November was a less than stellar reading month, both for quantity and quality. It wasn’t terrible in either respect, but it is my low point since I’ve been blogging.

I read 12 books.  5 of them were only OK, and I had been hoping for more from them.

On paper:

• Tales for Delicious Girls by Barbora Knobova
• Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen
• Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-same by Mattox Roesch
• Everything Hurts by Bill Scheft
• Fallen by Lauren Kate
• Now & Then by Jacqueline Sheehan
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
• To Desire A Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt

In audio:

• Silence by Thomas Perry
• The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3) by Dan Brown
• Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
• Hard Truth: A Novel by Mariah Stewart

The high point for the month was Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-same. I’ll also flag To Desire A Devil, as it may be my favorite romance so far this year.

I’m still behind on my review writing.  I’ve still got several books from the October readathon that haven’t been written up yet.  This hasn’t been a good blogging month, and I apologize to you.  I doubt that December will be better, but I hope to get my act together again in January.  Please hang in there with me!

I’m currently reading Tethered by Amy MacKinnon and listening to Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

I need to read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for book club next Monday.  My other book club will be discussing Julie & Julia by Julie Powell.  Since I’ve already read it, I’m planning to read My Life in France by Julia Child.

I’ll be reading Buckley’s Story by Ingrid King and A Deep Kiss of Winter by Kresley Cole & Gina Showalter for blog tours.

I have mixed results on my challenges.

I’ll be tallying results from Clear Off Your Shelves Challenge at S. Krishna’s Books soon, but I made my goal just based on my October books, there should be no problem with my total.

Since I realized I have 6 more months than I thought on the Sookie Stackhouse Challenge, I’m in great shape there with 6 of 9 books read and 7 months remaining to read them in.

The Everything Austen Challenge is not going as well, as I have one more month to complete 3 items.  We’ll see what happens.

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

My rating may not quite be fair, since I think it is based largely on me not being the target audience for the book.  Tales for Delicious Girls was cute, funny and had entertaining stories. If it had been a straight memoir, I would have enjoyed it immensely.

Instead, she’s telling these stories as inspiration for dealing with dating and men. There are a few chapters that deal with female friendship and with loving yourself, but the primary focus is the ins and outs of new relationships.

I married my college sweetheart.  My high school and college dating life was much less interesting than what she described.  I’ve never really dated as an adult. I’ve never lived the life she describes, and neither have any of my friends.

I’m still stinging from one of the few references to a life like mine. It was in a chapter about men who are attracted to smart, intelligent, educated, independent women, but then are intimidated by those qualities; who don’t want an equal partnership. She refers to a man who dumps the wonderful woman described above, and marries a homemaker. He finds her boring, and has an affair with another smart, intelligent, educated, independent woman. What’s a smart, intelligent, educated, independent mom at home (like me) to take from this?

Most of the stories examine differences between men and women, or look at the role men play in a woman’s life.  A message about staying true to yourself comes through strongly.  Most of the stories are funny and well told.

I’ll pass my copy on to a single friend. I think she’ll really enjoy it, but I don’t think I’ll need to pick it up again.

This is a review stop for Barbora Knobova and Pump Up Your Book Promotions.   Thank you for the opportunity (and the copy of the book).  For other viewpoints, check out the other tour stops.  Other people had very different opinions of the book, and Barbora has guest posted at many sites, so you can get a taste of her writing and her viewpoint.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Silence was an enjoyable thriller, with a few annoyances in the female characters.

From Goodreads.com:

Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But now her ex boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is being framed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, and Till must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and Sylvie Turner do.

The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, and prefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has let the true employer know their identities, finishing the job is no longer enough. Their fee just went up. And now they must double-cross the man who wants Wendy dead before he can double-cross them—if their jealousy and cold-blooded calculations don’t result in a fatal lovers’ quarrel first.

Thomas Perry is known for his Jane Whitefield books, about someone leading people into hiding and into new lives.  Silence has an interesting twist on this idea– Jack Till coached Wendy Harper in the skills she would need to successfully disappear 6 years ago. Now, he needs to find her, and must unravel the steps she took.

The book switches between views of Jack (& Wendy) and that of Sylvie (& Paul) Turner, the ballroom dancing killers for hire, with occasional looks at other characters. For the most part, the characters were interesting and well written, but I had an issue with each of the two primary female characters.

Sylvie married a killer for hire, and became his partner in his business as well. In the middle of a job (which isn’t going well), she keeps worrying about why he doesn’t show her more affection, does he still love her, is she losing her beauty as she’s aging, and so on. This was distracting and unnecessary.

Wendy’s actions are shaped by her falling in love with Jack during their short acquaintance, when he was teaching her how to escape the person trying to kill her. In spite of this, she marries a man with children, putting them all in danger. I wanted to think she was a different sort of person.

Paul and Sylvie were quite funny, but I found their cavalier attitude towards killing disturbing.  I’m not counting this as a flaw, but I did want to mention it as a warning.

There was a twist at the end I didn’t see coming, one that answered the minor problems I had with the plot up until that point. The book kept me listening, and that’s the biggest test of an audiobook.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book attracted me mostly due to its name– somehow, the book description didn’t give me an idea of what to expect.

(I much prefer the description on Unbridled Books to the one that is on Goodreads and on Amazon).

Same-same is as quirky as the name would lead you to expect- quirky without being either cute or light. The focus was on character– mostly that of Cesar.

Cesar was on a bad path in LA, one likely to end like that of his brother, who is in jail because of his role in a gang shooting. Cesar has already found himself involved in one truly terrible crime.

Moving to Alaska with his mother gives him a new start, just not the one he’s looking for. He’s got a plan to move back to LA and move in with his dad. Unfortunately, his father is most notable in this story for his absence.

Luckily for all involved, Cesar meets up with his local cousin, Go-boy. The reader as well as the characters in the book wonder whether Go-boy is crazy. Certainly, the letters he writes to Yoko Ono are crazy. The signs he puts up around town are pretty crazy. On the other hand, there seems to be a method to his madness.

My favorite character was Kiana, Cesar’s girlfriend and Go-boy’s cousin. She’s a teenage math genius who doesn’t always make good personal choices. I’d love to know what happens to her down the road.

The books looks at issues of character and of responsibility, questions of how one decision (or non-decision) can change a life. I didn’t always like the conclusions the characters came to, but they had me thinking. Same-same is thought provoking while being funny and readable.

Thank you to Unbridled Books for providing me with a copy of this book!

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I finished reading this book, I was really grumpy about the ending. Really, really grumpy. I had to step away before writing my review.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I was so bothered by it.

From Goodreads.com:

There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at the Sword & Cross boarding school in sultry Savannah, Georgia. He’s the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are all screw-ups, and security cameras watch every move.

Even though Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce–and goes out of his way to make that very clear–she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret . . . even if it kills her.

Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a page turning thriller and the ultimate love story.

I still have some issues with Fallen, and particularly the ending. I can go with almost any premise, if the rules of that universe are followed. This is hard to do when said premise isn’t set out until the end. That also makes writing this review hard, since I don’t want to give too much away.

As I was reading the book, I kept thinking “That’s strange. There’d better be a reason for that character behaving that way.” or “I hope the author is going somewhere with this setup”.

I’ve got two problems with this. First, it stopped me while I was reading the book. I wasn’t wondering about the story, I was wondering about where the author was going with the story. Second, I still didn’t feel like the groundwork was really set for the end.

The writing was quite readable.

I liked Luce as a character. She was smart and articulate, particularly about her issues with the shadows that haunted her for her entire life. I liked the other characters taken individually, but I didn’t like the way they came together– we’re back to the “why is the author doing that” feeling again.

The romance exactly as portrayed in the publisher summary, with the addition of another potential suitor, one that showed interest in Luce. Luce’s feelings over the pull from these two boys worked for me.

I had mixed feelings on the whole setting. I loved the mysterious school, but Luce didn’t seem to belong in a reform school. The notion of this school that’s near her home, but where her parents only visit her on the once a year visitor’s day just never settled right. They were set up too much as a normal, loving family, trying to deal with her “problem”.

The school scenes were good. About half of the scenes setting up the secret ending were engaging, half left me wondering. What does that add up to for the whole book? I don’t know, I’m still trying to decide.

My copy of Fallen came from the publisher for review. Thank you for this opportunity.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank goodness, I enjoyed this one much more than the previous Sookie Stackhouse book!

Sookie has her love life under control, and is pursuing only one man– Quinn, a were tiger. She’s dealing with feelings from past relationships (or almost relationships), and that’s fine. We have an explanation for her rather extreme attractiveness to supernatural men.

I like how her relationship with Eric is playing out– she’s making it clear she isn’t falling in line as one of his subjects. Both are dealing with emotional fallout from past events, and are struggling for a grip on what this means to them.

I was interested in the background we get on Bill. I like the new character of Amelia.

Better yet, we have a plot or two! There were actual mystery/adventures that held my interest. There were also details of how vampire society works, and I always like that part of the world-building.

Looking around the net a bit, I found out there is a short story that falls between Dead as a Doornail and this one that fills in some of the details that I was wondering if I’d missed somewhere.

I read Dead as a Doornail for the Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge. This is book 6 of 9.

Other reviews:

• Alison’s Book Marks
• Chick Loves Lit
• Bellas Novella
• A Reader’s Random Ramblings
• Moonlight to Twilight Blog
  
• Ashley’s Library

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think it may be unfair of me, but I would have liked this book better if I hadn’t read Harry Potter.

Summary from Goodreads.com:

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

My problem is that all aspects of the book were fine, but nothing was great.

If the book had been strong in one area– strong characters, an interesting world, an involving plot– anything that stood out, then all the rest would have been done well enough to support it. Unfortunately, nothing about the book ever grabbed me.

Harry Potter showed how fun a magical world could be. I understand that this is a grown up book, and that fun isn’t necessarily the point. In that case, give me depth instead– something to make the magic worthwhile. The details given about how magic worked were interesting, but never felt fully fleshed out. It didn’t give me insight into our world. It simply moved the story along.

The characters weren’t enough to carry the book for me. I never really liked Quentin. I didn’t understand why he was so miserable throughout the book. The book didn’t even work for me as a look at the life of a troubled college student because I never really related with him.

None of the other characters were portrayed with any depth to them. I think I might have enjoyed the book more from Alice’s point of view.

I can’t help comparing The Magicians to Looking For Alaska by John Green. That book was about a high school boarding school (no magic involved) where the students were equally troubled, equally obsessed with alcohol and sex, but they were far more interesting (and no less mature) than those in this book.

I really wanted to like the parts relating to Fillory, but all I could do was think about what was and wasn’t like Narnia. It never came together as its own magical place for me.

In spite of all this, I didn’t dislike the book. I just thought it could (and should) have been better.

After reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and then discussing it with my book club, I started remembering my daughter’s imaginary friends. I dug out the notes I made when she was about 5, nearing the end of her constant talk of “The Imaginaries“.

This is long, but I think it’s funny.

Amelia had her first imaginary friend before she turned two. The friend’s name was “Miss Blue“. Sometimes she’d want me to play the part of Miss Blue, sometimes she would be Miss Blue, and sometimes Miss Blue was there, playing with us. Miss Blue had been in our lives for a month or more when we went to Target one day. As we were going down the aisles, Amelia’s eyes got big, and she pointed and shouted “Look! Miss Blue!”. She was pointing to a Blue’s Clues bath mitt– one that was like a puppet. She had seen other Blue’s Clues toys– I think she may even have had some already (she loved the show), but none of them were “Miss Blue”. I bought Miss Blue for her, and Miss Blue was only present in the bathtub from that day on.

When Amelia was 1 1/2, she got her first doll for Christmas . It cried, and she was terrified of it. We took the sound box out, but she still wanted nothing to do with it.  Just before her second birthday, she found the doll and started playing with it. Amelia named her “WisWis” and started calling her Baby WisWis. Since she was interested, I gave Amelia an old doll of mine, and she named this one “CeCe” (called Baby CeCe).

After a little while, she’d play with Baby CeCe and Baby WisWis even if the dolls weren’t there.  Soon “Big CeCe” and “Big WisWis” joined the crowd– they seemed to be older versions of Baby CeCe and Baby WisWis. Amelia would be sitting in her carseat while we were driving somewhere. Suddenly, she would start waving and yelling “Big WisWis! Over here! I’m here! I’m here!” and a conversation would commence.

Her relationship with the four of them came to a tragic end sometime when she was 3.

Amelia had taken Baby WisWis and Baby CeCe (the dolls) into the bathtub with her. Baby WisWis had a cloth body. I squeezed her out as best I could, and hung her up on the towel rack to dry. Amelia was amused by this. Baby CeCe had a hollow body, and water leaked inside. I got out what I could, but some water remained. Amelia pointed this out the next day. I performed CPR on Baby CeCe, and water came out of her mouth. Amelia did NOT like this.

The next day I was informed that Baby CeCe and Big CeCe were taking naps, and couldn’t be woken up. After they failed to wake up for several days, I grew concerned, and checked on Baby CeCe, who appeared to have developed pneumonia– she still had water in her chest. I took her to the baby hospital (out of Amelia’s sight) and cleared up the congestion.

Amelia was still somewhat suspicious of both real and imaginary CeCes. Unfortunately, Baby CeCe lost her leg in a tragic accident shortly afterward. That was all Amelia could handle.  CeCe and WisWis had to be kept out of site, and all four imaginary friends were at home taking naps any time I asked about them.

She never again wanted anything to do with the doll CeCe, but the doll WisWis eventually returned to play. The imaginary friends have not been seen since.

I don’t remember when generation 3 of imaginary friends started– I do remember Amelia playing school with them the summer before she started preschool, so I’d guess it was just after she turned 3.

First was LaLa, followed by Emily and then Lau.  These were more run of the mill imaginary friends, at least to start with.  They were joined by a secondary cast that would come and go– many I only heard about a couple of times.  A few (like Doot Doo and Imaginary, among others) made repeated appearances.

Then, they (the imaginary friends) developed friends that were not Amelia’s friends.   She was quite clear on this, and would tell us about them.  The didn’t seem to be troublemakers, and I often wondered whose choice it was not to be friends:  Amelia’s, her imaginary friends’ or the other friends’.

Next, the imaginary friends started having imaginary friends (which were different from the friends they had that weren’t Amelia’s friends. That’s right.  In the world of the imaginary friends, there were real friends and imaginary friends).

We were at Costco for a BIG shopping trip, and Amelia asked if I knew why the cart was so heavy.  I listed some of the heavy things in the cart (including her) and she said that was part of it. It was REALLY heavy because I was pushing the cart with her in it, and she was pushing another heavy cart with Lau in it, and Lau was pushing a heavy cart with one of her imaginary friends in it, and Lau’s imaginary friend was pushing a cart, too.

There was also a period where I would need to babysit Emily any time Amelia left the room.  I’d need to give a full report when Amelia returned.  This is the only time Amelia has wanted me to acknowledge the imaginary friends– I never needed to set a place for them, or keep from sitting/stepping on them.

There were several months where Lau would have at least one birthday a week. Lau’s age at the party varied widely, however.

The change from generation 3 to generation 4 was very subtle, and I’m not entirely sure I should call it a new generation. LaLa hadn’t been around for at about a year, and Emily for at least 6 months.

At this time, Lau only appeared in one context. If I said we were going somewhere, and Amelia wasn’t sure she liked the idea, she’d tell me she needed to pick Lau up somewhere at that time, so she wasn’t sure she could go.  If she thought about it and decided it was OK, then she’d tell me Lau could stay all day at gymnastics camp, at extended care at preschool, or something similar.

I stopped detected new recurring characters.  She’d spend a huge amount of time playing with her imaginary friends, but it was different– she would tell a long, drawn out story and interact with them.  She’d use different voices for different friends, or she’d say “Musashi says….” and then “something something says Aubrey”.  She was much less likely to make up names, they’d often belong to classmates.

She told me she had “a thousand hundred” imaginary friends. She dubbed the whole troupe of them “The Imaginaries”.  She’d say things like “we have a really big family if you count The Imaginaries”.

Once she started elementary school, The Imaginaries disappeared, or at least went undercover (After reading this,  she says they all went to their own big house).  Her voice would be much softer when playing, so I didn’t get as much of the story and of the characters.  I miss The Imaginaries!

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favorite books of the year. The audio version is amazing.

The beauty of this book is in the characters, particularly the three leads.  The South of the 1960s is a character unto itself, a highly segmented society in a world that is changing around it.

Skeeter was raised to be a Southern lady– her purpose in life was supposed to be getting married, having children, and running a household (with the unacknowledged assistance of the help).  Her mother is embarrassed that Skeeter graduated from college without finding a husband, but Skeeter isn’t so sure this is the end of the world.

Skeeter doesn’t know it, but  she’s ready to move into a new era.  She’d like to work as a journalist.  She’d like to have her writing published, not just her household tips, but something more.

She’s given an amazing opportunity– if she writes about something she REALLY cares about, it will be read by someone with the power to make something happen.

As she looks at her life, she realizes that a very important set of players is consistently overlooked– the help, the black women that do the day to day work of running the households and raising the children.  These women are not treated with respect, and Skeeter wants to tell their stories.

Doing this is a risk for Skeeter, but the risk the black women are taking is incredible. This is one of the reasons that hearing the different viewpoints was so powerful– I wouldn’t have been able to feel this fear as thoroughly if I’d only had Skeeter’s view.

Aibileen is the first person to agree to work with Skeeter.  She’s also a writer, although if Skeeter’s chances of being published are small, Aibileen’s are non-existent.  This doesn’t stop her from watching everything around her with a writers eyes.

Aibileen mostly accepts her role in society, but she isn’t happy about it.  She loves taking care of young children, and has been handed the raising of her current charges.    She has a warm, loving demeanor, and wants to be a peacemaker– but she also wants change.

Minny is also involved in Skeeter’s project, although she is far less willing than Aibileen.  She doesn’t trust Skeeter at all, since Skeeter is white.  Minny is a strong, sassy woman who has made mistakes in her own personal life.

Minny doesn’t hold her tongue easily, and this has limited her employment prospects.  She’s found a job working for a rather unusual woman, but has reason to think her grasp on the job is rather tenuous.   None the less, when events of the day show all of her community how vulnerable they are, she is able to motivate more women to be interviewed for Skeeter’s book.  She also is the one that comes up with the scheme that they hope will keep them anonymous, and therefore safe from retribution.

Going back and forth between the three characters, seeing how it took all of them to make Skeeter’s book happen, and seeing the effect the book has on everyone in the community was compelling reading.

The book did an amazing job of telling the story of the society of the time by showing us these three women and their lives.  There were some funny moments, as well as many touching ones and outright sad ones.  There were beautiful tales of love and respect between some of the pairs of white and black women.

I listened to the audio version of this book.  I think it is one of the best audio productions I’ve listened to, and really added to my enjoyment of the book.  Hearing the different voices (with appropriate accents) for the 3 characters really helped them come alive for me.  All narrators were excellent.

I read this book for my Book Club M. We had a good discussion in spite of only having three of our six regular attendees– two of them had last minute situations come up. I think all three of us liked The Help more than we expected– one didn’t really want to read it, but really enjoyed it. We talked about what made the book work, about how authentic we found the characters, and about the different paths that Skeeter’s life could have taken. I strongly recommend The Help for book club discussion.

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars.

I liked Now & Then, but I didn’t love it.

Usually when this happens, I can list what I did and didn’t like about the book. I’m finding that difficult to do. The book was pleasant enough. There wasn’t really anything I disliked about it. There wasn’t a lot that I strongly liked, either.

From the book cover:

Anna O’Shea has failed at marriage, shed her job at a law firm, and she’s trying to re-create herself when she and her recalcitrant nephew are summoned to the past in a manner that nearly destroys them. Her twenty-first-century skills pale as she struggles to find her nephew in nineteenth-century Ireland. For one of them, the past is brutally difficult, filled with hunger and struggle. For the other, the past is filled with privilege, status, and a reprieve from the crushing pain of present-day life. For both Anna and her nephew, the past offers them a chance at love.

Will every choice they make reverberate down through time? And do Irish Wolfhounds carry the soul of the ancient celts?

The past and present wrap around finely wrought characters who reveal the road home. Mystical, charming, and fantastic, New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Sheehan’s Now & Then is a poignant and beautiful tale of a remarkable journey. It is a miraculous evocation of a breathtaking place in a volatile age filled with rich, unforgettable, deeply human characters and one unforgettable dog named Madigan.

I think the plot had a lot of promise, and I’m not quite sure why it didn’t feel like it delivered. It got tangled in time travel paradoxes, of course, but that’s what’s supposed to happen. I’d be disappointed in a time travel book that didn’t!

Anna had her moments, and I’m not sure why I didn’t her more than I did.   She had an interesting background.  I think I got tired of being told what a strong person she was.   I rarely felt it.  She didn’t seem weak.  I just didn’t have a good rapport with her as a character.

Joseph was an appropriately obnoxious teenager. I didn’t like him much, but I wasn’t supposed to. I was sympathetic to his situation, both his back-story before the book began, and the events of the book itself.

I did appreciate the look at Irish history, and the dynamics of the relationship between the English and the Irish.  It’s something I don’t know very much about, and now I’d like to know more.

I wish Madigan (the dog) had more of a role. I wish there had been a bit more grey and a bit less black and white. I wish it’d just had a little more of whatever it was that was missing.

It wasn’t a bad read, but it could have been better.  I apologize for the wishy-washy review!

For more information on the book or the author, check out Jacqueline Sheehan’s website, or listen to her interview with Book Club Girl on Blog Talk Radio.

I read this book for a TLC Book Tour.  Thank you to Trish for giving me the opportunity to participate.

To see some other opinions, see the other tour stops:

• Monday, November 2nd: The Bluestocking Guide
• Wednesday, November 4th: Yule Time Reading
• Thursday, November 5th: Life in the Thumb
• Thursday, November 12th: I’m Booking It
• Tuesday, November 17th: The Brain Lair
• Wednesday, November 18th: Bloggin’ ’bout Books
• Monday, November 23rd: Stephanie’s Written Word
• Monday, November 30th: Jenn’s Bookshelves
• Tuesday, December 1st: The Tome Traveller