A Reader's Addiction

So I went to the annual YMCA book fair last weekend and I always love going because I find so many books I remember from my childhood and from my teen years. I especially love finding the old teen romance books that are what had me so interested in reading when I was around 12. I remember devouring one of these IN A DAY over the summer! I've not read any of these in years but I think I will have to revisit them just because I'm curious.  Now I admit I'm bummed because to save space I did let go of all the ones I originally had and have since been unable to locate all of those same titles, but I have since found a few of them in the past couple of sales at the YMCA. I'm not sure who here in St. Louis still has them and how they wind up finding their way back into the sale each year, but I think it is awesome! The photo below was the few I found last year. I really should have known about the adult romance table last year! I think I might have found more! I...

Read: August 22-26, 2012 read in 5 days pages: 384 The second installment in the Winterhaven series takes up at the beginning of senior year for the same cast of characters we met in the first book and one new introduction: Tyler. The intervening summertime is summarized that Violet had spent the summer taking care of her Gran who had suffered a stroke. After arranging for a care taker to stay with Gran and Lupe Violet feels a bit more at ease when returning to school. She returns to school anticipating the return of Aidan as the two have been separated for the whole summer. After last years fiasco with Julius Violet is hoping for a much calmer year. And from my reading and feel of the novel things are relatively calm and there really is no action or tension that builds over the course of this novel. I didn't feel a sense of urgency or a real climax that was in need of being solved as the first book had. Violet still has her visions to deal with but...

Read: August 18-21, 2012 read in 4 days pages: 235 Book Blurb: "Do you trust me Meghan?" His voice was soft, almost pleading. I swallowed and tried hard to discern his expression in the dark. The paltry amount of light reaching this far into the small cavern glinted off his eyes, giving him the appearance of a demon trying to tempt me into something evil. "Yes," I answered, my own voice a mere whisper, "I trust you." "Good." He gave my hand a quick squeeze, and then I was pulled forward into the icy abyss that loomed before us. . . A year ago, Meghan Elam learned that she was Faelorehn, a being of the Otherworld. Immortal. Now she must juggle her life in the mortal world wiht the one she has started to build in the Otherworld. However, keeping her identity secret from her friends and family while trying to avoid a wrathful Celtic goddess is no easy task. With the help of  the intriguing Cade MacRoich, Meghan will learn th...

Read: August 17, 2012 read in 30-45 minutes pages:  This book was incredibly funny! I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this little gem. It took maybe 30-45 minutes to read over the course of my breaks at work. I didn't want to put it down every time I sat down to read it. I was asked so many times what I was reading that had me laughing out loud so hard. I had to share a few of the funnier ones with coworkers who were passing by. These test questions cover a variety of subjects and some of the answers were so close to being right while others only came similar in sound but were no where near correct. While others were so far off the answer was just ridiculous! I highly recommend the book to anyone looking for a good laugh, which honestly is at a strangers expense, but at least you don't know who the person is and you'll never have to face them! I'd recommend this to college students because it would be a great stress relief during exam time. It would ...

Read: August 9-15, 2012 read in a week pages: 327 Sookie is coming to realize that her life is not entirely as she desires it to be. Her relationship with Eric is strained and has been for the last couple of books. They love each other but Eric has so many obligations in his vampire world that he hardly has time to make the relationship function outside the confines of the bedroom. Not that I am complaining because reading this series it has become a staple for there to be a good romp in the bedroom. But lately Harris' novels are lacking in that department. So I will complain a little. This one for instance has one scene and it fails terribly. It was glossed over, we see no heat or any of the passion. All we get is Sookie commenting that she left her trouble behind for a good 15 minutes. 15 minutes?! Really? That's it?? Oh come on. I know that Viking has more than 15 minutes in him!! That was a huge let down after the previous scenes with Eric. While I know or...

Read: August 10, 2012 read in under a half hour pages: 160 The second installment of the Signspotting books. I enjoyed the second book a bit more than the first. I found more signs in the second book that made me laugh more than the first. This book, like the first, also includes more translation issues and will leave you wondering once again, where was the editor or at the very least the person who signed off on the approval of the signs prior to their being made. And also sometimes its just all about location location location!

Read: August 10, 2012 read in under a half hour pages: 208 Clever little book full of signs from street to advertisements to warnings and even businesses. These are signs that have been spotted all over the world so some of the humor comes from simply translating the words to English, or the inability to find English on a sign that states "INFORMATION" yet contains no legible words for those who understand the word "INFORMATION".  Some signs are funny and slightly humorous while others were a good laugh out loud. Some were so ridiculous you wonder where the heck the editor was prior to the sign being printed. 

Read: July 22, 2012 read in 10 minutes maybe pages: 68 Cute little picture book about owning a pet monster. I enjoyed the pictures of the monsters more than the writing. The idea of a pet monster with an operational guide was a funny topic so I thought for free on amazon I could check it out. Course at the time I read it I didn't own the kindle fire and read it on the computer, but I'm sure kindle fire owners would be able to appreciate the full color photos throughout the book more than the regular kindle readers. Which is why I'm glad I opted to read this on my computer.

Read: July 28- August 9, 2012 read in little less than 13 days pages: 558 I can't begin to write a review that is going to do this book justice. This is the third installment in the Monstrumologist series and they just get better and better as the series continues. I love the characters Will Henry and even the harsh Pellinore Warthrope and enjoy following them alone their journeys of discovery. The author has a magnificent grasp of the SHOW not TELL aspect of writing. There were so many times when I was reading this novel that I thought ugh I could have done without that description! But honestly that just added to the story telling and made things more real and believable.  While the field of aberrant biology, the study of monsters, may not exist in OUR reality, within THIS world it very much DOES! This installment follows Will Henry and the Doctor to the Isle of Blood, where they are in search of the magnificum. What is the magnificum? To be honest in the end I...

Read: August 2-7, 2012 read in 6 days pages: 272 I heard about this memoir on NPR when Anna Quindlen was interviewed a while back. I have read a couple of her novels, Blessings and Rise and Shine, and thought I'd like to read her memoir as well. I'm on a memoir kick lately. Its interesting to see other peoples point of view on life. I didn't know too much about Quindlen prior to reading this memoir other than the fact that she once wrote an OP column and had some novels out there as well. I remember reading her novels and thinking they were ok, I didn't get super excited over them, but this one I did look forward to reading. Once I started reading it read really quickly. The book is broken down into essays that touch on a vaierty of topics with a good deal of focus in each how topic has changed as she has aged. The essays provide her an outlet to reflect on her life and through those essays she shares the wisdom she has gained. Overall the book was ver...