Category Archives: Fiction

May 18, 2013 · 11:40 am

George’s Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy & Stephen Hawking

 

image

 

Weeeeeeeee this book was so fun! Like, I’m really excited to buy it for myself AND for my nephew Josh. I kind of stumbled across this book on accident. I was at the library looking in the kid’s section for the A Series of Unfortunate Events books and this one caught my eye on the shelf. It’s about the universe, and it’s a kid’s story, and it’s written by Stephen Hawking and his daughter! Obviously I had to check it out.

George’s Secret Key to the Universe is about George, a young kid who is fascinated by the stars in the sky and wants nothing more than a computer, which his technology-resistant parents refuse to buy him. One day chasing his pet pig, he discovers that the long-abandoned house next door has people living in it! A young girl with a penchant for playing dress-up named Annie lives there with her dad Eric, who is a scientist, have moved in. Eric and Annie let George in on a secret and show him their super-special computer, Cosmos. Cosmos is the most advanced computer there is and can show them the wonders of the universe – literally. George has plenty of adventures travelling in space ahead of him – but someone else has more evil plans for Cosmos, and it’s up to George to save the day.

Okay so even without the super-nerdy stuff that I enjoyed, like explanations of how stars are born, what asteroids are made out of, and so on – this is a really fun kids book. There was a creepy, maniacal bad guy and bullies and a science contest and a growing friendship between George and Annie and a wonder computer and it was actually really exciting and action-packed! PLUS there are cool little inserts throughout the book that explain some of the science terms and there are several sections of color photos!

image

A peak inside the book…

 

After finishing the book, I was really happy and realized that I definitely have to buy this for my nephew – he’s 8 and really into space, and I think that this will be a interesting book for him; some of it might be a little over his head, but plenty of Amazon reviewers said their 9-year olds enjoyed it, so it should be fine. He’ll enjoy the story, even if he can’t wrap his head around the idea of a black hole just yet.

I was thinking “Man, I hope that the Hawkings write a sequel…”  Well, it turns out there are two sequels already! I’m planning to buy all three books for myself to read and keep, and I think I’m going to buy the first book for my nephew for next Christmas :-) Too bad his birthday just passed! And I’m hoping that when my other niece and nephew get older, they’ll enjoy these books too.

Anyways, this is a really cute, fun story that has the added bonus of sneaking some learning in. I HIGHLY recommend it! Seriously, if you have kids around 9-12 who like to read, get this for them even if you think that they aren’t into space. They just might be after they travel around the universe with George for a bit.

Sarah Says: 5 stars

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under 5-star, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 14, 2013 · 6:00 am

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

 

You have a sick mind, John Connolly. But somehow you totally made it work.

David is a young boy in WWII England who slowly, painfully watches his mother die (of what I’m thinking is cancer). Very obviously distraught by her death, things get worse for David when his father remarries and announces that David has a sibling on the way. David has always taken refuge in reading books, but now those books are speaking to him and as his family life becomes more stressful, the lines between reality and imagination start to blend. Suddenly David finds himself in a strange, dangerous world and has to find his way home again. His only hope is to make it to the King, an old, dying man whose legendary “Book of Lost Things” might be the key to David’s return to his world.

I really liked this book when I started it. The writing is simple but also kind of lyrical and I was a bit enchanted by it. Also, David was a weird kid that I totally felt for. He’s a book lover so obviously I connected on that level with him instantly, but he does start to go a little crazy with grief. It’s SO RARE that I connect with a 12-year old character, but I instantly felt for David.

Once he crosses over into that weird realm, things took a definitely darker twist. He’s in danger, and there are hints of fairy tales in this land but they’ve been warped from the stories he knew. Honestly, some things were so twisted and disturbing and gruesome that I was a little put off by it. It was weird. And then by page 200, I felt like the book was slowing down a bit and wasn’t convinced that I’d end up liking it as a whole. When I posted on Instagram that I was reading The Book of Lost Things, I got a lot of “That’s a great book!” type of comments, and I was starting to worry that I would have to disagree.

BUT THEN THE ENDING HAPPENED. By page 250 things had picked back up and some huge things were revealed. Well, they were huge to me because I never see these things coming. But yeah, I was in for a total shock in some aspects and things were happening and I was biting my nails and yeah… I finished the book surprised but glad. And a little blind-sided. I went online immediately to look up more info and about the book and whatnot, and Wikipedia described this as a “coming-of-age” novel. I’ve come to mistrust and hate books labeled “coming-of-age” (I’m looking at you, A Visit From the Goon Squad) and usually avoid them, but I think that I’ve finally found a book deserving of that label. David grows a whole lot as a kid and as a character, through the trials and obstacles that he has to overcome.

The Book of Lost Things examined a whole lot of issues in one book – OCD, death, grief, maturity, bravery, the after life, etc. My mind feels shaken up with it all, and I feel like I’ll be thinking about this book for a good long while. And when I’m done musing on this book, I’ll probably seek out some of John Connolly’s other novels.

Sarah Says: 4.5 stars (with .5 star missing because the middle dragged just a bit)

 

16 Comments

Filed under 4-star, Fantasy, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 6, 2013 · 6:10 pm

The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

BEE RIDGWAY

 

Sadly, I didn’t love The River of No Return the way I was hoping to.

So, Nick is an English dude from the 1800′s who is about to die in a nasty battle when suddenly he transports roughly 200 years into the future to 2003. Cool. An organization called the Guild picks him up, makes him spend a year learning about the modern day along with some other accidental time travellers, and then sends him off with a buttload of money to quiety live the rest of his years in the northeast of America. A decade goes by and Nick is quite accustomed to the fun things of our age – easy women, jeans, cars, watches and all that – but then he suddenly gets a summons from the Guild. They’re sending him on a mission back to his past.

Julia is a young lady in the 1800′s mourning the death of her grandfather. Her giant douche of a cousin shows up to inherit the estate, and he constantly quizzes and berates Julia while he searches for some special object that he thinks gave her grandfather his ability to manipulate time. And then Julia finds out that SHE can manipulate time as well, and must struggle to hide this from her cousin and try to escape his clutches.

So obviously when Nick goes back, he and Julia cross paths (easy enough, since they lived next door) and fall in love, yada yada yada.

Let’s start with the things I really liked about the book, kay? I liked the whole idea of time travel via feelings. Apparently you use emotions to travel along the river of time. Interesting concept. I liked the idea of a secret society (the Guild) and the idea of time travelling, being taught about the time you’re in, and then being sent on your way to just chill. I liked Nick well enough, as well as Julia. They both had spunk, which I enjoyed. I also liked Arkady, who was a grumbly Russian guy who said things like this:

“You are a man. We will save her. Why? Because it’s beautiful and romantic to do so. We will fight this maniac like the men we are – with fists. Why? Because it’s beautiful and romantic to do so.”

How can you not love that?

But now on to the things that made me not love this book…

The thing between Nick and Julia had a hint of insta-love about it. I mean really, it’s very love-at-first-sight.

My biggest complaint: It was so slooooowww. By page 160 (out of 450), the main characters hadn’t even really met yet. By page 300 I was glad that the romance factor was finally picking up but I STILL felt like I was waiting for the story to start. There was so much build-up and mystery to the secret society conspiracies that it seemed to take forever to get anywhere, and I felt just as confused and frustrated as Nick did. And I felt like the end is where things really finally started to happen, which means it ended with some unresolved issues. I’m assuming there might be a sequel, but it’s not confirmed on the Bee Ridgway’s website as far as I can tell.

Sooo yeah. The writing was enjoyable, but the storyline was just way too drawn-out for me. Even if I knew a sequel was coming, I’m not sure I’ll want to read it because it took SO LONG to be set up in this book. I’ll have to wait and see.

I am pretty sure I’m in the minority here - plenty of fellow bloggers read and loved this book, so don’t be discouraged. Give it a try. Maybe The River of No Return just wasn’t my jam.

 

Sarah Says: 2.5 stars

 

 

6 Comments

Filed under 3-star, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

May 1, 2013 · 10:57 pm

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

image

 

 

Good morning, book lovers! So it’s time for my review of the fourth Thursday Next book. I’m not quite sure my brain it up to the task, but I’ll try.

 

BUT REMEMBER THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST THREE BOOKS, MMMKAY? KAY.

Somehow, it’s been over a year since I read the third book, The Well of Lost Plots! Honestly, don’t know how I went that long in between books. So let’s just say that I remembered that Thursday was still in Bookworld, and her hubby Landen was still non-existent because he had been eradicated, and she was chasing some book characters who apparently ended up escaping into the real world.

Something Rotten starts off with Thursday getting a bit frustrated with Bookworld and realizing that she needs to go home, try to un-eradicate her husband, and catch Yorrick Kaine - the escaped book characters that’s been making waves in the real world as a politician. So she takes a long leave-of-absence from Jurisfiction, grabs her two-year old son Friday, and heads back to reality.

There was a LOT to like about this book, and I read it pretty quickly. I liked seeing Thursday struggle with fictional character baddies, a husband that doesn’t exist, a hitwoman out to get her, Shakespeare clones, and more – and all while now being a mom. I like that being a mom doesn’t diminish Thursday’s awesomeness or adventures any - Friday is just one more thing she has to take care of in her hectic, weird life.

Once again, after finishing this book I had a weird dream – something about me being trapped with other people in a big store of some kind and black, shiny, hard-looking spiders and lizards that were WAY over-sized were crawling around trying to attack us, and none of my long-range weapons or machetes were around. It was weird, I didn’t sleep well that night.

Also, there were a few quotes I liked and wrote down, but I think this one (spoken by Hamlet himself who’s experiencing the real world for the first time) is my favorite:

“If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction – and ultimately, without a major resolution.”

Which sounds pretty true, but I agree with Thursday’s response – that maybe we like it that way. I have the 5th Thursday Next book (although from what I understand, it’s the start of a separate Thursday Next series or storyline…?) on it’s way to me from Paperbackswap, and this time I’m not going to let a whole year go by before I read it.

Sarah Says: 4 stars

10 Comments

Filed under 4-star, British, Fiction, Sci-Fi

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 29, 2013 · 3:00 pm

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

image

Awwww. Patroclus & Achilles.

I’m feeling a bit lazy today, partly because I’m watching my almost 2 year-old nephew L, and I’m already a bit worn out! So here’s the description from the dust jacket:

The legend begins…

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Why don’t I read more books about ancient Greece? There’s so much passion and tragedy and brutality. Troy was my favorite movie for ages. And yeah I know it’s not exactly faithful to the story or legend of whatever, but it was still an awesome movie that made me cry in the theater.

So, yeah, this was a really well-written book. Obviously it was big on the love and romance and it wouldn’t be Greek without the tragedy part of it. Patroclus & Achilles were SO SWEET, and so perfect for each other. Patroclus is a good kid, even if he’s a bit timid at times. And I really liked Achilles in this book, for the most part – he’s shown mostly as a normal boy growing up, but with a self-assurance and grace that the other boys don’t have. He always speaks simply and honestly. And he didn’t take a particular joy in fighting or violence – instead he took pride in his abilities, as an athlete.

Also, I really liked the pace of this book. I’m glad that most of the 10 years of the Trojan War are kind of glazed over, but the book never got dull. I read it pretty rapidly.

This book was really sweet and a bit sad and I enjoyed it lots. It also made me realize… maybe I should attempt reading The Illiad and The Odyssey eventually. I had to read parts of The Odyssey in college and it bored me to tears, but I think that with some Sparknotes or something I could probably appreciate it a lot more now. I always assumed that there’s just no way I’m ever going to even try to read them in their entirety because they’re so intimidating, but maybe I could do it! Maybe.

Anyways, so yes! The Song of Achilles is good book, especially if you like Greek stories.

Sarah Says: 3.5 stars

12 Comments

Filed under 3-star, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 23, 2013 · 4:44 pm

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

Christopher Healy

I love me some fairy tales, but let’s face it – they’re all about the ladies and kind of ignore the dudes. But not anymore!

The Prince Charmings are kind of sick of being ignored. They’re all a major part of the fairy tale stories – Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty – but somehow they get no recognition. No one even knows their names! All going through some sort of turmoil, they’re cast out of their castles and meet up in the forest, where they discover an evil plot that endangers the people of their kingdoms. It’s time for them to get their act together and be the heroes they know they are!

So, OBVIOUSLY this is a kid’s book, in case you couldn’t tell. It’s a pretty hefty one (400+) pages and there’s lots of wit and snark, so I’d say it’s probably aimed at the 9 to 12 range? But of course if you’re an adult (like myself) you’ll probably enjoy it even more than most kids might. I’m definitely going to save my copy to let my nephews read when they’re a bit older.

I really liked this flip-side of the fairy tale universe. The princesses aren’t quite the dolls they’re made out to be, and the princes are so crazy and entertaining! There’s Duncan, who’s a total introverted weirdo and hence my favorite. Liam is the most classic hero but he’s a bit naïve. Gustav is the MANLY prince that mucks everything up by being too manly. And Frederic was a delicate little rose of a prince who finally has to take some risks. Together they face dragons, bandits, evil witches, and other scary things and form a wonderful four-way bromance in the process.

It was cute. It was campy. It was fun enough that I’m looking forward to reading the sequel, The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle.

Sarah Says: 3.5 stars

6 Comments

Filed under 4-star, Fantasy, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 18, 2013 · 6:00 am

Nexus by Ramez Naam

Nexus

This is one of those books where the more I think about it, the more I think I liked it.

Nexus is about a drug called – guess what? – Nexus. It’s an illegal nano-drug that exists in 2040, that humans can use to connect; mind-to-mind, brain-to-brain. A young scientist named Kade finds a way to improve Nexus – to make it’s effects permanent. When he’s caught by the government, he’s forced into an international fight between those to want to eradicate Nexus and those who want to unleash it.

My thoughts about this book are so MIXED, but ultimately positive. The book starts off kind of slow – the software lingo was hard to get in to, and I was thiiiiiissss close to DNF-ing it. But then around page 200 BAM! It picked up and I read the next 250 pages in one sitting. I’m glad I stuck with it.

Basically in this near-future, nano-drugs and biological enhancement are a thing. Some humans have gotten things done to them to make them faster, stronger, more durable, etc. Nexus is something considered dangerous by the government, because it gives people the ability to connect their minds – to see memories, read thoughts, communicate telepathically. There are official terms in this world such as “transhuman” and “posthuman”, distinguishing just how many changes a person can make to his or her self before they are no longer considered human, and therefore no longer protected by basic human rights.

The story wasn’t exactly the best. Like I said, it started off slow. I liked the characters Kade and Wats, but felt like we didn’t get to learn quite enough about them. Sam was the other main character, and I think I liked her but she was so messed up that her actions didn’t always make sense to me. But the action definitely picks up in the second half of the book, and I was biting my fingernails while reading because things were getting intense. And it gave me a lot of food for thought – Are we on our way to this kind of future, where bioengineering is so common? When and how will the lines between humans and software machines start to blur? Would I take Nexus if I was in this world?

It made for some really interesting discussions with my honeyman when I was done reading, and I am more curious about some of the nanotechnology presented in the book. I want to check out one of Naam’s other books, a non-fiction book called More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. Oh yeah, Ramez Naam isn’t just some new sci-fi author! He apparently helped invent Internet Explorer and Outlook, and he was the CEO of a nanotechnology company, so he obviously knows his subject matter! I dig that.

OH, and there’s a sequel to Nexus coming out in August! It’s called Crux, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

Sarah Says: 4 stars

2 Comments

Filed under 4-star, Fiction, Sci-Fi

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 15, 2013 · 6:00 am

The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

Jason F Wright

 

This sucked. But in all fairness, it’s my own fault I read this book.

I bought The Wednesday Letters a few years ago at a used book sale. I had heard of it before, and it was cheap, so I bought it without really knowing what it was about. The description on the back makes it sound like a quaint love story – an old couple dies in each other’s arms, and their children discover decades worth of letters that their father wrote to their mother, one every week since they got married. Truths are revealed, yada yada yada. SOMEHOW I missed the recommendation on the back from stupid Glenn Beck, or that would have stopped me right there.

Well this book has just been sitting on my shelf for AGES now, which is why I added it to my TBR for the month – it looked like a good, short read for the readathons coming up. But then I turned into EPW this week (that’s Emotional Period Woman, in case you didn’t know) so I decided a nice, sappy story that’ll probably make me cry would be a good pick. I had it in my head that this would probably be a cute, sad romantic story a la Nicholas Sparks – shut up, I was in the mood for something crappy and sappy. But this was just CRAPPY.

So the story starts off okay, with the old couple who own a B&B dying in each other’s arms. The writing wasn’t great, but whatever. And then the children of the old couple came into the story, and they were all kind of annoying and the dialogue grew steadily worse. Like, alarmingly bad. And then I started getting slapped over the head with “the Lord this” and “forgiveness” that and I realized I was basically reading a giant freaking sermon preaching Christian / pro-life values, with a good dose of “women are sensitive creatures who should just cook to feed the men” kind of characterization. And as I was already halfway through the stupid thing, I finished it.

I could rant about this a bit, but I’m not going to. I’ll just say that the writing was really, really bad and getting beat to exhaustion with Christian value-mongering isn’t exactly my cup of tea. But again, that was MY fault for not researching the book a bit before I started it. I think The Wednesday Letters was really dumb. Others may disagree. At least it won’t be taking up space on my shelf any longer.

Sarah Says: .5 stars

 

 

 

6 Comments

Filed under 1-star, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

April 10, 2013 · 6:00 am

Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

Peter Clines

 

I bought Ex-Heroes mainly because the blurbs by other authors on the cover were so impressive:

“The Avengers meets The Walking Dead with a large order of epic served on the side… I loved it!” – Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One

“Zombies? Check. Superheroes? Check. Awesome? Check. Ex-Heroes has it all. You’re in for a treat!” – Mira Grant, author of Feed

Those are two authors I really like, so I took their word for it. They didn’t let me down!

So basically there are some superheroes around – Stealth, Gorgon, Regenerator, Zzzap, and more. They’re kind of going around and helping out here and there, and then the zombie apocalypse hits and they get together to try to save as many people as they can. They set up a base in Los Angeles and try to protect the people there – from zombies, and from the local gang the Seventeens, who have been causing more trouble lately.

Good premise, right? Ex-Heroes wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but it was a really good, quick read. There are a few chapters sprinkled throughout the book where you get a glimpse on the superheroes’ lives before they got powers, and what they were up to before the zombies popped up. I really liked seeing each of the different heroes and seeing what kind of cool powers they had, and I liked that they all had kind of an inner-struggle thing going on. Instead of a similarity to The Avengers like Ernest Cline says above, I’d actually say it reminded me more of the Watchmen. It felt gritty, which I liked. The heroes are all normal people underneath, who are equally as distraught about the zombie apocalypse as everyone else but who feel obligated to try to save humanity – even when some of humanity includes an annoying gang trying to take over now that there’s no society.

Some big epic things were revealed near the end, so I’m really looking forward to reading the sequel Ex-Patriots, which comes out on April 23rd.

Sarah Says: 3.5 stars

 

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under 4-star, Comics, Fantasy, Fiction, Sci-Fi, Zombies

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 30, 2013 · 2:30 am

The Return Man by V.M. Zito

v.m. zito

 

Well… I’m glad I got this from the library.

The Return Man has been on my radar for a long while now. I remember seeing the author featured in some article online, and then reading about this book and thinking it sounded like a cool idea. It got good reviews on Amazon, and I was tempted several times to buy it around Christmas but didn’t. Finally I got it from the library and I was really looking forward to it.

This is about Henry Marco, AKA “The Return Man”. When the zombie apocalypse hit, the Western U.S. was evacuated and left to the walking dead. Marco stayed, and is hired by survivors in the Safe States to track down their undead loved ones and put them at peace. But now Homeland Security has heard about him, and insist in his cooperation by taking a job that will bring him to California – back to his past, and back to where the zombie outbreak began.

I felt pretty “meh” the whole way through the book. I was entertained enough to keep reading I suppose, but I have the sense that I could have put it down at any point and not particularly cared if I came back to it or not. It takes a LONG time to start to connect to Marco, because you don’t really learn much about him until near the end. There’s one other main character, Wu, and he was bland as well.

I should mention some of the good points of the novel. There’s an overarching theme about grief in all its different forms, and the effect it can have on a person’s state of mind. Seeing Marco grieve for the loved ones he’s lost was a little touching, and it was interesting to see how he and a few other survivors deal with that. There’s also a slightly different twist on zombie lore, and it’s that emotional memories linger slightly in the zombie brain, leading zombies to wander to places that meant a lot to them when they were alive. Not with any intent or purpose, just a weird trick of the human brain that I thought was interesting.

Now for some of the complaints about the storyline itself… for instance, it’s said that Americans evacuated to the east, now called the Safe States, where the Mississippi River helps provide a defendable border. But at another part in the novel, Marco mentions that since walkers don’t breathe, they can walk underwater. Soooo… why does the river help as a defense against the zombies then? There were a couple little issues like that here and there. Also, Marco has apparently been a zombie-killer for hire for about four years but he seems to have a really hard time just taking down a single loner zombie without  having to struggle for his life. It got frustrating.

 I guess this book just wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. I like the unique approach the author took for a topic that’s dangerously close to being overdone, but it didn’t quite work for me.

Sarah Says: 2.5 stars 

 

4 Comments

Filed under 2-star, Fiction, Zombies

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,