We're an Open Book
- Release Date: October 2, 2012
- Pages: 336
- Genre: Fantasy
- Publisher: Tor Books
Well, it’s time for to me fill my “Reading Outside of My Usual Genre” quota for the year.
I came across this book on NPR books where Amal El-Mohtar discussed how awesome the diverse covers for this book were and how Max Gladstone became one of his favorite authors. I had a Fantasy space in my Summer Book Bingo, so when I saw this was available on Scribd I started reading.
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- Release Date: November 8th 2011
- Genre: Thriller
- Pages: 849
- Publisher: Scribner
I’ve always been intrigued by the cover of this book; one side shows a newspaper with Kennedy’s assassination as the headline and the other side has the same newspaper with a headline saying the assassination had been avoided. This book has had been sitting on my Kindle since it was on sale for 2.99 and after finishingA Thousand Pieces of You I was looking for a more complex alternate universe story and figured King could deliver.
Everything you need to know about this book can be summarized from the cover. Basically, high school teacher, Jake Epping, goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination. I think saying anything else would just get… complicated….
Jess and I did a book swap as a way to force the other to read and review a book. The theme for our first book swap was 5-star reviews; we gave each other a book we’d previously reviewed as five stars. Jess gave me The Golem in The Jinni and I gave her Fangirl.
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Hey, did you read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus? Did you fall all over the magical aspects, charming side characters and nonlinear narrative? Well, I did and if you need something to fill that hole I highly suggest TheGolem and The Jinni. I grabbed this off my library’s Overdrive after seeing so many people reading it on vacation and it was just my kind of book.
Drenched in Kabbalah and Arabic folklore Wecker’s debut novel is the unlikely story of two creatures believed to exist only folklore finding their way in the immigrant neighborhoods of 1890’s New York.
The Golem is a newborn woman made of earth, who is quickly abandoned as soon as she is bought to life. Hiding out in the Jewish populated Lower East Side, her only solace is trying to meet the wants of others without revealing herself first.
Once free to roam the deserts of Syria, the Jinni is now selfish, arrogant creature made of fire and smoke, who is bound to human flesh, and has inexplicably awoken in New York City’s Little Syria.
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Audiobook : The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Jim Dale, infamous for narrating the Harry Potter audiobooks, brings dynamic performance to The Night Circus. This is my second time encountering this story of a magical circus told through the eyes of a romance. Once you get away from the idea of “main characters”, this book has so much to offer. The Night Circus has a way of breaking down the usual
fantasy elements; magic, glamour, spells, and clairvoyance and lets them shine in a new light. While probably not historical accurate once you step into the settings and watch Morgenstern perform her storytelling, you might just be ready to run away with the circus. –★★★★
Insurgent by Veronica Roth
It’s sequel time! Honestly, I wasn’t sure Insurgent could hold up as a sequel, but Insurgent is an action-packed novel with plot twists and surprises around every corner. I read this book over the course of a few months and I was able to easily get back into the plot each time. I enjoyed how the relationship developed between Four and Tris. I found them to be the only characters in this book who I could really care about. There were so many side characters I couldn’t remember who was who. Either way the stakes are higher in this novel and I officially can not wait for Allegiant! – ★★★★
How To Ruin A Summer Vacation by Simone Elkeles
Amy Nelson’s summer vacation has been ruined. Instead of attending tennis camp, she will be spending three months in Israel with her estranged father to meet her paternal family for the first time. Like most American teens all Amy expects to find nothing but deserts, guns and bombings but what she finds instead is love, family, and respect. Amy’s narrative is snarky, headstrong and carefree as she deals with the culture shock. This book has a few good moments that touch on the difference between American and Israeli teenage life, but overall the book keeps a light tone with little conflict. I found Amy’s voice a little less charming and in the middle of the book and at some point she came off as a bit ignorant. The romance was sweet but overtly predictable. ★★
- Release Date: January 29, 2013
- Genre: Sci-Fi/Historical
- Pages: 432
- Publisher: Blazer + Bray (Harper Collins Children)
Synopsis : Inspired by H. G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr. Moreau,The Madman’s Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we’ll do anything to know and the truths we’ll go to any lengths to protect. . . Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father’s gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.
. . . and you thought you had father issues. Juliet Moreau’s life has been world of hardship since her disgraced father, the mad Dr. Moreau, abandoned her family leaving them to ruin. Years later a chance encounter leads Juliet to her father and his mysterious island inhabited by strange islanders.
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