Bodie and Brock Thoene- "The Twilight of Courage"

I have a big issue with zoning out while reading. Which is why I normally limit my books to around 400 pages. With Twilight of Courage, I am over that limit by a good 200 pages. Which,  in the story it needs to be,  or else it would be rushed.

This is a historical fiction taking place in WWII right before Germany invades France. It tells the story of a wide selection of different people all being affected by the same events and finding themselves running into one another from time to time.

I liked this book even though it is oober long. It has taken me a week to read it, not because it takes a lot to concentrate on it, but because it has made me want to look up the events on the internet for further information. I am a huge history buff and this book has been a really good read. The only problem is around the 450th page I hit a reading wall and it took me forever to finish the book. It wouldn't have worked any other way because of the fact that there are so many different characters and each story is so complex. Considering that it is an intimidating read length wise, but it is totally worth it.

Fall Reading Challenge

I found this in a blog I found on good reads. It is a list of books to read by the end of the summer. I just happen to find it when summer is ending so I am going to alter it for fall. Here is the list:

1. One Book Recommended By A Friend. ( World War Z by Max Brooks)
2. One Book That Has Been Sitting On Your Shelf For Over A Year. (Coma by Robin Cook)
3. One Book You Read A Long Time Ago And Don't Remember. (The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Weisenthal)
4. One Book From Your To Be Read List. (11/22/63 by Stephen King)
5. One Book You've Never Heard Of. (The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle)
6. One Classic. (Othello by William Shakespeare) 
7. One Book You Started But Never Finished. ( Phantoms by Dean Koontz)
8. One New Release. ( The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman)
9. One Book That Is Outside of Your Typical Genre. (Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide For Him by Richard Miniter) 
10. One Chunkster (A Book That Is Over 400 Pages). ( The Twilight of Courage by Bodie and Brock Thoene)

I am really excited for this challenge. I will cross them off as I go. Here is the blog where I found the challenge on. I am going to make my deadline be October the 20th which is my boyfriend, Ethan, and my 2 year anniversary. Woo hoo! 

My Hamlet Adventure

I have found myself regretting my choices in high school lately. I took easy classes and never paid attention in the ones that were stimulating. I feel like I have been missing out on so many awesome things. One of these is Shakespeare. I'm just now at age 24, and have gotten around to reading Hamlet. Now, in order to really understand the actual plot I had to read a modern day translation. I have a tendency to zone out, so I cheated, and cheated well...

"To be or not to be..say hey to ya mothah for me."

One of the first things I found myself doing is matching the characters with actors. Hamlet was being played as Mark Wahlberg. I find that his accent made Hamlet extremely kick ass. Judi Dench played Gertrude. I found that because of these actors that my mind picked out I was able to read the play at lightning speed. Also because I cheated and read the modern day translation.

I am hesitant to really give my opinion on the play as a whole because of the fact that I didn't read the original text and because the play is really complex in meaning. I honestly think it will take me several times in reading it to provide a real opinion. As of right now, two things have popped in my mind.

One: Why is Hamlet so casual about seeing a ghost walk the Earth? Has he gone through life seeing ghosts all the time? The fact that he calmly holds a conversation with the ghost about purgatory and seeking revenge just tells me that he has balls of titanium.

"Hey ghost, let's have tea. Say hey to ya mothah for me."

Two: Is Hamlet acting mad or is he just a little bit bat-shit insane for real? The only time I found myself asking this question is when he was talking to the ghost of his father and his mother could not see the ghost herself. I was unaware that ghosts had the power of selective invisibility. Normally, when I hear about a ghost in a room with more than one person, everyone in the room sees the ghost. Having said that, I am not a paranormal ghost adventurer. Who am I to say what ghosts can and cannot do?

I will write a more detailed review on Hamlet later when I can comprehend it better. Maybe when I am better at not zoning out when I read. For now, those two points will have to do.

Michael Palmer- "Critical Judgment"

I am a bad hypochondriac. I check my pulse everyday and I freak out when I get a headache thinking it is a brain tumor. Having said that, I still manage to be able to read medical thrillers. I love them, too. Robin Cook really freaks me out, and yet I still can't help but read his books. This is the first Michael Palmer book I have read, and it definitely will not be the last.

I hate hospitals.

Dr. Abby Dolan is a newbie at the hospital in Patience, California while her boyfriend works at a battery plant nearby. As time goes on, she finds more and more curious cases of symptoms that can't be diagnosed as anything. Soon she begins to find more strange happenings that lead her into a dangerous investigation as to what exactly is going on at the battery plant.

I loved this book so much. It was fast-paced and exciting. It gave me yet another excuse to not go to the hospital. I have like, a billion excuses. There was a lot of times where I found myself skipping paragraphs due to all the medical stuff, but it's a medical thriller so what the hell else is it going to have in it? The ending was great as well. Definitely nothing I predicted. Dr. Abby was a kick ass protagonist and a damned good doctor. I wish I could be that cool, but alas, I have to worry about my pulse instead.

Moo Moo's blubber loss

I used feed Marley Mighty Dog twice a day. Half a can in the morning and the other half at night with a scoop of Kibbles n' Bits. She gained 3 pounds in a matter of days. I could see her blubber stacked on top of blubber. She waddled. Her feet were slightly raised above the ground when she was laying on her belly. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but she was a fat ass. I decided to cut down on her food to just half a can and a scoop of her dry food at night and she is back down to 20 pounds.

"So do I  get a treat or something?"

It amazes me how fatty dog foods are. I think it is all a conspiracy to pay higher for the "diet dog food". Anyway here she is when I told her she lost 3 pounds.

Lindy Lieban- "Unanswered Lives"

I love this picture. I envy her hair.

I love my family. There are so many people in it and everyone has an interesting talent that I can brag about. One of them is my Aunt Lindy. She paints beautiful paintings and writes funny articles for her newspaper. She has a cute little dog who I want to steal, but Moo Moo wouldn't appreciate that. She has esp and is glaring at me now for even thinking about it. One of the coolest things about my aunt is that she had the courage to write a book. I have an idea for a story, but I am too chicken to actually be serious about it and write it out.

In Unanswered Lives, a family becomes victim of a violent hate crime and tries to work out their past mistakes and future lives in the aftermath. The thing I love about this book is the fact that the characters have flaws that no right person would ever be able to forgive, but at the same time you love them for wanting to change and be better people. This was one of the best books I have read and it was challenging to put down. Yet again I found myself sacrificing functionality for the day just so I could read about this flawed family.

This book is also really rough and accurately portrays people who have to live their lives with hate and prejudice being targeted at them. It's a good book, but definitely not a light hearted read. It's one where you take something away from the story and it makes you stop and think about how you treat others. I am proud of my aunt for writing such a powerful book that I will brag about for years and years.

Carol Ericson- "Intuition"

This was one of many Harlequin Intrigues that my Nanny got in the mail. They come in a medium sized package that is too small for the mailbox and yet the mailman finds a way to shove it in there and I end up pissed off. I always find these books to be "piddley" and easy to read. If they are really bad, it's not really maddening because they don't take up a lot of time to read.

Let me throw you down the stairs!

In this Intrigue, a psychic named Kylie Grant returns to her hometown to find out what happened to a girl who disappeared three years earlier. When she gets there, she finds a high school crush named Matt Conner investigating the same disappearance. Together they try and track down what happened to the girl.

I found this book to be one of the alright books of the Intrigue collection. It follows all of the same Harlequin guidelines, but still manages to be somewhat enjoyable. The supernatural psychic aspect is refreshing and Kylie and Matt are likable characters. All in all this book is cute, but still not anything that shakes the ground in modern day literature, but who the hell expects that in an Intrigue anyway?

Harlequin Intrigue Rant

My Nanny - which is my grandmother for those who think I am a woman child - gets a pack of five Harlequin Intrigues each month and I have just started to really read what she has. Reading at least three of them I found something troublesome: All of the books follow the same guidelines.

I am a man. I build log cabins.

1st Guideline: A vulnerable female lead.
I find that every single female lead character in all these books are being hunted down by some sinister man. Do these women not know about self defense? Every time they knowingly go into harm's way so you would think they would come prepared with a thing of pepper spray or mace.

2nd Guideline: A big burly strong male lead to protect the wimpy female lead
It is always the same type of guy. Rough on the edges, ripped like a washboard, never follows the rules, and feels the need to protect the wimpy women in this world.

3rd Guideline: Female lead doesn't like to admit her vulnerability and instead pushes independence and almost gets killed
"Don't tell me what to do! I can't just sit here and do nothing! Oh, I almost got run over by a black SUV!" That's it in a nutshell.

4th Guideline: Both parties refuse to admit that they want to bed each other and then bed each other.
Do I really need to explain this one?

It is not hard to predict what is going to happen in these books, which is a shame. Some of the plots are pretty good, but the generic guidelines they follow take away from it. They need to spice it up a bit. Put a 50 something balding, pot bellied man in the mix. It is all I ask.

Laura Caldwell- "False Impressions"

   Have you ever ordered something from a menu that looked really tasty, but when you took a bite it was just "eh?" Either it is missing salt or sugar. Sometimes you can't quite put your finger on what's missing, but you know that little spice is just not there. In all instances you are disappointed because you were expecting so much more. This is how I felt while reading False Impressions. 
   

This book will make your brain explode!

    "Action, Suspense, Sex, all the stuff that readers look for." This is what is on the cover of this book. First of all, I want to know why people just look for these things in a book, anyway? Shouldn't a book be more than that? Shouldn't you be able to take something special away from reading the story? Don't get me started on the sex thing. To me the sex scenes described in books are always so corny. That is beside the point though. Even if one really does look for those things in a novel, they won't find it in this one. I felt like I was constantly waiting for things to get better. 

    This is part of Laura's series of mysteries involving the character Izzy McNeil. McNeil is a defense lawyer/ P.I. In this story, Izzy puts on her P.I. hat and dives into the world of art. A friend of McNeil's asks her to investigate a string of forgeries found in an art gallery. McNeil then goes undercover as an assistant to the owner to track down the forger and also protect the owner who is being stalked. 

    The whole time I was reading this book I knew there was something wrong with this book and I couldn't explain it until the very end. Izzy is way too bland. Everyone around her goes on and on about how mysterious she is, but there is nothing in the book that Izzy does or says to back up those statements. She is just there and I could never connect with her. She has quirks, but even those are bland. The whole book was like that. The ending wasn't predictable, but it too was just boring. Just like the food that you order that seems so good, it needs that extra spice to it. This book really does live up to it's name because the exciting reviews on the cover and inside give you false impressions of how the book really is. 
   

A Female Car Lover's Rant

I am currently reading a romantic suspense novel which I am going to review next, but there is something in this book that I just have to talk about separately just because it annoys me that much. I have found a paragraph that troubles me. I can't upload photos from my phone which pisses me off, so I will just quote the paragraph.

"From Cisco's, Johnnie climbed into his black Ford Mustang G.T. and fired up the powerful V-8 engine. He'd just bought the car, his pride and joy, a couple of months ago, black leather interior, 412 horsepower, 5.0 engine. Plus, he'd had a mechanic friend of his soup it up even more. The beast could really move. "

This makes my right eye twitch with irritation. This Johnny is a damn Army Ranger. Let that sink in for a second. Why the hell would an Army Ranger go to a mechanic? Especially if the car is his pride and joy?? Seriously?! I have a little 92 Mazda MX-3, I weigh 120 pounds and I wouldn't let a mechanic touch my car with a 40 foot pole! It just is a no no to someone who loves cars.

 Just having those rims adds 50 hp!

Let's move on to the car itself. Don't get me wrong, 412 hp is pretty powerful for a V-6 or even a little 4 cylinder, but a 5.0 V-8?? No, I am pretty sure that is stock. So the fact that he even went to a mechanic that made it faster is even worse because that implies that it had less than stock hp to begin with. People assume that just because it is a V-8 that means it is oober fast and bad ass. It is one of my pet peeves as an V-6 owner. Everyone assumes that since it is a higher number of cylinders, it is faster than everything else.

Now I know that I am being too harsh towards this book because it is a romantic suspense and not a lot of people who love cars read romantic books as well but damnit I do and this needs to be addressed. I only ask this, if you are going to make your character love cars make him be a respectable one. Not one that acts like he loves cars by buying a muscle car with a big engine and lets the mechanic do all the dirty work. It is not a good trait to have. That is all. End of rant.

Patricia MacDonald- "Cast Into Doubt"

The ship was attacked by sharks

    I hate cruises. There are too many people all trying to relax in the middle of the ocean where you can die by something eating you alive and I can never get that out of my mind. It's not fair for me to say all cruises are bad though, but the experience that I had was not fun. This book doesn't help matters either.

   In Cast Into Doubt, Shelby Sloan buys cruise tickets for her daughter and son in law thinking they will have fun relaxing times. Instead her daughter goes missing and the cruise line says she fell overboard due to her over drinking. Shelby is shocked that her daughter had a drinking problem and calls foul play. Thus starts her heartbreaking journey for the truth about what really happened that night on the cruise ship. Throughout the book Shelby learns disturbing secrets about her daughter and has to come to terms that her baby girl wasn't as happy as she thought. 

I wanna know what happens dammit!

   I loved this book. It was exciting and I found myself putting off functioning all day just so I could get to the end.The whole time I was rooting for the mother to not give up and find out the truth behind her daughter's death. I don't have much to complain about other than Patricia's repetitiveness in describing characters. It is almost like she forgot that she described the character in the first place. All in all I found this a thrilling page turner and has been put as exhibit C for my reasons to hate cruises. 4 out of 5 little drink umbrellas.

Shirley Wells- "Silent Witness"

Thank God! The last page!

     Three hundred fourteen has become a very special number to me. Not because it's lucky or is even or is how many times I have found an all red bag of skittles. No, three hundred fourteen is the last page of this grueling mystery novel. I say grueling not because it was so disturbing and made me hold my dog child close. It was damn hard for me to keep reading. This is the first time I have read a Shirley Wells book and apparently by the way the cover brags, this series of Dylan Scott mysteries is pretty popular. Why else would they brag?

   In this particular story, Dylan is hired by his mother's friends to prove that their son has been wrongly imprisoned for his ex-wife's murder. I hated the characters from the beginning. I am not a people person and found myself not caring for any of them. The guy in jail was a jerk, Dylan's wife was a jerk and even Dylan himself was a sexist jerk. Sure he was a good investigator, but I don't care he was an ass.

I get tired just looking at the cover

   By the time it started picking up and alibis started coming apart, I found myself counting down pages. At one point I even found an obvious typo. It wasn't a misspelled word, but the wrong name of a character. To me that was the highlight of the whole book. You just don't see that everyday. A lot of the characters did not need a perspective in the story. It muddied up the plot and made things complicated and unnecessary. This would have been a whole lot more suspenseful and thrilling if it was in first person. 

 Am I being to harsh? Probably, but it's not everyday I find myself looking at the page number before I start reading the actual page. To be fair, the ending was good. I wasn't expecting the outcome, but at that point I was so done with the book I didn't even care. I am going to give this series another try. Maybe this is just an isolated incident. However, I can't say that I loved this book and would read it again. That is pushing it.

Tracy Kiely- "Murder at Longbourn"

I am too good for color

    I don't like to toot my own horn, but I have a very vivid imagination. It is why I love to read so much. It is easy for me to get lost in a book. However, because my mind can produce such awesome explosions of visions of machine gun toting unicorns, I always find myself guessing the outcome of the murder mystery novel I am reading. It ruins the book when I realize the outcome, not because I get distracted by the sheer force of my powers, but because the outcome is so cliche and predictable. Which brings me to Murder at Longbourn.

     I wasn't expecting this book to be good. My grandmother got a five pack of suspense paperback novels in the mail which included this one. Normally these books are time killers,but never anything too amazing. The black and white cover automatically peaked my interest and the quirky plot made it a no brainier for me to pick it to be the first to read. 

   The story follows a quirky English literature fanatic by the name of Elizabeth Parker. Elizabeth gets an invitation to her great aunt's bed and breakfast for a murder mystery themed dinner for New Year's Eve. Right away I knew I was going to love this book just from reading the first few paragraphs. First person narratives are always my favorite because there can ever be too much going on. You see it as it is happening and it's easier for surprises to pop up. 

   As the book progresses, you are introduced  to Elizabeth's  fun eccentric great aunt named Aunt Winnie. I hope that I am as awesome as this woman is when I hit 60. Red hair, and snazzy clothes, it is a shame that all old people are not as charming. Even the guests at the bed and breakfast are interesting. This book had not one moment of dullness. Eventually the night of the party arrives and by the end of the night the shit hits the fan and someone is really murdered. This is all I will reveal because it really is one book that you just love to try and solve the mystery right with Elizabeth and her aunt. 

" I am late for tea daahling!"

   For a split second I thought yet again I had guessed the ending. I closed the book, asked why I have been cursed with such an awesome imagination  and angrily read on. To my surprise I was totally wrong and the ending was like nothing I expected. It bind sighted me and I loved every surprising minute of it.

   This is the first book I have read by Tracy Kiely and will certainly not be the last. Murder at Longbourn was a breath of fresh air among the predictable smog in the murder mystery genre. I give this  book a golf clap and two lumps of sugar in some tea.

Kristin Hannah- "Night Road'

River Song hates to ruin books.

    Three words, depressing as hell. Night Road paints the story of a family, friendship, and young love torn apart by one bad mistake made in one singe night. It is all I am going to say because explaining it more would ruin it. "Spoilers!"(total nerd reference)

    What I will say is that it starts slow and ends fast, too fast. Yet again Kirsten Hannah doesn't end the book. Just when all the character's lives are starting to turn positive and that's it, you turn the next page expecting an epilogue and instead you get a great big middle finger disguised as the acknowledgments. The problem is that you get so wrapped up with the characters. You feel so bad for them and want that closure and are left just wondering what happened. 

Kleenex sold separately

   It would have been better if it was consistently paced. It felt like a hamburger hastily put together. It was too complex of a story to be rushed through. In the end after I set the book down all I could think of was this is one book where I  am thankful I can't relate to what everyone was going through.

  Kirstin proves that she can tell a story about realistic characters and you can easily get wrapped up in the family's troubles. the only issue is that it is too rushed and the ending suffers because of it. If you want a heart wrenching read that leaves you depressed for weeks, this is the book for you!  

Kristin Hannah- "Distant Shores"

    Here I am sitting on the couch trying to find a word that best describes this book. The one word that keeps coming up is irritating. That's it, the actual word irritating. Can I just make a simple observation and say that Kirstin Hannah never ends a book? I have read five books by her and almost every time I turn the page thinking there is more only to see the acknowledgments. Now I understand that in real life you don't have neat endings like in fairy tales and it is probably why she does this. Her stories are about real life struggles, so why wouldn't it end like a real life scenario, but to me her stories never really build up to where it can end ike that. Especially in this one.

Heeey, it's me..a book.

   In Distant Shores, we meet a couple who live in a nice little beach town in Oregon. Right off the bat they are having issues and both are wondering if any of it's enough anymore. Let me just say that the husband, Jack, is a compete jerkwad. An ex-pro football player who only cares about fame and fortune constantly thinks about himself and how he can get it all back and become young again (douche alert). All the while his wife, Elizabeth, a.k.a. Birdie, is wondering what her life has become and is lost. She used to paint and is scared to start again. Basically she has lost her passion. To be honest, I am finding it hard to summarize this book. My mind wondered waaay too much for me to even really remember the details. I find that it was just a lump. Hey I am a book, here are my issues and characters and oh I am done. There wasn't much too it in my opinion.

One thing that just bugs the crap out of me is the blurb. It tries to enhance the book, but ends up just making it dull. The whole time reading I was waiting for the details that the blurb described and it never happened. DAMN YOU BLURB! Like I said, by the end of it I had one feeling. Irritation.

"What is this blog you speak of and why do I care?"

"Oh, look at  this witty foxy lady."

This is probably what most people are going to ask me when I tell them that I started a new blog. Most people includes my 87 year old grandmother who I live with. She thinks a blog is another word for a booger. "Hey nanny, wanna see my blog?" " WHHAAT? Put that in a Kleenex!" 

Marley thinks she is better than me. She is.

I have come to a point in my life where I ponder what I am really good at and what I should share with the world. I have a lot of options, but reviewing books is really the easiest. All I have to do is read and be honest. I could do that in my sleep. So this is my intro to the blog, I am going to act like I am in an AA meeting. Hello, my name is Rebecca and I like to read.