Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Gilbert is finally a doctor, and in the old orchard, among their dearest friends, he and Anne speak their vows. The first year of marriage brings them new friends and their own dream house on the misty purple shores of Four Winds Harbour. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Anne's House of Dreams is book number five in the Green Gables series. Anne's first year of marriage is filled with perfect happiness. But with the happiness comes tragic heartbreak. Life at Four Winds Harbor is never dull and Anne takes life as it comes. The Anne of Green Gables series is beautifully written with stunning descriptions. I am really enjoying re-reading these books!

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Jonathan Harker, a solicitor's clerk from London, travels to Transylvania to settle some business with the mysterious Count Dracula. In England, Harker's fiancee, Mina, receives a visit from the Count as does her friend Lucy. Harker returns from his traumatic journey and joins Dr. Van Helsing on a "vampire hunt" in an attempt to rescue his beloved Mina.

Dracula. By day he sleeps in a tomb beneath his desolate castle. By night he stalks the countryside, driven by a supernatural and deadly hunger. His quiet smile hides canine teeth. His seemingly delicate, white hands are in fact coarse and broad with hairy palms and nails cut to a razor-fine point. His touch yields an uncontrollable shudder. His sustenance is the life-blood of others. His victims become helpless under his hypnotic spell. There is no escape from this evil being who inhabits the shadows of the dark and dismal night. Beware of the "ever-present blackness" and "shadows of the evening": Dracula is a vision of your "ghostly fears" coming to life.

My thoughts:
Dracula is classic horror story at it's best. It's creepy, thrilling and sensual. I enjoyed how it was written entirely in diary form with each of the main characters writing their own perspectives. Dr. Van Helsing, in particular, was a bit long-winded but all of the characters were compelling. I recommend this book to those looking for an atmospheric and eerie tale of vampires and those that hunt them.

Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
He's the MTV generation's master of modern humor, a star of film, TV, and the comedy stage. This sultan of savvy serves up a whip-smart, utterly original collection of comic essays in Naked Pictures of Famous People. And as of January 11, 1999, you can enjoy the intelligence and self-deprecating charm he brings to contemporary comedy on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." In his first book, he translates that unique talent to the page, with humorous forays into a vast array of subjects: fashion, urban life, fast cars, cocktail culture, modern Jewishness, politics, and dating. A seethingly irreverent wit, Stewart has a genius for language and brilliant timing that makes his up-to-the-minute collection a must-have for humor lovers in search of a Woody Allen for the 90s. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed this collection of short essays by Jon Stewart. I'm not familiar with Jon Stewart's other endeavors so I can't compare the humor in this book to, say, his t.v. stuff. I can say this book was sarcastic, witty, and brought a smile to my face. A couple of my favorites out of this book are: The Last Supper, Or The Dead Waiter, about, well....the supposed Last Supper of Christ. I also really got a kick out of Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview. Funny stuff. Another good one is Breakfast At Kennedy's, written from the perspective of a boarding school chum of the teenage John F. Kennedy. The only thing I was left wondering at the end of the book was, where are those naked pictures of famous people?

The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
In northern Vermont, a raging river overflows its banks and sweeps the nine-year-old twin daughters of Terry and Laura Sheldon to their deaths. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the highway patrolman and his wife, unable to have more children, take in a foster child: a ten-year-old African-American boy who has been shuttled for years between foster families and group homes. Young Alfred cautiously enters the Sheldon family circle, barely willing to hope that he might find a permanent home among these kind people still distracted by grief.

Across the street from the Sheldons live an older couple who take Alfred under their wing, and it is they who introduce him to the history of the buffalo soldiers--African-American cavalry troopers whose reputations for integrity, honor, and personal responsibility inspires the child.

Before life has a chance to settle down, however, Terry, who has never been unfaithful to Laura, finds himself attracted to the solace offered by another woman. Their encounter, brief as it is, leaves her pregnant with his baby--a child Terry suddenly realizes he urgently wants.

From these fitful lives emerges a lyrical and richly textured story, one that explores the meaning of marriage, the bonds between parents and children, and the relationships that cause a community to become a family. But The Buffalo Soldier is also a tale of breathtaking power and profound moral complexity--and exactly the sort of novel readers have come to expect from Chris Bohjalian. -taken from back of book

My thoughts:
The Buffalo Soldier is a complex tale of morals and emotions. I loved it. I loved how the book was written with the chapters alternating between the main characters so the reader gets to see the whole picture. I was able to sympathize with each character and understand why they did the things they did. Bohjalian did a wonderful job creating his characters; Terry, the sterotypical macho highway patrolman. His fragile wife Laura, who is still grieving the loss of her children. Alfred, the somewhat troubled foster child who is seemingly the only black person in miles. And probably my favorite character, Paul, the retired professor who is the first to bond with Alfred. The Buffalo Soldier is a journey of frail and fractured lives trying to grasp the roots to form a family. I couldn't put the book down.

Deathsong by Jack Scaparro

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:

Ancient Curse
They cut his hands off because they thought he was the Devil. How else could he play the piano without ever taking a lesson? As they threw his mangled body over the cliffs, into the boiling sea, he uttered a curse: death to every one of the descendants of his murderers. It was 1788, and most people in the sleepy town of First Landing, Maine believed in black magic. They were glad he was gone.

Present Evil
Nobody believed in curses anymore, especially sensible Diane Whitehead, who brought her husband and two children to Maine for a vacation--and to trace her ancestry in the picture-perfect town of First Landing. Diane was delighted to be able to rent the very house where her forebears had lived--until strange things began to happen. Poltergeists. Precipices that fell into the sea. Disembodied hands. Hideous deaths. Eerie music. And then one night, Diane's pretty seven-year-old daughter began to play the piano--without ever taking a lesson. The music was beautiful. Too beautiful to be anything but a Deathsong. -taken from back of book

My thoughts:
The story of Deathsong caught my eye. It sounded good and I liked the link between past and present. And the tie to music sounded cool too. It got off to a slow start though and the writing wasn't that great. The last part of the book was good and kept my attention. Overall I'd say it's not a bad book. I think Scaparro should have skipped over writing the novel though and instead wrote this as a screenplay for a movie.

Where the Girls Are by Susan J. Douglas

Rating: 3.0

What it's about:
"Where the Girls Are" is about the confusing and contradictory images of women in American pop culture. Media critic Susan J. Douglas looks back at the television programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reports of the past four decades to reveal the mixed messages conveyed to girls and women coming of age in America. In a humorous and provocative analysis of our postwar cultural heritage, Douglas deconstructs these ambiguous messages and examines their influence on her life and the lives of her contemporaries....It is no accident, she argues, that 'girl groups' like the Shirelles emerged in the early 1960s, singing sexually charged songs like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?;" or that cultural anxiety over female assertiveness showed up in sitcoms like "Bewitched" whose heroines had magical powers; or that the news coverage of the Equal Rights Amendment degenerated into a spat among women, absolving men of any responsibility....And yet for all the images that reinforced a traditional view of servile and dependent women, Douglas powerfully reveals how American mass culture also undermined these images by offering countless examples of girls and women who were actors in the wider world and who controlled their own destinies. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
I found Where the Girls are to be an interesting read. I think the target audience was maybe my mother's generation though and much of the book I just couldn't relate to. It was written in the early 90's and it feels outdated. Douglas came off at times a bit too whiny for my taste and somewhat repetitive. She does make interesting points though and at times Where the Girls Are was an eye-opening read.

Wraeththu by Storm Constantine

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion of Homo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won't die without a struggle.

Here at last in a single volume are all three of Constantine's Wraeththu trilogy: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Wraeththu is a trilogy of books composed in one very thick book. The first book, The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, was hard to get into. The story was like nothing I've read before. This first book had a lot of terms and background history of this hermaphroditic race of beings that the author wanted to get out there, so it was by far the most boring of the three books. The second and third books made up for it though. The story itself takes place in the future but at times it really reminded me of historical fiction. It's got a post apocalyptic feel with a dry and dreary atmosphere. Wraeththu is a very original story with interesting characters. I'd highly recommend it to fans of sci-fi or fantasy. I would not recommend it to readers who are not big fans of this genre though.