Whew,
April flew by in a blur, but
I am SO glad! I was barely hangin' in there, but now I am
done with the semester and I can breathe. It is awesome. I'm
not sure how, but I got through three
books this month and here they are.
First, I tried out a book called
After Eden by Katherine Pine. Here is a summary, courtesy B&N.com:
Devi knows she shouldn't trust the new employee at her favorite used
bookstore. Sure, he's funny, smart and hands down the sexiest guy she's
ever met, but something dark lurks behind his unassuming smile and
sinful green eyes.
Still, a girl can't always afford to be picky. When an angel abducts
your twin brother it should come as no surprise that the one person who
can help you get him back is a demon--and only if you're willing to pay
his price.
This
book is a Pubit book from Barnes and Noble, so I
was prepared for the amateur writing and plot. I liked the
subject of this story, which is angels and demons. That
part was very interesting and written in a unique way. That is probably
the reason I kept reading. Oh, and the
fact that I really liked Oz, the guy from the bookstore. He was definitely the
best written character. Devi was... kind of
whiny and obnoxious. Not my fave. For $0.99, it really wasn't bad. But I'm
also not sure if it was worth my time. Overall,
two out of five stars for this one.
Next I read
Partials by Dan Wells. Here is a summary:
The human race is all but extinct
after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to
humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands
by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is
immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long
Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the
Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to
RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.
Kira, a sixteen-year-old
medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM
ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's
left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to
stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the
last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials
alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between
them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew
were there.
I definitely liked this book. It's a great dystopian novel with a little sci-fi and a tad of romance. Maybe because the book was written by a man, I found that the main character, Kira, was very different from your average teen character. There were moments when I thought,"OK, no girl would ever say that", but overall, she was a strong, smart character that I liked reading about.
At points this book reminded me of Mockingjay (the third novel in The Hunger Games series), but for the most part, it was a nice breath of fresh air. The plot was complex and captivating. The characters were very well written. I cannot wait until the next book is released! Overall, I would give this book four out of five stars.
Lastly, I read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It's one of my mom's favorites and I decided it was high time I read it. Here's a summary:
Four mothers, four daughters,
four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on
who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent
immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong,
and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call
themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose
to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish
back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already
unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan
examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep
connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her
secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become
more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters,
and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable
tightening of their matriarchal ties.
I really
enjoyed reading this book. There were
times I got very confused with the eight different narratives, but I just
kept flipping backwards to remind myself who was who. Amy Tan is a great writer and the stories told by the mothers and daughters were
captivating, humorous, and heart-breaking. I
only wish it had gone on, to tell exactly what happened
to each character. If you haven't read this book, it is
definitely one that should be read at least once by everyone.
Five out of Five stars.
Love,
Cait
