Tag Archives: dogs

January 17, 2012 · 5:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’d Recommend to Someone Who Doesn’t Read (Blank)

 

Hey ya’ll. So it’s Tuesday again, and I’m crazy busy as always. Still, time for my favorite meme, which is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books I’d Recommend To Someone Who Doesn’t Read X…

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m kind of sick of recommending the same books over and over and over in these lists… Obviously I’m going to recommend Outlander series if you like ANY kind of reading. Obviously I’m going to recommend Bet Me if you haven’t tried romance before. So, in an effort to mix it up a little bit, these categories are going to be somewhat unusual…

1. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read About Hell Very Often: Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

I’m almost halfway through this book now, and it’s enjoyable. It’s dark and there’s bad-assery and dude, the guy survived ELEVEN YEARS in Hell, so he has some good Hell stories. Just sayin.

 

2. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read Romance Featuring Dogs: Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie

Gotta love Crusie, she’s awesome at writing romance. And this is a super cute (and short) book about a woman who gets a dog and falls in love. (Not with dog, pervert, it’s not THAT kind of romance.)

 

3. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read Giant Historical Fiction: Helen of Troy by Margaret George

Dude, Margaret George is some SERIOUS historical fiction. She writes lengthy but super-awesome historical fiction novels. I particularly liked this one, about Helen of Troy. You know, in case the title wasn’t obvious enough.

 

4. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read Mysteries With a Gay British Protagonist: Lord John series by Diana Gabaldon

Well, I had to put SOMETHING Outlander-related on this list! This is a little side-series featuring Lord John Grey, a particularly awesome character. These books usually revolve around him solving some sort of mystery, and the one featured above is the “first” one, as in written first but not necessarily chronological per the storylines. It doesn’t really matter, just read them.

 

5. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read Books With a Bajillion Characters: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

It’s a testament to what a fantastic writer Martin is, that this book has like 20 “main” characters and I can vividly picture and remember them all. Love these books.

 

6. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read YA Books About Teens With Diseases: Don’t Die, My Love by Lurlene McDaniel

For some sick reason, I LOOOOOOVED McDaniel’s books about kids with various terminal illnesses. This was my favorite one, and I actually still own it. I kind of want to go re-read it, lol. It’s about a high school couple who are so perfect for each other, but the boyfriend gets some rare form of cancer. Depressing as all hell.

 

7. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read About African Boys Who Love Tennis: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane

So, this was actually a fantasic autobiography about this boy born in South Africa during apartheid, his life dealing with that, and how his love of learning and of tennis eventually got him out of it.

 

8. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read About the Future and People Living Forever: The Postmortal by Drew Magary

AWESOME novel, one of my favorites last year. A “cure” for death is found, and one guy’s experiences and blog entries chronicle how the world changes with the Cure, and shows the initial awesomeness and the inevitable horribleness of such a medicine.

 

9. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read About a Weird Britain in the 1980′s: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

The first of the Thursday Next books. There’s characters jumping out of books, time-traveling, a police force just for literature, a villain who is evil just for the sake of being evil (those are the best kind of villains), what’s not to love?

 

10. … to Someone Who Doesn’t Read Books With Bright Orange Eye-Catching Covers: Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Quick, interesting, good story… It was a good read. However I MAY like the cover even more, cause you know, just look at it.

 

So that’s what I got for today! Happy TTT!

~Sarah

 

12 Comments

Filed under Top Ten Tuesday

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

July 13, 2011 · 8:25 am

Stay by Allie Larkin

Photobucket

Hey all. OK so Steph from StephTheBookworm and I are lucky enough to live in the same city, and recently Steph asked via Facebook if any of her friends were interested in forming a book club with her. Since I’ve never been in a real life book club before, I signed up pronto. Our first meeting is at the end of this month, and the book we all chose was Stay by local author Allie Larkin.

Stay is about Savannah “Van” Leone, who just watched her two best friends Peter and Janie get married. The problem is that Van’s been in love with Peter since they first met about 6 years ago. After the newlyweds take off for their honeymoon, Van drowns her sorrows in Kool-Aid & vodka and watched reruns of Rin Tin Tin, and accidentally (drunkenly) orders a German Shepherd puppy online. Though he’s bigger than she was counting on, she names him Joe and starts to get over her heartbreak.

Joe is an adorable puppy, and my favorite parts of the book were about him. He only responds to commands in Slovak, he’s big and goofy, and he’s instantly fills the role of girl’s best friend.

Van on the other hand… she’s not my favorite character. At first, I really liked her. I sympathized with her and her night of getting smashed on Kool-Aid vodka was kind of hilarious. But throughout the book it became obvious that she kind of causes her own problems, and I didn’t see any character growth from her during the book. And here’s why she didn’t grow as a character… (highlight to read the spoilers)

Everything is handed to her on a silver platter. Van causes her own problems by constantly getting drunk and lying when she should just be honest. She “loves” Peter even though he has no real redeemable qualities and in fact acts like an ass pretty much the whole time. And any problem that Van has to face is instantly solved for her… she gets $175,000 to leave Peter alone, which she should have been doing anyways. She accidentally buys a $6000 dog, and has to move out of her condo because of it, but all of that is no problem since she has this huge check. A too-perfect vet named Alex falls for her, and hooks her up with a house at half the market price (only $40,000) and even though she lies to Alex, he of course decides to forgive her without any explanation for her behavior. She gets to stay friends with Peter (not realistic at all), she makes up with Janie, and even makes up with Janie’s mother, who she’s had issues with ever since childhood. All of this seemed WAY too easy and honestly, since Van didn’t really have to work for any of it, I don’t think deserved such a happy ending.

Anyways, I would have been happier if the book focused more on her relationship with Joe and dealing with his crazy puppy antics. Van and her personal life were just a little too frustrating for my taste.

I did overall like the book. I enjoyed the references to Rochester, my home town (YAY Wegmans!). And the book was a really quick read. I’ll gladly try out the next book that Larkin publishes, because I really did enjoy her writing. And the characters she creates were really memorable. There’s a secondary character named Louis that just cracked me up. If you’re a fan of chick-lit (I’m thinking along the lines of the Shopaholic series), then you’ll probably enjoy this. If you’re considering this because you’re a dog-lover or pet-owner, you might want to take a pass.

Sarah Says: 2.5 stars

post signature

4 Comments

Filed under 3-star, Fiction

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,