false 13829 6 Sixteen-year-old Beka Cooper lives far removed from knights, palaces, and the nobility. Her world revolves around thieves, beggars, taverns, and the lowest of the low. She's a trainee for the Provost's Guard&#151;a rookie cop, in a world where a cop makes her own name based on her personality, her attitude toward money, and her love of the law. Beka means to prove that she is out to make her mark in this hard and physical world. She does face a large obstacle. She's shy. Painfully shy. Left to her own devices, she would have no friends. It's hard for her to talk to people she doesn't know. It's a problem for the Guards who train her, a real problem for Beka&#151;unless she can figure out that a uniform is a kind of costume, one she can hide behind. One that will make her a more outspoken person. It will help a lot if people come to realize that under her shyness is a clever, determined young woman. It will help even more if she can make friends who can give her good advice. Luckily, she has one such friend living with her in her slum apartment: a purple-eyed black cat named Pounce. He can make himself understood in human speech if he wishes to. He's capable of doing weirdly intelligent things to help his young companion Beka. With Pounce to assist her, Beka cannot have an ordinary career.<br><br> Beka tells her own story in a journal that she keeps from her very first day as a Puppy. The Guards are dubbed "Dogs" in her time and their trainees are called "Puppies." In its pages she writes of her days with her training Dogs, the pair who are to teach her what they know of survival on the streets in the city's toughest slum. Both are veterans. Tunstall is an easygoing, funny man who can be a little crazy in a fight. Goodwin is a small, tough woman who is opposed to Beka's presence at the beginning, a hard Dog and a smart one. They take charge when Beka brings them word of two vicious sets of crimes. Like everyone else in Beka's life, her partners find out that once Beka gets a case in her teeth, she hangs onto it like a terrier until it's been solved. 3056999 24 10 2006 Terrier (Beka Cooper, #1) total:2997|5:1492|4:947|3:427|2:100|1:31| 2997 12760 3984 319 5 4 false true Sun Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon May 26 10:05:57 -0700 2008 Mon May 26 10:14:58 -0700 2008
I'm noticing an odd trend in my reading, but this one again is one not for the light of stomach or easily squeamish.

Here's what I wrote right after I finished reading it:

Well, I really LOVED this story! The clearest sign was that...more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Mar 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 01 18:03:39 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 20 15:08:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jan 07 08:13:00 -0800 2009 Sun May 24 16:43:27 -0700 2009 2 AWESOME ! Seriously there isn't a lot of books that can do that (at least for me). Beka Cooper is the most kick butt, cool heroine I've encountered in all my reading days.
The book was just as good the second time around. At first I...more...]]> 4 1 false true Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 13 21:15:21 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 17 21:51:42 -0700 2008 Song of the Lioness and The Immortals -- and some were never-before-seen. Protector of the Small didn't do much for me, honestly, and while I enjoyed it I wasn't sure Pierce w...more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Oct 23 21:33:39 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 19 12:31:10 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 29 22:39:38 -0700 2007
7/29 - Stil...more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed May 16 16:33:43 -0700 2007 Wed May 16 16:47:51 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Aug 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 08:33:31 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 08 12:14:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Jan 18 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu May 01 17:19:25 -0700 2008 Thu May 01 17:19:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu May 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jan 09 15:10:18 -0800 2009 Sat Sep 19 11:00:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Aug 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 17 12:39:17 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 06:14:40 -0700 2008
This book is written as a diary of a cop-in-training (in a fantasy setting), the audio version (by Susan Denaker) had a very strong vocal personality, but I got used to it very quickly - and the entry that Becca (the herioine) writes whil...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Sep 16 20:44:25 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 09:19:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Aug 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 11:53:12 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 12:03:19 -0700 2009 3+ more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jul 16 15:41:03 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 15:41:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 10:13:26 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 09:49:40 -0700 2009
I think this sort of book is more deeply feminist than a lot of the "woman in a man's world" books aimed at girls, because in this book it's not so wholly a man's world. Sure, it's less usual for women to do the toug...more...]]> 5 0 false true Sat Apr 04 09:37:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 04 10:11:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Sep 30 12:45:40 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 12:45:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Nov 18 19:55:28 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 26 17:52:55 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 10:47:19 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 08:38:13 -0700 2009 real, books." I think that this attitude, in which my friend is not alone, is so misguided. Young adult books tend to deal wit...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 20:10:39 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 20:28:19 -0700 2009 Tamora Pierce fan since my older sister, Mary, gave me Alanna: The First Adventure.

Beka Cooper is George Cooper(my all-time favorite cheeky rogue)'s ancestor. She's a Puppy, an apprentice to the Lord Provost's sudo-police for...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 22:03:02 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 22:14:35 -0700 2009 more...]]>