Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Crime of Privilege by Walter Walker

Crime of Privilege
A murder on Cape Cod. A rape in Palm Beach.

All they have in common is the presence of one of America’s most beloved and influential families. But nobody is asking questions. Not the police. Not the prosecutors. And certainly not George Becket, a young lawyer toiling away in the basement of the Cape & Islands district attorney’s office. George has always lived at the edge of power. He wasn’t born to privilege, but he understands how it works and has benefitted from it in ways he doesn’t like to admit. Now, an investigation brings him deep inside the world of the truly wealthy—and shows him what a perilous place it is.

Years have passed since a young woman was found brutally slain at an exclusive Cape Cod golf club, and no one has ever been charged. Cornered by the victim’s father, George can’t explain why certain leads were never explored—leads that point in the direction of a single family—and he agrees to look into it.

What begins as a search through the highly stratified layers of Cape Cod society, soon has George racing from Idaho to Hawaii, Costa Rica to France to New York City. But everywhere he goes he discovers people like himself: people with more secrets than answers, people haunted by a decision years past to trade silence for protection from life’s sharp edges. George finds his friends are not necessarily still friends and a spouse can be unfaithful in more ways than one. And despite threats at every turn, he is driven to reconstruct the victim’s last hours while searching not only for a killer but for his own redemption.


It’s rare that I find a book on the “blah” side. I tend to have pretty strong opinions, good or bad, but this one brought out the wishy-washy side of me. I can’t find fault with the writing itself or the characters, it was just kind of a dull book.

The novel starts out with a good amount of steam. There’s a nice rhythm to it that keeps the pace up through the first three chapters or so. After that, it changes a bit. Though it doesn’t necessarily drag, the pacing does get somewhat bogged down by lots of back story. A lot of it. It’s not badly written and it is interesting in its own right, but it doesn’t really help the plot as much as the author assumed it would.

The protagonist, George, is handled nicely. He doesn’t quite manage to pop off the page, but he does engage the reader with his faults as well as with his positive attributes. The rest of the characters, including the “bad” guys are a bit less realized. They are more cookie-cutter than I would have liked.

The novel’s main issue, in my opinion, is that it really isn’t extremely original. We’ve all read similar stories, and this one just doesn’t bring the excitement that comes with uncharted territory.
 
 
 
 
 

WWW Wednesdays


To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Escape from Eden
Currently, I'm reading Escape from Eden by


















The Story Sisters

And The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

















Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)
I just finished reading Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. You can read my review here.























A Fine and Private Place


Next, I'll probably read A Fine and Private Place by





















Monday, May 27, 2013

Musing Mondays


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.


The Story Sisters
I started reading The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman yesterday. I'm only two or three pages in, but I'm already enjoying the storytelling. This author really has a way of putting phrases together that makes her style completely unique and refreshing.




Just a quick note, don't forget to sign up for the Event Horizon Giveaway to get your copy of my new, signed chapbook!












Sunday, May 26, 2013

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.


This is probably the worst book I’ve read in years, and I’ve read a lot of books. It boggles the mind that this novel, and I use the word very, very loosely, made it through an agent, an acquisitions editor and multiple editors after that. What is going on with the publishing industry?

Let’s start with the characters, or lack thereof. Juliette is supposed to be our heroine. Yeah, right. She is the most useless waste of a character I’ve ever read. She is a melodramatic coward who spew these kinds of thoughts (and these are direct quotes): “I don’t understand why I need to wear clothes anymore and I’m a cumulonimbus existence of thunder and lightning and the possibility of exploding into tears at any inopportune moment,” and “My heart is a stick of butter, melting recklessly on a hot summer day,” oh, one more for the hell of it, “My eyelashes trip into my eyebrows; my jaw drops into my lap.” Those are just some of the awfulness of the writing as well as the thoughts in our “heroine’s” head. What a mess. Adam, the love interest, has no personality whatsoever. He is as pointless as she is and follows the author’s plot without any real reason. Their sudden attraction makes no sense, but after the first page or two I really didn’t expect it to.

The storyline has no plot, no tension, nothing to hold it together. It reads like a badly written fan-fiction, with apologies to fan-fiction writers. The author uses gimmicks that are supposed to make the story, I don’t know, more interesting, things like not using commas when Juliette is going through “strong emotions” which backfires on her because that means half the book is missing commas. Oh, and she’ll write one of Juliette’s thoughts and then cross it out as if it was too strong, too controversial to even allow her character to think it. When an author uses gimmick like that, you know you’re in for a long night.

My Kindle says that it’s two-hundred-sixty-nine pages long and it took me two months to finish it because it was so boring. Plus I was rolling my eyes so much that I was afraid they’d get stuck that way.

So. Don’t read this one. Really. I cannot stress it enough how awful it is.
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

My Second Death by Lydia Cooper

My Second Death
In Lydia Cooper's wry and absorbing debut novel, we are introduced to Mickey Brandis, a brilliant twenty-eight-year-old doctoral candidate in medieval literature who is part Lisbeth Salander and part Dexter. She lives in her parents' garage and swears too often, but she never complains about the rain or cold, she rarely eats dead animals, and she hasn't killed a man since she was ten. Her life is dull and predictable but legal, and she intends to keep it that way.

But the careful existence Mickey has created in adulthood is upended when she is mysteriously led to a condemned house where she discovers an exquisitely mutilated corpse. The same surreal afternoon, she is asked by a timid, wall-eyed art student to solve a murder that occurred twenty years earlier. While she gets deeper and deeper into the investigation, she begins to lose hold on her tenuous connection to reality--to her maddening students and graduate thesis advisor; to her stoic parents, who are no longer speaking; to her confused, chameleon-like adolescent brother; and to her older brother, Dave, a zany poet who is growing increasingly erratic and keenly interested in Mickey's investigation.


This was a book that surprised me a bit. I expected a thriller, just a regular genre story, so I found myself smiling at how carefully it was constructed, how lyrically it was written. Definitely not what I expected.

The main character, Michaela, is one of the more interesting protagonists I’ve read about in a while. She is so well constructed that, as strange as her behavior usually is, it doesn’t come off as that peculiar and we feel ourselves identifying with her thoughts. Which, of course, since Michaela is a borderline sociopath, should lead us to delve deeper into ourselves to see why we identify with her at all.

Which brings me to the writing. It really is a skillfully written book, revealing only as much as the protagonist wants us to know and filling in the holes bit by bit. I do have to say I felt the ending was a bit rushed. I would have liked more of an explanation so as to fully grasp what happened between Michaela and her brother, Dave. Since the rest of the book is so well paced, the speed at the end felt wrong.

This is definitely one I’d recommend to lovers of thrillers as well as literary fiction, and it’s not every day I can recommend one book for both of those genres!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Flight Behavior
From Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver


"Working outside the home took her about fifty yards from her kitchen, which was far enough. She couldn't see the dishes in the sink.” 

















Monday, May 20, 2013

Event Horizon Giveaway!!!

In celebration of my recently released poetry chapbook, I will be offering a free signed copy. I know poetry is tricky to read and can be troublesome when it comes to reviewing and things like that, but I think many of you will enjoy this collection.
It is a journey through depression, something from which I suffer pretty severly. It's a bit of an exorcism, acually. Purging the dakness from my body.
I would love to share my experiences with all of you and all you have to do is fill in the form below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway













Musing Mondays


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.


Flight Behavior
I started Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver a few days ago. It is so lovely. I've loved her writing since I first read The Poisonwood Bible and this new book is fabulous. It is literary, so the gorgeous writing gets to be center stage. Definitely one I'd recommend so far.












Friday, May 17, 2013

Follow Friday

Increase Blog FollowersQ: School is out! What is your favorite Summer Reading book??

I would have to say The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. I had to read it for my AP English class senior year in high school and I loved it. I've been hooked on Hardy ever since.



























Wednesday, May 15, 2013

And the Soft Wind Blows by Lance Umenhofer

And the Soft Wind BlowsTimmy Enosh is a peculiar, small man: fivethree, onehundredandfifteen pounds, and is a pharmacist in Ashton City, Tennessee.

He finds himself at fortythreeyearsold as his life starts to fall apart: his threehundred pound wife disappears, his romantic interest has lost interest and has gained hatred toward him, his coworkers harass him, customers verbally assault him, and he has the strange urge to adopt his foulmouthed, eighteenyearold coworker, Alex.

When things start to pile up, Timmy must find a way to deal: he turns to Alex to supply him with marijuana, starts sewing an elaborate Mr. Mistoffelees costume, finds solace in the wild, etc., etc., etc.

And the soft, constant wind of change blows him on, on, and on.


This book’s premise was definitely interesting: a man who slowly realizes he’s is being trampled in every aspect of his life and the catastrophic meltdown this inspires. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, the writing didn’t live up to my expectations.

It really was the writing that made this one a tough read. There were quite a few quirks, with the author doingsomethinglikethisandjoininwordstogetherwithoutspaces for no real reason. Once or twice might have been okay, to make a point, but it’s done quite a bit throughout the novel and it gets tiring for the reader. Another huge thing is the “show don’t tell issue.” We were “told” pretty much everything, instead of getting to know the characters and the situations by reactions or interactions. It’s tough to enjoy a book that has that kind of fault.

The last chapter or two did feel like they’d been written in a smoother manner, which made them the best ones in the book.

It’s tough to say something like this about an indie author, knowing how hard it is for them to get their books out there, but this is one I would not revisit unless it is heavily edited.




Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Flight Behavior
From Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

“Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.” 










Monday, May 13, 2013

The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

The Boy Who Could See Demons
Alex Broccoli is ten years old, likes onions on toast, and can balance on the back legs of his chair for fourteen minutes. His best friend is a 9000-year-old demon called Ruen. When his depressive mother attempts suicide yet again, Alex meets child psychiatrist Anya. Still bearing the scars of her own daughter's battle with schizophrenia, Anya fears for Alex's mental health and attempts to convince him that Ruen doesn't exist. But as she runs out of medical proof for many of Alex's claims, she is faced with a question: does Alex suffer from schizophrenia, or can he really see demons?

I’ve said it time and time again, but I will say it again: an unreliable narrator is, for me, the best literary device any author can use to produce a taut, fascinating narrative.

An unreliable narrator, though, makes it hard to write a proper review, since I don’t want to give anything away to those of you who haven’t read it. If I’m a little vague, then that is the reason. The story has two narratives: Alex’s and Anya. Anya is a psychiatrist who takes over Alex’s case when his mother tries to kill herself and his apparent delusions threaten to take over his life. We get tastes of both unique voices so that we do feel connected to both characters. This is why the end comes as such a shock.

The story is pretty straight-forward until the last chapter or so when we really start to feel something is “off”. The author manages to build a wonderful sense of tension throughout the novel, so that a few times I did find a slight shiver running down my spine.

If you love unreliable narrators and complex stories, then I do recommend this one. It’s a lot of fun.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Musing Mondays


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.


My Second Death

I'm reading My Second Death by
 















Sunday, May 12, 2013

The World's Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne

The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family
Josh Hanagarne couldn’t be invisible if he tried. Although he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was twenty, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6’7” when—while serving on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints—his Tourette’s tics escalated to nightmarish levels.

Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. Undeterred, Josh persevered to marry and earn a degree in Library Science. At last, an eccentric, autistic strongman—and former Air Force Tech Sergeant and guard at an Iraqi prison—taught Josh how to “throttle” his tics into submission through strength-training.

Today, Josh is a librarian in the main branch of Salt Lake City’s public library and founder of a popular blog about books and weight lifting—and the proud father of four-year-old Max, who has already started to show his own symptoms of Tourette’s.

The World’s Strongest Librarian illuminates the mysteries of this little-understood disorder, as well as the very different worlds of strongman training and modern libraries. With humor and candor, this unlikely hero traces his journey to overcome his disability— and navigate his wavering Mormon faith—to find love and create a life worth living.



This is a wonderfully entertaining memoir, which, though it does deal with a conditioning as misunderstood and frustrating as Tourette Syndrome, still manages to stay light and funny.

Josh, the author and narrator, is an engaging voice that catches our attention from the very first page. He has a self-deprecating humor that really makes the story flow well, without letting it get as heavy as it might otherwise be. He just has a way with phrases.

The way the book is set up, with anecdotes from Josh’s job as a librarian at the beginning of each chapter followed by a chronological narrative of his life, was particularly pleasant for me to read since it allowed us to get little tastes of the future. The writing itself was simple and efficient, with humor always leading the way.

I can easily recommend this book to everyone who loves memoirs and nonfiction books. Definitely a fun and enlightening read.








Friday, May 10, 2013

Follow Friday

Increase Blog FollowersQ: Happy Mother’s Day! Who is your favorite mom from fiction?

Eva from We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.
Okay, this one might seem a bit strange because the character is a pretty awful mother, but she is so interesting, so multi-faceted and dealing with a love-hate relationship with her son that it is hard to not enjoy her narrative. She shows a different side of motherhood, one not as rosy and pretty as we like to think about, and for that, she is my favorite.


















Thursday, May 9, 2013

My First Poetry Collection!

I am so proud to announce that my first chapbook has been published by mgv2>publishing!

It feels unreal to have a book with my name on the cover.
Right now, it is available as a print book here and in a few days I'll post the links for the ebook
copies. I am working to get my Goodreads author profile set up, hopefully tonight.

If any of you would like to review the collection, leave a comment with your email. I know poetry is not easy to review, but if any of you are game, so am I!










Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays



Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

From And the Soft Wind Blows by Lance Umenhofer

"She turned her head and snuffed his concern off like he and it were both annoying mosquitos; sometimes Timmy had the dream of Mandy swatting at him, because he was a mosquito, because he was so small."











Monday, May 6, 2013

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone, #1)
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
 
This was a fun book. Although it didn’t quite live up to the hype, I still found much to enjoy in its pages.

Something that immediately struck me and for which I applaud the author is that, although the story is basically one for young adults, the writing itself is for an adult audience. There is no dumbing down or gimmicky phrases to catch a teen’s attention, which makes it a much more complex story than it could have been. It’s one of those books that seem to defy classification.

There was a lot of originality in the story itself. Beyond the chimera and seraphim, though they are interesting in their own right, I found the setting most inviting. The ambiance was perfect for a story like this one, and it kind of became another character.

The protagonists were fine. I wish they’d been a bit more than that. I really wanted to fall in love with them, but I never got there.

I do recommend the book. It’s lovely, “eh” protagonists and everything. I’ll definitely pick up the sequel.
 
 
 
 

Musing Mondays


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.


The Boy Who Could See Demons
I'm reading The Boy Who Could See Demons by It's a really interesting book, almost a psychological mystery about a boy who, as the title implies, sees demons. There are two narrators, Alex (the boy), and Anya (the psychiatrist trying to help him) and they play well off each other, providing for a complex read. So far, I'm enjoying it.













Friday, May 3, 2013

Follow Friday

Increase Blog FollowersQ: Give us a sneak! What are you reading? Tell us about a fun or fail scene in your current read.



I'm reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. It's a pretty fun read. I'm close to the end and there are quite a few great scenes. One that stands out in my mind is a celebration sequence, where (and I'll try not to give too much away) two important characters meet. What strikes me about that scene is that the author really brings the reader right into the revelry. You are definitely there with the characters.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone, #1)