnant. The author did manage to get the two characters together for a few scenes scattered throughout the book, but I wished they had more book time together. As far as endings go, however, it wrapped up the series quite nicely and tied up all the loose ends, which is all I really ask for in the last book of a trilogy.

1. Twilight of Avalon
2. Dark Moon of Avalon
3. Sunrise of Avalon

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch
Publisher: Crown
Ratings:
Source: Purchased

Thoughts: I think we’ve all been there where we thought about the “what-ifs” of life and the road not taken and maybe a few of us has wished that we could turn back time and redo it. Well Jillian gets that chance when she wakes up one day only to realize that she’s seven years back in the past. She gets the chance to relive her life and answer all those what if questions she’s had. Going into this novel I thought it had such a great premise and it sounded interesting, but as I read it I was a bit disappointed by the book. It was a quick and fast read, but too predictable for my taste. I don’t mind predictability every now and then, but I thought with the premise she could of done something more with it and taken the character on a different adventure. Also, for some reason I could never really connect with any of the characters, which made it a little more difficult to read.

Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Publisher: Penguin
Ratings:
Source: Borrowed

Thoughts: My friends are HUGE True Blood and Sookie Stackhouse fans so one of them lent me her books so I can catch up on the series and join them in their discussions. Am I the only one that went into this book thinking Sookie was a vampire? Turns out I was quite wrong about that, but I guess that’s what I get for semi listening to my friends’ discussions of True Blood. I can definitely see why people love this series. It was a fun, silly, and light book with charming and endearing characters that are easy to relate to despite the fact that most of them are supernatural. There’s humor in it with just enough mystery and suspense to keep you going. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of this series.

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Publisher: Bantam

Ratings:

Source: Purchased

Synopsis:

Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.

Why haven’t I read any of Sarah Addison Allen’s novels until now? I had no idea how magical, sweet, and endearing The Sugar Queen was going to be or else I would have started it much earlier. I probably had this book sitting on my shelf for a good year or so and I kept passing it up for other books. Now my biggest regret is not purchasing more of her books when I had the chance.

To put it simply, this book was amazing! I absolutely loved and adored it and its one that’s going to sit with me for a while. I didn’t believe the blurb when it described this book as magical, but I honestly think that’s the best description for it. There’s just something about it that makes it sneak into your heart and stay there.

Although I didn’t fall in love with the characters right away, by the time the book ended, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them. They were wonderful and delightful to read about. I love reading about Josie’s struggles against her mother as she tried to figure out if there was more to life than just this. And Della Lee is just about the best godmother a girl could ask for. She’s the bad girl of the town and she’s been arrested a few times, but the changes she made to Josie’s life was nothing short of amazing.

I know this makes the book dated, but I love how Adam pulled out the yellow pages to look up Josie’s number to ask her out on a date. I mean how often does that happen nowadays? Do people even use the yellow pages anymore? Reading that put a smile on my face and it definitely brought up some good old memories.

I’m definitely going out to pick up a few more of Allen’s books the next time I head to a book store. I had no idea how wonderful and magical her writing is and The Sugar Queen is definitely one book that I would highly recommend to everyone. I’m glad I read it and I’m ending my year on a high note.

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Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

Ratings:

Source: Purchased

Synopsis:

Anna can’t wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a good job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she’s not too thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris – until she meets Etienne St. Clair, the perfect boy. The only problem? He’s taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her crush back home. Will a year of romantic near-misses end in the French kiss Anna awaits?

Wow! I can’t remember the last time a book made me this giddy. I’ll be the first to admit that I approached Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins with my optimism in check. I’ve read all the wonderful reviews about this book, and yet there was still something about it that made me hold back on it. Let me just say that my fear was for naught because this book by far exceeded my expectations.

I absolutely love and adore the characters. So many times you open up a book and the characters are perfect. They’re beautiful, handsome, smart, and well just perfect without any flaws, and it leaves you wondering if these characters even exist in real life? Well, no worries here because Anna and St. Clair are far from perfect. Anna has a gap between her teeth and St. Clair, while being dark and handsome is also a shorty. Their flaws add another dimension to their character that make them that more loveable. Not to mention that Perkins really hit the nail on grasping the emotions of a teenager as they struggle to deal with their high school crushes, friendship, current relationships, and parents.

Throughout the books, the characters were faced with real problems that I could see a normal high school student facing on a daily basis. The way they handle the situation and tackled each problem were true to how a teenager would behave in their shoes and it was so easy to see the characters coming to life and popping out of the book.

And as an added bonus, the book takes place in Paris. Perkins did a great job of describing the city and after reading the book I’m ready to pack my bags and book a flight to Paris.

I was pleasantly surprised by how fun and entertaining this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for some light reading. Anna and the French Kiss is a fast read that will bring back some high school memories, but in a good way.

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