365 Days of Books

My goal is to blog each book as I finish it and not let the pile of read books grow on the dresser. It's a goal but right now I feel okay about just talking about them as I get to them.

An Abundance of Katherines hits a spot for all of us who were told we weren't living up to our potential; it hits double for those of us that think that the stories we have told ourselves, about ourselves, are the same stories that other people tell about us. Okay, it's about other things as well.

Colin was a child prodigy. It's not so much that he isn't still awesome and prodigy like, the problem is that he is no longer a child. He's an ex-child prodigy not an ex-prodigy child. Although he's not really sure whether or not he is still a prodigy; at what point does a prodigy become just a skilled adult? Colin has graduated from high school and just been dumped by his 19th girlfriend named Katherine. In this depressed position, Colin and his friend Hassan head out on a road trip to find some sort of clarity, some goal for their lives.

They stop in a small town where Hassan merges into the young people scene and Colin turns his prodigious mind to finding a formula for his Katherine idea. There is a smart good looking girl but her name is Lindsey so obviously she isn't a threat to Colin. Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey all examine their lives and the personas they publicly hold and decide what they can change or want to change.

I've never seen True Blood but I love the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris; they are goofy, sexy, light reading (even when sad). Generally I like Charlaine Harris' writing though the Lily Bard and Aurora Teagarden books were blah for me.  Dead of Night contains 2 stories; one story is by Charlaine Harris and set in the same world as Sookie Stackhouse. In Dancers in the Dark, dancer Layla is in hiding from her past. Her new job is dancing paired with a 300 year old vampire. Lust, love, power, and justice find their ways though the story. I'd like to see more of these same world stories! The second story The Devil's Footprints is a creepy and suspenseful story of ongoing violence in a small town. Sarah tries to escape her dark history in the small town by living in New Orleans but horror finds her there.

I didn't like Pigtopia; I didn't finish it. It wasn't that bad but there is so much that is better to read that I couldn't find the time to waste finishing the book. It was pretty horrific with guts, meanness, abuse, blood, and more meanness. I read about 2/3s, put it down to go to bed, and left it there for a month. Jack is an adult body deformed since he was young; his mind is that of a much younger boy. Hiding and hidden by his mother for most of his life, Jack has a hidden life with his herd of pigs under the house but he hopes to make positive connections with other people. He begins a friendship with a young woman, Holly, and she tries to support him when his life starts to get even worse. Is this a Frankenstein like story as the cover suggested? I did see innocence and horror but I couldn't get to the characters through the horror.

The Hum And The Shiver is first in the Tufa series. I read and had a soundtrack in my head but it didn't sound like this. In this world the Tufa (from tuatha?) settled in this Tennessee county long before it was a county or Europeans had arrived. Bronwyn is a full bred Tufa who left the valley and fought for the US in Afghanistan. She has just arrived back in Cloud County to recuperate from a vicious attack. The tufa have strong connections to music of many kinds but Bronwyn seems to have lost her music. Bronwyn is welcomed back by her family but they know that trouble is coming. Can Bronwyn shake off her rebellious history and its violent connections or will she and her loved ones be pulled down by past actions? Things that are strange and different can be scary or embracing - different things for different people. Bronwyn's character is nicely deep and care is given to flesh out other characters even bringing in some outsiders to the Tufa. I've since bought 3 other pieces by Alex Bledsoe for my Kindle including Firefly Witch Collection and Wisp of a Thing (Tufa book 2) so look for posts of those in the near future.

Raven Boys is book one of the Raven Cycle (The Dream Thieves is available in hardcover). Blue is part of a family of female psychics but her talent is amplification of their powers. On St. MArk's Eve she accompanies her aunt to view the dead from the coming year and sees someone. Trying to find out about this person who she may love or kill, Blue gets a name and that he is a student at Aglionby. She soon comes into contact with Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah. Gansey is obsessed with tracing the local ley lines and finding (and then awakening) a lost Welsh king. During the search we find out more (but not enough) about each of the boys and their mysterious enemy. They solve one mystery but don't even address several others. I was interested enough to read this book straight through (snow days!) but felt left hanging in some ways and that the main mystery was too obvious. Blue's talents are used in interesting ways where they were kept relevant - some books only mention the powers at key points and the rest of the time it's as if they don't exist or impact the persons life.

Tomorrow Girls: Behind the Gates and Tomorrow Girls: Run For Cover by Eva Gray are first two in the Tomorrow Girls series (Coming soon: Tomorrow Girls: With the Enemy). In this dystopian future the government controls citizens with permanent id bracelets and strict control of communities. The US is in a war with Canada. Louisa and Maddie are tapped to attend a prestigious and safe boarding school that turns out to be something they did not expect. Their secrets are exposed and they find out that other people have even bigger secrets. In Run For Cover the girls and their friends and some other people with secrets run from the school and end up in even more trouble. Question authority and certainly don't trust it! I didn't really enjoy these books, the adult characters were only slightly real and the main characters only slightly better. I thought the story exploration of how secrets change who we are and how people grow apart was interesting but the rest was bland. I was unable to suspend my disbelief at any point.

In The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Holly Black builds the world I first read about in the short story by the same name in the collection The Poison Eaters. The book features different characters in the same world with a couple of repeated plot ideas. Be Aware: this is a book with violence and sex.

Tana lives in a world where vampires are known to be deadly and violent but who are also media marketed as sexy. Simplified: Vampirism is a two step process where first the human is infected by a vampire bite and becomes cold and then drinks human blood and becomes a vampire. If a human can not drink human blood for 88 days after being infected, the poison passes from their system. Infected people and vampires are kept in Coldtowns - ghettos unregulated by police or government.

At a weekend party, Tana passes out in a bathtub and wakes to find the party goers massacred by vampires. In a bedroom she finds her ex-boyfriend infected and tied to a bed with a chained vampire on the floor. She frees both of them and escapes from the house sustaining a scraped bite on her leg. The three make their way to Coldtown. Along the way Tana wrestles with her possible infection, love, lust, and fear. Coldtown is a brutal and unsavory place which is still seen by people of all ages as the only place they can be their true selves. Populated by vampire wannabes, vampires, infected, and humans caught in the ghetto when it was built, Coldtown is a dangerous place to be for Tana, Gavriel, and Aidan. Will Tana be food for a beginning vampire, a vampire herself, can she sweat out the infection, and can she save her little sister who flees their dead home for a life with vampires? You can't save everyone. You can't trust anyone.