Book List Update for March

Lately I’ve been book hopping and I’ve built up an even bigger "Reading / To-Read” list:

• The Selection by Kiera Cass
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Nail Your Novel – Why Writers Abandon Books… by Roz Morris
• 2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better… by Rachel Aaron
• Heist Society by Ally Carter
• I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You by Ally Carter
• Delirium by Lauren Oliver
• Splendor: A Luxe Novel by Anna Godbersen
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Friday Reads for 11 Jan 2013

My Goodreads Reading Challenge for 2013 is to read (at least) 30 books. I looked around my couch and made a list of 26 “to read” books that were either on my Kindle, Nook, or coffee table. Some of these are Friday Finds because I recently got them in ebook form from the library.

There are plenty of books I have stashed away that I can still get to but after making this list, I get the idea that I do not need to purchase any more books. Well, until I bump my challenge number to 40 or 50. I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding new books I want to read.

1. Novel Writing - Marshall
2. The Truth About Forever - Dessen
3. Along for the Ride - Dessen
4. Beautiful Creatures - Garcia and Stohl
5. Reading like a Writer - Prose
6. Liar and Spy - Stead
7. The Diary of Anne Frank - Frank
8. If I Stay - Foreman
9. Eve - Carey
10. Adoration of Jenna Fox - Pearson
11. Cold Kiss - Garvey
12. Hollowland - Hocking
13. Must Love Dogs - Cook
14. The Summer I Turned Pretty - Han
15. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
16. Bright Young Things - Godbersen
17. Pretty Little Liars: Killer - Shepard
18. Pretty Little Liars: Heartless - Shepard
19. Burn for Burn - Han and Vivian
20. Matched - Condie
21. One Day - Nicholls
22. The Secret Life of Bees – Kidd
23. Glass – Hopkins
24. Mockingjay – Collins
25. All the Wrong Questions? – Snicket
26. Divergent – Roth

Of course I also have classics to finish reading like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Again, these are books that I can access right now. There are plenty of others on my “to read” list.

WWW Wednesday: 03 Oct 2012 (Find out what I'm reading this week)

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading asks you to answer the following three (3) questions…

What are you currently reading?


Sara Shepard - Wicked (Pretty Little Liars, Book 5)

I’m on page 163. Should finish it by the weekend.

What did you recently finish reading?


Sara Shepard - The Lying Game
 
See my review HERE.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I have a huge list of books that I need to get to. First, there are my library books:


Gossip Girl #1: A Novel (Gossip Girl Series)
 

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy)

And my anxiously awaited book that I pre-ordered and picked up promptly after my vacation:


The Casual Vacancy

Review of “The Lying Game”

“At least she had a clear picture of what the Lying Game was now: Girl Scouts for psychopaths.”

Emma has lived in foster homes her whole life, but when she finds a video online that depicts a girl who looks exactly like her being killed, she searches for her long-lost twin. After seemingly being lured to Tucson by her twin, Sutton Mercer, Emma finds out that she got the raw end of the deal. Sutton grew up with everything a girl could ask for: parents, a sister, popular friends, a boyfriend, and anything monetary her heart desired. Except Sutton is dead, so Emma assumes Sutton’s identity. When Emma tries to explain what is going on no one believes her. No one, that is, but Sutton’s killer. In order to keep herself from being the next, dead sister, Emma has to play along with The Lying Game until she can solve the mystery of what happened to Sutton.
First off, before anyone starts harassing me over a review (seriously, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of – book bloggers shouldn’t have to deal with that stuff!) I seriously love Sara Shepard.  I read the first four books of Pretty Little Liars (which I still need to review here) and I was hooked immediately. When I picked this book up, I was really intrigued by the first page, so I was excited to begin reading it. However, like some of the other reviews I’ve read, I just didn’t get into it as much as I did with PLL.
Some people said they didn’t like the point of view that went between Emma in third person to Sutton in first person. I understood that Shepard was trying something new and that was fine but, I agree, I don’t think it did much for the story. If there had been small chapters here and there told in Sutton’s point of view (as does A. in PLL) we would have gotten the gist that Sutton is dead and she’s watching all of this as a ghost.
While the story line sounds innovative and interesting in theory, it just wasn’t. I got really bored of it quickly. It picked up in the middle when Emma was starting to figure things out and the killer had come back to threaten her. But there was just too much that I couldn’t believe about the whole situation to make me like any of the characters.
I agree with whomever said “Why couldn’t Emma just call someone from her hometown who would vouch for her?” I mean, technically, she is still not 18 so she’s under child protective custody until her birthday at the end of the book. Also, if Emma has been dirt poor and without a world of privilege, wouldn’t she be way more impressed with the gadgets and designer clothes she has? Plus, and I mentioned this on Twitter, how does she know to go to Trader Joe’s to buy Brie? And why would she be irritated with an old woman who holds up the line by paying with a check? If she’s getting into her diva role now that she’s assumed Sutton’s identity, I get that, but she wouldn’t just know these kind of things off-hand if she’s been in poverty the last 15+ years.
And Becky. So that’s their mother but Sutton never knew her but Emma lived with her? I guess that’s part of the mystery too.
One other small thing: Sutton? Is this a hip thing, to name kids after random London boroughs? I kept wanting to call her Mutton Surfer. I get that she’s a spoiled little rich girl who loves to pull deadly pranks on people. She gets her car impounded and she has a police record but she’s still living a charmed life. I can almost understand that but I’m not rich and I don’t shop for Brie at Trader Joe’s so I’m not sure.
Anyway, I doubt I’ll read anymore of the books, but I didn’t realize they’d made a TV show for it, so I can look for that next month.
All in all, it’s not a terrible book at all, I just wasn’t overall thrilled with it. If it weren’t for Shepard’s writing style, it wouldn’t have been interesting at all. Most teen readers would probably be into it since the mystery story is pretty intriguing. I’m just not sure they’ll love it as much a PLL. I do, however, give Shepard massive props for starting a totally different project though. As she said in the acknowledgements, it is really hard to start a new series.
My rating: (3/5)