Books

Book 186: The Throne of Fire (The Kane Chronicles #2) – Rick Riordan

I just want to start by saying if by some odd chance you’re the publisher of this book, you need to pay for better copy writers. There were quite a few mistakes in this novel in the text and maybe it was part of the ‘style’ but I really doubt it.

Although I’ve enjoyed reading both of the books in the Kane Chronicles so far, I still think it is the weakest of Riordan’s series. They’re definitely action packed and entertaining, but overall I just can’t truly appreciate the characters as much as I can in his other two series and I’m not sure why. Part of this I think comes from the style of the writing and the other part comes from the inability to identify with any of the minor characters. Although I think he did a better job with this book, it just didn’t click perfectly with me. However, don’t get me wrong it was still a fun read and I appreciated seeing Carter and Sadie grow and meeting new characters. I just wish there was more.

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Books

Book 184: The Madman’s Daughter (The Madman’s Daughter #1)- Megan Shepherd

A friend from UNC (Go Heels! – it’s a gut reaction :-D), Hi Lizzie!, recommended The Madman’s Daughter as the author is a family friend (or something along those lines) and I’m glad she recommended it! It was a fast paced and engaging read and although it wasn’t perfect, it was an amazing debut novel and I can’t wait to see where her writing takes her in the future.

It has been a very long time, over 10 years if not closer to 15, since I went through my H.G. Wells obsession and read everything he wrote and from what I remember this mirrors The Island of Doctor Moreau pretty closely. I think at some point in the next few years I will go back and read Wells work again as I really enjoyed The Time Machine and The Invisible Man.

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Book Group, Books

Book 178: High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

Apparently this was the perfect time to read this novel. If I would’ve read it any sooner I probably would’ve been upset or bothered by it, but I wasn’t and it was quite enjoyable.

I would never have picked this book up on my own, but it is our February book for Books into Movies book group at the local library. I enjoyed the book more than the movie, shocker, but mostly because I didn’t see the need to move it from London to the US or the rather odd way they had the protagonist, Rob, interact with the camera/audience.

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ARC, Books

Book 177: Blessed Isle – Alex Beecroft

While waiting on another book from the library I decided to request a copy of Blessed Isle from NetGalley. I had luck with the Tucker Springs series and wanted something light and fun to read and I wasn’t disappointed. This is my honest opinion and I received nothing in return.

This is how you write a romance novel! (To me at least.) There’s no rushing into things, there’s no the world is ours after 2-3 months (or shorter) and there’s plenty of conflict and potential heartbreak. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for the Wham Bam style of romance novel, but they’re just not the type of love story I’m generally drawn to. In addition, there’s a subtlety about Beecroft’s writing and her efforts (and total success) at keeping the sex out of the book. In doing so she created a novel that was much less low-brow than you would assume and the focus was shifted to the love story and the time period, which really only adds to the story.

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2013 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 175: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Overall I found this book dull and lacking. I’m not sure if it has to do with it being built up so much throughout my lifetime (the two big films: the animated Disney which I grew up with and the 2010 Johnny Depp/Tim Burton version) or perhaps because it’s only half the story I know (I didn’t read Through the Looking Glass with it), but I was completely and utterly underwhelmed with this book. On the plus side it counted for the Back to Classics, Mount TBR and The Classics Club Challenges.

I will say that the book is incredibly short and that worked in its favor. If I had to read more than 89 pages of what came across to me as rambling nonsense, I would not have finished the book. It did make me wonder about whether it was a novel or a novella and a quick internet search says novel. (Novels feature more conflicts than novellas and novellas feature more than short stories according to the ever accurate Wikipedia.)

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