Review: The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner

Book: The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: A-

What a fun kids fantasy this book was! Complete with a bunch of cool and quirky characters, some nasty villians and a kid with a misfit problem in his normal life but learns during all his adventures that maybe he's pretty special after all.

My favorite part of this book was all the riddles. I'm pretty stupid when it comes to riddles, so I didn't figure many out (though it was possible if I'd tried harder!) and let the charcter do all the figuring for me, but at one point, just before our hero was getting to it, I said right out loud, there in bed as I was reading, " I got it! I got it! Wait, wait, I need paper!!!" The Mr. looked at me sideways as I rummaged for paper and I said, "HA! I'm getting this BEFORE he does," pointing to Tick there on the front of the book. And sure enough, after flipping around in the book a bit and writing, then reading for a couple more pages, both Tick and I had it! "See!" I said all proudly, showing The Mr. He rolled his eyes and went on with his own reading.

It's stuff like this that makes this book tons of fun, along with a couple of twists and turns and a pretty intense climatic scene thrown in the mix too. Now that I'm done with it, I'll be handing it back over to my 13 year old son to see what he thinks of it. I'm quite sure he'll love it since he's loved all of James Dashner's previous stuff.

NO! Not Jason!

It was painful for me to see Jason in the bottom three last night on American Idol. Hopefully, it freaked him out bad enough that he steps it up and can wow everyone again like he did in the beginning, 'cause I really hope he sticks around awhile longer! I know he's not as powerful a singer as some of them, but still, I love his unique sound.

In case you missed it, here's the video of just that bottom three moment. It's a pretty crappy recording, but you can see his funny reaction to the whole thing:

Booking Through Thursday: Cover Up

Booking Through Thursday

This week’s question comes from Julie, who asks:
While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

I really don't think the actual design of the book affects my enjoyment of it. It's easier to read a softback than a hardback, but I still enjoy the hardbacks of course! I

llustrations? I can take 'em or leave 'em. Some are pretty cool, but, it sure doesn't affect my enjoyment of the book.

Trade paperbacks are the best, but I sure read lots of the mass market kind too.

Fonts? Hmmmm.... if it's a really hard to read font, that could be a problem. But most books don't have a problem with weird fonts.

So, the short answer: nope! I enjoy the book no matter what, really. :)

Review: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Book: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Genre: Literary Fiction

Rating: B+

Third book of the year finished for the TBR Challenge! I'm just barely hanging on at one book a month for that one.

So, I liked this book okay. If you're an American Idol fan, can you hear Randy saying, "It was awright for me, it was just awright." That's about how I felt.

The story is about a couple whose twins are born in the very first chapter. The baby boy is born healthy, but the daughter has Downs Syndrome. The dad, who is also a doctor, is delivering the twins late at night in his office with only one nurse to help. When he realizes there's a "problem" with his daughter, he tells the nurse to take her away to an institution and then he tells his wife that the baby girl died. The rest of the story is how everyone involved is affected by this split second decision.

My problem was I never really felt much sympathy for either the dad OR the mom. They seemed whiney and pathetic and way too "woe is me." Yes, the whole thing is sad, but still. I did enjoy the parts about the two kids and how life ended up for them. The writing was quite good, though a little sappy at times.

Anyway, it was "awright" for me.

Library Thing, Here I Come

So, according to my little poll, most of you are liking Library Thing for your book site of choice. You seem to like Goodreads too, but Library Thing still wins out in the end. Therefore, I'm going to try it and see what I think. It does look like a fun place to play!

Click HERE to get to my profile. Come and find me and say hi and tell me how to find you. I'm Suey there, like I am at most places. 'Course, there's not much in my library yet 'cause that'll take awhile. And at some point I'll have to decide whether or not I fork out the money for it. It won't take me long to reach the limit. But in the meantime, I hope to get a feel for the place and if I really want to stay there long enough to make that money investment worth it.

For those who are old pros there, I already have a question. Isn't there a place to say simply whether the book you add is READ or NOT READ.... I have lots to add that I have't read yet, so it seems logical that you'd see right off that I haven't read them yet. Am I making sense? Or is that just assumed by whether or not I've rated and/or reviewed them?

Anyway, back to playing with it!

A Music Memory

The other day JJ (16 year old daughter) went to a stag dance (what I used to call a stomp back in the day) and when she came home we were questioning her as to what songs they played... and were there certain songs that they play all the time at dances . .. like it wouldn't-be-a-complete-dance-without-it kinda of song.

So, then, of course, that got us remembering the songs of our day, the ones that got played at every dance without fail. This particular one came to mind and made us giggle with all the memories from it.

Take a listen and raise your hand if YOU remember dancing to this song, complete with melting to the ground at a particular point, and jumping back up in the air and on with the dance afterwards!

Booking Through Thursday: The End

Booking Through Thursday

You’ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do
you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take
the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next
book you’re going to read? What?

(Obviously, there can be more than one answer,
here–a book with a cliff-hanger is going to engender different reactions than a
serene, stand-alone, but you get the idea!)

I have many different reactions to the end of a book:

• sometimes I'll hold it close, smile for a minute, then be on my way.
• sometimes, I may be teary-eyed, and I'll have to regroup before joining the real world again.
• sometimes, I finish a book, lay it down, and immediately pick up the next one that's right there waiting, and keep right on reading.
• sometimes, when I finish a book, I'm really looking forward to the process of choosing the next book. So, I'll pick up two or three and read the first page, or chapter, then finally decide, and it'll be on to that book!
• sometimes, I'll be sad to finish a book and I'll leave out and look at it fondly for the next few days, wishing I was still reading it.
• always, I'll write it down in my reading journal.

But no matter what the reaction, I always feel like I've accomplished something, just because I've finished a book!