Marked - P.C. Cast

You know the term, "Never judge a book by its cover?" Well, Marked by P.C. Cast was one of these books. I saw this book online and in the bookstore and thought it looked good because it had a nice cover and was about vampires (which for some odd reason I have come to really enjoy in the last year). I was wrong. I actually struggled to get through this book.

I have never read a book that was written in teenspeak before so I was shocked at how horrible the writing was.  The story is told from the perspective of Zoey, a teenage girl who has been marked to become a vampyre. Not only does the reader have to read all about her teen angst relating to her clothes, hair, and friends/family, we have to read it in a like totally awesome way. Yes, that's right. She writes like a valley girl from the 80s at times, has special teen names for her adversaries, and of course has the obligatory drunk football playing ex-boyfriend.

Zoey also has problems with her fundamentalist Christian step-father who is constantly starting prayer trees and controls her mother to the point where she has become a shell of a mother. Then there's the rituals at her new school, House of Night. I felt like the description of them lasted far longer than they should have. It really detracted from the story for me and ended up feeling like there wasn't a whole lot of story until the last 30 pages or so. I think for me, the religious (including the rituals worshiping the goddess Nix) portion of the book overshadowed the plot, and I got tired of reading about it.

The writing was by far the worst part of the book. Just because it is a YA book doesn't mean the author has to dumb down the language so that a teenager can understand (see J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter series). I also got tired of the bad language in the book. I know teens swear, but I don't need to read it in a book. To me, it shows a lack of imagination with language. It also had numerous references to oral sex which I think is inappropriate subject matter for a young teenager (I never read about that as a teen and I had a fairly liberal upbringing with what I was allowed to listen, watch, and read). I am not a particularly conservative person, but if I had children under the age of 16, this is the first book that I think I'd have issues with them reading.

Overall, I'd give the writing 1/2 star and the story 1 1/2 stars for a total of 2 stars. The story itself ended ok, but there wasn't enough of it for me to be satisfied.

Adventures in Blogging

Last night I got the bright idea to try to update the look of my blog and get a template that was not designed by Blogger. Even they admit it, their "classic" looks are pretty boring. I thought that adding a nice little Christmas theme to my blog would spice it up a bit. The only spice I got for the last 24 hours was the stress it caused!

If you have looked at the blog before, I had some gadgets on the side that are now missing. Yup, those accidentally got deleted! After I finally got my blog set up again and typed in all the books I've read and rated this year (in a post rather than in the sidebar), someone from Shelfari generously told me that my comments weren't working (thank you Passionforthepage). my husband and I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to fix it. Not only did the comments not work on the new template, when I reverted to the old template that Blogger designed the comments still didn't work! He eventually found a site with some HTML code that I was able to insert and *poof*, it magically works now!

So, please enjoy my Christmas theme and make sure you visit Passionforthepage's blog at http://passionforthepage.blogspot.com/. I really appreciated her input and absolutely LOVE her book blog! It's the most original I've seen!

2009 Books I've Read List

January
1.   New Moon - Stephanie Meyer                                        3.5 out of 5 stars
2.   Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer                                               4.0 out of 5 stars
3.   Breaking Dawn - Stephanie Meyer                                  3.0 out of 5 stars
4.   Complications - Atul Gawande                                        3.5 out of 5 stars
5.   Tales of Beedle the Bard - J.K. Rowling                          4.0 out of 5 stars
6.   Dragon's Fire - Anne and Todd McCaffrey                      3.0 out of 5 stars


February
7.   Heaven's Net is Wide - Lian Hearn                                  4.0 out of 5 stars 
8.   A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. LeGuin                        4.0 out of 5 stars
9.   Eragon - Christopher Paolini                                            2.0 out of 5 stars
10. The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman                        4.5 out of 5 stars


March
11. Emma - Jane Austen                                                       3.0 out of 5 stars
12. Wicked - Gregory Maguire                                             4.0 out of 5 stars


April
13. Heartsick - Chelsea Cain                                                 4.5 out of 5 stars
14. Web of Debt - Ellen Hodgson Brown                              1.5 out of 5 stars
15. Empress Orchid - Anchee Min                                         4.0 out of 5 stars


May
16. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold                                      3.5 out of 5 stars
17. Dragon Harper - Anne and Todd Mccaffrey                      3.5 out of 5 stars
18. Atonement - Ian McEwan                                                 5.0 out of 5 stars
19. The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield                               3.0 out of 5 stars
20. Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton                                      4.5 out of 5 stars


June
21. Cannery Row - John Steinbeck                                         4.0 out of 5 stars
22. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden                                4.0 out of 5 stars


July
23. Body of Lies - Iris Johansen                                              3.0 out of 5 stars
24. Hyperion - Dan Simmons                                                  5.0 out of 5 stars
25. The Dark Wind - Tony Hillerman                                      3.0 out of 5 stars
26. High Druid of Shanarra #1: Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks      4.0 out of 5 stars


August
27. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert                                  3.0 out of 5 stars
28. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (reread)                                       5.0 out of 5 stars
29. Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris                                    2.5 out of 5 stars
30. The Gunslinger - Stephen King                                          3.0 out of 5 stars
31. Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery - Janet F. Kitz   5.0 out of 5 stars
32. Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris                             3.0 out of 5 stars
33. Drawing of the Three - Stephen King                                 4.0 out of 5 stars


September
34. Club Dead - Charlaine Harris                                              3.5 out of 5 stars
35. The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan                       4.0 out of 5 stars
36. Bitten - Kelley Armstrong                                                   4.0 out of 5 stars
37. High Druid of Shanarra #2: Tanequil - Terry Brooks        3.5 out of 5 stars
38. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson              5.0 out of 5 stars
39. High Druid of Shanarra #3: Straken - Terry Brooks         4.0 out of 5 stars


October
40. The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons                                    5.0 out of 5 stars
41. Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis                                                3.0 out of 5 stars
42. Bloodsucking Fiends - Christopher Moore                      3.0 out of 5 stars
43. Endymion - Dan Simmons                                                    4.5 out of 5 stars
44. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein                                       5.0 out of 5 stars
45. Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs                                                   3.0 out of 5 stars


November
46. Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris                               3.0 out of 5 stars
47. The Rise of Endymion - Dan Simmons                            4.0 out of 5 stars
48. Night Sins - Tami Hoag                                                         4.0 out of 5 stars
49. One for the Money - Janet Evanovich                              3.0 out of 5 stars


December
50. Marked - P.C. Cast                                                              2.0 out of 5 stars
51. Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey                                      5.0 out of 5 stars
52. In the Woods - Tana French                                          5.0 out of 5 stars
53. City of Shadows - Ariana Franklin                                 5.0 out of 5 stars

One for the Money - Janet Evanovich

My first meeting with the Thrill Me Book Club was a lot fun, and I mistakenly thought that the next book meeting was going to be early this month so I picked up the next book which is One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. The story is about unemployed Stephanie Plum  who becomes a bounty hunter for a family member who is a bail bondsman. She is desperately in need of money so she takes the case worth the most money which is also the most dangerous.

Stephanie Plum sets out to find a bail jumper that is accused of murdering an unarmed man. The man is a childhood acquaintance with whom she has a colored past. Her pursuit of him is humorous as well as harrowing as she tries to learn the business of bounty hunting. Plum finds out that the straightforward murder case is really more complicated than she once thought. Is the man she hunts really innocent?

The leader of the book club said she likes books that are fun and light reads. One for the Money is definitely just that. I would recommend it as a beach or quick weekend read. It is fun, easy, and Stephanie Plum is an extremely likeable character. If you like thrills with laughs, One for the Money is the book for you.

Night Sins - Tami Hoag

I've been living in Austin for ten years now. In all that time, I realized that I haven't made much of an effort to make new friends. I know, I know. I shouldn't be admitting that I'm a shut in, but hey, I have a blog about books so it shouldn't be a huge surprise that I'm not the life of the party! As part of my effort to branch out what I read, I decided to join a book club that I found on Meetup.com. Tami Hoag's book, Night Sins, was the first book I've read for the book club and we met on Wednesday night to discuss it.

The book is about a young boy who disappears from outside a hockey rink while waiting for his mom to pick him up. A manhunt to find the kidnapper ensues in the small Minnesota town of Deer Lake. A new agent for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has just started her new job (and is the first female to be a field agent in the state of Minnesota) and she feels the need to prove herself as a good police officer. The chief of police is a man who has experienced losing his own son and wife in a reckless robbery by a drug addict. The two officers work tirelessly to figure out the clues the kidnapper continues to leave them. The parents of the little boy also have their own troubled marriage that threatens to break under the pressure of losing their son.

Overall, the story is pretty formulaic which I am starting to admit is very typical in the thriller novels I have read. Still, some are better than others, and this was one of them. I did enjoy the story and the writing even if there were some things that I didn't like. There was an inevitable romance in the book which I felt could have been left out. Others in the book club really liked that portion of the book though, so if this book sounds like it might interest you, don't let that stop you from reading it.

There is a sequel to the book called Guilty as Sin so keep that in mind when reading Night Sins. I had no idea there was a sequel and was a little unsatisfied with the ending. Needless to say, one of the members of the book club gave me the book because I did want to read it!

Are there any thriller authors any of you can recommend to me? I am completely open to reading new things lately so let me know!

Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris

After reading Endymion and The Kite Runner, I decided to read a few fun and easy reads. Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series definitely falls into that category. Dead to the World picks up with Sookie and Bill's breakup. Bill has been called away to Peru so there is very little Bill in this book. I was actually kind of glad because I am a proud member of "Team Eric." I was not disappointed. This fourth installment of the Sookie Stackhouse series is all about Eric and Sookie.

I know that Eric is a self-serving, narcissistic vampire, but I really like him. He is really funny and easy on the eyes (maybe I'm a little influenced by True Blood here...Eric is pretty easy on the eyes in the show) and is pretty a pretty straightforward, uncomplicated guy. He definitely is more exciting than boring Bill!

This book featured some new supernatural beings. Were-panthers and witches made the book a pretty fun read. Just like in most books with witches, there are good ones and bad ones in Dead to the World. A neighboring town full of shape shifters (one of whom wants to court Sookie) coupled with Eric's amnesia in the story made the book a little mysterious too. One character who I really like but is somewhat minor is Pam, Eric's second in charge. She is equally straightforward and somewhat funny which I really enjoy. She's a strong woman who is loyal to her employer/maker which let's be honest, isn't very common today!

Of all the Sookie Stackhouse books I've read so far, this one was fun, but probably my least favorite. I was kind of sad about it because I really am a big fan of Eric and was hoping for a more satisfying read out of an all Sookie-Eric book. The witches were kind of what soured the book for me a little. They felt a little out of place in the book. I'm not sure why I feel that way. Can any Charlaine Harris fans chime in on this? I just found them uninteresting as a whole. I think I might have liked the story more if they had been featured more prominently in the book. Their whole story isn't really known until the last few pages. There just wasn't much of a connection with them in either a good or bad way for me so I didn't find myself routing for them or loathing them much. On the evil scale they were about a three out of ten for me. Still, I really enjoy the series and will continue reading them. It's a nice break from some of the heavier reading that I've done this year (although I admit that I've been reading quite a bit of fluff this year).

Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs

A couple of my friends are huge fans of the Fox series, Bones. I have never watched it, but I did put it in my Netflix queue since I have been hearing so many good things about it. While it waits patiently in my queue, I picked up the first book of the Tempe Brennan books upon which Bones is loosely based.

Deja Dead is a pretty fast read, but not ridiculously so. I will say that I was able to put the book down when I wanted to and didn't necessarily ache to know what was going to happen next...that is, until about 2/3 of the way through the book. Once the story picked up, I stayed up pretty late at night reading it. I also got a little scared at one point in the book (I scare easily though).

Tempe Brennan is a Forensic Anthropologist that works with the police in Montreal. I was a little skeptical as to how a forensic anthropologist would put herself in danger and inevitably be chased by a killer, but Reichs somehow managed to do just those things. While investigating a series of brutal murders, Tempe gets caught up in a serial killer's web. Because she is working on the case and is closer than any of the police to solving the crime, the serial killer begins to stalk her. While her choices aren't necessarily any I would make (like investigating a possible murder site at night....in the rain), it made for a thrilling read where danger was felt around every corner.

I felt a little annoyed at Tempe's wild abandon at chasing the serial killer in the book even though she has no real law enforcement experience outside of examining bones and tissue in the lab and at murder sites. I used to work in a lab, and there is no part of me that would pick up a scalpel and start operating on patients just because I worked with doctors. Well, Tempe Brennan is not like me. She is law enforcement all the way. After reading this book, I recommend that she go to the police academy and get her sidearm and just become police! She would certainly be a lot safer.

Even though I was annoyed with her choices, I will keep reading the series. It was engaging and fun enough that I want to try reading a few more of Kathy Reichs' books.  I will say that I think this is a better library book checkout or used bookstore purchase than getting it new. It was Reichs' first novel so I am confident that the books will improve over time.

I am enjoying reading thrillers/mysteries. If you have any suggestions of books or authors I should read, please leave a comment and let me know what your favorites are!