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 Welcome to the first day of BBAW 2010! If you don’t know what all this is about, check out the official site. Today’s prompt:
We invite you to share with us about a great new book blog you’ve discovered since BBAW last year! If you are new to BBAW or book blogging, share with us the very first book blog you discovered. Tell us why this blog rocks your socks off and why you keep going back for more.
One of my favorite book blogging discoveries this year has to be Leah at Amused By Books. It took me a shamefully long time to get around to actually visiting her blog after she’d commented on mine, but once I did I was hooked! I honestly wish I had more time to visit blogs these days and when I do, hers will be one of the first on my list. Leah’s taste in reading seems pretty similar to mine and I really enjoy her reviews. Discovering her blog reminded me that I really need to get out there and visit some new bloggers, especially if they are all this great!
I also would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention that a friend of mine has started blogging in the last year, Amanda at Opinions of a Wolf; it’s kind of obvious that I’d love her blog, but if you haven’t discovered it yourself you should! She is a fantastic librarian and writes some wonderful posts and reviews. Go visit, you won’t regret it!
 I am behind on almost everything these days (except my work, which my boss will probably be happy to hear) but I’m determined not to be this week! That’s because it’s Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and even though I have probably about 10 reviews to write, they’re all going on the backburner for this week’s awesome festivities. I really want to visit new blogs and comment on far more posts than I have been lately, so let’s hope I can actually achieve that goal. I certainly haven’t been achieving it recently.
In other news, my Kindle 3 arrived last week. I wasn’t sure whether to do an official review of it or not, since so many people are anti-Amazon, but it really is a fantastic little device. It was the obvious choice for me but even so I’m actually surprised by how pleased I am with it. Reading on it is ridiculously easy and I’m pretty sure I’m consuming books as fast as ever. I’ve read 4 on there and I’ve only had it for a week and a half; I’ve read a number of real books in that time, too. I love that it makes buying new more affordable for me, so I can support publishers and authors more than I did before. They get less money for ebooks, but I’m sure it’s more than when I buy books from charity shops. I’m definitely keeping to my aim of using it for books I don’t think I’d want to keep, and still buying in hard copy those that I think I’ll be rereading and want to have on my shelves for the rest of my life. I did end up finding a local used bookstore, so I’ve been haunting there as well; far from replacing my need for paper books, my Kindle has just supplemented it, and I feel like I can spread my money more equally.
As much as I like it, though, my husband likes it even more. He said just yesterday that Apple is always busy talking about their magical devices, but Amazon has created a device that is *actually* magical. I’m sure part of his excitement is the fact that there will be fewer books lying around, but based on my purchasing even with it, that benefit is probably not as great as he thinks! He claims to find holding paper books awkward, but has no problem with the Kindle, especially as holding it and clicking the button to turn pages is so natural.
That’s about it for me; I’d better get catching up on some reviews before my online book club starts. I’m very much looking forward to this coming week and I hope you are too!
 A man and his son wander through an ash-filled America. The apocalypse has happened and the entire world is cold, gray, and lifeless. There are no animals. There are few people, and those that exist are likely planning to kill you and steal everything you own. It isn’t an atmosphere to raise a child in, but the man has no choice. He must keep himself and his son alive, must keep them moving, even though he isn’t sure what’s out there to live for.
What a dark, creepy read this was. There isn’t a single happy moment in this book. Virtually the whole of the narrative consists of the man and his son, neither of whom have a destination in mind, trying to find food, get warm, and avoid any of the other people, or creatures, wandering the road with them. It seems as though the world burst into flames, but the actual cause of the apocalypse is never made clear. At one point the boy and man run into another survivor, but he clearly states that they have no common cause because they did not survive together. This really made me wonder exactly what happens – but McCarthy never tells us.
He also never tells us anything about the evil that stalk the land, simply that they’re there. These creatures – I assumed they were vampires or something like that – eat people. Adding to the pervasive feel of danger is the endless fall of ash and the constant corpses they come across everywhere. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for the boy; we’re never told how old he is, but he wasn’t alive before the apocalypse happened. He has never experienced the world as his father has.
Miraculously, though, he still has a sense of good, a desire to help people, which is simultaneously childish and incredibly wise. Out of the literal ashes of the world, a good spirit has risen, and even though the rest of the book is dark I would never say that all hope was lost, even when I worried that they were close to death. Even more hopeful is the fact that the father and the boy clearly still love each other and strive to live even when it looks like all is lost. The power of the human spirit is incredible and is in large part a reason we can still care for and worry about these characters in a world that is otherwise unrecognizable and terrifying.
The Road was completely different than I expected, but almost more powerful in its own way. The air of mystery lent it terror, but the relationship between the boy and his father is really at the heart of this novel. Recommended.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 The late seventeenth and early eighteenth century are considered the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment in the western world, but it was certainly not so for women. Because Eleanor Goodricke is taught science from a young age and loves the natural world, she’s looked down on by her neighbors and even ostracized at times. Her life is full of austerity due to her father’s Puritan roots and her love of science replaces any girlish indulgences. When her father dies, she’s alone in the world with Tickenham Court and a guardian who views her as strange, just like the rest of the townspeople do. When Eleanor meets Edmund Ashfield, she falls immediately in love, but she’s destined for larger passion with his best friend Richard Glanville. She also furthers the scientific study of butterflies and becomes a female entomologist no matter how strange others consider her.
If there was any doubt that I have revived my interest in historical fiction, this book casts it all aside. It took me five days to read but it was worth each and every one of those days. This was a fascinating book and I was completely drawn into Eleanor’s life and loves, both of men and of butterflies. I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it and I longed to get back to it in order to find out what was happening. Even though some of the story is immediately apparent just from reading Eleanor’s name on the back cover, I didn’t feel spoiled at all and instead wondered what would happen and how it would happen.
As with much of the historical fiction I’ve been reading lately, I have read few books set in this time period and I was fascinated by the changing cultures of the times. The Puritans’ reign has waned, but Eleanor still endures a stark childhood and bears the prejudices of the daughter of a man who fought for Oliver Cromwell. This, despite the fact that she is so often prejudiced against herself, reveals the fragility of human prejudice and the ultimately unsubstantial reasons we have for setting ourselves against others. It’s that prejudice which proves her undoing in this novel and perhaps in life, even when she discovers some of her long-held beliefs are blatantly untrue and harmful.
Reading this book is a bit like riding a roller coaster. I wanted, just for a minute, for Eleanor’s life to be peaceful and calm, for her to spend time with her butterflies and her eventual children and just be. Of course, that must have happened in her actual life, but the book skips to the most eventful periods in order to keep the pace up throughout nearly six hundred pages. It certainly succeds, because despite the time I took to read this book, I was never once bored and never even thought that I wished it was going faster. Trust me, that never happens; usually I become impatient with books after two days!
Mountain freely admits that she’s played a little bit with the facts, but it’s hard to blame her; Eleanor Glanville did have a thrilling life in reality and she deserves more credit for her scientific study in particular. Mountain has really crafted a wonderful book here, with a gorgeous setting (I could picture the marshes and why Eleanor loved them) and a heroine who is simultaneously a representation of her time and a woman that is perfectly recognizable. Lady of the Butterflies is a fantastic historical fiction read and one that comes highly recommended by me.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
Because otherwise these books are never going to get reviewed!
 Ten Things I Love About You, Julia Quinn
Annabel Winslow is looking for a rich husband to rescue her family from the poorhouse. And she’s found a potential suitor, an aged, lecherous earl, of whom she isn’t at all fond, but she figures she has to resign herself to her fate – even if he does nearly assault her. Then she meets the earl’s nephew, Sebastian, and everything changes. They may be falling in love, but will Sebastian have the funds to save her siblings?
Much the same as the last book in this series, What Happens in London, this book is very sweet and very funny. It’s easy to become fond of both characters and believe in their romance, even if everything is far too rosy for real life. The series lacks the real fantastic romantic potential of the Bridgerton series, but still all of them provide a nice, quick diversion from every day life.
 Lead Me On, Victoria Dahl
Jane Morgan has worked very hard to get her position as an administrative assistant to an architect. She rescued herself from years of bad behavior as a teenager in order to turn herself into a real adult – even if that means she’s neglected her family. But she can’t seem to kick her attraction to big, tattooed, rough men, no matter how many businessmen she dates. When Billy Chase steps into her office, she simply can’t resist him – but can she fit him into her new life?
I think I may be the only romance reader in the world who had some issues with this book – I just found that it wasn’t really to my taste. Dahl’s writing is funny and smooth, so no problems there, but I couldn’t connect with her characters and the book was a little too raunchy for my tastes. Jane spends most of the novel as a complete snob, and it bothered me that she judged people so heavily on their appearances when she knew perfectly well that people could be more than that. I should have been delighted that her prejudices got absolutely torn apart and she had to face reality, but I was already too annoyed with her to bother!
My negative reaction to this book won’t really stop me from reading more Victoria Dahl, though – the concept of the book was very good and I liked the writing a lot. I think I’ll try another one of her books and see if the characters annoy me less!
 Stealing Water, Tim Ecott
Tim’s parents give up their home in Ireland to move to South Africa, a land where Tim’s father believes he has a respectable job waiting, and where Tim’s mother believes she will finally be free of the boggy Irish weather. But things don’t turn out as they expect and the family become virtual vagabonds, struggling to get by.
This was okay, but I think is one instance where I enjoyed the idea of the book more than the book itself. The family’s South African life is so full of crazy, illegal antics that, even though they were often necessary to survive, it made me uncomfortable. There were aspects I enjoyed, though; my favorite bit was when Tim worked in a Johannesburg hotel, at a total contrast to his home life, and became acquainted with guests solely based on their voices. It was clever and funny. I also enjoyed glimpses of period department stores and cities.
I also struggled because I couldn’t really understand the way his parents worked; I would basically never do what they all did, much less not return immediately, or as soon as I could, once I realized things were going haywire. I felt for Tim quite often but it was hard to relate to everything that happened.
 Visions of Heat, Nalini Singh
Faith is an F-Psy, meaning she can predict the future. She’s one of the best, which also means that she is bound to go mad eventually, but she’s making her family rich in the meantime. Outside her home lurks Vaughn, a changeling jaguar who longs to know more about the girl he senses behind the walls of the compound. When Faith comes out, she and Vaughn collide, opening her to emotions and physical sensations she’d never dreamed of. When the Psy world no longer begins to make sense, Faith wonders if she and Vaughn can make a life for themselves without it.
I definitely enjoyed this, and the world-building that went on, but I didn’t really find it to be anything particularly out of the ordinary. As usual I find Nalini Singh’s love scenes a little too racy and a little too frequent for my personal taste. I’ve read that she tones down the heat in the next volume, though, as well as lays on the plot, and I’m really interested to see what happens to Judd, so I think I’ll keep on reading.
I am an Amazon Associate. I did not receive any of these books for review.
 Mattie dreams of being a writer, filling notebooks when she can get them and choosing words of the day to expand her vocabulary, but since her mother died and her brother left she’s been more like a housekeeper to her father and three younger sisters. She longs to move to New York and make a go of her talents at Barnard College, so she starts slowly saving for the day when she can escape her rural life. She takes a job at the Glanmore, a fancy hotel for tourists, to get enough money to go, but her attention is distracted when she discovers an unsettling truth about a capsized boat and a death that once looked innocent.
Told back and forth over two different time periods in Mattie’s life, Mattie’s story quickly gains suspense while retaining its literary bent. I loved the fact that each chapter has a word before it and the author works the word into the story over the course of the chapter. Mattie herself loves reading and adores writing, and she’s supported in that by her school teacher, who firmly believes that she can make something more of herself than becoming a simple farm wife. Mattie is torn between her ambitions and the attention paid to her by a handsome local, which adds another dimension to the story as she struggles with immediate infatuation and long-term dreams and desires.
I also just loved the setting. In rural New England, life is not easy, and Mattie’s father and uncle experience all the risks of a country life. Mattie herself endures the hardships of it, with backbreaking work constantly and reluctant days missed off school – which she adores – to help out around the farm. But there’s also a beauty to it which shone through in Donnelly’s writing, really rounding out the book. I got such a feel for the time period that I immediately wondered why more books aren’t set in early twentieth century New England; it’s in such stark contrast to the rest of the nation.
Finally, there was the suspense of the murder, and the slow reveal of precisely what happened and why. We begin to understand why Mattie holds the secret, what she fears, and this laces the entire book together as it heads toward its conclusion, both towards her decision for her future and the final discovery of why a girl drowned in the lake. It was surprisingly gripping at times and I got through it very quickly. Mattie’s character, despite her fervent desire for independence, was completely believable and I appreciated both her literary mind and her romantic impulses. She felt like a real teenager and I was anxious for her to make what I considered the right choice.
A Northern Light is a beautiful and enthralling book, with a main character to root for, a fantastic setting, and a curious and heartbreaking mystery. This is the kind of book teens should be reading, and I would have loved it even more had I been one.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
It’s that time of year – time for the RIP V challenge! Thanks to Carl for hosting.
I’ll be honest – I’m not actually the world’s biggest fan of Halloween or scary books. I don’t mind a creepy book every now and again, though, and so I’m happy to sign up to join in this awesome challenge. My pool is tiny this year because I have even fewer creepy books than last year about, and I’m supposed to not buy any more this month!
- Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin
- The Road, Cormac McCarthy
- Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffeneger
- Dark and Stormy Knights, P.N. Elrod et al
- Glass Houses, Rachel Caine
- The Alienist, Caleb Carr
- Mr Darcy, Vampyre, Amanda Grange
- The Snowman, Jo Nesbo
- The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath, Rick Yancey
If I can get my hands on a copy, I’d also like to read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. If you can recommend any creepy books (which I haven’t already reviewed), please do! My list feels sad in comparison to a few of the great ones I’ve seen out there.
Are you participating in RIP V?
 Tragedy strikes one summer day in Maine. What is meant to be a happy day for two families instead turns into a day of mourning and despair, with consequences set to echo across their entire lives. The Copaken family, despite living in New York City most of the year, consider themselves native Maine residents, while the Tetherlys, significantly poorer, do in fact live there all year. Due to two deaths, the families find themselves linked closer than ever as they all struggle to deal with their own grief and suffering.
A few people have expressed some distaste for the way this book’s prologue was written, but I found that I quite liked it. It’s written from the perspective of an outsider looking in with plenty of detail about the day. No one is named; it could be just any wedding, which is exactly what I liked about it. I thought it perfectly captured a typical wedding day, with the perfect photos and elaborate ceremony neatly masking the real conflicts between people and the difficulties of human relationships. Everyone feels something about a wedding and it’s not always pure joy.
Of course, the book drastically changes once the accident happens, and instead of joy, both families are left with incredible sorrow. The book is really about how individual people deal with it, how it can pull people together and push them apart, sometimes both at once. It’s poignant because the Tetherlys and the Copakens have always had something of a relationship, if only because Jane Tetherly cleans the Copakens’ house year-round. Later on, of course, the two women are meant to be united by the relationship between their children, but are left in a curious midway point. They have things in common, but they’re also complete opposites, incapable of truly understanding anything about one another except the shared pain of mothers who have lost their children much too early.
I liked how many of the characters strove to achieve things for the people that they’d lost, learning eventually that they should really be following their own lives rather than the blueprint they had planned. They have to think more deeply about their assumptions when faced with the fragility of human existence; their desperation to maintain that existence is heartbreaking.
Overall I found there was a lot to admire in Red Hook Road. The relationships are pitch perfect to the real experience of grieving families. Each character is carefully delineated and even when I didn’t like them or agree with them, I could understand how they worked. Since the book is set over the course of four summers, it’s easy to see the way that time changes perception and does manage to place scars over fresh wounds. I was glad that I could follow the families through their lives and closed the book satisfied with the way it wrapped up. Red Hook Road is a wonderful choice for those who enjoy literary fiction, realistic depictions of grief, and family relationships.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review.
 This review contains spoilers for the entire Chaos Walking series. Don’t read this, read them!
War makes monsters of men, and Todd and Viola are discovering just how true that saying is. Separated once again, Todd has remained with the mayor to keep him calm while Viola has gone with the Answer and her new shipmates to broker a compromise. Into the mix we’re thrown a third character with his own perspective on events, set to radically change both the way Todd and Viola think about their new world and their strategy for the forthcoming war.
Everything about this book is basically awesome. Patrick Ness has taken on enormous issues in this series and executed them perfectly, without a hitch, sending out clear anti-war themes but at the same time showing just how humans are so susceptible to dictatorships and strong personalities.
First of all, what struck me as so eerily true to life is the way that Mayor Prentiss can simply take charge, how he can twist reality to suit himself without ever suffering any flack for it. It reminded me most of the way that the media can twist things as they wish, but most people don’t bother to research (or watch more than one TV channel) so they’ll never know the truth of the way the world works. Even Todd and Viola know vastly more than they’re told, but they still find it easier to settle into the same grooves they’ve known their whole lives. Todd himself finds it easiest to dehumanize the Spackle because they aren’t exactly the same as him even though they are thinking, speaking beings like he is, just because he’s committed atrocities against them and needs a reason to do so. The introduction of the third character throws a wrench into those plans, both for readers and for Todd.
Throughout the book my heart ached most for Todd and I simultaneously feared for him. He gets far too close to the Mayor and is convinced he’s acting for good, but I knew he couldn’t be, that the mayor was a force for dissent and fear. But as we learn by the end, even that’s not entirely true. The worst character in the series is himself multi-faceted with surprising reasons for how he works, which don’t excuse him but help us understand him. Each and every character with page time in this book is a complex human being with believable motives and actions. It’s a genuine work of art.
The entire book is sobering in its depiction of war, especially as Todd is growing up in the midst of it. It’s evident from both his actions and even from the text itself as the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors slow down drastically in this third installment. He’s becoming a man, but how I feared he wasn’t going to live to get all the way there. The constant battles and struggles speedily mature him, so much so that it was easy to forget his true age. Not all that much time has passed since he first discovered Viola, that pocket of silence amidst the Noise. And I keep talking about Todd, but it was Viola who became my favorite character, for her strength and reason and love.
I wish I was talented enough to articulate clearly the many ways Monsters of Men – and the rest of the series – made me think and feel. I borrowed this book from the library but I know it’s one that I’ll need to own and reread in its entirety. It’s incredibly powerful in so many ways and I truly think is literature at its finest; it’s a series with a lot to say about the world, not only Todd’s but our own, and with a fantastic story to go along with it. What more could any reader ask for?
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 This review contains spoilers. Read the books first!
Todd and Fiona have arrived in Haven only to discover that it’s not a haven at all. It’s New Prentisstown and Mayor Prentiss has now declared himself the president of the entire planet. Fiona is seriously wounded and whisked from Todd’s view to heal, used as a threat to get Todd to cooperate. Todd himself is locked up with the old mayor of Haven, forced to spend time with Mayor Prentiss’s son Davy and commit ever more horrible acts against the Spackle during the day. When rebellion begins, Todd and Fiona begin to wonder who the Answer are and what is going to happen to New Prentisstown.
This is going to be a short review because I read this and Monsters of Men right after each other. I have quite a lot to say about the third book, but this one has somewhat blended in with it, so my observations are less clearcut. Still, I thought they each deserved their own post.
While I wasn’t so crazy about The Knife of Never Letting Go, I thought it was worth reading the rest of the series to see what happened with Todd and Fiona. This book was the perfect follow up for me because it took a step back, slowed everything down, and really fleshed out the world and the story. I’m not a huge fan of breakneck, breathless books, and so this was a breath of fresh air as Todd and Fiona stay in one place for the most part. They learn more about what happened in the past and they start to take strides towards changing the future. Their bond still remains very strong even though they’re apart for most of the book.
I can easily say the high point of this book for me was Todd’s relationship with Mayor and Davy Prentiss. I loved how the relationships gradually changed and were fleshed out as well as how genuinely true to life they were. Davy strives for his father’s approval but has never had Mayor Prentiss’s extreme, if cruel, strength of character, so he’s always going to be a failure. Todd does have that strength, and as a result Davy is almost naturally drawn towards him even if they’re enemies at first. It’s a fascinating dynamic and all of their emotions rang beautifully true for me.
By the time I finished The Ask and the Answer, I’d become a loyal fan of the series and could not wait to start Monsters of Men. I’m surprised by how much the book turned my feelings around, but I’m very glad, because Patrick Ness is a masterful writer and plotter.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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