Becca's Book Bonanza!

Good Omens

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman I like the idea of this book more than the actual thing. However it did make me laugh out loud many times.. I found myself zoning out through most of it. It could be because of the audio book narrator.

Marked

Marked  - P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast probably more 3.5 stars.

It took me a bit to get into this one... the "teen vocabulary" was way over the top for me. Any time she said "boobies" or "poopie", I was taken right out of the story and left boggling at who would really say those words in a non-joking manner. Pair those childish words with some of the more adult subject matters in this book (talking about blow-jobs and kids getting pregnant young, and sluts, etc) and I was left confused as to who the audience of this book was supposed to be. It's too adult for teens, but too teen for adults?

But overall I started getting into the story more as it went on, and I'm actually excited to read the rest of the series and find out what happens! I will NOT be listening to it in audio book format any more though.. the narrator was incredibly annoying to me.
SPOILER ALERT!

Succubus Dreams

Succubus Dreams  - Richelle Mead The ending was very difficult for me. I almost gave up with only a couple chapters til the end.

Cheating is a trigger for me, and brings up lots of issues for me. The way Seth handled the breakup at the end really hit home for me in a painful way.... I think I'm going to have to take a break before reading the next book. I need to not be so attached when I read the painful stuff :P

Other than the end, though, I really enjoyed the book. This was the first time that I hadn't figured out the mysteries at the beginning of the story.. so that was cool to see them unfold.

Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy #2)

Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy #2) - Mira Grant *&^#)O(#%

BRB SPAZZING OUT RIGHT NOW

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke FINISHED FINALLYYYYYYY

Dark Lover

Dark Lover  - J.R. Ward 3.5 stars.

Fast, fun read, but I didn't really feel super emotionally connected to the characters. I'll definitely be continuing the series though!

Empire (In Her Name: Redemption, Book 1)

Empire (In Her Name: Redemption, Book 1) - Michael R. Hicks free today on kindle! :)

Glass Houses

Glass Houses - Rachel Caine Not sure what my Mom was flipping out about this series being so amazing. It was just meh to me. Interesting enough to keep going, but I'm not sure if I will be continuing. Although I may just continue since the books are short and I want to find out why my Mom is so gaga about this series :)

The romance between Claire and Shane is very unbelievable to me, and being inside this 16 year old's head is weird when she's getting all hot over this guy for no reason other than his looks. And I just can't imagine him being into her since he seemed to be associating her with his dead sister. Also I don't believe that Claire has feelings for Shane other than looks since she was also so taken with Michael's looks and she just kept talking about how both guys are so good looking all the time, but not much about their personalities.

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie so fun! Exactly what I needed :)

A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin This book had some major ups and downs for me. But mostly ups :) The author did a really great job with character development, painting all these different characters and giving them interesting stories. The stuff I could do without is the insane descriptiveness for a lot of details that don't further the story line (food, clothing, family lines, etc). I would get lost a lot of times during the descriptions cause they were just so verbose.

I wasn't sure I would read the next book ever. But so much is set up towards the end of book 1 that I just really want to know what happens! I'm not sure when I will get around to reading it though :)

I love how he plots each character's story in a certain direction, getting you excited for this certain direction and then BAM something huge happens that you never expected and all of that prep is out the window and you have no idea what to expect any more. It's refreshing after years of reading authors where they have formulas of wrapping everything up in a tight little bow and you can pretty much figure out how things are going to happen once you figure out the formula. It's exciting to read a book where nothing is sacred, people who you trust to be the "main characters" and never die will die anyways! I have no clue what to expect for the future of these books but I'm sure I'll keep getting surprised.
SPOILER ALERT!

Shadow Kiss

Shadow Kiss - Richelle Mead fffffffffffff :(

Vampire Academy

Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead 3.5 - really fast and fun read, and I'm already excited to get the rest of the series to see what happens, which is always good. I'm not even sure what made me like it so much, except that I was dying to find out what was going to happen. I'm starting to get attached to the characters, even though Rose is pretty hard for me to relate to a lot of times. It seems like she is evolving and becoming more relateable as she is growing up though.

The Knife of Never Letting Go

The Knife of Never Letting Go  - Patrick Ness Really dark and painful book. I don't even know what to think about it right now, except that I can't believe this is labeled as YA. I may fill in the review more later after I've thought about it some more
SPOILER ALERT!

Mockingjay

Mockingjay  - Suzanne  Collins Very painful book. I just kept saying "things couldn't POSSIBLY get any worse!", and I was proven wrong over and over. I cried so much when Finnick died.. that was so heartbreaking :( and then PRIM :( omg. The entire last fourth of the book was just so painful. But the last chapter really did tie things up pretty well, showing that even though they are severely damage physically and mentally Katniss and Peeta went on to create some happiness together.
SPOILER ALERT!

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood This world was definitely scary, but completely unbelievable to me. The way things evolved to get to that point didn't seem realistic at all to me. From what I gathered, it all started cause of a terrorist attack right? Then they started slowly taking the rights away. I'm not sure how they went from that to WOMEN HAVE NO RIGHTS. What the heck? It seemed to come completely out of nowhere

And yeah, I completely agree that it was enraging how cool with everything her husband seemed. "Ohhh we'll get through it together!" Um, no?

But at the same time, I don't feel like the main character really seemed too bothered by it either. Sure she seemed irritated and depressed she couldn't work any more, but there was no fight in her at all!

That was something that bothered me a lot throughout the book. Her lack of fight. She just lets herself get pushed in all these directions and never stands up for herself. Sure she is depressed about things in her head, but her only course of rebelling is to steal tiny nick-nacks from her owners? I would hope that if I were in this position as well that I would be more like Moira, or at least a mixture of the main character and Moira. I would definitely fight it when my rights first started getting taken away.. but if things continued and my life was endangered if I didn't follow, then I would probably be more like the main character but with Moira screaming in my head XD

I really enjoyed how the story was told. Going back and forth and revealing small bits of information at a time was fun for me. It was like a puzzle where I was given one piece at a time and needing to slowly put it all together to get the full picture. I was very intrigued to find out more information the entire way through.


I would give this a 3.5. I enjoyed it but it wasn't one of my all-time favorites. And one of the things that is needed for me to give a book a 5/5 is for me to fall in love with the characters. There were no characters that I loved at all in this story, so that was the drawback for me.
SPOILER ALERT!

The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi I give it a 2.5. It was really hard for me to get into, cause none of the characters really had much for me to care about except for Emiko. Emiko's parts were the only ones to really keep my interest, even though they were painful, I still felt for her and wanted things to get better for her.

I think this book was not served well by the audio book version I listened to. It was good quality, the narrator is good, but audio books let me zone out unlike real books and I feel like I missed a lot of the story cause I zoned out too much.

It was hard for me to understand the end and how all the political games were working out cause my zoning out had made it so that I didn't fully know who all these characters were and their relationship to each other and the government.

I think I got most of it though. Somdet Chaopraya was a bodyguard to the Queen, right? Does that give him any special political powers? Akkarat was an Environment Ministry person, but I'm not really sure how he fits in there. Anderson arranging troops really surprised me and left me confused.

I like how Kanya's story ended up, but it seems like things will just end up the same way they were before.

I really enjoyed seeing Emiko free at the end. She didn't get to her windup village, but this life seems just as good for her. Nobody is her master and she can live freely. I'm interested in where things go with Gibbons. He is such a creeper! But the last scene with him saying he could help Emiko, left me hopeful for her :)

Currently reading

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Progress: 60%
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
The Wonder Weeks: How to Stimulate Your Baby's Mental Development and Help Him Turn His 10 Predictable, Great, Fussy Phases Into Magical Leaps Forward by Hetty van de Rijt, Frans Plooij
Wolf And The Dove by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss