05.24.18
Posted in Review at 9:49 am by Amber
Title: School for Psychics
Author: K.C. Archer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
An entrancing new series starring a funny, impulsive, and sometimes self-congratulatory young woman who discovers she has psychic abilities—and then must decide whether she will use her skills for good or…not.
Teddy Cannon isn’t your typical twenty-something woman. She’s resourceful. She’s bright. She’s scrappy. She can also read people with uncanny precision. What she doesn’t realize: she’s actually psychic.
When a series of bad decisions leads Teddy to a run-in with the police, a mysterious stranger intervenes. He invites her to apply to the School for Psychics, a facility hidden off the coast of San Francisco where students are trained like Delta Force operatives: it’s competitive, cutthroat, and highly secretive. They’ll learn telepathy, telekinesis, investigative skills, and SWAT tactics. And if students survive their training, they go on to serve at the highest levels of government, using their skills to protect America, and the world.
In class, Teddy befriends Lucas, a rebel without a cause who can start and manipulate fire; Jillian, a hipster who can mediate communication between animals and humans; and Molly, a hacker who can apprehend the emotional state of another individual. But just as Teddy feels like she’s found where she might belong, strange things begin to happen: break-ins, missing students, and more. It leads Teddy to accept a dangerous mission that will ultimately cause her to question everything—her teachers, her friends, her family, and even herself.
Set in a world very much like our own, School for Psychics is the first book in a stay-up-all night series.
I recently started reading ebooks again so expect my reviews from NetGalley to pick up for 2018. I requested this because I thought it sounded interesting and it coincidentally would count towards my Book Riot 2018 Read Harder Challenge. This counts for Task 20 – Book with a cover you hate.
Thankfully, the contents are better than the cover. The students at the Whitfield Institute have various reasons for attending the school but they all want to learn some self-control over their powers. Most of the story focuses on Teddy’s first-year experience at the school.
Teddy’s cut herself off from people due to her human lie detector abilities. At the school she gains friends and learns maintaining friendships is hard. A lot of the book is spent on the first semester of school and there’s some fast forward through to the end of the year so the pacing felt a little off.
There are clues along the way on who is involved in the strange events but the author added an unexpected player which probably went over my head as I was focused on the characters we’ve been directly introduced to. Hopefully that’s not a spoiler. If you decide to read it, suspect everyone!
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05.22.18
Posted in Review at 8:43 pm by Amber
Title: My Boyfriend is a Bear
Author: Pamela Ribon (Illustrated by Cat Farris)
Publisher: Oni Press
Source: Publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Nora has bad luck with men. When she meets an (actual) bear on a hike in the Los Angeles hills, he turns out to be the best romantic partner she’s ever had! He’s considerate, he’s sweet, he takes care of her. But he’s a bear, and winning over her friends and family is difficult. Not to mention he has to hibernate all winter. Can true love conquer all?
My book club has been reading Bear by Marian Engel. We have one copy and we write comments in it before passing it along to the next person. The final person finished it and last Friday we got together to do a final review complete with dramatic readings of the comments. As you can imagine, when I saw this title, I HAD to get a copy of it. I mean, first, it would be an inside joke with my book club. Second, the story is odd but the cover is… adorable?
My boyfriend is a Bear isn’t a joke. It had some funny, and sweet moments. When it’s hibernation time, and Nora is left alone to face the relationship criticism from her family and friends, I felt so bad for her. I don’t know of many women who will say anything bad about a person’s partner while the relationship exists. She had her own doubts the relationship would survive the time apart and to have that piled on top of her was just crappy of her friends and family to do.
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02.17.18
Posted in Giveaway at 1:18 pm by admin
Penguin Random House has a early giveaway of All The Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church. It’s open until 2/28/18. Good luck!
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02.11.18
Posted in Tally at 10:05 pm by Amber
2018 should be an interesting year of books for me. Last year I set a GoodReads Reading Challenge Goal of 52 books which I literally finished on 12/31/2017.
Some of my librarian friends mentioned the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge back in early 2017 and I joined the forums but never visited. This year, I’m in two book clubs and I feel trying to do the Read Harder Challenge will let me be a bit more focused on what I read.
In one book club, the hostess picks the book we’ll read so when we meet up we usually end up having dinner, discussing the book, discussing what’s happening in our lives, and then we talk about our current reading picks. As readers, we’re usually reading another book not long after finishing the book club pick.
In my newest book club, we pick any book we want and talk about it. We’re strongly considering using the Book Riot tasks to focus what we’re reading.
My reading challenge this year is 54 books (I know there will likely be a handful of graphic novels) with more intentions.
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09.15.17
Posted in Review at 11:27 pm by Amber
Title: Hot and Badgered
Author: Shelly Laurenston
Publisher: Kensington Books
Source: Publisher via Netgalley – First Chapter Only
It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
When I requested the book I didn’t realize it was a sneak peek of the first chapter. That was my fault as I only read the book description and the release date when I requested it. My book club’s September host didn’t pick a book for the month. Instead we’re meeting to talk about what we’ve been reading since we last met. I thought this would be a great book to talk about with them since half read romances and half read sci fi or fantasy. Why not a book which combines it all?
The first chapter had me hooked. With Netgalley you can send the file to your Kindle or download a protected .pdf file. I reached the end of the file on my Kindle and had so many questions. I then downloaded the protected .pdf file in case the file on my Kindle was corrupted. Aren’t I silly?!
The first chapter introduces the reader to the two main characters, Berg and Charlie, and a few supporting ones. Some questions include, “Who is trying to kill Charlie?” and “Does Berg get his concert t-shirt back?” There’s no wasting time with the meet cute and I predict this will be a quick read. The publisher’s description has more spoilers than this review of the first chapter.
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08.26.17
Posted in Review at 10:44 pm by Amber
Title: Wide-Open World
Author: John Marshall
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine
Source: Publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
For readers of Three Cups of Tea; Eat, Pray, Love; and Wild comes the inspiring story of an ordinary American family that embarks on an extraordinary journey. Wide-Open World follows the Marshall family as they volunteer their way around the globe, living in a monkey sanctuary in Costa Rica, teaching English in rural Thailand, and caring for orphans in India. There’s a name for this kind of endeavor – voluntourism – and it might just be the future of travel.
Oppressive heat, grueling bus rides, backbreaking work, and one vicious spider monkey . . . Best family vacation ever!
John Marshall needed a change. His twenty-year marriage was falling apart, his seventeen-year-old son was about to leave home, and his fourteen-year-old daughter was lost in cyberspace. Desperate to get out of a rut and reconnect with his family, John dreamed of a trip around the world, a chance to leave behind, if only just for a while, routines and responsibilities. He didn’t have the money for resorts or luxury tours, but he did have an idea that would make traveling the globe more affordable and more meaningful than he’d ever imagined: The family would volunteer their time and energy to others in far-flung locales.
Wide-Open World is the inspiring true story of the six months that changed the Marshall family forever. Once they’d made the pivotal decision to go, John and his wife, Traca, quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school, and embarked on a journey that would take them far off the beaten path, and far out of their comfort zones.
Here is the totally engaging, bluntly honest chronicle of the Marshall’s life-altering adventure from Central America to East Asia. It was no fairy tale. The trip offered little rest, even less relaxation, and virtually no certainty of what was to come. But it did give the Marshalls something far more valuable: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conquer personal fears, strengthen family bonds, and find their true selves by helping those in need. In the end, as John discovered, he and his family did not change the world. It was the world that changed them.
Parents getting to ready to face an empty nest, self-involved teens (aren’t they all?) and trying to find the spark in a marriage… a long family vacation doing good for others seems like a great idea. There are two storylines that run throughout the memoir.
The first is how the trip comes together (which isn’t easy) and the different experiences they have at each destination. Some of the stops include labor and others include working directly with people to share language or culture. The second is about the changes in the family. We’re so connected all the time to everyone that if you don’t respond via text, im or email within 5 minutes that some people actually get upset about it. Each member learns to be more present. When finding an internet connection is close to impossible, they’re forced to notice their surroundings and spend time with each other.
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07.01.17
Posted in Giveaway at 11:02 am by Amber
Harper Collins has a summer book giveaway for you! It’s an entire package of beach reads.
The books are: The Badass Life by Christmas Abbott; Beach House: Coming Home by Georgia Bockoven; The Cafe by the Seaby Jenny Colgan; My Sister’s Bones by Nuala Ellwood; Same Beach, Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank; Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson; The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan; The Light in Summer by Mary McNear; The Beach at Painter’s Cove by Shelley Noble; The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry; It Happens in the Hamptons by Holly Peterson; Map of the Heartby Susan Wiggs; Cocoa Beach by Beatriz Williams; and The Force by Don Winslow.
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06.23.17
Posted in Review at 10:25 pm by Amber
Title: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Publisher: Random House
Source: Columbus Metropolitan Library
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
What a lovely novel. It’s no wonder it’s been a New York Times Bestseller and was a 2014 National Book Award Finalist. Some of the choices are poetic.
The novel focuses on several characters who have a connection to Arthur Leander. It flips back in time to decades prior to the pandemic and forward to present day which is 20 years after the world changed.
In 2015 I did an All Hallow’s Read with my book club and when I saw this at Half Price Books I got a copy for one lucky person to go home with. Since then it’s been passed around for other readers to enjoy.
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11.26.16
Posted in Review at 7:24 pm by Amber
Title: The Great Zoo of China
Author: Matthew Reilly
Publisher: Gallery Books
Source: The publisher via NetGalley
It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for forty years.
They have found a species of animal no one believed even existed. It will amaze the world.
Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing discovery within the greatest zoo ever constructed.
A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see its fabulous creatures for the first time. Among them is Dr Cassandra Jane ‘CJ’ Cameron, a writer for National Geographic and an expert on reptiles.
The visitors are assured by their Chinese hosts that they will be struck with wonder at these beasts, that they are perfectly safe, and that nothing can go wrong…
Naturally there are going to be comparisons to Jurassic Park and the author addresses these head on. I enjoyed the strong female character and the science was interesting. Overall, I kinda liked it. It was a bit of a mindless read in that you know one disaster after another is going to befall the group on the tour but on the other hand you had to figure out how they might be able to survive each disaster.
About Matthew Reilly
Born in Sydney in 1974, Matthew Reilly was not always a big fan of reading.
According to Matthew, ‘I actually disliked reading in my early high school years. I was given very dry old classics in Year 7 and it was only after I read To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies in Year 10 that I realised reading could transport you to another world. Once I figured that out, I went out and found all the action novels I could!’
Following this revelation, Matthew soon began creating stories of his own and set about writing his first novel, Contest, at 19 while still at university studying law.
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11.07.16
Posted in Review at 8:24 pm by Amber
Title: Scarecrow
Editor: Rhonda Parrish
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Source: My personal library
Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want.
Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.
Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Virginia Carraway Stark, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.
Do you ever read a book and afterwards sit there stunned? A few weeks later I still have one word to describe this book. Damn. Day-um.
Yes, I’m friends with Rhonda. I look forward to reading anything she touches. But this was a surprise. The editor does a lot; comes up with the concept, reads all the submissions, (maybe) pick the cover art, suggests edits to the authors, and much more I don’t even know about. I’ve seen some of these author names pop up from other projects Rhonda has worked on but playing favorites isn’t her thing; she’ll always pick what she thinks is the best work.
Variety – There’s a good mix within the anthology. Story lengths, settings, time periods, mechanical scarecrows, straw scarecrows… you get the idea.
Pacing – Each piece is well-paced. Every single story felt like it was building to a conclusion of some kind.
I feel like this is one of those very vague reviews. I guess because it is; I’m no pointing to any one story which is better than another. Each person’s experience of this anthology is going to be different. There’s truly enough variety that I’m sure anyone picking this up will find a story that sticks with them.
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