Suburban Legends and 100 Ghosts

Suburban Legends: True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans by Sam Stall

I truly do enjoy stories. Stories about people and our perspectives and how we see things are so valuable. I wish this is how Stall would have presented these 'legends.' But as the subtitle says, he describes them as true stories. Are they really? They are fun and interesting and scary but I wouldn't describe them as true.

He gives no references or bibliography, no way for anyone to fact check these stories. I would have appreciated him allowing us to make up our own minds.

But as stories they were quite interesting.

100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts by Doogie Horner

This is an adorable book of ghosts. I've looked over them many times with Gabe. His favorite is the Harry Potter ghost.

Each image is a new take on the classic. All are fun and imaginative :)



Both books were sent to me by the publisher in exchange for honest reviews.

World War Z by Max Brooks

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I really enjoyed this one the second time around. Max Brooks knows how to paint a plausible picture of a real-life viral zombie apocalypse. How do the various countries handle the outbreak? How does it spread? How does the world population fall and who survives and how? How do countries rebuild?

This book has pretty much nothing to do with the movie starring Brad Pitt, other than the title and a few of the events, but other than that the two stories are completely and totally different.

The book is an oral history written down. The journalist decides to interview a lot of people who have survived World War Z and get their stories down. He breaks it up into a chronological history. How it starts and who knows about it; how it spreads...the Great Panic; etc. He gets stories from various people in different countries. So we get a picture of how the whole world handled this war.

A few of my favorite stories:

The Italian military buried beneath in the catacombs. That was scary. The few survivors trying to make it up north to Canada where it's so cold that the zombies freeze. The story about a woman who is guided to safety through zombie jungle by a strange voice on the radio. The under water zombie divers. How the dogs were trained and contributed to the war effort. How Russia becomes a Holy Empire again...

The only thing I'd complain about is some of the stories were a bit dry but that's to be expected. I think it makes the stories more believable as a whole.

Nick and Tesla's High-voltage Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith

Quirk Books

I have only great things to say about this book! I read it aloud with my son Gabe. He followed along for most of it and was so excited by the experiments at the end of some of the chapters. We can follow along and build what Nick and Tesla built to solve mysteries and save themselves.

Science and is beautiful and cool. I'm so glad there is a great new series out helping to get kids excited about science and learning.

Nick and Tesla are twins. They've been sent by their parents to live with their very strange Uncle Newt. Mom and Dad are studying soy beans in Uzbekistan and feel they would be safer in California for the summer. Uncle Newt has his own souped up lab in the basement where they can perform their own dangerous experiments. They even meet a couple of kids from the neighborhood to help them solve the mystery of the old Landrigan Mansion.

I also loved the interplay of Nick and Tesla. Tesla is the one always ready for action, the one who scares less easily. While Nick is the cautious one. Tesla is a strong and awesome female character!

I'm just can't gush enough about this book and look forward to the next installment!

*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

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What can I say? This was a crazy book to listen to. I didn't follow all of it, but overall it was OK.

The characters were interesting. Cameron is annoying and big-time loser, according to his sister. He gets high all the time and never shows up for work on time or class. His sister considers him a social piranha and his parents are also clueless. They are painted as the hyperlogical and unfeeling (scientist dad) and the super laid back mom to the point of never having a conversation with her son because she doesn't want to say the wrong thing.

So he ends up getting mad cow disease, totally incurable all the while putting holes in your brain until you die. Not a great way to go. So of course the hallucinations set in and now Cameron must save the world from dark energy forces and find Dr. X so he can be cured!

It's crazy. But he's hallucinating, so yeah, and he's dying so why not have the hallucinations mean something?

I can see why it won some awards. It's wacky and has some interesting things to mull over throughout the story, but it just didn't pull me in. I liked Balder the Norse God yard gnome and Dulcie the angel. She was kind of fun. But in the end she  throws in post-modernism and I just didn't buy it. 

Overall, I am glad I read it but it just wasn't my kind of book.

The Historian By Elizabeth Kostova Read-a-long Review and Wrap-up!

I finished! This was a really thick book but it didn't seem that long and it moved along pretty fast. Thanks to Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings for the R.I.P. VIII challenge and The Estella Society for hosting this fabulous readalong!

Publisher's Summary:

For centuries, the story of Dracula has captured the imagination of readers and storytellers alike. Kostova's breathtaking first novel, ten years in the writing, is an accomplished retelling of this ancient tale. "The story that follows is one I never intended to commit to paper.. As an historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it." With these words, a nameless narrator unfolds a story that began 30 years earlier. 
Late one night in 1972, as a 16-year-old girl, she discovers a mysterious book and a sheaf of letters in her father's library -- a discovery that will have dreadful and far-reaching consequences, and will send her on a journey of mind-boggling danger. While seeking clues to the secrets of her father's past and her mother's puzzling disappearance, she follows a trail from London to Istanbul to Budapest and beyond, and learns that the letters in her possession provide a link to one of the world's darkest and most intoxicating figures. Generation after generation, the legend of Dracula has enticed and eluded both historians and opportunists alike. Now a young girl undertakes the same search that ended in the death and defilement of so many others -- in an attempt to save her father from an unspeakable fate.

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My Summary:

Kostova really knows how to weave stories and characters and times and places. I felt transported to the lands and times she wrote about. I could taste the food and feel the cool mountains.

There are only short bouts of real time when the author (the daughter of the main characters) writes about her real-time journey. The rest is told through very long letters. And some are told letters within letters or a story within a story. It gets pretty layered quickly and sometimes I had a hard time remembering whose story was who's. But it worked for the story she needed to tell and so I just went with it.

She paints quite the trail for Drakula. His story is creepy and his minions are always around the corner. I liked how she drew the myth of Dracula into a modern-day legend, tying him in quite nicely.

The ending was a bit anti-climatic but still satisfying! I thoroughly enjoyed this creepy and beautifully written book!

Mini Book Reviews (Non-fiction Edition)

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Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim.

Fabulous book! Lots of history on how society has treated women and our menstruating ways. Both depressing and fascinating, but it never dwells too much. Lots of snarkiness and ways to make us think about how we view our bodies and what the future holds.

The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean.

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I read Sam Kean's earlier book on the periodic table. This one was just as fabulous. He focuses on our genetic code and he teaches with stories and facts. Can't wait to read his next book!

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Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement in Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Fascinating look on how we can engage with our lives, no matter what our daily lives look like. Tips on how to find flow activities and find meaning in what we do.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

I also read this as part of R.I.P. VIII.

Goodreads summary:

R is a young man with an existential crisis--he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.

After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world. 

My Thoughts:

I love me some zombie stories. I do! I love the premise behind this book. A zombie romance and a slight retelling of Romeo & Juliet, sounds like it should be a zombie book made in heaven, right?

I'm sure most people find it a good one. But it was too preachy. I didn't like that. And it just didn't make sense...all this time no zombie has figured out how to come back but take a young, nubile, white, blond woman and a once-white guy in suburban America....sparks fly and they can save the whole human and zombie race!

It had so much potential. And I know I'm nitpicking...but this story didn't speak to me. I'd say more but don't want to give away any spoilers.

Book Vs. Movie:

The movie was completely neutered from the actual book but that actually made me relate to the movie a whole lot more. The movie was more about the romance and love saving the world and more about tolerance. So hands down, the movie for me! Even though it's still only an OK zombie movie ;)

Image Sources: Goodreads.com

The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

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I wondered whether or not I should tackle this one. I'm going through my own intense grief right now and wasn't sure if I should read a book about death and grief.

The first 1/3 of the book, I just wasn't sure. The writing was scattered. The characters were odd and situations and her world were a bit unrealistic. Each chapter begins with Lennie's poetry fragments. They somehow fly around the city to be found by others...so odd.

Also, Lennie. She's a literary and music genius. I believe in geniuses, I do but her genius wasn't drawing me in. It confused me.

But it's raw and in your face grief. I get that. I'm getting it. And as the story progressed it all started to make sense. Len's little poetry fragments, her grief over the death of her sister. Her pulling away. Her making out with and almost sleeping with her dead sister's boyfriend...raw.

Lennie has hid behind her sister. She's been her shadow, her sidekick. Now Bailey is gone. Who is she? Who was Bailey? 

"But what if I'm a shell-less turtle now, demented and devastated in equal measure, an unfreakingbelievable mess of a girl, who wants to turn the air into colors with her clarinet, and what if somewhere inside I prefer this? What if as much as I fear having death as a shadow, I'm beginning to like how it quickens the pulse, not only mine, but the pulse of the whole world..."

"My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy."

Yup, a millions time over. Not everyone's grief is the same nor should it be. No one person has the market of what's the proper grief for someone else. Some may get through it and not feel this way but I know so many who are this quote. Me. It's what makes life so precious knowing that it's so fleeting and comes eventually to everyone.

I love the journies Lennie, her sister's boyfriend Toby, her grandmother, and her uncle embark on. Grief shapes their lives; death has forever altered who they will be. Such a beautiful and poetic ending.

The thing that helped turn this around for me was the magical realism elements. She spliced fantasy elements throughout. The fateful notes. Her mother's spells and rituals; cooking and love and wine. It wasn't apparent at first which made me sputter a bit the first 1/3 but I got it in the end. 

First Frost by Liz DeJesus

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It was a fun and fast read. I really enjoy fairy-tale retellings and this one was an exciting read.

What I liked: It had a great premise. Bianca and her mother rose own a fairy-tale museum. Rose reads stories to cute little kids and sells them wands and Cinderella outfits. The creepy apple from Snow White and the mirror are all in there. Plus, DeJesus throws in some great world-building elements like the history of how the museum was started back in the Great Depression by her grandfather. She has a fun relationship with her mom. She also has a really great friend. You can kind of feel their history and loyalty.

I also enjoyed the way she weaves the fairy-tale world in Everafter with our modern world. She explains who the Grimm Brothers were and why they told the fairy tales the way they did. It adds some credence to the world she's built. And I liked Bianca's inner dialogue. DeJesus had fun writing her female characters. Her male characters were a bit dimmer but they weren't major characters so I didn't mind as much.

What I didn't like as much: The story didn't flow in some parts. Some plot devices were thrown aside to make things easier. She learns magic super fast. An old woman who's magic finds them, stops time and teaches her a bunch of stuff. Another character tells her to believe and not doubt and she can do anything and the next encounter she can do all this stuff just because of that. At the beginning when her and her friend get to Everafter, they just happen to immediately find a somewhat dim prince and his awesome servant who are super helpful and become their respective love interests.

Also, many times Bianca wants answers and to understand things; she has questions but the characters just say 'don't worry about it,' 'just believe.' Nah, it's good to question and want to understand and have doubts.

The true love theme was a bit cheesy, too. Bianca's romance was a bit strained but not too heavy-handed so I didn't mind so much. The ending wasn't my favorite. I was hoping for more real life and less movie magic fantasy but oh well.

Overall, it's a really cute book. I liked the fantasy, the characters, fairy-tales and how it all came together. But due to it's 'rough-around-the-edges' nature, I had to lower my rating. I do look forward to continuing the series, though.

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale

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Austenland--the beautiful place where we can all go and get our Regency Austen fix. Balls, corsets, etiquette, and of course a man :)

It's fabulous in theory. I really, really want to like the Austenland novels. But they almost become to fluffy, like cotton candy blowing through the land on a windy day, or how it tastes really good for the first millisecond before it all dissolves in your mouth and you realize how empty it was...

Hale's heroines have to be confidenceless women who don't how awesome they are until a man lets them know they are. We meet our fabulous character Charlotte Constance Kinder...who's a consistent people pleaser. It's her duty to let the ones she loves to step all over her, even when her dirtbag husband cheats on her and she bends over backwards to make it all better when he divorces her. Giving him half of her business accounts and assets, all but the actual business. Good thing she keeps making money, though, so at least she's not penniless...

We see bits and pieces of her life before she gets to Austenland told in short flashbacks. She has the perfect life, a perfect husband, with two perfect children until she doesn't and decides to use a bit of her talents on the internet and boom she has a multi-million dollar business and her husband can't handle a woman who makes more than he does...

She blames herself, of course, it was her job to keep her man. There must be something wrong with her.

Enter vacation at Austenland. She reads up on her Austen, Agatha Christie, and gothic novels and she's set up for a fabulous trip back to Regency England and even a "marriage proposal" by the end of the two weeks.

I don't know. It was fluffy, and cute, a nice cozy romantic mystery. But I wanted more and I expected more. Hale never gives any motivation for Charlotte. Why does she feel she needs to be a doormat? Why can't one still find love even if they already know how awesome they are? Why does Hale have to make her characters so clueless? Just to make sure they realize in two weeks how awesome they are because a man has fallen in love with them? It seems to always go back to what a man thinks. Does he think she's clever enough? Well, because she asked that in her head he knew she was the one for him....and even at the end with the bad experience from her first husband you would think she would be a bit more cautious about whom she claims to fall in love with...he is an actor after all...it was all so unmotivational and cliche.

I guess the gothic mystery was OK. The whodunnit and all that. But the characters never once rang true for me. Even her demonization of alcohol was really odd. Why did she not like alcohol? OK, you don't like it, it's not for you...but it seemed that every character that partook in the novel was a bad person...and the one person she falls in love with is an alcoholic so he's now sober and will never touch any again! Yay! So convenient! Everything just is so convenient. I guess that's the point of a silly, fluffy, cozy, child romantic book. It's written for adults but it felt like it was written by a teenager. I don't know. Hale has not shown adult fiction chops. But I keep hoping and waiting and keep getting disappointed.

Zombie Nation: From Folklore to Modern Frenzy by E.R. Vernor

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This is a really fun and information-packed zombie book. The book's pages are all color with bright photos and blood-like smears. Almost every page comes with little info boxes that look like hazard warnings. So it's pretty.

It's short with only 4 chapters but he's not trying to do an in-depth history of zombie lore and culture. Vernor explores zombie ideas from religion in chapter one. He gives quotes from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Bible. Zombies have been a pretty long time. Then he tackles some of the science behind zombie-ism. What could cause it? He gives some modern-day examples of people going crazy and then eating people. He does get a bit political when it comes to government stuff but I ignored it and moved on. Chapter 3 explores movies and books. I got some great ideas for some movies to check out. The final chapter focuses on using the zombie craze to truly get prepared for man-made or nature-caused disasters. He stresses survival preparedness. If you are prepared for an all-out zombie apocalypse, you are prepared for almost anything!

A great book to get a sampling of the zombie craze!

I reviewed this through NetGalley.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

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This was a fast-paced book and so entertaining. But I felt it was a bit fluffy on so many issues that it was trying to explore. When it comes to fantasy I want powerful world-building, I want powerful character-building. Sometimes in YA we only get one or none. I really feel like this had the potential to be an epic fantasy, but it just fell a little flat.

The characters and the plot was pretty 2-dimensional. I knew right away who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. There were a lot of dark and light concepts running, and I felt the author tried to throw some grey in there but without much success. 

Oh, love triangles! How I love and hate thee! In theory love triangles should flesh out how nuanced love is, that there are many types of love and that you really can love more than one person at a time for different reasons. So in one way she explores lust and power when it comes to Alina's attraction to the Darkling. But I wouldn't call it a love triangle. Yes, she wants to do him dark and dirty but not necessarily live with him and bear his children! So not truly a love triangle. Which brings me to Mal...he's pretty one note. Of course, he loves Alina he just doesn't realize it until she's gone! So convenient.

Bardugo never explains why we should except the second-rate status of the Grisha...lots of unanswered questions.

She did have an interesting take on psychology, though. I like how she explored Alina's powers. She couldn't tap into them until she faced her demons...her head shrink was her own head! Facing those unconscious ideas and then growing from them and becoming powerful. I loved that.

I also loved that Alina had to make some hard decisions but some of those decisions were backed by power and lots of it. And how she realizes awesome power comes with awesome responsibility (yeah, that is from Spider Man). She grows, she learns to be independent, she learns about love and mercy and the power that comes from having those.

She does touch a bit on tyranny and what that can mean for a country and ultimately the world. But she only touches on it. I'm hoping some of these barely touched grays will come into fuller focus in the next two books.

So while it's not by ideal YA fantasy (that would be Seraphina by Rachel Hartman), it's pretty entertaining and has a lot of potential by Bardugo.

I did read some other reviews about how they didn't appreciate her lack of Russian knowledge and history. If I were a Russian or had some intimate knowledge of Russia and its language and culture, I'd probably be a bit annoyed as well. But I never was throughout the book. I thought adding a distinctive Russian flare to the book enhanced its mystery and fantasy. So I say read with a caveat that if you have Russian knowledge don't read this because you'll be annoyed :)

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher

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What better way to celebrate William Shakespeare and Star Wars than to combine the two? It's Star Wars but written in iambic pentameter play style complete with chorus, asides, and a snarky and talking R2D2!

It's also pretty hilarious to listen to Darth Vader in your head speaking in rhyme and meter.

The only thing against this is the same thing I have against Shakespeare...sometimes it was hard to understand. My poetic brain never truly turns on. So it helped that I already knew the story and could follow along despite the lingo.

Quirk Books even shot a cheesy but funny trailer for the book:



I thoroughly enjoyed this new take on Star Wars and would love to actually see this as a play someday!

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Countdown City by Ben Winters

Another great edition to the Last Policeman series as we countdown to asteroidal extermination.

Hank Palace has been dismissed from his duties as a detective, has inherited a drug dealer's dog and his childhood babysitter comes knocking...Beautiful Martha Milano needs him to find her run-off husband Brett. Why has he left? Another bucket-lister before the end or another reason? Hank has to keep on plugging away at the litte things and uses this new case as a way to distract himself from in the inevitable.

Along the way we see how society is slowly breaking down and anarchy sets in. Everyone has guns, food storage and no qualms about getting more from others more weak.

He tracks Brett through various "utopian" societies trying keep a semblance of order as well as conspiracy theories about governments looking forward to ultimate destruction.

Winters really doesn't pull any punches. What would society really do if we learned the end was near and there was nothing to be done? Hold onto humanity or every man, woman, and child for him or herself? I think he's got it about right. Whole systems break down and people turn tribal and protect their own. Us versus them becomes smaller, less us's and more thems.

I'm looking forward to the last installment! Are the conspiracy nuts right? Can the save the day? Only one more book to find out!

A big thanks to Quirk Books for providing me an advanced copy for a fair and honest review!

Chime by Franny Billingsley

This was a thoroughly bewitching book. I really liked it. It is definitely not what I expected. There are some twists and turns and gotcha moments that really kept the story moving along.

Briony Larkin is the protagonist and narrator of her story. She believes she is a witch and we open with her pleading her guilt before the court. But then she tells us her story from the beginning and it begins with a boy-man named Eldric.



The prose is beautiful and lyrical, which is really funny since Briony doesn't like poetry and thinks she's terrible at it. We gain glimpses into her past and her family. She loves her stepmother and has nothing but praise for her but we as the audience know or at least feel differently. All is not what it seems. Why does she feel she's a witch? And what time period is she living in? It took me almost til the middle of the book before I was able to pin it down, but that's one of the beauties of this book. It's a totally surreal setting. She almost takes us in and out of time, even though there's no time travel. Supernatural beings exist alongside science, progress, and technology. The author was able to combine all very flawlessly.

But Briony was hard to listen to. She droned on and on about how horrible she was and why she deserved to be punished and unloved, on and on about her guilt. Though we never understand until the very end what's going on. So her voice became a bit tedious by the end, especially since we knew all was not what it seemed in her own head. I'm sure that was part of the point, though, to make us feel like her friends and family and not being able to get through to her until the end.

It's also not your typical boy saves damsel in distress. They saved each other and I loved that!

I only have one other complaint...the whole premise of the book/its world is that witches are inherently evil. This is a fantasy book and I get that but so many people were killed during the inquisition and witch trials throughout history that I get my hackles raised when these stories surface about witches. These stories play down that nasty part of history when they say witches actually existed and they were, of course, evil and thus deserved to die...

I will end on a happy note with one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it's not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scarpbooks and tell stories. That that's how we humans find our way to immortality...That's how we find our way toward meaning. Meaning. If you're going to die, you want to find meaning in your life. You want to connect the dots." (p. 351)

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

I read this one for my women's book club. I'd heard of Cheryl Strayed from her book Wild. But I didn't know she wrote for an advice column. That's where this book comes from. This book contains letters from people asking her advice and her responses. She also throws in a lot of life stories, so I'd almost call it a mini memoir.

It's pretty fabulous. I only have a couple of gripes that I'll throw out quickly. Her advice never really takes into account mental illness, but she does make it clear that she is not a psychologist/therapist and that her advice is opinion only in the introduction. I also realize that the people she gives her advice to wrote into her asking for her advice...But still. There's quite a bit of "have some will power and get off your lazy duff and if I can do it so can you" rhetoric. Some was needed and others? Well.....and the If I can do it, you can too is a bit much towards the end...

But really and truly most of her advice is pretty fabulous. She really talks about making the most of your life no matter what you've been through. That's powerful and much needed.

I'm just going to post a few of my favorite quotes throughout the book for the rest of my review :)

A woman who lost her baby six months into her pregnancy writes in about how to get through her grief, how to get unstuck.

(p. 22) "This is how you get unstuck...you reach. Not so you can walk away from the daughter you loved but so you can live the life that is yours--the one that includes the sad loss of your daughter, but is not arrested by it. The one that eventually leads you to a place in which you not only grieve her, but also feel lucky to have had the privilege of loving her."

Advice in love: (p. 18) "...Don't be strategic or coy. Strategic and coy are for jackasses. Be brave. Be authentic. Practice saying the word 'love' to the people you love so when it matters the most to say it, you will."

"Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will." (p. 133)

"When it comes to our children, we do not have the luxury of despair. If we rise, they will rise with us every time, no matter how many times we've fallen before. I hope you will remember that the next you fail." (p. 348)

This is definitely my favorite of 2013 so far.

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

This is the second installment of the Beautiful Creatures series. At the end of the last book Lena was able to avoid being claimed for good or dark but her uncle Macon died and she's unsure where her mother has gone.

Ethan feels confused about that night. Did something happen to him? Lena and Amma are acting strangely. Lena seems drawn to a newcomer who is both caster and demon. Her eyes are also turning gold--the sign of a dark caster...will she choose the dark side?

OK, this installment was a bit on the cheesier side. The authors let Lena explore a bit of her dark side. We learn more about the link between Lena and Ethan and more about the history of Uncle Macon and Ethan's mom. Well, lots more history which makes the book big.

This series isn't the best written. But I really like it. It's just good fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously. I would let my teenage daughter (if I had one) read this book without fear of wanting a controlling and abusive/stalker boyfriend. I mean, it still has its star-crossed lovers trope. They literally can't have sex because Ethan will burn into ashes....kind of silly. But I guess it allows them to have lust and passion without getting into the nitty gritty of sexuality with teens. But it's still all heavy-handed about true love and soul mates, while romantic and great for fantasies, isn't healthy for teens.

But despite the faults, it's a great fun series. The world they create is amazing. I love the Caster world. They have created an amazing world. The characters aren't nearly as great as the world they live in. I think it's worth it just for that.

The Resurrectionist by E.B. Hudspeth

The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from his humble beginnings to the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed black-and-white anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.

What can I say? This book is a beautiful memoir fiction. The drawings in here are amazing. The way the author combines human anatomy and mythical creature anatomy is flawless.

But the story is also intriguing and a bit on the scary-side. We learn about Dr. Spencer's sordid fall into lunacy after trying to prove that humans evolved from mythical creatures.

I guess the one thing I could say that was negative was the use of the mad-scientist trope. But that's what the book was going for so it works but still a bit annoying that this trope is used so often in books and movies....

It's a sad tale where one looks for the evidence to fit the hypothesis rather than see where the evidence leads and then change the hypothesis. And his turned him into a madman....cruel torture and death.

It's a quick read and one I'd recommend on an eerie night with low-lighting...and one for the coffee table. The illustrations are amazing.

I received this book for free to review from the publisher.

The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines

The Stepsister Scheme is a fun fairy-tale retelling where the princesses take their own power and lives into their own hands and rescue the prince for a change!

Danielle (Cinderella) has been married to Prince Armand for under a year when he goes missing, her stepsister Charlotte tries to murder her and she finds out that her "maid" is actually Sleeping Beauty, a fairy-cursed assassin. They join up with Snow White to rescue Prince Armand and fight their foes in Fairy Land. With the help of Rose's combat skill, Danielle's ability to speak with animals, and Snow's magic they are a deadly force.

The beginning was a bit slow and I didn't quite know where Hines was going to take it. But by the middle I was won-over and ended up loving this fem-fantasy. Retaking their power, each one, is a powerful story. I'm excited to keep reading this amazing series!

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver opens her book with a delightful and imaginative first chapter. I was really drawn in. What did Dellarobia actually see? We finally find out that her "vision" was a completely natural, or at least one that shouldn't be natural. Butterflies have landed on her family's land when they're actually supposed to be hanging out in Mexico.




Kingsolver really combines the consequences of climate change with how it effects those who still make their living on the land. She gives us characters to love, who change, reflect, and think ahead. She mixes a story of faith and science and how the twain can meet. And for that reason alone, this is a book worth reading.

But alas, I only give it a 3ish star because it wasn't a page turner. It took me awhile to read the book and it dragged in the middle. So I didn't love it but I like it and it was worth reading because it's an important topic and needs to be addressed.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"Hester wasn't the only one living in fantasy land with righteousness on her side; people just did that, this family and maybe all others. They built their tidy houses of self-importance and special blessing and went inside and slammed the door, unaware the mountain behind them was aflame." p.22-23

"But being a stay-at-home mom was the loneliest kind of lonely, in which she was always and never by herself." p.59

"When she walked among these girls (ewes) they parted slowly like heavy water and looked up at her with an outlandish composure, their amber eyes eerily divided by horizontal pupils." p. 332

"...citizens of their own cheerful universe despite their full awareness of its unraveling." p. 341