Vacation Reads - June 29, 2015

Weightless by Sarah Brannan
Pub. Date - June 30, 2015
4.5 stars



Beautiful East Coaster, Carolyn, shows up new to school in small-town Alabama and succeeds quickly to popularity.  But popularity is a fickle occupation and soon she soon experiences bullying and aggressive online behavior.  This is a common story but this time around it is told in a very uncommon way.  The narrator is a vague "us" and "we" and exists as the observers.  The kids that aren't exactly popular but are still there... who still have a role.  It provides a compelling angle to a familiar story and even thought the ending is foreshadowed, it is still heartbreaking to watch it happen.  This is a well-written and interesting look at mental illness, bullying, small town life and the way things can add up and distort in tragic ways.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Heat of the Moment by Lori Handeland
Pub. Date.- June 30, 2015
3.5 stars



This is the second in a series about triplets, separated at birth, descendant from ancient witches.  Becca is the town vet and the eldest in a prominent family.  She is eerily good at healing animals and has always felt that she was different in some ways from the rest of her siblings.  Her childhood sweetheart enters town after a traumatic injury in Afghanistan at the same time that weird satanic animal butchery starts occurring and a woman starts popping around that could be her twin.   I like the story behind this series and the women are strong, smart and passionate about their jobs.  I did find this book oddly confusing at times and it really shouldn't have been, including characters that are important to the story but are not well introduced and confusing dialogue.  Overall though, this is entertaining and the story is interesting enough that I will definitely pick up the third.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Last Reviews Until 6/29- June 19, 2015

The Library At Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Pub. Date - June 16, 2015
4.5 stars



I'm not sure exactly how to summarize this book, as it just happens to be one of the strangest and most interesting novels that I have read.  Twelve "siblings" live with their "father" in a huge library each devoted to studying one discipline.  Carolyn studies languages, which makes her better suited to mix among the simple Americans and allows her concoct elaborate plans.   These plans all seem to involve poor American, Steve, who seems to find himself further and further enmeshed in things that he doesn't quite understand.  In a rather humorous way, this book takes twists and turns that even the most diligent reader couldn't predict.  The characters are complex and the world is ridiculously original.  I would recommend readers to give this book at least 50 pages because it does take a bit of time to get used to just enjoying the story and characters without really completely understanding it.  I really enjoyed this reading experience and will be thinking this one over for a while.  I received a galley of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Summer Secrets by Jane Green
Pub. Date - June 23, 2015
3 stars



This book follows one woman's journey learning about her past and confronting her alcoholism as she deals with the consequences of two different summers on Nantucket.  Cat grew up with a disinterested and uncaring father and a mentally distressed mother which caused her addiction to alcohol.  I enjoyed this book for what it was but found it sometimes skimmed over the issues.  Cat was either a terrible drunk who made terrible decisions or else she was an AA acolyte spouting forgiveness and honesty and it just skimmed over the in-between.  Which was fine, it just took away some of the depth of the novel.  I liked the plot and the characters but see this as more of a light read than what it could have been.  I received a galley of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Weekend Wrap-up - June 15, 2015

Faking Perfect by Rebecca Phillips
Pub. Date - June 30, 2015
3 stars



Lexie has a troubled home life that she tries to hide by befriending the popular kids and pretending to be perfect.  Unable to maintain the facade all the time, she has started a casual, secret relationship with the school's bad boy.  As situations with her family comes to a head and she starts to doubt her relationships with her friends, she wonders if it is really worth it to fake perfect.  I liked this book and enjoyed that it focused more on her relationships with family and friends then on a romance.  I liked Lexie and appreciated that the issues that she was dealing with were realistic however, it was strangely dull at times and not all the characters are very well developed.  So overall, this was a quick read for me on a night that I didn't otherwise feel like reading so it was good enough to hold my interest but definitely had some problems.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Friday Reads - June 12, 2015

Barbarian Days by William Finnegan
Pub. Date - July 21, 2015
4.5 stars



For a lifelong, landlocked Midwesterner like myself, surfing is an unlikely pastime which is why I found this memoir so fascinating.  The author grew up in Southern California and Hawaii and started surfing at a hound age.   He has spent a lifetime surfing in almost every major wave location and knows the people and the surf culture very well.  He begins with his year living in Hawaii, going to school with the locals with pretty scant supervision and quite a bit of adolescent violence.  He then narrates his travels around the world with different friends searching for out of the place surf spots with perfect waves.  It is a honest memoir and he at times look back at his interactions with locals with embarrassment and consternation that comes with the wisdom of age.  His day job as a journalist and essayist took him to many war torn countries and I found myself wishing there was a little more here about that.  Towards the end, as his anecdote's enter middle-age and beyond, the individual surfing details become a bit monotonous and run together but otherwise I found myself hypnotized by most everything described in this memoir.  He has truly led a adventurous life and his memoir remarkably captures the obsession with surfing and the changing culture through the years.  I received an electronic ARC of this book from Penguin's First to Read program in exchange for an honest review. 

Young Adult Round-Up - June 10, 2015

Hello, I Love You  by Katie M. Stout
Pub. Date - June 9, 2015
4 stars



Grace is country music royalty.  Her dad is a huge record producer and her brother a superstar but after tragedy strikes, she runs away to a South Korean boarding school and falls in with a Korean pop star group with issues of their own.  Jason is a Korean superstar who can't go anywhere without flashing cameras and screaming girls.  He also struggles with family issues and a deep misapprehension that he is not making the music he wants.  This is not so much about culture clash (which kind of makes me wonder a little bit about why it is set in South Korea) but is really just a cute romance set in the music world.  I really liked the relationship between Jason and Grace and although Grace could be annoyingly dense, overall she deeply cared about her close circle of friends.  I think that if you go into this book expecting too much, it may be disappointing but I really thought it was entertaining and I ended up reading it all in one night which was not my intention.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Pub. Date - June 9, 2015
4 stars



Audrey suffered a major breakdown after a traumatic experience at school.  She now has a therapist, a fear of leaving the house, and a pair of big dark sunglasses that she refuses to take off.  Using humor and documentary-like scripts, this book details Audrey's attempt to return to life.  With so many serious books about adolescent mental illness, it is nice to find one so lighthearted, yet still basically true to the nature of the illness.  I also like how it is mostly centered on family and familial relationships.  I did have a hard time with the age of the protagonist, fourteen, which I finally had to look up.  I thought at times she acted much older and it felt a little inconsistent.  That is a small factor, though, and I thought this was a funny and heartfelt book.  I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Librarians Rule the World - June 8, 2015

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
Pub. Date - July 7, 2015
3.5 stars



In an alternate reality, the great library of Alexandria was never destroyed and so books become the world's most important commodity.  Librarians are specially trained with their own armies and there are rebel groups that try to upend the whole society.  I was initially drawn in by the premise, what book-lover wouldn't be, but the characters and their relationships kept me reading.  The main character, Jess, comes from a family of prominent smugglers and while finds a good fit at the library academy also knows that he must still fulfill familial obligations.  There are other characters from around the region creating an interesting cultural perspective of the different European countries and their reputation in the larger world.  I did find that the book got sluggish quite often with staggering world building details which included; wars between countries, a strange division of librarians locked in a tower and a lot of strange technology.  The details of all of this bogged down the overall flow of the story.  That said, there is potential for an interesting series and I think that future books will probably be free of these explanatory details.  As it is a wonderful read for book lovers with truly interesting world building, I look forward to seeing this series progress.  I received this book from Penguin's First to Read Program in exchange for an honest review. 

Friday Reads - June 5, 2015

In the Air Tonight by Lori Handeland
Pub. Date - June 2, 2015
4 stars


First of all, this cover is just absolutely gorgeous. I might have read this for that reason alone but the plot behind the cover held me from the very beginning.  Raye has always felt different from the other residents of New Bergin.  In a town of the fair-haired and hearty with Scandinavian bloodlines, Raye's dark hair and unknown parentage has left her feeling like an outcast.  The ability to communicate with ghosts doesn't help much either.  When the first murder in years happens in the small Wisconsin town, Raye's ability may help New Orleans detective Bobby Doucet solve the case.  Bobby's New Orleans upbringing has brought him into close contact with magic and the occult, enough so that he has a hearty dislike of it, but what else can explain the mysterious Raye.  As the two try to uncover a killer, they are drawn into a mysterious world of witches, ghosts and magic, and into a very steamy romance.  I really enjoyed Raye's backstory and the historical aspect of witch hunters and King James of Scotland.  These were both complex characters and their romance worked really well.  I look forward to reading about the other two sisters in the following two book.  I received an EGalley of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 


Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
Pub. Date - May19, 2015
3.5 stars



This young adult novel explores what happens when your favorite book comes to life.  It is the follow up to Between the Lines which first introduced Delilah and her obsession with one particular fairytale and it's hero, Oliver.  This book explores what happens when Oliver starts high school and nonchalantly becomes popular and how Delilah deals with having a boyfriend.  These book are really for a younger audience... maybe late elementary and middle school.  The book itself is GORGEOUS with different colored font for each character and full color illustrations. The current slate of super realistic young adult novels is a good thing but it is okay to read fairytale too where all of your dreams become reality.  This may have wrapped up a little too unrealistically but I liked this follow-up more than the original and I think it would be a charming book for a young girl.  I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Weekend Wrap-Up - June 1, 2015

Charlie, Presumed Dead by Anne Heltzel
Pub. Date - June 2, 2015
3 stars



Lena and Aubrey arrive separately at the funeral of Charlie Price, who has just died in a tragic plane explosion.  They each think they are his only girlfriend, and they are both wrong.  Impulsive Lena and secretive Aubrey decide to join forces to learn all of Charlie's secrets.  One of them doesn't believe that Charlie is really dead and one of them really hopes he is gone for good.  Mostly, this is an entertaining and fast paced book that is easy to breeze through.  Charlie is an enigma and his inserted narrative sections suggest he may have even been unhinged.  I really enjoyed reading about the places Lena and Aubrey traveled; the London club scene, the streets of Mumbai and the seedy sections of Bangkok.  The characters are interesting, if inconsistent, and I did want to see where this journey took them.  The ending though, is bizarre.  Is this meant to be the start of a series?  It ended so abruptly that at first I check to make sure that I had the entire eBook and I think that I do.  So... good plot idea and beautiful travel descriptions but not great execution.  I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.