Only a few hours away from Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.

Finish:

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1)

by George R.R. Martin

The Flamethrowers

by Rachel Kushner

Start:

The Moments, the Minutes, the Hours: The Poetry of Jill Scott

by Jill Scott

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

Banned Books Challenge 2014

Insurgent: 10-14 Challenged Books

Click HERE to participate

"DATES: January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014

RULES: Any book that has been banned or challenged counts for this challenge. Books can be read in any format and overlap with other challenges is allowed (encouraged!)

WHAT BOOKS CAN I READ? To help give you some ideas of what to read, check out the ALA's lists of frequently challenged books. There are multiple lists split up by author, year, decade, & a separate list for Banned & Challenged Classics, so there are a lot of options from all different genres. GoodReads also has several listopia lists on the subject -- this is particularly helpful for identifying books you already have on your shelves if you are a user of the site. Also, if you learn about a book getting challenged in the news or on the net, it's fair game and I would love if you also let us know where you heard about it.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Write a post identifying which level you are aiming to complete, linking to this sign-up post. If you don't have a blog, just leave a comment below stating what level you are trying for.

For each book you read for the challenge, you can link-up your reviews here, so we can read them! Reviews can be as short or long as you like, even a one-liner is fine. If you don't have a blog, but post reviews on GoodReads or other similar site, you can link to your reviews there. If you don't post reviews, you can leave a comment on the Review Link-Up page telling us which books you completed.

LEVELS: Below are the levels you can choose from. Changing your mind is OK -- you can go up or down in level at any time. I said low-pressure, remember?

     Making Waves: 1-2 Challenged Books
     Trouble-Maker: 3-5 Challenged Books
     Rebel: 6-9 Challenged Books
     Insurgent: 10-14 Challenged Books
     Leader of a Revolution: 15+ Challenged Books"

2013 A-Z Author Challenge

A - Stephanie Abrams - Rumors
B - Gillian Bagwell - The Darling Strumpet
C - Diane Christner - Something New
D - Sarah Dessen - Just Listen
E - Stephanie Evanovich - Big Girl Panties
F - Christopher Fisher - A History of Stone and Steel
G - Joshua Guerrero - Elemental and the Bête Noire
H - Diana Hammond - Friday's Harbor
I - Larissa Ione - Pleasure Unbound
J - Kaylene Johnson - Canyons and Ice
K - Rachel Kushner - The Flamethrowers
L - Emily Liebert - You Knew Me When
M - Susan Elia MacNeal - His Majesty's Hope
N - Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
O - Regina O'Melveney - The Book of Madness and Cures
P - Nancy K. Peardon - Marlon Brando: A Memoir
Q - Matthew Quick - Forgive me Leonard Peacock
R - Cheryl Richards - Deadly Dosage
S - Rayme Scarioni - Dinner for God
T - Joseph A. Turkot - Darkin: A Journey East
U - John Updike - Rabbit, Run
V - Sally Vickers - The Cleaner of Chartres
W - Annalee Wendeberg - The Devils Grin
X - Dalai Lama XIV - The Art of Happiness
Y - Jane Yolen - Briar Rose
Z - Mark Zusak - The Book Thief

The Resurrectionist Book Review

The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
The book goes back and forth between two protagonists Jacob of present day and Nemo of the mid 19th century. Jacob is the medical school PR guy after being put on probation for bad behavior and Nemo is a slave bought by the medical school to perform a dirty deed.
As a reader I never knew about these atrocities that occurred in the past so the book was captivating. The whiskey barrel scene awed me and the final medical experiment traumatized me. The recreation of the era past was the best part of the story and so well told. Slow moments mostly fell on the office moments with Jacob. While I understand how Jacob was integral to telling the whole story as a character he wasn’t that remarkable. Even with his connection to the past and his ties to the school there wasn’t much there. Also there are a couple of romances with one being completely unnecessary and the other giving just a bit of hope. I really enjoyed this and found it an intriguing read.


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Release July 8, 2013

My Husband's Girlfriend Book Review

My Husband's Girlfriend by Cydney Rax
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Anya has lost her sexual drive and she and her husband seem to be drifting apart, so in order to save her marriage she grants him a contract to get satisfaction from someone else, but a breach of contract may destroy this family.
This story is told from different character narratives, jumping from wife to husband to mistress. With a title like My Husbands Girlfriend one would expect drama and plenty of scandal, yet this story was so mundane with only a few sizzling moments. A lot of it was dialogue of each coupling arguing or contemplating. It’s not that the story was boring but after each episode I kept asking myself when do we get to a juicy part. There is an incident involving antibiotics that could have been so much better. Everything was very vanilla and ordinary, maybe a bit too realistic. The book was deceiving in keeping me reading because the dialogue was great and it is well written yet nothing really happened. Hooray for a happy ending.


View all my reviews Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

Book Review - Death in the Vines by M.L. Longworth

Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery by M.L. Longworth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A wine thief and murderer are on the loose in Aix-en-Provence and Judge Verlaque takes a personal interest in both cases.
Although this is a mystery, as I was reading I wasn’t thinking whodunit, but oh this is so vibrant. One is easily swept away in the vivid imagery. From the clothing to décor, architecture, and conversation, everything is so accurately described, yet not over detailed, that I feel as though I know it. Never having been to France I am walking the streets of Aix and seeing the pompous Pauline d’Arras. The smaller characters and their relevance to the crimes were just the right combination of humorous and clever. It is only after the crimes are did I have an aha moment and began really thinking about the past events
There were some slow moments and the relationship between Verlaque and Marine Bonnet was dreary and I didn’t care for the medical issue which seemed thrown in. Bonnet really doesn’t become very relevant till later in the book if at all. This book was a great trip and I was entertained most of the way through. If you love humorous mysteries or French countryside, this is the book for you.


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Release Date: May 28, 2013 Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

Parallel Book Review

Parallel by Lauren Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parallel by Lauren Miller © 2013
Release date May 14, 2013
 Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Teen
 Abby just got for a major Hollywood film and regrets missing her final days as a senior and the beginning of freshman year at Northwestern. The night before her 18th birthday she falls asleep only to wake up the next day at Yale living her parallels life.
Our central character Abby is an insecure, methodical, critical, wish-washy teenager. Not all at once, however these do seem to be her central traits. I had a hard time liking her only because most of the time she was a bit high-brow, but then after showed the weakness of a teenager. Yes she is a teen, but like most teens they think they are little adults and have most everything figured out if it all falls to plan. In knowing that she is a teen and with credit to Miller for accurately portraying that, Abby was easier to handle, just not likable. The only characters worth a damn are her Yale roomy Marissa and astronomy professor Dr. Mann.
What Dr Mann proposes is that in a parallel world we may take a different journey, but all roads lead to a final destination. In the story that chapters go from year 2008 to year 2009, with the parallel a year before and the next being the result Abby experiences a year after. The timeline is very important, some may have a hard time following the timeline, but if you pay close attention to the dates it’s straightforward.
The lure of the book is the sci-fi aspect of worlds colliding and the stars and ideas of multiple universes. That all get pushed aside for teenage melodrama and the struggle of choosing which brother to date and supermodel gorgeous yet brainiac best friend. On the whole this is more like a teenage soap opera with a sci-fi element thrown in and used only as a means to rack up the drama and make it seem more insightful. That could only mean I liked it. They say you should never underestimate the knowledge of a teenager, but I can’t help but feel that this is something that would appeal mostly to an under 23 crowd. It is enjoyable just not praiseworthy.


View all my reviews Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

Book Review

Dark Origins by Anthony E. Zuiker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So to start off, the only reason I wanted to read this book is because of True Blood. The man on TB that played Marcus Bozeman (Dan Buran) played Steve Dark in the videos. This is not the typical sort of book I would pick up, but I do like twisted stories. The writing isn’t terrible like some seem to think. There are plenty of literary figures who write worse than this and I enjoyed the book, story, plot, characters. I suppose it was a bit cliché and there were major errors that one could point out, but it was enjoyable. My only gripe with the book was the videos. They weren’t necessary to the novel. Most of the videos weren’t even accurate. Example Cyber Bridge 3 with the Dark Arts agents wearing masks even though he already knows what they look like. Bridge 15, just after she was abducted and was wearing pajamas on the table and looked completely unharmed although she just came from a car wreck which required multiple surgeries and minutes before he cut her face. You don’t need to watch the videos. I will pass on the rest of the series, but I am glad to have read it, because it was entertaing.

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Sleeping Beauty Trilogy

Beauty's Punishment

Best chapter "Soldier's Night at the Inn".