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Science Fiction

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

December 15, 2015      Leave a Comment

Since I’ve started blogging and paying attention to the adult lit world I have heard a lot about Margaret Atwood. She’s mostly known for her feminist writing and disturbing dystopic features. And while this book feature some of this, it’ just so ….bizarre. I really had to do some research to see what others were saying to make sure I understood it. The book editor of the Washington Post called it a “silly mess”… and it kind of was this for me. I have no idea how to really review this, since I don’t have much to compare it to, but here goes.

 

In an economic collapse in the Northeast, married couple Stan and Charmaine have lost everything. They live in their car, fearful of looters and the next day to come. When they have the opportunity to be apart of an economic experiment that requires them to move into the town of Consilience , an idyllic 50’s style town where everyone is given housing and work.. The only catch is they have to alternate a month being prisoners inside Positron prison and a month being a citizen in Consilience, leaving their home for their Alternates.


As you may suspect all is not what it seems and Stan and Charmiane get involved in a bizarre plot that include sex robots, a house of Elvis impersonators  and adultery. So much adultery. The thriller-esque plot they get involved in just didn’t make sense. I’m not sure if this novel is satire or something. I feel like if I didn’t know who wrote this I’d be like, this is kind of misogynstic but because it’s Atwood it’s maybe satire. It just seemed like all these strong capable women had this plan and then they leave it to a bumbling man as their linchpin.

 …

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Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

September 5, 2015      Leave a Comment

 

  • 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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11/22/63 by Stephen King

May 11, 2015      Leave a Comment

  • 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….

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A Matter of Fate: If I Stay by Gayle Foreman & Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

July 16, 2014      7 Comments

At first these two books seem worlds away, one a much-praised modern literary classic the other a backlist YA contemporary climbing its way up the NYT bestsellers list with a film release weeks away.  

I found myself reading both books at around the same time and the more I thought about writing the individual reviews, the more I realized these books have a lot in common. Both main characters, Kathy  H. in Never Let Me Go and Mia in If I Stay, are young women trying to figure out their future. While Kathy’s path has been laid out  since  birth Mia gets the opportunity to decide hers.

…

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At first these two books seem worlds away, one a much-praised modern literary classic the other a backlist YA contemporary climbing its way up the NYT bestsellers list with a film release weeks away.  

I found myself reading both books at around the same time and the more I thought about writing the individual reviews, the more I realized these books have a lot in common. Both main characters, Kathy  H. in Never Let Me Go and Mia in If I Stay, are young women trying to figure out their future. While Kathy’s path has been laid out  since  birth Mia gets the opportunity to decide hers.

…

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Audiobook Review : Lexicon by Max Barry

April 7, 2014      1 Comment

 

 

  • Release Date: June 18th 2013
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • Genre: Thriller
  • Length: 12 hours 36 minutes 

At an exclusive training school at an undisclosed location outside Washington, D.C., students are taught to control minds, to wield words as weapons. The very best graduate as “poets” and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose. Recruited off the street, whip-smart Emily Ruff quickly learns the one key rule: never allow another person to truly know you. Emily becomes the school’s most talented prodigy, until she makes [a] catastrophic mistake 


…

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Mini Reviews: Dairy Queen, False Memory, Stupid, Perfect World

November 2, 2013      2 Comments

Audiobook: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch


I picked up these audio CDs at the library at random to listen to in the car and ended up really enjoying this story. 15-year-old D.J Schwenk, has been pulling the weight of her family’s dairy farm while her father is sick and the last thing she needs is more work. Then she gets asked to help train the rival team’s lazy quarterback and show him the value of hard work. Not really a traditional sprorts story, but a story about family, loyalty and growing up. D.J is this wonderfully full developed and faceted protagonist as she tries to figure out how to be both a teenager and a caregiver for her family. This novel has a lot energy as we explore football life in this small Wisconsin town.The audiobook narrator does a midwest accent that fits the story, but can be grating until you get used to it. This book is great for fans of Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan–incidentally she is the first person I heard about this book from. I learned this is the first in a 3 part series, and will pick up the others when I need a good read. –★★★★





False Memory by Dan Krokos

This novel starts with a bang when Miranda wakes up in a shopping mall with no memory and with abilities she doesn’t understand. The story unravels as she learns she is part of a secret program where nothing is ever what it seems. This debut novel is an action packed and energetic thriller , it never stops to catch it’s breath. I was able to devour this book and was really into the plot as I was reading, but after a few days I’d forgotten most of the details.The story seems to shrug of some of the more serious implications and has to do some handwaving to make the plot work.-★★★+.5





Stupid Perfect World by Scott Westerfeld

This was my first foray into the world of the young adult e-novellas. When short story imprints like Harper Teen Impulsecame out I never thought I would pay for one, but I found myself snapping them up when I saw them on my local library’s Overdrive. I chose this one because it is one of the few that isn’t part of an established series. At just over 50 pages, it tells the story of a future where all human imperfections have been cured, but not forgotten. In a course called Scarcity every student must live two weeks with an ailment from before the world was perfect. Keiran Black decides to do something people haven’t done in years…sleep. An interesting concept, it was an enjoyable read and I think the length was perfect. Sometimes YA short stories seem like scenes that could be working towards book, but Westerfeld tells a complete story. I think too much of it would have been overkill. I’d really like to see more of these standalone novellas, they are perfect for when you have an hour to spare. -★★★+.5

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