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August 19
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Heather
gave
to:
Night Child (Paperback)
by Jes Battis
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Heather said:
"I really enjoyed this book. It took a minute to get used to some Canadian references, but I found the book to be very interesting. Sure, some of it was cliche just because of its genre. But I think that if a book is an enjoyable read, cliched charact...more
I really enjoyed this book. It took a minute to get used to some Canadian references, but I found the book to be very interesting. Sure, some of it was cliche just because of its genre. But I think that if a book is an enjoyable read, cliched characters and easy to figure out plots aren't deal-breakers.
Tess is a lower level investigator for a paranormal crime unit. It's made clear that she should be a higher level based on her experience and age, but has problems with sticking to protocol. What I enjoyed about Tess was that she wasn't super powerful, but she cared about what she was doing and put all of her effort into it.
I like Derrick in the friend role, but he didn't really have much going on personality wise. Perhaps he will be more developed later. I enjoyed Lucian's part and the fact that, while there may have been an attraction, Tess wasn't just jumping into bed with him at every turn. It was nice that there was no lust-at-first-sight and lack of impulse control between them....less
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August 17
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Heather
took the never-ending book quiz.
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August 15
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Heather
gave
to:
The Accidental Demon Slayer (Mass Market Paperback)
by Angie Fox (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Heather said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Lizzie finds out she's a demon slayer on her 30th birthday. Her maternal grandmother hunts her down, breaks the news and takes Lizzie to her old lady witch coven ...more
I wish this rating system had half stars. I really want to give this one 3.5 stars.
Lizzie finds out she's a demon slayer on her 30th birthday. Her maternal grandmother hunts her down, breaks the news and takes Lizzie to her old lady witch coven for protection. These old ladies are mean and bitchy to Lizzie, but still need her to do stuff for them. And she does because Lizzie desperately need acceptance, even if it is by crotchety old ladies. There is also a griffin love interest and a talking dog. Lizzie has to defeat the fifth level demon that captured her grandma and wants to break free of hell. She does and has to decide whether she wants to give up her powers or stay with the coven.
Lizzie was pretty typical. She was the really prissy, preppy girl thrust into a world that forces her to get dirty and do things she would never have done normally. While this is a typical main character in the genre, it's not the main kick ass, super powerful one that's the most popular. That's always refreshing. She didn't know how to do everything perfectly right away. Dimitri was pretty typical as well and not all that interesting. You could really replace him with any other character from any other book and it would be the same. He wasn't offensive, though, and I didn't hate him. Pirate, the dog, was the best part of the book. It was a shame he wasn't in it all that much. The witches were all just weird nasty characters and I didn't grow to like any of them. There is nothing appealing about biker grannies with bad attitudes and clothes they shouldn't be wearing eating road kill.
Still, it was a pretty good book. A lot of it was Lizzie learning to accept her situation and let go of her old life. The grannies were not in it as much as Dimitri was, so they weren't that bad. It was also good to see Lizzie get the upper hand on the one that was really a bully.
I did have two complaints about the book that kept it from really being 4 stars.
1. Lizzie kept talking about her grandma and what she knew about her like she had known her longer than a day or two.
2. I'm fine with the fact that someone doesn't swear. I'm okay if those words aren't in the book. What I don't like is the constant replacement of swearing with something lame. Just don't do it....less
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August 10
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Heather
gave
to:
A Long Way Down (Paperback)
by Nick Hornby
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Heather said:
"I don't know how he did it. Nick Hornby wrote a book where I hated every single character but somehow still liked the book.
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August 06
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Heather
gave
to:
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Series, Book 4)
by Stephenie Meyer
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2008
Heather said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Breaking Dawn, though still the same style and the same characters, seemed a million miles away from Twilight. Bella and Edward get married pretty early in the book. They go on a honeymoon to a remote island where Bella begins to obsess about sex. While there is nothing really inappropriate about her situation (not getting into whether a vampire is considered dead) because she's 18 and married, it still is a teen book and there was a lot of sex talk.
My first WTF moment in the book, though not the biggest, was when we find out Bella is pregnant. Somehow, after nearly 100 years, Edward has viable sperm. But Bella's pregnancy is moving more quickly than a normal one. So they go back home where Edward tries to convince her to kill the baby. Bella enlists Rosalie to keep the baby safe.
The book then switches POV from Bella to Jacob. This was weird because only the last little bit of Eclipse had Jacob's POV rather than Bella's. This lasts through 1/3 or so of the book. Jacob finds out that Bella is home and sick. He thinks that this is just a cover for turning her into a vampire and he wants to kill all the Cullens over it. When he gets to the house, he finds out that Bella is pregnant with something that is killing her. He and Edward kind of bond over the desire to save Bella. Jacob's pack feels like this is such a threat that they have to kill it, even if it kills Bella. Jacob breaks from the pack, becomes an Alpha, and goes to protect Bella.
Everything is fine and there is an uneasy truce between Jacob and Edward until Edward finds out he can hear the baby's thoughts. He now feels like the baby is a person and is not nearly so hateful towards it. Jacob is pissed.
Bella goes into labor and they have to cut her open to get the baby out. She's dying and Edward doesn't know if he can save her. Rosalie takes the baby away and Jacob wants to kill it. He goes to find the baby and... my biggest WTF moment of this book... he sees the half human, half vampire baby and imprints on her. Not to mention the stupidest name ever, Renesmee, and the stupidest nickname ever, Nessie. At least Bella later mentions that they are calling her after the Loch Ness Monster.
After the imprinting, the POV is back to Bella and it stays there for the rest of the book. Bella is in the process of changing into a vampire. She does what others can't- she is able to ride through the pain of the change without moving or screaming. She finally finishes and we find out that she is able to do something else others can't- she bypasses the whole first year of fledgling vampirehood to become immediately in control of herself and her cravings. Now, what she craves is sex with Edward.
After the initial finding out about Jacob's imprinting, everthing is peachy for a while. Charlie finds out only enough to stay in Bella's life. Wolf and vampire get along mostly. General happiness.
Then they find out the Volturi are coming after them. Apparently, there have been vampire children (Claudia, anyone?) that posed a danger once-upon-a-time. They think the Cullens created one.
In the end, Bella finds out that he ability to block mind attacks is her gift. Not only does it protect her but she can include others in it. Conveniently, every major attack by the Volturi is a mind attack and Bella can stop it. There is no actual battle at all. There was lots of talking and threats. Bella saved the day.
Bella became a real Mary Sue in this book. She developed major superpowers and was so much better at the vampire transition than anyone ever. Still, she always had been one mostly so it wasn't that new.
Everything was wrapped up so neatly. The love triangle didn't have to be resolved by Bella. It ended when Jacob imprinted on her child. She got to keep Jacob around, but not have him after her and angry about not getting her. The imprinting also took away the fact that the wolves wanted to kill the baby and made them stronger allies. Charlie got to stay in her life because he accepted supernatural stuff without any curiosity to know more and put himself or anyone else in danger.
Still, the writing was the same as the others. If you liked the others, you'd probably like this. I don't know. A lot of people seem betrayed by this book. I'd read online that people hated the ending. I'm not really sure what was so bad about it. Like I said, it did wrap up rather neatly but it was not as bad as I was expecting because of the internet buzz. I didn't hate it. I was satisfied that it had an ending that wrapped up and wasn't left hanging. I am glad, though, that this is supposed to be the last of the series. I don't think it could have gone on longer and still been any good....less
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Heather made a comment in the group 50 Books 2008—Heather's Books (I'm done! Yay!) topic:
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August 04
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Heather
added:
City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, Book 3)
by Cassandra Clare
bookshelves:
wish-list
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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Heather
gave
to:
Evernight (Evernight, Book 1)
by Claudia Gray
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in August, 2008
Heather said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Bianca, the rather dull main character of the book, goes to Evernight, an exclusive boarding school, for the first time. Supposedly, Bianca is very shy and can't talk normally to people. Yet, from her first encounte...more
I'd probably give this 3.5 stars.
Bianca, the rather dull main character of the book, goes to Evernight, an exclusive boarding school, for the first time. Supposedly, Bianca is very shy and can't talk normally to people. Yet, from her first encounter with another person, that's not the case. There is no evidence that she has any social difficulty. She meets Lucas, the brooding bad boy, in the woods and he warns her about Evernight- that maybe her bid for attention should become something more real and she should really run from the school.
The weird thing about this book was that, until Bianca exposes herself as a not-quite-vampire-yet to the reader, there was no mention of anything vampire from her point of view. Other than mentions of the eerie, evil feeling of Evernight, there aren't any real hints about Bianca's nature. After she bites Lucas, though, there are mentions of what the modern tech class is for and that she drinks blood at every meal. Bianca has known about vampires and her special status her whole life.
We find out that Lucas is a vampire hunter. There is a fight. Bianca is caught in the middle and chooses to run away with Lucas. In the end, she sacrifices herself for Lucas by going back to her family that loves her instead of hanging out with vampire hunters that would eventually find out what she was and kill her.
None of the characters were that fleshed out. I think that the back stories for the vampire friends like Balthazar and Patrice helped make them less like cardboard cutouts. Still, none of the characters had enough screen time to really give them much personality.
It wasn't bad, though. There was the addition of a secret reason for humans being admitted to Evernight. Lucas and Bianca did not end up together- though this is the first book so it will probably happen later. I'll probably read the next one....less
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July 30
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Heather
gave
to:
Fearless Fourteen (A Stephanie Plum Novel)
by Janet Evanovich
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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read in July, 2008
Heather said:
"There have been a lot of negative reviews about this book. Personally, I liked it as much as the others. Sure, Stephanie hasn't changed much, if at all, in 14 books... but I never expected her to. If Stephanie had been changing throughout the books, ...more
There have been a lot of negative reviews about this book. Personally, I liked it as much as the others. Sure, Stephanie hasn't changed much, if at all, in 14 books... but I never expected her to. If Stephanie had been changing throughout the books, maybe I would be a little upset that she's still bumbling around. I was fine with it, though. The characters were just as funny as I remembered. There were some new characters that were funny. I enjoyed this one. I only wish Grandma Mazur was in it more. She's always funny....less
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July 23
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Heather
gave
to:
The Summoning (Darkest Powers, Book 1)
by Kelley Armstrong (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Heather said:
"At first I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. It started out really slow and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with it. As the story progressed, though, I found myself more interested in what was happening. The action and the twist at the en...more
At first I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. It started out really slow and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with it. As the story progressed, though, I found myself more interested in what was happening. The action and the twist at the end were interesting and I want to know what happens to the characters.
Chloe doesn't really interest me that much. She was rather boring and I forgot a lot of the details about her, like the red streaks in her hair, until they were mentioned much later. I found the people, both bad and good, around her more interesting. Derek is probably the most developed of all the characters. Everyone had enough unanswered questions, though, to make me interested in them.
I liked this book and am looking forward to the next one. With the story and action already started, it should not be as slow at the beginning as this one was....less
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50 Books 2008
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Young Adult Fiction for Adults
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