Books

Book 233: The Demigod Files (Percy Jackson & the Olympians) – Rick Riordan

This was a super short collection of short stories and various addons to the Percy Jackson universe and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m picking up the other short story collection for The Heroes of Olympus series Riordan wrote and can’t wait to read it.

There were three short stories in this book: Percy Jackson and the Stolen Chariot, Percy Jackson and the Bronze Dragon, and Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades. Each one had characters from the Percy Jackson universe that you love, or love to hate and the writing was just as creative and humorous as that in the full length novels. In addition to this, the book is set up as a how-to/introduction guide to Camp Half-Blood and included add-ons about some of the campers, a map of camp, a packing list (diagram) and brief bios of many of the campers and key gods of Olympus.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 230: The Serpent’s Shadow (The Kane Chronicles #3) – Rick Riordan

My thoughts still stand from the first two novels. This series is not as great as the other two of Riordan’s series, the publisher really should have invested in a better copy editor and I’m still not convinced about the ‘transcription’ part of the story (it brought the author into the story in a way that Percy Jackson didn’t). Aside from that, this was a great ending to a mediocre trilogy.

The Serpent’s Shadow picks up right where The Throne of Fire ends. Looking back on my reviews of it and The Red Pyramid, I’m not sure what holes in the plot I referred to were but it didn’t feel like there was anything missing from this third book from the second. A lot of the characters that I remembered and enjoyed from the first two books made appearances in this novel and there were even a few introductions of new characters, although fleeting. Riordan seemed to have mastered the Sadie/Carter duality in this novel so that was great and I enjoyed their love interests although the parallel of the two was a bit weird and could be misconstrued as lazy.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 215: Winger – Andrew Smith

Over the past few weeks this book started appearing on a lot of the book blogs I follow. As I noticed the ‘score’ of the book pretty much unanimously being high and the general excitement and fervor surrounding the reviews and responses I knew I had to read this book sooner rather than later and I am very glad I did.

If you haven’t read this book yet, you should. Everyone should read this book; and I do mean everyone. I honestly believe that any reader can find something to identify within this book. And as an added bonus not only is it hilariously laugh out loud funny, but it also wrenches many of your other emotions whether you want it to or not. Smith has created such a tongue-in-cheek character you can’t help but identify with him and love him and want him to do well.

Click here to continue reading.

2013 Challenges, Books

Book 206: The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth – Alexandra Robbins

This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but I still found it an interesting read. My friend Chet sent it to me last year as a gift and after having a bit of a downer week a few weeks ago (dating and men suck – I’m back to the thought that men, or at least the ones I’m interested in dating, are stupid and you should throw rocks at them) and figured I’d find out why I am the way I am. And conveniently this counts as a bonus book for my Mount TBR reading challenge.

I was hoping Robbins would take it her analyses further, but she lead right up to numerous ideas and then just left them. She did provide a great job trying to define ‘quirk culture’ and explaining the ‘cafeteria fringe,’ but I can’t help but feel as this book is a pop-journalist book there wasn’t as much done as I would expect in an academically researched book. But she did provide many references and anecdotes of additional resources.

Click here to continue reading.

ARC, Books

Book 198: The Waiting Tree – Lindsay Moynihan

I’m never sure whether I should research an author or book too much before I start reading, especially if it is an advanced copy. On one hand I wouldn’t mind knowing where this novel fits within their repertoire (is it a first, a tenth, a hundredth?) or are they a writer by training? And on the other hand do I really want to have those pre conceived notions? Sometimes that really works well for an author.

If I’m reading a novel that I’m not sure is a first novel or not and I read it with no pre-conceived notions and then I go back and find out that it is a first novel it often makes me reflect on it differently and that is the case with The Waiting Tree. I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest response.

This is Moynihan’s first novel and it was a good novel; it wasn’t great, but it bordered on great which is all you can really ask for in a first novel. I vaguely remember it saying this was her first novel, but there were times where the maturity of her writing made me think this couldn’t be her first novel, but there were a few occasions which made me think it could be her first novel.

Click here to continue reading.