When The Wind Blows Book Review + Febuary Book Haul

I finished all 8 books, yay!

When the Wind Blows (When the Wind Blows Book #1 of 2) by James Patterson

Paperback, 416 pages
Read: Feb. 28
Rating: 3/5
Genres: Thriller, Science Fiction, Mystery, Adventure
Summery: Set against a sinister backdrop of genetic engineering and illegal scientific experimentation, When the Wind Blows dares readers to test their notions of human evolution and medical science. Frannie O'Neill is a caring young veterinarian living in the Colorado Rockies, trying to erase the memory of her beloved husband's mysterious murder. It is not long before another neighbor suddenly dies, and FBI agent Kit Harrison arrives at Frannie's doorstep. Kit is hell-bent on solving the heinous case despite resounding protests from the FBI and the thrashing of his own internal demons.
Kit secretly pursues the investigation, yet witnesses keep turning up dead. Then Frannie stumbles upon an astonishing discovery in the nearby woods, and their lives are altered in ways they could never have imagined. Simply knowing the secret of Max — the terrified 11-year-old girl with an amazing gift — could mean death.
As more and more diabolical details are unearthed, the murderer's bloody trail ultimately leads the trio to an underground lab network, known as "the School." Here scientists conduct shockingly incomprehensible experiments involving children and genetic alteration.
But perhaps not so unfathomable: Doctors and medical researchers who have read Where the Wind Blows say the events described in this book could actually be a reality in the next 20 to 30 years. If not before.

Review: The story starts out with a prologue introducing Max, an eleven year old girl, Harding Thomas, an expert hunter, and Kit Harrison, a FBI agent, then chapter one introduces Frances O'Neil (Frannie), a veterinarian. I really enjoyed this book, it was well paced, and I enjoyed the characters. There was enough background not only into the characters, but also the world. I really liked the characters of Frannie, Kit, and Max, also a few other characters. The pacing was good and most of the characters were likable. The writing while simple was enjoyable as well, and it made me want to read the sequel.

Now onto the book haul, i ended up with quite a few books this month.

First of what I got at two different Goodwill's.

What I got at the first Goodwill

I bought the second in the Millennium Trilogy, I found and bought the first and third book a while ago at good will. Next, I bought The Boy in Stripped Pajamas, I've had it on my Books To Buy list for a while now but hadn't been able to find it until now. Then I happened upon The Collector, I read the summery and it sounded like something I might like, It's about a guy who kidnaps a young woman, it sounds like the first part is from his point of view, and the second part is from her point of view.

What i got at the second Goodwill

First  I happened upon A Walk in Wolf Wood, the title caught my eye first (I have a thing for stories with wolves and werewolves), I read the summery and flipped through it and noticed it was more of a children's book, it seemed like. The next I bought The Grapes of Wrath, the main reason I bought this is because it's a John Steinbeck book, I like Collecting Classics. Last I bought The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I seen a review of this on The Readables youtube channel, I read the summery and decided to buy it.

Now what I got at Wal-mart

I saw the cover for Angelfall (I tend to love anything with wings on it), Then I read the summery and really like it, so I decided to buy it. Next i happened upon the sequel WorldAfter at another Walmart the next day and read the summery and bought it. Last I heard quite a few good reviews about The Darkest Minds, so I read the summery and decided to buy it.

Last, but not least what I ordered from Thriftbooks.com

First The Werewolf Book, I've heard there's a Vampire Book as well, I bought it because I have a thing for werewolves so I had to buy this. Next I bought a combined book Praying For Mercy, Which have the first three book in the Mercy Thompson series, I read the summery and some of the reviews, some people said they didn't like the first one because there was to much world/plot building and not enough romance, so that honestly sounded perfect for me because I tend not to like a lot of romance in books anymore, thanks to Blood Red Road (Horrible Romance, In my opinion), also it had a lot of supernatural elements in it, which i tend to like. The last books I bought were the Chaos Walking series, the first two are put together, I have seen and read quite a few good reviews on this series, and I liked the summery, so I decided to buy them.

I hope everybody had/has a great day : )

Inside Book Series Review

I read the first book (Inside Out) back in 2012, i finished the second book today.

Review #1
Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

Paperback, 320 pages
Read: June 21, 2012
Rating: 3.5/5
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Adventure
Summery: I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.
Trella was just doing a favor for a friend—her only friend. Hiding an injured man from the Pop Cops seemed easy enough—though dangerous. But then she discovered that the myths of Outside might be real….

Review: this story Starts out introducing Trella, A lower level scrub. Trella is nicknamed "Queen of the Pipes" by the other lower level scrubs because her job was to clean and keep the pipes working, also because she loved exploring the pipes and know how to sneak past the Population Control Police (Pop Cops) to get to the upper level pipes. While the book was paced well enough, the beginning five - seven chapters were slow and hard to get into, also there was almost no world building which made it hard to imagine, and also hard to get into the book. I also had a hard time liking the main character Trella she seemed a little self-centered and like she was better than others. I actually liked her best and only friend Cog (short for Cogon), the book rarely had any real background about Cog, and he also wasn't in the book that much, but I really liked his character. I also liked most of the others better than Trella, which for me was sad because it took that much longer to get into the book, but by the ending twenty some chapters i finally started to like her some.

Review #2
Outside In (Inside Book #2 of 2) by Maria V. Snyder

Paperback, 328 pages
Read: Feb. 28
Rating: 2.5/5
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Adventure, Romance
Summery:Me?
A leader?
Okay, I did prove that there's more to Inside than we knew.
That a whole world exists beyond this cube we live in. And finding that led to a major rebellion between worker scrubs like me and the snobby uppers who rule our world. Make that ruled. Because of me, we're free. I thought that meant I was off the hook, and could go off on my own again while still touching base with Riley, of course. He's the one upper I think I can trust. But then we learned that there's outside and then there is Outside.
Being Inside's hero only left Trella with more work. Ducking those responsibilities, she continued to explore her stark world—and found something she never expected. Strangers. From Outside…

Review: This story starts with an introduction summarizing what happened in the first book and what has happened between the ending of the first book and the beginning of this book. While I started liking Trella in the last part of the first book, i went right back to not liking her in the beginning of this book all the qualities that i liked about her in the end of Inside Out seemed to have disappeared and Trella reverted to her beginning personality by the beginning of Outside In, so it ended up taking just as long to get into this book (I started to get into it around the very end of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five). The world building was still just as non-existent and confusing as with the first book, so I had just as hard a time imagining the world. And the questions I had about how the characters ended up in the place they were didn't seem to be explained, and if it was it went by very quickly and vaguely. So while the premise was interesting the execution was a let down.

I had the combined book which included both books together.

It was 608 pages.

Series Rating: 3/5
Series Review: While I enjoyed both books well enough, they were not my cup of tea, they seemed to drag on in the beginning of both books only to pick up for a few chapters. The world building for me seemed confusing and almost non-existent. Although my biggest problem was with the main character, Trella, She seemed very self-involved and unconcerned with others problems or issues, it wasn't until the end of the first book that she started to realize that there was more to the world than just her. But then the second book started and she fell into old behaviors, and she also seemed to be a little hypocritical, so she was honestly my biggest problem with the series. I actually liked a lot of the other characters, my favorites being Cog and Logan, they were very charming to me in terms of their characters, sadly they weren't in the series that much though. I think one of the reasons i may not have liked Trella, would be because there was very little background to relate to her so I couldn't really get to know or understand her character. That seemed like another problem with the books, was not only very little world building, but also very little background for the characters. Also, The endings for both books seemed very rushed, and the last book left off with more questions than answers, the ones that were supposed to be answered in the last book weren't. So while I enjoyed the series, I didn't truly like or love it.

Next up my book haul!
I hope everybody had/has a great day : )

Wicked Book Reviews (plus a little note at the end)

Review #1

Wicked: The Life and the Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years Book #1 of 4) by Gregory Maguire

Paperback, 530 pages
Read: Feb. 25 - Feb. 26
Rating: 4/5
Genres: Fantasy
Summery: When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?
Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Review: This story starts out with a prologue of Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West) Spying on Dorthy and Company (The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man, and The Scarecrow) talking and theorizing about Elphaba and how she became so wicked. The story then moves to chapter one, which introduces Melena and Frexspar, Elphaba's mother and father, it takes place on the morning of the day Elphaba is born. I really enjoyed this book, I ended up really liking Elphaba and ended up being sad that she died. The book was well paced and gave enough description about the world in where it's set without being to over baring, I liked most of the characters. while i was saddened by some of the reasoning for some of the characters behavior, i over all liked the book, I liked Gillikin's Part the best.

I don't think i'm going to be able to finish When The Wind Blows by James Patterson this month so I'm going to move it to my March T.B.R.(To Be Read) list. So my next and last review is going to be for The second book in the Inside Duology by Maria V. Snyder, Also I'm going to be doing a book haul after i finish Outside In.

I hope everybody has/had a great day : )

The Scarlet Letter Book Review

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Paperback, 247 pages
Read: Feb. 24 - Feb. 25
Rating: 3/5
Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance
Summery: Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country, " Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth. With "The Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.

Review: This story follows Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl, through life during which Hester has been punished for an adulterous affair, conception, and birth of a baby. While I liked the plot and the characters, it was very slow paced for me and seemed longer than it actually was. Certain parts of the book were written in a way that ended up confusing me to some plot points and I would have to re-read them, I have read this book twice (back in 2008 and now in 2014) and both times it has seemed slow, long, and slightly confusing. I still did somewhat enjoy the book, my favorite chapter was chapter 6: Pearl.

Hope everybody had/has a great day : )

Brave New World Book Review

Ended up getting sick and could finish as this book as fast as i normally would have been able to.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Paperback, 268 pages
Read: Feb. 21 - Feb. 24
Rating: 4.5/5
Genres: Dystopia, Fantasy, Philosophy, Science Fiction
Summery: Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric version of a "Utopian" future - where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.

Review: This story takes place in a future where people are genetically bred. The story starts of with the D.H.C. (Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning) giving a tour of their factory to young children and explaining how they breed and condition most of the people of the world now. In this future things like conditioning, world controllers, taking soma to be happy and numb(more or less), and sexual promiscuity are normal things, and things like monogamy, being a mother or father, getting old and sick, having feelings of anger and sadness, and being alone are seen as strange and in their own words smut and pornographic. The story continues with Bernard Marx, an Alpha who does not have the features of an alpha, Bernard feels alone. It also continues with Lenina Crowne, who has been perfectly conditioned to never feel alone. Bernard has decided to take Lenina with him to a Savage Reservations (a Savage Reservation is where people are monogamous, and use pain as a way to advance into adulthood, and birth children, and have old age and sickness, and have mothers and fathers). I really like this book, it definitely provoked some great and interesting thoughts for me, I really liked chapters 16 and 17.

4 books down, 4 more to go.
Hope everybody had/has a great day : )

Book + Series Review

Eona (Dragoneye Reborn Series Book #2 of 2) by Alison Goodman

Paperback, 657 pages
Read: Feb. 19 - Feb. 21
Rating: 2.5/5
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Mythology, Romance
Summery: Once she was Eon, a girl disguised as a boy, risking her life for the chance to become a Dragoneye apprentice.Now she is Eona, the Mirror Dragoneye, her country's savior - but she has an even more dangerous secret.
She cannot control her power.
Each she tries to bond with her Mirror Dragon, she becomes a conduit for the ten spirit dragons whose Dragoneyes were murdered by Lord Ido. Their anguish floods through her, twisting her ability into a force that destroys the land and it's people.
And another force of destruction is on her trail.
Along with Ryko and Lady Dela, Eona is on the run from High Lord Sethon's army. Sethon has declared himself Emperor. In order to stop him, the renegades must find Kygo, the young Pearl Emperor, who needs Eona's power if he is to wrest back his throne.

Review: We rejoin Eona three daybreaks after the events of Eon. The first chapter you find out what Eona's ability with her Dragon is, along with how powerful and destructive it can be. I really enjoyed Eona, it is a great sequel, I was nervous that it would fall flat like some continuations do, thankfully it didn't. Although I had some issues with Eona's choices and thoughts, i still enjoyed her as a character. If you have seen or read other reviews (Spoiler-filled or not) then you know there is a love triangle in this book, I think it was handled better then most young adult love triangles, and although some of my issues with Eona were involving the triangle it was handled well and resolved in a way that was believable to me. And although I was very upset about what happen's to a character that i liked it was a great sequel and ending to this series.

Series Review: I really loved this series, it was written and paced very well and even though I didn't agree with some of the choices of the characters I still enjoyed the characters. I really liked the descriptions of the world and places they were enough for me to picture them without being too much to where it felt over described and long winded, I also really liked the pacing, it was at a fast enough pace that I didn't feel like I had read past a chapter and missed everything, it also wasn't so slow that it felt like the chapters and story itself dragged on. I enjoyed Eona as a character, although i questioned and didn't agree with some her choices, Goodman wrote Eona in a way that while I didn't like some of the things she did I at least understood where she was coming from. Kygo is similar to Eona in this matter for me, that while I didn't agree with some of his choices I understood where he was coming from. Lady Dela was my favorite, both she and Rilla had Eona's best interests at heart and would tell Eona when she was in the wrong, I really enjoyed Dela and Ryko's relationship.All in all I think the series was great, and Alison Goodman did a good job with it.

Series Rating: 3/5

Hope everybody had/has a great day : )

New Book Review (Finally!)

I have finally finished Eon, i had a lot of stuff going on between readings so i wasn't able to finish a fast a i had hoped, but i did finish. Now, on to the review.

Eon (Dragoneye Reborn Series Book #1 of 2) by Alison Goodman

Paperback,  576 pages
Read: Feb. 9 - Feb. 16
Rating: 4/5
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure, Action, Mythology
Summery: For years, Eon's life has been focused on magical study and sword-work, with one goal: that he be chosen as a Dragoneye, an apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune.
But Eon has a dangerous secret. He is actually Eona, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been masquerading as a twelve-year-old boy. Females are forbidden to use Dragon Magic; the penalty is death.
When Eon's secret threatens to come to light, she and her allies are plunged into grave danger and a  struggle for the Imperial throne. Eona must find the strength and inner power to battle those who want to take her magic...and her life.

Review: Eon(a) has been studying and training for two years to be chosen by a Dragon (the Rat Dragon) to become a apprentice Dragoneye, she is also a cripple (in her own words). I really enjoyed Eon(a) as a character, but Lady Dela happened to be my favorite, she is a Contraire (transsexual),  Lady Dela's interactions with Ryko were my favorite parts of the book. There were a few parts specifically one involving Eon(a) and Lord Ido talking about the Dragon power that bothered me for a chapter or two, while i did not enjoy it i understand why it was there. I really enjoyed the book and can't wait to read the sequel, which is up next!

Hope everybody had/has a good day.

Ivy Cole and the moon book review

Hi,
My goal is to read 8 books in February, I've already got one down 7 to go!

Reading list this month:
Ivy Cole and the moon - Gina Farago

Finished!

Eon + Eona - Allison Goodman

Up Next!

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

When The Wind Blows - James Patterson

Outside In - Maria V. Snyder

Wicked: The Life And The Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West - George Maguire

A Scarlet Letter -  Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hopefully I hit my goal.

Now onto the review:

Ivy Cole And The Moon By Gina Farago

Paperback, 384 pages

Read: Feb. 5 - Feb. 7

Rating: 3/5

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Romance

Summery: "Sometimes there are folks in this world who deserve a good killin'..." Ivy Cole has returned home to Doe Springs, North Carolina, a quiet community in the Blue Ridge Mountains, imbued with a special gift - one that erupts howling on full-moon nights, and serves as judge, jury, and executioner for those who warrant a violet end. But Something else has returned as well. Cruel and hungry, it stalks the innocent and is closing in on everyone Ivy loves. Now, as terror rises like the moon over the Appalachian peaks, the beasts within are coming out... and the good souls of Doe Springs are praying for dawn.

Review: As you can probably guess, this story involves werewolves. The story begins with a non graphic murder prologue, four human deaths and multiple animal deaths in only one year have started to not only scare the people of quiet Doe Springs, but have started gossip of many folklore. Enter Ivy Cole who moved to Doe Springs a year ago, and her house is located close to the latest victim, making the Sheriff, and her 2 deputies, think she might be a suspect this leads to many different theories, suspicions and folklore stories. I loved the a few of the theories, Especially from Deputy Sanders. I also love the history on wolves, werewolves and possible "Werewolves", and while I really liked about 240 pages of this book around page 246 it stared to dim for me, I liked a lot of the characters, there were a few i really disliked, and while i really liked Ivy 'till about Chapter 48, Part 4, her behavior/thoughts started to become a little annoying, and were a switch from what they were just before then. It just seemed to start really strong. The writing was good there was no sex scenes, which i really appreciated, but the ending of Part 4 through to the Epilogue just seemed to go down hill for me. I liked the romance it wasn't over-baring or too subtle, It was enjoyable, and I did like the characters for the most part (my favorite was Doc Hill.). It was enjoyable, but not a favorite.

Hope everybody had/has a good day : )