Review of Venus Envy

Originally written July, 1, 2007

So I got done reading Venus Envy by Shannon MeKeldon. Great great book! I finished it in one and a half sittings. I recommend it for a nice beach read, or if you're on a plane or something this summer.

It's a great romantic comedy about this girl, Rachel, who has been burned by three horrid relationships with losers, so she swears off dating and buries herself into volunteer work to get her mind off her life. Little does she know, that Venus, the goddess of love, has chosen her as a "fairy godchild" to help get her love life back in order. Hilarity and a wonderful comedy of errors ensues while Rachel tries to get rid of Venus and get her life back in order, and also fighting off the advances of Luke, the guy Venus is trying to set her up with.

It took a few chapters to get into the style of the book. The first chapter starts out with Rachel's point of view, then each chapter after that switches from Venus to Rachel, and so on. But it's nicely done, so you can see each person's point of view of the same events, and it's fun to see Venus' side of things, very funny.

It's reminiscent of Stupid and Contagious by Caprice Crane (I also highly recommend that book as well!), where each chapter is in the POV of one of the two main characters. I bought this book on an impulse as I was wandering around a Barnes & Noble, and I had promised myself I wasn't going to buy a book... but I did. It's hard to work at a B&N and not buy a book.

But I'm overly glad I did give into temptation and buy it. Love this book! It's Ms. McKeldon's first novel, and it's a fantastic debut. Very light, airy, a good summer read, but you'll get wrapped up in the characters' lives; by the end I was almost screaming at Rachel to just accept that Luke was meant for her and just get on with it! Hehehe. So yeah. Go read it. Now. ^__^ 

I rate Venus Envy a good solid 8.5 on my scale of 1 (hari kari) to 1 (literary orgasmic bliss). Stupid and Contagious, which I will write a proper review of in the near future, I rate a very high 9. That book you need to go out and buy now.

Review of Robot Dreams, a graphic novel of little words...

Originally written August 18, 2007 

This is a fantastic book that is able to say volumes without really using words. I kept track of how many words of "dialog" are used in this book, and I think I counted about... 5? Well, let me explain. This is a comic book, so it can get away with not having words.

Robot Dreams (by Sara Varon) is a wonderful comic about a dog and a robot who form a friendship, but through a brief tragic event of the robot becoming rusted and immobile after a swim at the beach, they must go their separate ways. Throughout the rest of the book, both try to find new friends to fill the emptiness left behind, but yet can't replace or forget the other. The robot, stuck on the beach in the sand, dreams of fantastic lands and places where he meets new people; but can't quite forget his friend the dog. It's a wonderful tale of friendship and memories, and how people can leave lasting impressions on us. It also reminds me of that proverb/saying: Friends can be in your life for a moment: in your life for a specific purpose, then leave once that event is done; they can be for a season: lasting a little longer in your life, longer than one event, but they too fade out but still remain in touch; and friends can also be for a lifetime: those people in your life who dramatically affect/change your life and remain a constant for the rest of it. [I hope that made sense]

So go find this book, even if you're not really a comic person. I think Robot Dreams will change your mind. I give Robot Dreams a high 8.5 on my scale of rating. It's a beautiful and simplistic book that allows you to travel and dream along with the characters. I really hope you go out and pick it up, you won't be disappointed!

Review of Emperor of Maladies and an update on another review...

Original written March 14, 2011

So I finished Go, Mutants! the other day, and it's a really good book. I highly enjoyed it and will gladly recommend it to anyone. However, the last 5 chapters or so, almost brought the whole book to a grinding halt. And since if I explain it, it will totally ruin the book for you, I'll just say it was done in such a way that took away from the overall feeling and atmosphere of the book, and you lost connection with the main character at a seriously pivotal time in his life, so it would have been awesome to see his POV! But that's all I'll say about it. On my scale of 1 to 10 (10 being orgasmic and 1 being hari kari)... I give it a solid 7.5 It lost .5 points because of the ending. Sorry, Mr. Doyle.

Another book I finished the other day was The Emperor of All the Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. A very insightful and terrifying look into the history of cancer. Mukherjee is an oncologist who wrote this "biography of cancer" after years of painful and diligent research into the annals of the war on cancer. From the first hieroglyphics from the medicine man Imhotep describing what would late be identified as cancer and writing the damning words: "There is no cure"; to the ancient accounts of Queen Atossa asking her Greek slave to cut off her cancer-riddled breast; to the 1800-1900's trial and error horrors of early chemotherapy drug trials on children with leukemia; to our more current history of the last 20 years and the many advances in technology of today, this book shows how cancer has always been around in the history of humanity; it is not a "new disease".

But the prevalance of cancer in people has risen due to the understanding of what the disease is, and also the rise in carcinogens in our world. It is a thick, dense looking tome, but it reads very easy, more like fiction than a heavy medical book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who like history, medicine, or has had a personal touch with cancer (yourself or someone you know). At times this book was hard for me to read, given my mom lost her fight with breast cancer, but it was a good thing for me to read. There has been so many advances in drugs and more specific-cancer fighting drugs that have been engineered to target certain cancers, like lung, breast, colon, leukemia, etc. So yeah. Not my normal genre of book for me, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. I give Emperor of All Maladies a strong rating of 8 on my scale of 1 (hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss). 

Overview/Review of the series Rogue Angel (thus far)

I originally wrote this back in January of 2008. A bit of a history for this, I like the series Rogue Angel, if you hadn't noticed by the two previous reviews of volumes in the series. A while ago I kept a LiveJournal and had been writing some reviews on there for a while, and the publisher of Rogue Angel, Gold Eagle/IDW Publishing, emailed me and asked if I would write a review of the new graphic novel version of the series. I was giddy as a fool and readily accepted. They sent me an ARC PDF file of the graphic novel and I read through it, and wrote the review. However, I'm not sure I did the review right, because they never contacted me again for any other reviews. So... whatevs. Read my review of the Rogue Angel series (as of 2008), and I hope it may inspire you to pick up a new series to read!

Originally written January 19, 2008

Book 1 in series

The series Rogue Angel, by Alex Archer, introduces us to Annja Creed, an archaeologist with a somewhat troubled past and a take-one-day-at-a-time attitude about today/tomorrow. Annja was raised in an orphanage down in New Orleans, then moved up to New York once she finished her schooling and training in archeology. She works as a part-time contributor to the TV show Chasing History's Monsters on the Knowledge Channel (the fictional counterpart to the Discovery Channel). On a research dig in France, she discovers a lost piece to a magical sword that is rumored to be the mythical sword of Joan of Arc. Roux, a man claiming to be Joan's mentor, helps Annja to bring the lost piece to the rest of the sword he had collected over the last 500 years, and she somehow forges the sword anew, and can summon the sword with a thought to her hand. When she doesn't need the sword, it goes off to the "otherwhere", a dimension in limbo between our world and the mythical/magical realm. With the sometimes help of Roux and his protegee Garin (who also has lived 500 years), Annja uses her physical and mental gifts, as well as the aide of Joan's sword, she travels the world searching for lost historical artifacts. Along the way, bad guys pop up to try to steal those artifacts (many rumored to be of magical power); and Annja must use the sword and her wits to thwart their evil plans and save the innocents often caught in the middle.

Think of Annja as a female Indiana Jones (who was mentioned in comparison to Annja in Rogue Angel #7), and not so much like Lara Croft, aka Tomb Raider. I view Lara Croft as more of a freelance treasure hunter than a truly, professionally trained archaeologist like Indy. I like how the character of Annja focuses on the historical significance of an artifact than the rumored "mystical powers" or "curses" that could be surrounding the item in question. True, the draw of a cursed tomb or hidden city lost to the annals of time is the initial pull for Annja to join the expedition, and we the reader have an idea that the item she's looking for may actually be cursed, or some lost ancient tool of unlimited power. Although in God of Thunder, I think the artifact they were searching for wasn't actually the Norse god Thor's hammer, but just a nice replica called Thor's hammer to scare the locals. But it was still a good story, even if there were no Norse gods coming down from the heavens to claim their lost hammer. However, I could use a little more supernatural and creepy mystical/mythical happenings in the stories. True, the main character can summon a magical sword that was owned by Joan of Arc, and she has two compainons who have lived over 500 years, that can be counted as supernatural enough to warrant the Sci-Fi listing in the bookstore shelves. But... I could use a little more demons, a few more monsters, and maybe Thor could have made more of an appearance in the last book I read. Oh well. Can't have it all. Like Annja's roll on the TV series as the "resident skeptic", not all the monster stories and legends of sunken cities and lost cosmic powers are true.

Book 9

The part of the series that I enjoy is the ever changing and developing relationship triangle between Annja, Roux, and Garin. Roux and Garin both have their own reasons for keeping in contact with Annja and wanting the sword she now has. Roux, the older of the two men, is a somewhat mentor to Annja now, helping her train to use to the sword, as well as using his immense wealth and 500 years' worth of knowledge to aide her at times with her search for artifacts. He can be, more often than not, aloof and passive-aggressive with his assistance of Annja, but that only adds hilarious one-liners and snarky banter between the two. I laugh out loud every time they go at it. Garin, on the other hand, is a little harder to figure out. He respects Annja and her abilities, and I think he has an odd attraction to her, but at other times, he would also be more than willing to kill her to get his needs and interests taken care of first. He wants the sword, because he believes it holds the secret to their longevity, and now that it's whole, he'll start to age or won't be "near immortal" anymore. Also, in a few of the books, he has helped her escape the bad guys, because he was the "lesser of the two evils" at the time. The interaction between two three really drives the series, and makes me want to read more to figure out what's going to happen next.

Now the series has crossed over the comic book medium, of which I am very excited. I am a long-time fan of comics and when I found out that Rogue Angel was going to be made into a comic, I wanted to see how the transition would be made, if the character and story would merge well to the graphic form, and if the art would be worthy of the series. Upon reviewing the first issue of the Rogue Angel: Teller of Tall Tales series, I was impressed with how the atmosphere and the feel of the character was able to transition over to the comics. Annja is still focused on the historical value of the item in question, which in this storyline is a first draft of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn that appears to have been penned by both Twain and an educated black man. This revelation could shake the literary world, as well as have more negative social ramifications if it came to light. So Annja and her friend Ramshi are investigating a dig that may shed light on to the whereabouts of this first draft. And as would be expected, some unknown group is there with thugs n' guns to stop the work. Annja fights off the thugs with her martial arts knowledge, as well as the mystical sword, and saves the day for the moment, to be continued in the next issue!

Graphic Novel

I really have nothing to say about the story or the plot, for it sounds very interesting to see if Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) didn't have some help writing his book(s). The comparisons between Huck Finn and Ramshi's Indian culture was also interesting to see played out, giving the reader an idea that Twain's triumphant "Slice of Americana" isn't just for Americans anymore. I'm very interested to see how this storyline plays out, and can't wait for future issues.

However, most of my critiques come from a visual stand point. As a lover of comics, and as a very visual person, art and drawing is very important to me. I wasn't sure how the art was going to look for this new comic, and the artist listed on the cover pages is someone I've never come across in my ventures into the comic world. At first glance over the comic, the panels are bright, well constructed and the flow of action, background, and main character movement is well paced. My favorite page is one in the middle of the fight between Annja and the thugs. She calls to her the sword, and the visual depiction of the sword materializing out of thin air was done very well. I wish I could cut-n-paste that panel and use it as a desktop background.

However, once further attention is paid to the individual panels, the art isn't always consistent. In one panel Annja's face appears one way, then a few panels down, her face is scrunched, mouth moved to a weird spot on her face; or her chin is very prominent, and her face overall looks too long. I sadly am unable at the moment to cut-n-paste certain panel pictures from the Adobe file the comic is presented in to show specific examples of these indescrepencies. Some pages and panels appear to have been a labor of love, with a lot of time and focus spent on them; while others look almost drawn out quickly, without the patience and attention to detail as others. I might chalk this up to this being the first issue of the comic, so maybe the artist is still working out the style and flow of the comic and the character model.

I hate to say such negative things about this comic, given it is the first in a new series. But those few smudges tended to stick with me every time I looked over the comic, and I couldn't over look them. Hopefully the artist and character design will mesh more in future issues, and the art will be more polished as time goes on. Overall, I'm impressed and pleased with this new cross-over venture by Rogue Angel and all those involved with the book and comic. As much as I love the book series, I will most likely invest more money into the franchise with the emerging comic line. The characters of Annja, Roux, and Garin (both I'm very interested to see in graphic form!) will undoubtedly have a little more room to grow and explore in the graphic format, adding to the original story lines and backgrounds started by Alex Archer in the book series.

For further information on the comics and books, check out these links!

www.readgoldeagle.blogspot.com

www.idwpublishing.com

So that's my review of Rogue Angel, comic and book version. I'm amazed I've come to love this series, having gotten into it by accident. I picked up the first book, Destiny, as a strip in the back of Barnes & Noble, and had a few of the others in strip forms as well (I think I had the first 3, #6, and #8 in strip form). And being bored one night, I just decided to pick up the first one and read it. And thus... it began. My new healthy obsession with reading a good series that is well thought out, the characters are rich and have depth to them (sometimes I wish they would just be predictable and do what I want them to do! Argh!)

One Author, yet Two Very Different Reactions

Book 1 in series

There is this one author who I discovered about a year ago, maybe two, and her name is Karen E. Olson. She writes mysteries in a sub-genre called "Cozy Mysteries" or "Amateur Mysteries", where the lead is a normal person who somehow gets mixed up in a murder mystery and ends up sleuthing their way to the suspect! Karen Olson has written two series in this genre, on called the Anne Seymour Series and the Tattoo Shop Mystery Series. I have read all the current volumes of the Tattoo Shop Mystery Series, and liked them so much that I wanted to branch out into her other series. 

Book 1

Here is the first book in the Annie Seymour Series, Sacred Cows. I was intrigued by the title and also excited about reading another book by one of my favorite authors. The premise of the book is that Annie Seymour is a crime reporter for the New Haven newspaper and she is investigating a mysterious death of a Yale coed, who just happens to have a shady secret that the school and her family don't want known: she was moonlighting as an escort at night. And to add to the intrigue around the woman's death... somehow Annie's own mother is linked to the woman and her death. Where the sacred cows some in is that these large ornamental cows decorate the town for a week during some celebration (much like the Charlie Brown statues that popped up in St. Paul, MN a few years ago, or the longhorns in San Antonio, TX). It sounded quirky and fun and a good mystery.

I found a copy of the book at my local library and I checked it out, excited for a new murder mystery adventure. I sadly only got about seven chapters into the book before I had to stop. A sign of a good story is if, as the reader, you connect on some level with the character (or characters) of the story and want to continue reading to see what happens. I couldn't connect with Annie on any level, except for the level of being annoyed with her. Annie Seymour came off as a almost-middle-aged woman who wasn't where she wanted to be at that point in her life, burnt-out at her job as a reporter, bitter and resentful that a younger reporter was "budging in" on her story, her policeman boyfriend wasn't giving her the information about the dead coed---apparently sleeping with him means she should get some juicy tidbits, she drinks too much and her over-bearing mother is poking her nose where it doesn't belong... and Annie does nothing but complain about her lot in life and the people around her making it worse. If that's what she does during the first few chapters of the book, how much more deflective complaining do I have to slog through?

Even though I wanted to know what happened to the dead coed girl, I just couldn't make myself read the rest of the book. I couldn't stand the "I'm an embittered 40-year-old woman who isn't happy with how my life turned out and I'm blaming other people for making my life hell" attitude that Annie had---this attitude that someone had praised on the cover author quote blurb. I didn't find Annie a "sharp new voice" or a "heroine that doesn't take crap from anyone" (I think that's a condensed version of the cover blurb), but just an annoying slightly-entitled middle-class woman who I am around all the time at my retail job. Perhaps later in the story she starts looking for something to make her life better, or not being so cranky and annoyed with people around her; she'll stop floundering in the vast ocean that is life and make some plans to get her life on track again.

Book 2 in the series

Now, compare that heroine with Brett Kavanaugh, in the Tattoo Shop Mystery series. She is a complete 180* from Annie. She is the owner of a tattoo parlor in Las Vegas, is successful and happy with her job and chosen profession, even if her mother isn't terribly thrilled with this choice. She has good friends who are also her employees; she lives with her brother, who is a member of the LVPD, and she is overall happy with her lot in life. True, she wishes she could find Mr. Right and sometimes it doesn't work out with the guys, but that's life. Brett gets mixed up in some murder mysteries that somehow link the crimes to tattoos, and sometimes Brett herself (the bad guys try to frame her for the crimes), and she tries to figure out the truth so she can clear her name, or other people of the crime. Brett is a positive woman and in the first two or three chapters of the first book (The Missing Link) I was genuinely interested in learning what happened to Brett and Bitsy and Jeff and all the others at the Painted Lady tattoo shop. She is feisty and determined, sometimes too stubborn for her own good, but is a strong woman. Unlike the beleaguered and floundering Annie.

This was an interesting example of how one author can have a wide repertoire of styles for characters and stories. I suppose that if an author writes a stereotyped or pigeon-holed type of character, then after a while the reader would get bored with the author's style. We have a little inside joke at Barnes & Noble (where I work) that Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel's books are all pretty much the same formulaic story with just different character names and place names. I mean, those two women have written so many books---they take up multiple shelves at work!---you'd think they'd run out of original plot fodder after a while. 

Book 4

Now, this wouldn't be much of a review if I didn't give the books a rating on my review scale. 1 (hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give Sacred Cows a score of 4. I don't think it would be that fair if I gave it a score any lower since I didn't actually finish it, but I couldn't justify a halfway score of 5 because of what I had read. I give the Tattoo Shop Mystery Series an average score of 8.25. The most recent book, Ink Flamingos, was simply amazing (an honest page-turner that one was!), and gave that average score a good boost. 

So I would recommend reading the Tattoo Shop Mystery series if you want some good, quick reads for a lazy day or a rainy day, or a beach read. The Annie Seymour series... well, I'll just give you a warning to read at your own risk. I know everyone has different tastes, and also different perceptions of things, so maybe that will be a good series for you. Hopefully if you do decide to check out that series, you have a better experience than I did. 

A Review of "The Jigsaw Man" by Gord Rollo

Originally written August 9, 2008

So I finished The Jigsaw Man by Gord Rollo this last week, and it was quite a fun book. I basically picked it up at work because the cover was so freaking awesome, and as normal, my impulse buy turned out to be a good investment.

Jigsaw Man is about a man, Mike, who basically has nothing left to live for after his wife and son are killed in a car accident and his only surviving child wants nothing to do with him, and he is planning on committing suicide by train when a man representing a brilliant researcher-doctor comes and offers him $2 million for his right arm. Desperate for the cash and a chance to mend things with his last remaining family, he takes the offer. Unfortunately Mike doesn't know what he's gotten himself into and he's suddenly plunged into a nightmare world of surgeries and ghoulish experiments all at the whim of a crazed doctor. His body is slowly spliced from him, with "new" limbs grafted on from other donors the doctor had picked up along the way, and soon Mike is barely the man he used to be, living in a "rented body", as he put it in an achingly simple way: "...with my rented heart... rented lungs... rented hands... nothing is mine anymore..."

I liked this book; it was a quick read with lots of creepy medical horrors and suspense, but all the while it really didn't try to be anything more than just a good horror story and a modern take on the whole Frankenstein genre. The ending was a bit confusing, and I thought it could have done more. It did a sort of full-circle on itself and Mike's ending was a bit of a let down on some level. Overall, I liked it and I'm glad I impulsively bought it! My rating, 1 (hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I would have to give this book a solid score of 8. It's a good fun read, like I said before, and if you want something for a lazy afternoon read, then this is your book.

A Review of "Pysch: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read"

Originally written February 2, 2009

If you're a fan of the show, you will be pleased with the first tie-in book, Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read. Definitely good for the fan who needs a little Psych fix during the between seasons months (or the fan like me who has to wait even longer for the 3rd season to come out on DVD!). The ever-funny, laugh-out-loud banter between Gus and Shawn is reminiscent of the show, and the relationship between the main characters has the same vibe; which would be lost on people who have never seen the show before reading the book. I was definitely able to picture the characters in my head while reading this book and running it like a normal episode.

However, at times it seemed to not stay true to the vibe and heart of the show: some things that Gus, Shawn, or others would say seemed a little out of character; and some of the visual effects (Shawn's 'visions') as well as the fun 'psychic reveals' weren't as strong as in the show. I was a little disappointed at the end for the 'big dramatic reveal' that there wasn't more psychic visions or messages from beyond which adds the silly over-the-top feel that makes the show so much fun. But I suppose it's a little hard to make it relate the same when crossing mediums. I hope Rabkin works out that kink by the next book.

Overall, it was a good story, and well-written; however, you would expect that from one of the show's writers! On my scale of 1 (hari kari) to 10 (orgasmic bliss), I give it a nice 6.7. Not bad, but could be better. I was truly held in rapt attention while trying to figure out who the killer was (turned out to be two killers!). I feel this was a good first try by Rabkin to translate the visual into full print form. I look forward to reading the next in the series, Psych: Mind Over Magic (rumored to be released in July 2009).

A Review for you and yours on Christmas! (A review of Lamb, by Christopher Moore)

Given that it's Christmas, I figured that I would post a previous review I'd done a while back (almost 2 years ago!) of a little book that is near and dear to my heart, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. This book still resonates with me, and once you read through this review you'll understand why.

Originally written February 26, 2009

I just got done reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. I had about an hour to kill before work since I got to the mall early (left uber early due to the massive amounts of snow we got today), and I couldn't wait to read it at home. Wow. Just... wow. It's a simply amazing book. I had never read anything by Moore before but had heard his stuff was good. And given I'm of the Christian persuasion, I decided to read Lamb first.

An angel, Raziel, is ordered to raise Levi (aka Biff) from the dead in present times, in order for him to write down the lost events of Christ's life, because God has deemed that the world needs to know. So Biff is set upon the task of writing down the life of Jesus (who he calls Josh---Jesus is the Greek for Joshua). The most amazing and mind blowing part of the book was when Biff and Josh go on a quest to find the three wise men so Josh can learn how to be the Messiah. This quest takes up the "missing" 17 years between Jesus' trip to the temple when he was 13 and when he is baptized by John when he's 30.

I found this story amazingly touching, tender, and insightful, as well as hilarious as sin (ha!). Moore surprised me with how he focused on Jesus' human half and how he wasn't quite sure if he was the Messiah, how to be the Messiah, and how to balance the human and God parts of his being. And seeing the Passion Week through the eyes of Biff, Josh's life-long friend, I was dreading reading the end when Josh was crucified, knowing that Biff would take that hard (even though I know it has a happy ending afterall!). The only thing I wasn't too thrilled with was the actual crucifiction and how Josh's "death" played out. Being that his death and resurrection is the cornerstone for the faith of millions... playing it off the way Moore did was a little said, given the other Biblical and faith related stuff he did put in the book (demons, healings, God talking, etc.). So that knocked down the awesomeness of the book by a few percentage points. Bummer.

I for one found myself reconnecting with my faith while reading this book, especially once I realized that through the how many years I've been in private Lutheran schools (Pre-K through college!), I've been exposed to the humanness of Christ only once: in college, my sophomore year in New Testament class. Dr. Schuler was the only person to point out the human points of Christ, how he had to live just like us, be tempted just like us, do everything a normal human had to do, but have that extra Godliness element to his life that mad things more interesting. Moore was able to point out that struggle in the book. I loved the part when Biff has sex for the first time and Josh, unable to "know" women because of his divine calling, asks him constantly what sex was like. It was funny, yet sobering because Jesus had to give up certain human needs/actions because of his divine purpose. I found it touching and almost heart-breaking when Josh couldn't figure out why people were mean to each other, why mankind ocnstantly hurt/killed/destroyed things that it didn't understand, why there was suffering in the world... it was almost childlike. A pure look at the world that was truly refreshing.

I loved the quest Josh and Biff go on to figure out how to be the Messiah. That part through me for a loop and I found totally believable. Josh was God and man, but that didn't mean he knew all the answers. He still prayed and sought God's counsel in the book, and it was interesting that God didn't really respond. I found that to be inspiring, because Jesus had to find his own way to be the Messiah, something totally different than what the Jews and the old guard had seen before. It was also fun to see the links between Buddhism and Christianity; Josh and Biff spend time in a Buddhist monastary to be taught by the 2nd wise man, then go to India to learn from the 3rd. Two different views, Buddhism and Hinduism, but some of the core values Josh takes and merges it into the first (and purest) form of Christianity. Reading the quest in the book was amazing for me, for it caused me to look at my own faith and reevaluate how I see things, what I believe in... and most importantly: Why? I love books that start out being for fun then somehow change your life along the way as an added bonus.

On my scale of 1 (only viable option is hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), this book is a 9.9; seriously. The only thing that kept it from being a perfect 10 was the crucifiction scene. That one scene cost Moore my first ranking of orgasmic bliss.

And amazing roller coaster ride of laughter, faith, drama, love, sex, divine sparks, and bacon (yes, bacon.). I definitely recommend this book... but only to those who can laugh at a fictional take on their faith and know not to take it too seriously.

I think Christopher Moore's vision of Josh, er, Jesus, is the closest I've found that matches what I invision Jesus to be like in my head. When I get to heaven, I'm calling him Josh. =^_^=

Swordman's Legacy Review

Originally written April 28, 2009

It took me a while to finish this one, which was surprising for me. Normally I can finish one in a day or two (a single night if I'm not working and stay up crazy late). Besides normal outside distractions, the story progressed a little slower with this volume than others which led to long stretches between readings. But overall, the story was good. Annja is on another hunt for a hidden treasure and a great lost artifact that may lend truth to the Alexandre Dumas story The Three Musketeers, that D'Artangan's sword was lost to the annals of time and history, and the rumored treasure tied to the sword and soldier were both very real. Naturally there are those who try to keep her from the treasure, or steal it from her, but that's a given with this series/genre. The baddies in this book are biopirates---a DNA/genetics company that searches for historic figures' DNA with the hopes to clone them in infertile mothers who were brought to the company under the false pretenses of it being a legit fertility clinic. A new angle, for sure. The mystery behind what the Musketeer's sword and treasure was spiced up with flashbacks to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, little vingettes about the king and queen of France and the scheme to hide a small fortune led one to believe that there was a treasure and helped the story out a little. Vallois, Annja's companion for this volume, was an interesting character because you never really knew if he was really an innocent party or was more involved with the bad guys. In this story, Roux, Annja's mentor, brought chainmail from that belonged to Joan of Arc to the DNA pirates to see if Annja was more linked to the French martyr than just being bonded to Joan's mystical sword. I did like the hinting towards more of a connection between Annja and Joan of Arc than just the sword. Maybe they are related? Annja is Joan reincarnated? Something I hope they bring up in later volumes.

One thing that irked me was another inconsistency with the 5 house writers of the Rogue Angel series. Alex Archer is the house name while five people write the books; which is how a new volume comes out every 3-4 months. Annja's friend Bart was mentioned in one of the earlier volumes as being engaged, which hurt Annja a little because there had been a mutual crush thing going on between them before, but it never worked out so he found someone else. Here in #15 it is almost implied that Annja still pines for him on some level and that he is still available but she wasn't the right woman for him. Of course she's not---he's engaged! This is the second inconsistency I've found in the series, which is good considering the 5 or so people writing the stories. But maybe if they got together and compared notes, we could avoid little flubs like this one.

Two reviews for the price of one!

Originally written on June 13, 2009

Just finished Rogue Angel: Polar Quest this afternoon. It was a good read. Much better than Swordsman's Legacy; the plot and action flowed a little better and it was crisper writing-style wise. In this volume we find Annja (the main character, for those who don't know) traveling to Antarctica to see if these mysterious artifacts are "signs of aliens visiting earth" or maybe proof that some unknown ancient race of humans were super advanced before the Mayans or even the Egyptians. I liked it because the tension and suspense was maintained throughout the whole story and you never really knew what was going on. And Annja was a little more feisty in this volume, which was nice. She had been loosing her touch in the last two volumes, so it was nice to see her take a little more charge. She's getting back to her old self. Not quite getting to the "kickin' ass and takin' names" level, but not taking crap from the guys and showing she can keep up with the boys.

However, Garin (one of the other main/recurring characters) was a little sex-crazed in this volume. He and Annja have had this fun little sexual tension thing going on, and it's been fun to read how frustrated he can make her, but yet she's strangely attracted to him on some level. But this volume... basically every time they had a scene together he had to mention something about them going to bed together. Normally Garin is a complex, hard-to-pin-down character where you're not quite sure if he's going to be the good guy this time or maybe a not-so-good guy, but this time he was just the "thinking with the wrong head" guy. It was a little annoying. But, over all, on my scale from 1 (hari kari) to 10 (orgasmic bliss) I'll give this recent Rogue Angel a strong 7. Good job. Look forward to reading Eternal Journey.

When I finished Rogue Angel I started the next book on my pile I kept from getting packed. I've packed up about 99% of my books since I'm going to be moving soon (*le squee!*) but I had to make sure I had some things to read. So my next book I'm working on is the first in a mystery series, called On What Grounds. It's one of those mystery series that is a themed one. Like Joanna Fluke's Hannah Swenson mysteries that are all based around food and has recipes inside the book, or Knit One, Kill Two (Knitting Mystery Series) that has knitting patterns (really tempted to getting that knitting one since I love knitting!). The One What Grounds is a coffeehouse mystery, where it's based in a coffeehouse (duh) and has coffee tips and drink recipes. It's good so far, good pacing of action and character development, and the main character, Clare Cosi, is a fun and strong (yet vulnerable) heroine.

Although the whole coffee thing does get a bit much. When she's making coffee for people, the explanations/directions for how to make said drink, or when Clare compares the kiss of her ex-husband to the sensations of drinking a really good cup of joe, you almost want to grab her by the shoulders and say "Yes! We get it. You. Love. Coffee." But I've worked as a barista in three coffeehouses (Dunn Bros, Caribou, and B&N Cafe--that serves Starbucks) so I can totally sympathize and get the whole coffee subculture; especially when she describes the "high maintenance" customers, those people who can't understand why their drink isn't ready the instant they ordered it. Yeah, I've had my fair share of those people, and they are the reason why I don't miss working behind the bar. But I'm glad that so far this book is going well---I have the first six books in the series. I got the first one at B&N, and then I awesomely found the other five at Half Price Books. The seventh one is still in hardcover, and we all know how I feel about hardcover.

Once I finish this one, I'm going to go back to my long-lost genre of paranormal romance. I haven't read a strictly romance book since the Romance Book Club at Barnes & Noble, and we kinda disbanned last September when most of the members left for college. Oh well. The next one will be the second book in the Light Warriors series by Patti O'Shea, called In Twilight's Shadow. Yay. And I might read another book between that one and the third in the series, Edge of Dawn, which I will be receiving June 30th (I pre-paid for it to get my 40% Employee Appreciation discount!). Hehehe.

Review of In Twilight's Shadow

Originally written June 29, 2009

In Twilight's Shadow by Patti O'Shea. This was simply an amazing read. A great addition to the Light Warriors paranormal romance series. In the world where magic users, Gineal, fight demons in a seemingly unending battle that is kept from humans by the Council as well as warriors known as troubleshooters. In this volume of the Light Warriors series, we meet Maia Fraiser, a former troubleshooter who gave up her magic when she began slipping into dark magic. Creed Blackwood is a troubleshooter who may have already fallen to the dark magic, but needs Maia to help bring down a demon who is after Maia's sister Ryne (from In the Midnight Hour, book one of the series). As the story unfolds, you're never quite sure if Creed is who he says he is, or if his motives are pure. Despite warnings that Creed is not to be trusted, Maia falls for the man, as he falls for her (it is a romance, after all!).

The action and suspense keeps up a steady pace and continually grows throughout the book so you don't want to put it down! I had a knot in my stomach the whole time I reading it because I wanted more and hated the idea of stopping. The chemistry between Maia and Creed, whether it be their physical attraction or their stubborn head-butting, is electric and you can't help but cheer for their relationship to survive despite all the obstacles in their way. At times Creed was a bit of a bastard, due to his normal personality or the dark forces that had crept into his mind, but you still wanted them together. They need each other, and were prefect for each other.

A fantastic read and Patti O'Shea just gets better with each book. I give In Twilight's Shadow a solid 9 on my 1-10 rating. The third book in the serious comes out later this week and I can't wait to pick it up and continue in the world of the Gineal!

After reading a book like this, and even the first one of the series, it makes me look back at my own writing; and I almost second-guess my writing abilities. At times I wonder if I write a plot with intrigue and mystery as well as Patti O'Shea. Do I reveal too much right away and not build up the proper suspense it deserves? Well, I think I don't do it as well... but I also know the story that I'm writing, so I already know what's going to happen, so some of the suspense is lost to me. But I fear that my precognition of the events of the book bleed through somehow and I don't keep things as closely guarded as I should. Ugh. As certain people have told me before: I need to stop comparing myself to others! But it's so hard once you read a book as epic as this one! Awesomely, the third book of the series, Edge of Dawn comes out on the 30th. However, I have to wait a few more days before I can get it, because I pre-paid for it at work (to get extra discounts off it!), and it won't ship until after the 30th. ACK!

Reviews of Cell and World War Z

Originally written December 9, 2009

This was my first Stephen King book to ever be read, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading it. I was lead to believe it was a zombie book, and to quote one of the reviews in the front of the book: "If any writer is capable of producing the Great American Zombie Novel it would have to be Stephen King..." (The Washington Post), so I had high expectations for a zombie book written by Stephen King, the undisputed horror master! But sadly these were squashed, for deep down, it was not a true zombie book.

The book starts off with our main character, Clayton Riddel, in Boston, and he sees people who answer their cell phone at 3:01pm just suddenly go apeshit crazy: attacking people, smashing their heads and faces into walls or plate glass windows, all that fun stuff. Sure, the people who got zapped by the weird cell phone Pulse turned into crazy psychos or they were lost in some weird, unexplained trance, but they were not TRUE ZOMBIES. They didn't die and come back to life to feed upon the flesh of the living, although some did attack and feast on other "phone crazies" or "normies" throughout the book, but they were not dead. So minus a few points there. And the rest of the story is how Clay and a rag-tag group of survivors, or those who weren't on a phone at 3:01pm, try to make it up to Maine to see if Clay's wife and son survived the chaos. And along the way, the "phone-crazies" are evolving and showing strange new powers and abilities that just make things more weird and left-field than truely scary.

Overall, the book was a good read, creepy in a lot of places, but not really scary. Unless you think that this could happen, since how many people now have cell phones? I mean, really, just go to Target or your local mall and just sit and watch the people walk by, counting how many have cell phones. Do you have a cell phone? Some weird terrorist attack could work through the cell phone transmitters and cause chaos. Really, that's the only scary thing of the book, how reality-based it is. I'm not sure how true-to-life the "phone crazies" could be, but one never knows.

I'm not sure if I'm okay with never knowing what exactly caused the Pulse to happen. I guess the point of the book was to show how this horror affected one man and the small group of survivors he travels with; and in their struggle to survive, they never really get into a situation to figure it out. No government base or agents to stumble upon to get answers. Kind of like Shaun of the Dead, we never know what causes the zombies, we just see one Brit try to save his family and friends. I liked the book, got bogged down in a few places do to lack of action or scariness, but overall, good read. I think I may read Pet Cemetery next, which I hear is scary as shit.

On my rating scale, I give it a good 7. Not fantastic, and I wasn't as scared as the hype surrounding Mr. King led me to believe I would be upon reading one of his novels, but still good. Hopefully the next King tome will be scarier.

I finished reading World War Z last night and it was really good. A chilling look at the world-wide chaos of an all-out zombie invasion. The only thing I didn't like was that there was no real explanation as to what started the zombies. Apparently a little boy in China was dubbed Patient Zero after he got sick from playing around a man-made-lake. But I guess that adds to the creepiness and fear of zombies: no one really knows what starts it. George A. Romero played with the idea that cosmic radiation from a passing meteor caused it (Night of the Living Dead), and Patient Zero by Maberry introduced biological warfare zombies... there are hundreds of ways to create zombies, I guess. Anyhoo. A solid 8.5 on my rating scale. It's one of the best zombie books I've read (and sadly there aren't many). Super good. And the part about the North Korean tunnels? Holy crap, super freaky! I'm really thinking about getting the audio version. Henry Rollins is on it (as are Alan Alda, Carl & Rob Reiner) and I love me Henry Rollins! He did a voice for one of the Joker gang members in Batman Beyond. Next time I head to Half Price Books I'll have to look for it.

Soulless Review

Originally written on August 28, 2010


The book I will be reviewing, if you haven't already figured out, is Soulless by Gail Carriger. Been a while since I've done a book review, and what a book to start up again! I love this book! A fantastic mix of humor, action, romance, and Victorian society... with some vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and steampunk stirred in for good measure. It did take me a chapter or three to get used to how Ms. Carriger writes, and the setting of Victorian London; but like with reading Pride and Prejudice, once I got over that hurdle, I was off and running. As in Pride and Prejudice, social standing and style are key to how easy your life is in the world of Soulless, so that tended to through me off a bit.


Soulless is a tale of Miss Alexia Tarabotti, who is without soul, a preternatural. This means she can cancel out the supernatural powers that make a werewolf a werewolf and a vampire a vampire. She is slightly removed from "good societal standing" for many reasons, which adds to the many levels of character building and plot development. Alexia is a strong-willed woman in a time when women were meant to be seen, not heard. Many times throughout the book I was almost put off by Alexia because she strove to be too strong, too independent, too scientific about things. But then a scene here or there would pop up and show the human side of Alexia that made me truly care for her. It showed some depth to her character, and the reasons behind why she had to be so strong-willed. One of the main sources of frustration and humor in the book was the romance between Lord Maccon and Alexia. I loved the tension between Alexia and Lord Maccon (werewolf Alpha), and the chemistry and unspoken attraction was brilliantly done. Two Alpha personalities slowly realizing they cared and loved each other was touching, humorous, and hair-pullingly frustrating all at the same time. I genuinely cared for Alexia and Maccon and hoped that her stubbornness and his wolfishness wouldn't split them up. The action and suspense of this tale made it a true page-turner, as did the growth of the characters throughout the action. I had to stay up until 230am to finish it. I had to know how the mystery of the wax-man turned out (I will not explain because that will ruin it!), and I simply had to know if Alexia and Maccon realized their feelings for each other and actually expressed them out loud, and what silly hat Ivy had on!

There were only a handful of downsides to this book; sadly it can't be all giddy praise. There was the seemingly over-done attention to the fashion, the decor of the high-society homes, the emphasis of the separation of classes. At times it blended seamlessly into the story and helped to carry the plot along. At others it seemed to drag the pace of the story down, and become page-filler. I suppose this was done to set the tone of the world of Soulless, since the Victorian age was a bit... materialistic and segregated. This is a historical fiction, and when one is writing in a certain time period, one must be true to the period to a certain degree. It was still a bit distracting. Another thing that irked me was how the first 1/4 of the book bashed into the reader's head far too many times the understanding that Alexia is a somewhat outcast of society for reasons A, B, and C. Yes, yes, we get the point... But as I read on and got to know the characters, especially Alexia, the brow-beating of the reader in regards to Alexia's "short-comings" had been beaten into her head for years by her family and society, that it was hard for anyone to ignore them, much less forget them. It was a subtle way to get the reader to experience the emotional pain of the heroine, to understand why Alexia is the way she is, why she acts this way, and how human and vulnerable she truly is; a fact and revelation that Alexia hasn't fully come to see. A far more complex book than what it first appears, with many fun layers to explore.

I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys the strong, witty heroines of Jane Austen, good mysteries with humor and action, and likes their vamps and wolves a little more on the dangerous side. I am thoroughly excited to read the second in the series, Changeless, and then Blameless. Apparently there's a fourth book coming soon... Ack! I need to get reading!

Okay... enough reviewing... I need to get to bed. It is way past my bedtime.

My Dangerous Pleasure Review

My Dangerous Pleasure – ARC Copy

Carolyn Jewel

I received this ARC copy of My Dangerous Pleasure from Carolyn Jewel earlier this year with the intention to read it and write up a little review. Sadly most of my 2011 was spent planning my wedding (which happened back in September), so I was unable to read in one shot and when I had finished it, it took me a few more months to finally get around to reviewing it.

So, with many apologies for the lateness to Ms. Jewel, here is my review of her latest paranormal romance.

My Dangerous Pleasure is the fourth in Jewel’s My Immortals series, and it definitely earns a spot in this series amongst its predecessors. This tale focuses around a human female, Paisley, and a demon male, Iskander. Right from the first chapter there is action and intrigue. Paisley is partially possessed by a wizard who transfers some of his magic into her when he comes to get a cake from Paisley’s bakery. Then enter Iskander, a sexy demon who also happens to be Paisley’s landlord. He senses something is wrong with the magic around his house and comes to her rescue. The two become an unlikely pair as they try to figure out why the wizard is targeting Paisley. And just to complicate things, the wizard is somehow connected to Fen, a female demon that Iskander used to be involved with.

Throughout the progression of the plot there is a healthy dose of action and sexual tension between the human and demon to keep the story moving. Since the book is part of a series, other characters from the previous books make appearances. Thankfully Jewel gives quick background into why those characters are important when they are introduced. This was helpful for me since it has been a while since I read the first three, so I needed a little refresher to the other players. The pacing of the events in the book were well thought out and kept me drawn to the characters. Action scenes are well written and the descriptions kept you turning the pages to see what happens next. One scene that stands out for me is the one in the coffee shop with Paisley, Iskander and Fen; the description of the magic use in that scene was spine-chilling and mesmerizing. After I was done with that part, I was left shaken.

I highly recommend My Dangerous Pleasure, as well as the other books in this fabulous series. Just because it is in a series doesn’t mean you have to read them in order—it is not overtly marked on the covers there’s a numerical order to the books—so you can feel free to read this one then pick up the others, given the mention of clarifying the characters from previous books. If you love your romance paranormal, and your demons super sexy with a heart and your damsels hard on the outside with a soft side, then this book and series is for you.

On my scale of 1 (hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give this book an 8. 

Almost done with NaNoWriMo!

I'm almost done with National Novel Writing Month. In T-minus 11 hours, I will be done with my first attempt to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. It's been pretty crazy! I started the month off great but hit some bumps as November dragged on. Thankfully, I've been able to get back on track to some degree, and now I'm only 6,000 +/- words away from finishing. I think I'll be able to pull that off. 

And since this is a book review blog, I thought I should put up a review. I haven't done any new reviews yet, although I'm seriously overdue for reviewing some---namely Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry and My Dangerous Pleasure by Carolyn Jewel. But until I get time to work on those, here is an older book review from earlier this year. Enjoy!

Originally written March 5, 2011

Since I work at a bookstore, I have access to fun book stuff the normal public does not. One of those such things is called ARCs, or Advanced Reader Copies, of books. These are sent from the publisher to bookstores to garner interest and hype about the book before it's officially released for mass purchasing. My bookstore is one such places that receives ARCs and I have taken part of reading them, because, hey, it's a free book.

Some such books I have read in ARC form are: Patient Zero (Jonathan Maberry), The Emperor of All Maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee), Soulless (Gail Carriger), 13 Bullets and 99 Coffins (David Wellington). And now I can add a new one to that list. After I got off my shift today at work, I was tired and just needed some time to sit. So I did, chatted with other coworkers, and for some reason I decided to check out our ARC shelf in the break room. I saw an ARC I hadn't seen before, and immediately grabbed it. It was Go, Mutants! by Larry Doyle. I had seen the book out on the book floor a few times, when it first came out in hardcover, and I had been drawn to it, and it sounded interesting, but I never bought it because it was still in hardcover (and I just checked bn.com, it's still in hardcover); I don't do hardcover for books. I have purposely bought only 3 books in hardcover, because I absolutely had to have them.

Anyhoo, back to Go, Mutants! I started reading it, because I figured it was a sign finding the ARC. I started reading it at 600pm. I had to force myself to leave work at 700pm because I had to go home (eventually). Once I got home, I started reading it again. I am now half way through the book, and I had to stop at 1130pm to write a review about a book I've half read. And really, I don't want to go to sleep because I don't want to stop. But I need to sleep because I have to work.

It's an amazing book. Imagine, if you will, an alternate universe where aliens invaded earth in the 1950s, and after a war to stop an alien from taking over the world, the world is now stuck in a world that looks much like Grease and every beach-blanket-bikini movie ever to star Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. Our story follows J!m (naviely pronounced "Jim" by Earthlings), the son of the very alien that allegedly tried to take over the world. He's in high school, and very much the "rebel without a cause", loner, outcast, misunderstood alien who is in love with a human girl, and just trying to figure out life as a teenager, let alone an alien with a big brain-looking cranium and blue skin. Oh, and he's also going through some bodily changes that he doesn't understand, and neither does his mother because his father isn't there to figure out what his race does in puberty. (Oh, and his mom is a humaniod feline hottie, so J!m inherited a tail from her).

The writing is full of wit, a dangerously dry sense of humor, and emotional poignancy that truly makes me feel for J!m's plight. I am very glad I picked up this ARC, and it might turn out to be a buy-worthy book after I'm done... since we're not supposed to keep the ARCs after we read them, per the store's rules... not publisher rules, just our store, so others can read them... but the ARC shelves are spilling over with ARCs, so I doubt people are really reading them anyhoo... *ahem*

So yeah. If you like your sci-fi with a dry, snappy wit, delicious humor and heart to boot, then I definitely recommend Go, Mutants!, and I'm not even done with it yet. Oh, yeah, and it's written by the guy who wrote I Love You, Beth Cooper: Larry Doyle; who also used to write for The Simpsons, or, still does. I dunno. All I know is that Go, Mutants! is amazing and funny. Read it.

National Novel Writing Month...

So I won't be doing many reviews as I was hoping for the next month. I signed up for National Novel Writing Month, so much of my time will be spent working on that little project. But I promise you, my one if not two faithful followers, that I will post some reviews soon. They might be some older ones I've already done, but NEW ones will be popping up in December.

Thanks for stopping by and go get yourself a good book!!

Review of "Monster Island" by David Wellington

Originally published June 14, 12007

I also finished my zombie book Monster Island by David Wellington last night. Holy damn was that awesome!! O_O Wow. Yeah. Kicked my ass. I just... wow. Totally blew my ideas and preconceived notions and beliefs of zombie lore out of the water! It's awesome! Love it. It has the same elements of most zombie books:

• Frantic survival of the last remnants of humanity
• Man vs man
• Man vs zombie
• Ethical/moral standards from previous pre-zombie life vs the new and radical-survivalist mode of post-zombie world
   

But then it also adds in some new elements:

• A talking, cognizant zombie
• Organized zombie army
• Ancient curses
• The new theory that zombies don't have to be mindless eating machines (see first bullet)
• Zombie pigeons

Yeah. It totally blew my mind. Now I want to get his other two books, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet. Monster Nation deals with how the zombie Epidemic all started, so technically "before" Monster Island. And then Monster Planet I'm pretty sure deals with the basic annihilation of humanity as we know it. NEAT! Then I can get his latest book 13 Bullets: A Vampire Tale. Dude! David Wellington is my new paranormal hero! Squeee!