Rebel Angels by Libba Bray

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

Ah, Christmas! Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy, spending time with her friends in the city, attending ritzy balls, and on a somber note, tending to her ailing father. As she prepares to ring in the New Year, 1896, a handsome young man, Lord Denby, has set his sights on Gemma, or so it seems. Yet amidst the distractions of London, Gemma’s visions intensify -- visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened, something only the realms can explain....

The lure is strong, and before long, Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are turning flowers into butterflies in the enchanted world of the realms that Gemma alone can bring them to. To the girls’ great joy, their beloved Pippa is there as well, eager to complete their circle of friendship.

But all is not well in the realms -- or out. The mysterious Kartik has reappeared, telling Gemma she must find the Temple and bind the magic, else great disaster will befall her. Gemma’s willing to do his intrusive bidding, despite the dangers it brings, for it means she will meet up with her mother’s greatest friend -- and now her foe, Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live out her destiny. But finding Circe proves a most perilous task.

My Thoughts:

This second novel in Libba Bray's trilogy is at least as good as the first, A Great and Terrible Beauty. This has all the magic and intrigue of the first book plus more! We get to explore more of The Realms and see more of the strange and unique inhabitants. Gemma struggles to find the Temple in the Realms and bind the magic that is running rampant for anyone to abuse. She struggles to help her father with his addiction to laudanum. She struggles with her feelings about the dashing Simon Middleton as well as her feelings for Kartik. Gemma has many conflicts to face and overcome in Rebel Angels. There are characters in this book who are not who they seem to be and Gemma has to decide who she can trust and who she cannot. Libba Bray is a fantastic writer who brings her characters to life. She does a wonderful job at giving each character a distinct personality. This book has humor, romance, suspense, fantasy all blended together into a story that is fun, entertaining and will leave you wanting more!

Winter Moon by Dean Koontz

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
In Los Angeles, a hot Hollywood director, high on PCP, turns a city street into a fiery apocalypse. Heroic LAPD officer Jack McGarvey is badly wounded and will not walk for months. His wife and his child are left to fend for themselves against both criminals that control an increasingly violent city and the dead director's cult of fanatic fans.
In a lonely corner of Montana, Eduardo Fernandez, the father of McGarvey's murdered partner, witnesses a strange nocturnal sight. The stand of pines outside his house suddenly glows with eerie amber light, and Fernandez senses a watcher in the winter woods. As the seasons change, the very creatures of the forest seem in league with a mysterious presence. Fernandez is caught up in a series of chilling incidents that escalate toward a confronation that could rob him of his sanity or his life--or both.
As events careen out of control, the McGarvey family is drawn to Fernandez's Montana ranch. In that isolated place they discover their destiny in a terrifying and fiercely suspenseful encounter with a hostile, utterly ruthless, and enigmatic enemy, from which neither the living nor the dead are safe.


My thoughts:
If you like a good scare while reading a book, then I suggest reading Winter Moon. I read this book at night and it gave me goosebumps! Jack takes his family and moves to a ranch in rural Montana. When they get there though, they are not alone. There are walking cadavers, glowing lights, messages in the electronic devices, and wild animals acting not so wild. The situation is brought to a climax during the first blizzard of the season. Will the "Giver" win out against humanity or will the imagination of an 8 year old boy be it's downfall?

The only fault I can find in Winter Moon is the divide in the story. The first half and the second half of the book are almost like two separate books. I don't really see how the first half of the story relates much to the rest of the book. The disconnectedness is easily overlooked though. Koontz sure knows how to write a spooky story!

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties.

But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...

A modern Christmas classic, Skipping Christmas is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition.

My thoughts:
Skipping Christmas is a fun little Christmas tale surrounding the Krank family and their attempts to forgo the holidays for a tropical cruise. After Thanksgiving, Luther and Nora Krank's only daughter joins the Peace Corp and is off to Peru for a year. The holidays just won't be the same without her. Luther, an accountant, sees that last Christmas they spent over $6,000 on the annual party, tree, gifts, cards and everything else that encompasses the Krank family Christmas. He and Nora decide to forgo everything related to the holiday and instead leave on Christmas day for a 10 day cruise in the tropics. If only it were that easy! The neighbors harass them to put up the decorations so the street can win the neighborhood Christmas contest. The Fire and Police Departments want to sell them their annual calenders and fruitcakes. Everybody is talking about them behind their backs and calling them Scrooges. Then on Christmas Eve, their daughter calls from Miami and is coming home for Christmas! The Kranks then have about 10 hours to figure out how to acquire a tree, string the lights, hang the decorations, get a turkey, plan a party and buy gifts. Mayhem, chaos and laughs ensue. Skipping Christmas is entertaining, amusing, and at times a little over the top. Although this book is silly and comical, the ending is truly heartwarming.

As a side note: Skipping Christmas was made into a movie called Christmas with the Kranks starring Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd.

Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:
"Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him." "Shanghai, 1941 - a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war ... and the dawn of a blighted world." J. G. Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Empire of the Sun is the true story of Jim, a British boy who survives WWII in occupied China by courage and a strong will to survive. He's separated from his parents at the start of the war and is left to his own resourcefulness to become a survivor. The story itself is an amazing firsthand account of war through the eyes of a child. Jim never lets himself slip into despondency or despair. He keeps his spirit alive by watching the air strikes in wonder and awe, by keeping a pet turtle in the internment camp, by reading over and over again the same Life and Reader's Digest magazines and by trying to befriend and help guards and prisoners alike. Empire of the Sun is a great story but I find the writing to be somewhat lacking. It's boring in parts and rather slow. If you can plod through, the book is worth reading when looked back on in it's entirety. People can gain something from seeing the survival of an 11 year old boy in the face of extreme adversity.

Santa's Twin by Dean Koontz

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:

A contemporary Christmas classic for children
of all ages -- including those who pretend to have grown up!

Charlotte and Emily are determined to save Santa from his mischievous twin -- Bob Claus -- who has not only stolen Santa's sleigh and stuffed his toy bag full of mud pies, cat poop, and broccoli, but has also threatened to turn Donner, Blitzen, and the others into reindeer soup!

How the brave but foolhardy sisters fly to the North Pole and rescue Santa from his "deeply troubled" twin is an utterly charming and unforgettable story sure to add sparkle to your holiday season.

Read it aloud, preferably to someone you love to hear laugh!

This perennial yuletide favorite was written by bestselling novelist Dean Koontz in 1996 at the request of his fans and has been pleasing readers every holiday season since. Winner of an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition while he was just a senior in college, Koontz today is a world-famous author whose books have been published in thirty-eight different languages and have sold more than three hundred million copies.

Lavishly illustrated with spectacular paintings by Phil Parks, this thoroughly modern masterpiece breathes new life and warmth into the world's most beloved legend.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:

This is a very cute Christmas poem along the lines of Twas the Night Before Christmas. The story is about Santa's evil twin stealing Christmas and trying to ruin it. Can two little girls rescue Santa before Christmas is lost? Is Santa's twin really evil or can he be cured of his nastiness?
The illustrations in Santa's Twin are fantastic! There is even a little game of finding the hidden snowman on every page. Dean Koontz does a very nice job straying from his usual genre, horror, and writing a truly charming Christmas tale for the whole family.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Rating: 4.5

What it's about:
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Richard, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.

My thoughts:
There is one sentence at the end of The Hours that expresses the theme of the novel. "There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone.....knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult." The Hours follows a day in the life of 3 women parallel to each other as they struggle. Virginia Woolf struggles to remain sane and writing, Laura Brown struggles to feel something and to make her husband a perfect birthday cake, and Clarissa Vaughn struggles to throw her friend Richard, dying of Aids, a party. The striving of these hours comes to climax bringing the stories of these women together. I love the subtleness of this novel. The writing is wonderful and fresh. The Hours has many layers and at the end I am satisfied.

M by John Sack

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:
Sack followed a company from the inanity of a barracks inspection at Fort Dix to the senseless killing of a 7-year-old girl in Vietnam. He has produced a gripping account, compassionate and rich, colorful and blackly humorous. -taken from back cover of book

My thoughts:
This book gives one a feel for military life. Sack followed M company from infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey all the way to Vietnam. He writes about the soldiers who make up M company and their thoughts and feelings about their situations. There's Mason who wants to become a Green Beret, Russo who lied to get into the army (he's only 16), gentle Morton who doesn't even want to hurt an ant and many other men. Sack writes about barracks inspections and haircuts to landing in Vietnam and M's first military operation. The writing is a little bland and boring in parts. The humor was dark and clever but too sparse. As a non-fiction novel, M
seems a little coarse but worth a read.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:

Lily is haunted by memories-of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.

In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames," in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

My thoughts:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is filled with sorrow with a touch of happiness sprinkled in for good measure. In this novel, Lily is recounting to us her life story and the one thing that she cannot forgive herself for. This novel is about her friendship with Snow Flower and ultimately the regret that Lily feels for a misunderstanding that threatens the love they have for one another. Snow Flower and the secret fan is suffused with hopelessness, anguish and sorrow. We see famine, plague, rebellion, death, pain and much more. This is not the book to read if your looking for a heartwarming story! The friendship we watch blossom between Snow Flower and Lily is breathtaking though. The writing is beautiful and as long as you don't let the story depress you, it's an absorbing tale.

Etruscans by Morgan Llywelyn and Michael Scott

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

In the early days of the Roman Empire, the noble Etruscan civilization in Italy is waning, Vesi, a young Etruscan noblewoman, is violated by a renegade supernatural being. Outcast then from Etruria, Vesi bears Horatrim, a child who carries inexplicable knowledge and grows to manhood in only six years. But a savage Roman attack leaves Vesi unresponsive and Horatrim homeless and vulnerable. He travels to Rome where his talents confound powerful businessman Propertius, who arranges to adopt Horatrim as a son, changing his name to Horatius.

And all the while his demon father is seeking him to kill him, for Horatius is a conduit through which the demon might be found and destroyed.

My thoughts:
Etruscans is a great result of the collaboration between Llywelyn and Scott. Vesi is raped by a demon. When her child Horatrim is born, he attains manhood in only 6 years! When Vesi is kidnapped and eventually possessed, Horatrim has to cross the river Styx and venture into the depths of the Netherworld to find her. But Horatrim's demon father is hunting for Horatrim. A demon's spawn is too dangerous to the demon to be allowed to live. This novel takes the reader from the Earthworld to the Otherworld to the Netherworld. We encounter humans, demons and gods. We see spirits beneficial, benign and also malicious.

The authors do a fantastic job of making the environments tangible. Whether it's the streets and palaces of Rome or the plains of the Netherworld, I was able to clearly visualize the environs. Etruscans is a fantasy not soon forgotten!

The Mask of Red Death by Harold Schechter

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Suspense, intrigue, atmosphere, and vivid historical detail combine into a thrilling ride through nineteenth-century New York City in The Mask of Red Death. Harold Schechter delivers both a wonderfully accurate portrait of a city in turmoil and an irresistibly appealing depiction of his amateur sleuth Edgar Allan Poe, mirroring the master's writing style with wit and acumen.

It is the sweltering summer of 1845, and the thriving metropolis has fallen victim to a creature of the most inhuman depravity. Found days apart, two girls have been brutally murdered, their throats slashed, viciously scalped, and-most shocking of all-missing their livers. Edgar Allan Poe, despite what the tenor of his own tales of terror might suggest about his constitution, is just as shaken and revolted by these horrendous crimes as the panic-stricken public. Suspicion of the scalper's identity immediately swirls around the most famous "redskin" in New York, Chief Wolf Bear, one of the human attractions at P.T. Barnum's American Museum. Certain that Chief Wolf Bear is innocent, Poe has deduced that the city is concealing a cannibal somewhere in its teeming masses, one with an ever-growing appetite for human prey.

Before he can investigate his theory further, Poe stumbles onto the scene of a third gruesome murder. Poe recently met William Wyatt when he agreed to look at a document for Wyatt to determine the authenticity of the purportedly famous handwriting on it. Now Poe finds Wyatt in a pool of blood, his scalp removed. How, Poe muses, are Wyatt and his document connected to the two slain girls?

As frenzied emotions over the murders reach a fevered pitch, Kit Carson makes an appearance. The famous scout has been tracking the "Liver Eater" since the man killed his wife months ago. Together, Carson and Poe make an odd sleuthing team, but their combined wits are formidable. The trail they uncover reveals a dark secret more powerful than anything they could have imagined- one that may reach the upper echelons of politics and privilege.

My thoughts:
Like the two previous Edgar Allan Poe mysteries, this third installment is fun and thrilling with an entertaining mystery at it's center. In The Mask of Red Death, Mr. Poe teams up with the renowned character of the west, Kit Carson, to solve a series of murders in the city of New York. Like the preceding Schechter mysteries, this novel is full of interesting and memorable characters.

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
All the beautiful people live in the idyllic village of Stepford, Connecticut, an affluent suburban Eden populated with successful, satisfied hubbys and their beautiful, dutiful wives. For Joanna Eberhart, a recent arrival with her husband and two children, it all seems too perfect to be true -- from the sweet, accommodating Welcome Wagon lady to all those cheerful, friendly faces in the supermarket checkout lines. But just beneath the town's flawless surface, something is sordid and wrong -- something abominable with roots in the local Men's Association. And it may already be too late for Joanna to save herself from being devoured by Stepford's hideous perfection.

My thoughts:
At the heart of this novel is a mockery of conformity and a satire of "the oppressors and their desires". After Joanna and her family move to Stepford, she sees that something about the women isn't quite right. All they do is smile and clean their houses. They are pleasant but very distant. They are all the same. Except for two other women who are also recent arrivals in the too perfect town of Stepford. Those two other women eventually conform to the domesticity of the Stepford women. Joanna is left to wonder at the conversion her two friends go through. Did they conform by choice or is there something in the water that changes the women of this town or worse? Is it something the men are doing to their women to make them especially beautiful and diligent in their housework? The Stepford Wives is highly readable, witty and clever. To quote Peter Straub in the introduction of this book, "Like everything else he [Ira Levin] has written, this book resembles a bird in flight, a haiku, a Chinese calligrapher's brushstroke. With no wasted motion, it gets precisely where it wants to go."