Sunday Salon

Happy New Year Everyone!! I for one am happy that a new year is here and there is a fresh start on all my goals. 2011 wasn’t the best as I deal with depression and ADHD. Both negatively affected my reading for the year. The good news is both are now under control and I have been reading up a storm the past few weeks. Look for lots of reviews coming!

I had a great Christmas I am now the proud owner of a Nook. I started trying to download library books on it bit was stumped. I finally went to the library where the nice librarians helped me. In this day of digital technology we will need librarians more not less! I was shocked by how long the waiting list were for most of the books. When I go to the library I can have most of the books right then but when I went to check out digital books there were waiting lists of a hundred or more people on some of the books. However some titles came up really fast and I now have 6 books to read in three weeks.

I did meet last years goal of branching out with my reading. I now love steampunk and young adult books. For 2012 I want to continue branching out. You never know if you might find a new genre you like.

I also want to interact more. This will mean commenting on other blogs and on this blog. One of the reasons so many of us blog is for the community and I want to get more involved with that.

I also will make every effort to keep this updated. Last year I let it slip but now that both things are under control I want to keep it updated as much as possible.

Those are my goals for 2012! What are yours?

Review: When She Woke

When She Woke is a dystopian retelling of a Scarlet Letter. In this world criminals are chromed (their skin turned a different color) according to their crimes. Hannah the main character in this book is charged with murder, because she had an abortion, and is chromed red. Life as a chrome is not easy and Hannah must navigate difficulties she never encountered before.
What impressed me most about this book is how strong Hannah is. Even though it added years to her sentence as a chrome she refused to name the person who performed her abortion. She also refused to name the father of her child to protect his job as he is famous and influential. You do not find many woman of this strength in books. She poses a good role model for doing what is right for you and having the strength and backbone to follow up on it. This book does not descend into preachy moral tones but instead present things as they happen as the logical next step in the life of Hannah.
This book if full of tension. I had to stop reading a few times because I was so afraid of what would happen to Hannah. I really felt connected to her and cared about her and what happened to her. The author did I good job at ratcheting up the tension. This book is horrifying in a way because it shows what can happen if political climate goes to far to the right. It shows a world where choice is taken away. Where people must live how other people say you must. While I was reading I kept thinking this could really happen. That made it all the more horrifying.
Every word seems to be crafted to mean something in this book. The prose was beautiful. It was like Hannah was your friend and she was telling you, the reader, what had happened to her. This book comes highly recommended.

Library Loot

It is winter break so I went to the library and picked up

 

When She Woke- I heard rave reviews on this one so I decided I had to read it.

How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend- I liked the premise of the book so I thought I would get it.

Why We Read what We Read- Again the book summary caught my attention

AshFall- I heard this was on the best of 2011 lists for Young Adults

The Iron Knight- I heard rave reviews

Wither- Again I heard rave reviews

The Unbecoming of Myra Dyer- I also saw this on a lot of blogs so wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

Review: How I stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend

This has to be one of the weirdest books I have read recently. I mean this in a good way.
It starts with Zelda who claims to be 325 years old and an alien. She is under treatment with David’s dad who is a psychologist. He prefers to treat people in his home because he fells that a home setting is more beneficial for them. She makes a few escape attempts and then when David finds out that she is looking for her one true love who happens to be Johnny Depp he agrees to help her find him. Off they go on an adventure that includes police chase arson and more.
I saw this in the library and thought it looked interesting so I picked it up. The story is a fast paced and easy read. It is plot driven with not much character growth. About halfway through the book you do learn about Zelda and her home planet. I thought what world building there was was good. I would have liked more but as this book is geared toward a young teen audience I can see why it keeps the focus on the action. This would be a good book for teens who might not like to read heavier books and young teens that like action novels with a bit of sci-fi thrown in.

Review: A Cousin’s Challenge

This is the third and last book in the Amish Indiana Cousins Series.
This book I was looking forward too as it had a Deaf main character and I am Deaf myself. Granted the woman in the book lost her hearing after she was in a van accident and I was born Deaf but I will take a deaf character where I can find them. Especially if they are positively portrayed like they are in this book.
Jolene lost her hearing in a Van accident and had went to PA to live with her aunt to learn to sign. She is back in Indiana to teach two deaf children. She also teaches some adults in the community. Lonnie becomes deaf after getting hit in the head with a fence post. Yeah, that was stretching it a little far even for me but I am willing to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the story. His girlfriend breaks up with him after he becomes deaf and he thinks he cant be a good husband because he cant hear. Throughout the whole story I kept wanting to push these two together. I know that they had to grow and the author was showing authentic relationships but honestly Jolene and Lonnie was so perfect that each time they did not end up together I just wanted to scream in frustration.
The story throughout the three books really draws you in and you can see how all of the characters grow. I became attached to the characters and was rooting for them. The story drags at times but looking back I can see it was necessary for the characters to go through what they did to complete to growth.

Review: A Cousin’s Prayer

From Goodreads: Kumme to Amish country, where the simple ways of life lead to hope and healing. Katie Miler is traumatized after her boyfriend is killed in a van in which she was also a passenger. How will she find her way out of the valley of her depression? Freeman Bontrager will make any excuse to be near to Katie, hoping to win her love. But how far will he go to gain her trust. . .and her heart? What will bring this girl out of the shadows of fear, and open her heart to life—and love?
My Review: This is the second book in the Indiana Cousins series. The book can be read as a stand alone. Like the previous book before it, it focuses on one character in each book so you can see how each character grows and changes over time.
Katie is still not over the tragic death of her boyfriend Timothy who was killed in a car accident. Ever since Katie has these attacks where she has a feeling of unreality and a sense of panic and like she is going to die. Her good friend Freeman is the one who tells her it is panic attacks and helps her get over them.
Over time her and Freeman draw closer and a romance starts to brew. There is one hitch, there is a woman who wants Freeman for herself. I felt that the love story in this books was authentic and relatable. You could see where each character was coming from and it was easily to become emotionally invested in the outcome. You find yourself rooting for Katie all the way.
Like the previous book this book provided insight into the Amish lifestyle which I enjoyed. It even has some Amish vocabulary words and refers to the things that the Amish would. It also does not gloss over difficulties such as a woman spreading gossip about Katie which we can all relate to.
This is a book that I would recommend to anyone wanting to get a glimpse into the Amish way of life and for those looking for a sweet inspirational and or romance.

Review: Sex on Six Legs

From Goodreads:

Insects have inspired fear, fascination, and enlightenment for centuries. They are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity— personality, language, childcare—with completely different pathways from our own? What is going on inside the mind of those ants that march like boot-camp graduates across your kitchen floor? How does the lead ant know exactly where to take his colony, to that one bread crumb that your nightly sweep missed? Can insects be taught new skills as easily as your new puppy? 

Sex on Six Legs is a startling and exciting book that provides answers to these questions and many more. With the humor of Olivia Judson’s Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, Zuk not only examines the bedroom lives of creepy crawlies but also calls into question some of our own longheld assumptions about learning, the nature of personality, and what our own large brains might be for.

My Review: I have to admit  when I saw this at the library it was the title that drew me in. My first thought was sex life of insects? Who would write a book on such things? Then I picked it up and saw that it compared human processes and insects process and was hooked.

I never thought of insects as having any redeeming qualities. I see one and I stomp on it. This book opened my eyes. It described how insects can be social and how they communicate various things. For example, wasp can tell when another wasp not of its nest intrudes and will fight the intruder. What I found most fascinating was the fact that a researcher actually got a hold of a wasp and painted their faces to test this fact. I want to know how they do these sort of things without getting stung.

The biggest thing that the book does is to show that even though we think of humans has having special qualities and insects are nothing like us they are in fact. They do not have brains per se so everything boils down to neurons. We can see how neurons influence behavior and this in turn can lead us to discover more about humans and the why we act the way we do.

This was a fascinating book. I could not put it down, The author writes in a way where lay people can understand it. The author injects a sense of humor throughout the book that makes it a funny and delightful read.