Books and Sensibility

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Game by Barry Lyga

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  • Release Date: April 6, 2013
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Audiobook Hours: 13 hours 28 minutes
  • Publisher: Hachette Audio

From the opening lines–which describe a serial killer’s thoughts as he disembowels his recent victim –this book hit my squick button. Hard. I  can do gritty, but Game had more body mutilation and necrophilia than I like in my….everything. I was prepared to return this audiobook to the library but I was driving so I kept listening. I’m glad I did because once I got past the prologue, I was dipped right back into a story that was like watching my favorite procedural crime shows. From its twisty mystery, acerbic humor and constant supply of WTF-ery….

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Audiobook Review : Dreams Of Gods and Monsters

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  • Release Date: April 8th 2014
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • Length: 18 hours 11 minutes
  • Publisher: Hachette Audio

IT IS  FINISHED. I started listening to this series 3 years ago  and  have finally finished this sweeping epic fantasy and love story. Taylor’s use of language and creativity have me waiting eagerly to see what she will come up with next.

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series starts off with a whimsical art student in Prague and free falls into a fantastical epic conclusion. While I enjoyed the world-building and conflict Taylor created, the ending fizzled just a bit for me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it;  it just came and went just a little to swiftly. But despite this, all these book have me sold. They are all plotted perfectly and follow an even pace.

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Adaptation by Malinda Lo

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  • Publication Date: September 18th 2012
  • Genre: Science Ficton
  • Pages: 386 (hardcover)
  • Publisher: Little Brown For Young Readers

Synopsis: Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.
Among them are Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David, who are in Arizona when the disaster occurs. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway in the middle of the Nevada night, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are–or how they’ve been miraculously healed.
Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction-and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

Sitting in a Phoenix airport, Reese Holloway’s biggest problem is the humiliation of losing a national debate competition and letting down her partner and crush, David Li. And then things start falling out the sky. …

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Strictly Indie: The Coincedence of Callie and Kayden

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A month long dedication to  indie/self-published YA novels

Synopsis: There are those who don’t get luck handed to them on a shiny platter, who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, who don’t get saved.
Luck was not on Callie’s side the day of her twelfth birthday when everything was stolen from her. After it’s all over, she locks up her feelings and vows never to tell anyone what happened. Six years later her painful past consumes her life and most days it’s a struggle just to breathe.
For as long as Kayden can remember, suffering in silence was the only way to survive life. As long as he did what he was told, everything was okay. One night, after making a terrible mistake, it seems like his life might be over. Luck was on his side, though, when Callie coincidentally is in the right place at the right time and saves him.

Hiding from a traumatic childhood secret, Callie Lawrence was always known as “Anorexic, Devil Worshiping Callie” in high school. But for her freshman year at the University of Wyoming, Callie plans to make a fresh start.  Until she bumps into Kayden Owens, the rich golden boy from high school who  is hiding the daily physical abuse he faces at the fists of his  father. Guided by Callie’s college version of bucket list, they learn together how to heal and love again.

I’m not one for GIFs and don’t usually use GIFs in reviews, but if there is one that sums up this book it is probably this one:

It seems like everybody in this book is hiding, running or suffering from a traumatic past.

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