To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…• What are you currently reading? |  |
  | What are you currently reading? I bought a print copy of Beautiful Creatures to read instead of The Host because I just couldn't get into it. |
  | What did you recently finish reading? I wrote a reviewof The Future of Us on Easter Sunday. It was pretty good, but I had some issues with it. |
  | What do you think you’ll read next?I read about a quarter of Delirium already, so I'm anxious to finish it. |
Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paranormal romance. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
WWW Wednesday 3 Apr 2013 (Find out what I’m reading this week)
Friday, January 11, 2013
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.
- Novel Writing - Marshall
- The Truth About Forever - Dessen
- Along for the Ride - Dessen
- Beautiful Creatures - Garcia and Stohl
- Reading like a Writer - Prose
- Liar and Spy - Stead
- The Diary of Anne Frank - Frank
- If I Stay - Foreman
- Eve - Carey
- Adoration of Jenna Fox - Pearson
- Cold Kiss - Garvey
- Hollowland - Hocking
- Must Love Dogs - Cook
- The Summer I Turned Pretty - Han
- The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
- Bright Young Things - Godbersen
- Pretty Little Liars: Killer - Shepard
- Pretty Little Liars: Heartless - Shepard
- Burn for Burn - Han and Vivian
- Matched - Condie
- One Day - Nicholls
- The Secret Life of Bees – Kidd
- Glass – Hopkins
- Mockingjay – Collins
- All the Wrong Questions? – Snicket
- 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.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Friday Reads for 19 Oct 2012
This week I started the first couple of chapters (intros to the characters) in Burn for Burn by Jenny Han.
A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy)
I also read another chapter of Discovery of Witches last night, getting up to page 75, then took it back to the library. It was just too slow and after hearing details about how Diana liked her tea and how the vampire professor liked yoga, I just knew I didn't have the patience for it right now. Maybe later.
And today I started Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins because it was finally available from the library for my Kindle. I had heard good things about it so I wanted to find out for myself. So far the reviews are right - very cute, fun story. I'm at 11% so far.
Friday Finds via Should Be Reading, “where you share the book titles you discovered or heard about during the past week” are:
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
WWW Wednesday: 17 Oct 2012 (Find out what I’m reading this week)
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What are you currently reading?
A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy) by Deborah Harkness
I've still not made my progress in this book. I'm really not interested in it and I don't look forward to picking it up to see what happens. I'll probably give up and find something else. I accept that my attention span is too limited to read detail after detail without the characters doing anything.
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
The same goes for this one too. So far all I’ve read is that some guy has died of a brain aneurysm and different people in the town are reacting to it, chapter by chapter. Already there’s a verbally abusive father and I’m really too sensitive to read that stuff.
What did you recently finish reading?
Gossip Girl #1: A Novel (Gossip Girl Series)
I wrote my review here.
What do you think you’ll read next?
I think I may just set aside the ones I'm reading now and start either Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen or Burn for Burn by Jenny Han this week. I can be entertained by YA so much easier than the problems of adults.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Review of “Goddess Test,” “Iron King,” and “Switched”
I decided to review these three books together as they were the last YA books I read recently. They also all have very similar plots.
Carter, Aimee. The Goddess Test. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2011. ISBN: 9780373210268
Kate’s mother is dying and her last wish is to return to her hometown. While Kate struggles to adjust, she finds new challenges. After having a run-in with a classmate over a boyfriend, Kate is approached by a dark character named Henry. He convinces her that he will save her classmate, and prolong her mother’s life, if she lives with him six months out of the year – just as his last wife, Persephone did. In order for Kate to become Henry’s new wife, she must pass the tests of the gods and goddesses in the Underworld where she calls home in the winter.
I read this entire book because it was pretty quick and easy to read. It was interesting to have a book try and use mythology for its paranormal themes too. I can’t say I’d read the rest in the series, however. I couldn’t connect to the situation at all – aside from it being ridiculous, I didn’t feel anything from Kate other than the heartbreak of losing her mother. Henry was only described as dark and young-looking until half way through the book she says he has black hair. I wasn’t interested in their relationship at all and I really felt bad for Kate to be tricked by her mother and being Diana in the end. The poor girl went through the loss of her mother as a test? Plus, having everyone she encountered all members of the Underworld was a bit convenient as well.
In every review I’ve read, no one seems to recall any other characters’ names for some reason. I guess it was all the same thing – girl is the chosen one of some powerful guy and she is “forced” to wear pretty clothes and live in a beautiful palace. That was the theme in Breaking Dawn, The Princess Diaries and that’s the theme for all these books in this review. It’s getting old.
Kagawa, Julie. The Iron King. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2010. ISBN: 9780373210084
Meghan’s father disappeared when she was a child, and she’s always had a hard time at school because she’s a “hick” who lives on a farm. She has one friend, a boy who is very mischievous, and a little brother who one day turns feral. Meghan had no idea that she was a part of a magical world of fairies and she is the daughter of the king. She must travel with her best friend who turns out to be the literary historical Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and rescue her brother, and possibly her father.
I really liked this book at first because of the style and the normal day to day stuff then being transferred into a Narnia-type land was pretty cool. I loved her cat friend and I loved the action but half way through the action drove me crazy. There was always something going on to the point that I was exhausted. I didn’t finish the book because while I knew it would be interesting, I just couldn’t keep my attention up for that long to go through another fight or chase with some new creature that pops out of nowhere. By this time I was getting tired of Fairyland.
This book also had the same themes as the other two. Like The Goddess Test, there is the issue of having to wear pretty dresses and look fancy because the main female character is special. Like Switched, the family member is mysteriously gone and the evil mother doesn’t like the main character and they have to fight in the new, pretty palace that seems wonderful but it’s really terrible. Surely paranormal fiction can come up with something new soon.
Did Not Finish
Hocking, Amanda. Switched. New York, St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN: 9781250006318
Wendy was always hated by her mother and when she was a child, her mother was institutionalized for trying to kill her. Now Wendy lives with her aunt and her brother but she still has a hard time fitting in at school. She has a power to make people do things if she thinks hard enough. Her friend, Finn, helps her escape when to goths try to attack her. She is forced to convince her brother that she is okay but that she needs to be away for a while. Finn takes her to find her real mother, a queen of the trolls who isn’t at all pleasant. Wendy has to keep her feelings for Finn at bay and try to adjust to not only being different but being the princess of this new world.
I was really excited to read Hocking’s work and I do think she’s great writer. However, at this point of my three book stint, I was sick of the same plot lines. Not only does this also have the something happened when the heroine was a kid that hints to her being special, but it has the Princess Diaries plot line of having to live in this beautiful place with everything they get ever hope for, except it’s miserable. I didn’t mind the writing style or Wendy’s voice, it was just the troll thing that bothered me, especially since Wendy is short with crazy hair. I kept imagining a lawn gnome trying to put the moves on his fellow garden statue. I may go back to this book later but after reading three books in a row like this, I got tired of it.
Did Not Finish
Carter, Aimee. The Goddess Test. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2011. ISBN: 9780373210268
Kate’s mother is dying and her last wish is to return to her hometown. While Kate struggles to adjust, she finds new challenges. After having a run-in with a classmate over a boyfriend, Kate is approached by a dark character named Henry. He convinces her that he will save her classmate, and prolong her mother’s life, if she lives with him six months out of the year – just as his last wife, Persephone did. In order for Kate to become Henry’s new wife, she must pass the tests of the gods and goddesses in the Underworld where she calls home in the winter.
I read this entire book because it was pretty quick and easy to read. It was interesting to have a book try and use mythology for its paranormal themes too. I can’t say I’d read the rest in the series, however. I couldn’t connect to the situation at all – aside from it being ridiculous, I didn’t feel anything from Kate other than the heartbreak of losing her mother. Henry was only described as dark and young-looking until half way through the book she says he has black hair. I wasn’t interested in their relationship at all and I really felt bad for Kate to be tricked by her mother and being Diana in the end. The poor girl went through the loss of her mother as a test? Plus, having everyone she encountered all members of the Underworld was a bit convenient as well.
In every review I’ve read, no one seems to recall any other characters’ names for some reason. I guess it was all the same thing – girl is the chosen one of some powerful guy and she is “forced” to wear pretty clothes and live in a beautiful palace. That was the theme in Breaking Dawn, The Princess Diaries and that’s the theme for all these books in this review. It’s getting old.
Kagawa, Julie. The Iron King. Ontario, Harlequin Teen, 2010. ISBN: 9780373210084
Meghan’s father disappeared when she was a child, and she’s always had a hard time at school because she’s a “hick” who lives on a farm. She has one friend, a boy who is very mischievous, and a little brother who one day turns feral. Meghan had no idea that she was a part of a magical world of fairies and she is the daughter of the king. She must travel with her best friend who turns out to be the literary historical Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and rescue her brother, and possibly her father.
I really liked this book at first because of the style and the normal day to day stuff then being transferred into a Narnia-type land was pretty cool. I loved her cat friend and I loved the action but half way through the action drove me crazy. There was always something going on to the point that I was exhausted. I didn’t finish the book because while I knew it would be interesting, I just couldn’t keep my attention up for that long to go through another fight or chase with some new creature that pops out of nowhere. By this time I was getting tired of Fairyland.
This book also had the same themes as the other two. Like The Goddess Test, there is the issue of having to wear pretty dresses and look fancy because the main female character is special. Like Switched, the family member is mysteriously gone and the evil mother doesn’t like the main character and they have to fight in the new, pretty palace that seems wonderful but it’s really terrible. Surely paranormal fiction can come up with something new soon.
Did Not Finish
Hocking, Amanda. Switched. New York, St. Martin’s, 2010. ISBN: 9781250006318
Wendy was always hated by her mother and when she was a child, her mother was institutionalized for trying to kill her. Now Wendy lives with her aunt and her brother but she still has a hard time fitting in at school. She has a power to make people do things if she thinks hard enough. Her friend, Finn, helps her escape when to goths try to attack her. She is forced to convince her brother that she is okay but that she needs to be away for a while. Finn takes her to find her real mother, a queen of the trolls who isn’t at all pleasant. Wendy has to keep her feelings for Finn at bay and try to adjust to not only being different but being the princess of this new world.
I was really excited to read Hocking’s work and I do think she’s great writer. However, at this point of my three book stint, I was sick of the same plot lines. Not only does this also have the something happened when the heroine was a kid that hints to her being special, but it has the Princess Diaries plot line of having to live in this beautiful place with everything they get ever hope for, except it’s miserable. I didn’t mind the writing style or Wendy’s voice, it was just the troll thing that bothered me, especially since Wendy is short with crazy hair. I kept imagining a lawn gnome trying to put the moves on his fellow garden statue. I may go back to this book later but after reading three books in a row like this, I got tired of it.
Did Not Finish
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