Reading Updates

Greetings readers!

It has been awhile, and much to my dismay, I haven't finished reading all of the books on my list yet. I have overestimated my time and am now working harder on the list. I have cut a bit into several of the books, and wanted to give a little bit of an update as to what I think so far.

Hearts in Atlanta was the first one I started, and I am farther along here than in the others. I love Stephen King's format, and he's got me into a story I don't think I would be interested in had I just read a review. There are little nit-picky things I don't like, such as random peeks into Bobby's future and general awfulness on his mother's behalf, but other than that, I am anxious to see what happens next!

The Flanders Panel, I must admit, is a bit of a disappointment thus far. I am about halfway through the first chapter and struggle to continue on. Perhaps it is just the books I am accustom to reading, but the main female character is a bit full of herself. She seems like the type of woman who would sit lazily in her windowsill, blowing cigarette smoke smoothly from between her lips while gazing regally around the city thinking 'I'm the best thing that ever happened to this town.' While some might like the idea of a beautiful protagonist, I'd prefer (even if she was gorgeous) for her to think of herself as...average. So far, she is very unrelateable to me, and it is hindering my progress.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is, by far, my favorite so far. It may not seem so as I am not as far into the story as I am with Hearts in Atlanta, but there is a good reason: the way this book was written is quite a bit more difficult to decipher. Another part hindering my progress is I am reading it on my phone, as I could not locate a copy of this book anywhere. Part of what I love about Memoirs is just the prologue. Often in tales like this one, there are references made in the book that you could not understand without reading a few other stories. So, they lay out the stories you need to know right there at the beginning. The one I am on right now is so outrageous and inventive I have forgotten numerous times that I haven't even reached the actual book yet! I would say more, but I would give away everything. I look forward to writing my review of this one.

I am about to break into A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton, but I have been reluctant for two reasons: fear of bad writing, and a weird fear of getting absolutely hooked. I have been pretty thorough looking through reviews of the books I'm reading, and from the sound of this one it is either love or hate. What gives me hope though is quite a few of the haters did give Grafton the benefit of this being her first novel, so perhaps the later ones are better...hopefully I won't have to wait that long!

Well, that's about enough typing for one night. I have a stack of books to get reading, and the stack is only getting bigger. Who knows? If the server for Diablo III keeps going down, I may make a good dent in it before the end of May!

Matched: A Review

I received this book as a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law and am ashamed to say I didn’t pick it up to read until recently due to work and general busy-ness. After not really reading a book for a long time, reading another book becomes more of a romantic thought. I wanted to read more, but I was worried I wouldn’t really like anything (which is ridiculous.) Matched was a great way to get back into the swing of things. 

Let me start by explaining a few things about this society: 

 • At one point in time, it was decided that society was too cluttered and disposed of all but one-hundred of songs, poetry, paintings…you name it. Shockingly people in this society know about it and are perfectly content with this.

 • This society knows how to read, but no one writes. They all take notes for school and read on their government issued electronic pads. Everyone gets one as soon as they start school, and everyone is in school until around age seventeen when they start going out for their careers. 

 • Food is given out by the government, and is for nutrition only: not taste. You get only what you absolutely need and nothing more. Portions are decided by your age, height, weight, and activity level.

 • Everyone is given pills to keep with them at all times: a blue, a green, and a red. You get each one after reaching a certain age. Blue is for an emergency situation where you have no food, green calms your nerves, and  red is not immediately explained in the book because no one the main character knows of has ever taken it.

 • When you are around seventeen, you become eligible to be Matched – meaning, the government can pair you up with someone to marry.No one has a say in the matter of picking a future spouse, and the vast majority of people who are Matched have never met their match before. They are Contracted to (married to) their Matches three years from then. Some people are chosen to be Singles and may date socially, but cannot be Contracted to a person, and cannot EVER have children. 

 • If you break a law and it is serious enough, they say you have committed an Infraction. This labels you as an anomaly (or criminal) for the rest of your life. If you have children, it marks them for life as aboriginals. They can never get married, and they will never have a chance at a good career. 

 • Finally, when a person turns eighty, they have what is called their Final Banquet. At this time, they see their family and friends one last time, eat their last meal – a meal of their choice, and receive a microchip with clips from their life (this last part is primarily for the surviving family members). By midnight, they have passed on.  

This series is about a girl named Cassia, just turned seventeen, on her way to her Matching Banquet. Cassia’s Match turns out a bit different. She is matched with her neighbor and dear friend Xander and, while this is almost unheard of, everyone involved seems delighted. Cassia adores Xander, and it becomes clear that Xander has always had his eyes on her. They live in the same neighborhood, which means that after they are Contracted they will likely get to live relatively close to their families. 

Things are going fantastically in this Dystopian world…until a mistake is made. The day after the Matching, Cassia goes to look at the microchip she received with information about Xander on it, and another face soon replaces his: that of her other friend, Ky. 

 Cassia is told by an official that a mistake had been made, for Ky is an aboriginal and can never be Matched to anyone. This mistake and newfound knowledge changes the way Cassia thinks about everything. From this point on, Cassia becomes more inquisitive about the way their society works. Why does Ky need to be punished for something his parents did? Are all the Matches made good ones? Is she really meant to be with Ky? 

When she listens to her heart, there is a resounding ‘Yes.’ 

 What I love about this book is that it is very different from every dystopian novel I’ve read thus far. The officials act friendly (for the most part) and even at the times Cassia has messed things up or things have been messed up, she’s been talked to like an equal. I think if there were to be a point in time where our entire lives were government run, I think they’d want us to at least think that we were equals to the officials. 

There were a few things that did peeve me. Every dystopian novel has a new set of rules that make up the new world, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bombarded with rules as I did with this one. Before I started truly reviewing the book I had to make a bullet-point list just so you could understand it! I believe this was the reason it was a bit hard to get into at first. The first five or so chapters seemed to be filled with rules and Cassia explaining them. I wondered if Matched was just a rule book and then Crossed would get into the plot. After everything was explained and we got to focus on the characters, it did become quite the page turner. 

 Over all, I give Matched 4 stars.

 

April Reading List

Welcome back! After this, I am hoping the monthly reading list will be put out at the beginning of the month as opposed to the middle of it. This month started out strong, reading The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and Matched. It’s funny how with these books April seems to have a certain Dystopian theme to it.

Over the next few weeks I will put out a personal review of each of them, as well as respond to any questions that there may be about the books. I also intend on posting updates about the books I am currently reading. Let me introduce you to the rest of my April Reading List:

Hearts in Atlanta by Stephen King – this is the first King novel I have picked up and I am enjoying it immensely so far. Taking place in the 60’s, we follow the life of Bobby Garfield. Bobby starts out as a boy just turned eleven. His father passed away when he was three, and it has been just him and his mom since. Life is pretty normal until an old man named Ted moves into Bobby’s building. From then on, he will never view his life the same. What caught my eye was the cover: Anthony Hopkin’s face with a hand held out. Anthony Hopkins is one of my all-time favorite actors, and if he was involved with this story in any way, I don’t see how I could hate it.

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg – Goodreads.com recommended this book to me after I put in that I read – and loved – The Picture of Dorian Gray. They do seem a bit alike in the synopsis, but only slightly. In this story, the tragic hero happens upon a man who looks bafflingly like himself. After this encounter, he believes he is going mad as a long string of events unfold that he finds himself struggling to understand. Riveting thus far!

Crossed by Ally Condie – after reading Matched, I knew I was going to have to continue. Cassia is on a mission to find Ky and save him from war – and almost certain death. The pressing issue is: once she finds him, what will their next move be? Hide in the wilderness forever, or find a way to fight back and claim their lives (and love) as their own?

The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte – a painting about to be auctioned off becomes the center of a mystery when an inscription is found hidden in one of the corners. Even though two centuries have passed, will our hero, Julia, be able to solve the crime? This book has a hint of The Da Vinci Code, and I love it.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks – this zombie book takes a very different approach. Brooks is said to be fervently warning his readers of what happened ‘last time’ and warning us that, if the proper precautions aren’t taken, it could all happen again. (Dun-dun-dun!) In all seriousness though, I’ve never read a zombie book, and I’m pretty excited about this one.

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton – Kinsley Millhone is a cop turned private investigator. Alone and unattached, she finds herself drawn to the most hopeless of cases. This is what draws her to the case of a desperate woman accused of killing her husband. Clearing her name won’t be easy, given the amount of time the woman had spent in jail already for the charge, but when another body turns up, Millhone may have found herself living a little too dangerously. I am hoping to love this series, as Sue Grafton has a great deal of books out there and I am pretty desperate for a good mystery series!


So there they are, the books on my April reading list. Hopefully I will be able to finish them all before May, but I have a feeling Hearts in Atlanta will probably carry over a month or two (it’s a long one – but worth it!) If you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them: May is fast approaching and another list will have to be compiled! What's on your reading list?

Happy reading!

Review from a Page: Welcome Dear Readers

Let me introduce myself. I am Suzanne, a 23 year old woman born in Missouri, residing in Florida, working at one of Gainesville's finest public libraries. Currently, I am but a humble page.

It struck me as funny that the part-time workers putting away books, pushing carts around, and generally doing entry level work for a library would be called 'pages' - what a horrible pun. Yet, the longer I work at the library the more I see that, really, what is a library without it's pages? One horrid pun deserves another...but I digress.

This is not the first time in my life I have found myself intertwined with a library. When I was in middle school I would spend every recess my teachers and our wonderful librarian would allow volunteering in our schools little library, whether it be stamping cards or putting away stacks of books. When there wasn't all that much to do, we [the librarian and I] would discuss everything; the news, our families, books coming out, books up for awards...

It is here, in the library, that I found myself actually talking. Those who know me currently as I am may [or may not] be surprised to know I didn't really talk much in grade school and middle school. I was the kind of awkward kid who would rather read about other people having fun and going out rather than try it herself. Only in the quiet of the library on those still afternoons would I divulge my thoughts and opinions.

Returning to the library after so many years (even though it is a very different, and much bigger library), it is almost like I had never left. This time around, I have the added bonus of having dozens of coworkers who are just as in love with a good story as I am - if not more. This is where this blog comes in, dear readers.

I won't be so ego-centrical as to think this is going to be one of those blogs that has thousands of followers, or even hundreds. This blog isn't about that. This is about getting back to something I love, and something I just want to put out there and share.

I made a promise to myself that, by the end of this year, I will have read 50 books. This is where I will post what I am reading, where I am in the book, and what I think of it. If you would like to read along with me, go for it. If you have already read the book, feel free to leave a review (just be sure to label if there are spoilers!) If you think I have horrible taste in books, that's fine.

Just a few rules:

1. If you think the books I read are awful, don't just say that - tell me why and recommend a book that you love or think is great. Unless I have already read it, I will read it.

2. If you want to comment on a book I am reading or respond to a question, please elaborate. As much as I love seeing every "Katniss is awesome!!!!!" comment, I think you could do better: tell me why.

3. No personal attacks. Opinions are opinions, folks. You have one, I have one, it's just how it is. Let's be mature.

So here's to 2012 - may the stories be great, the characters dynamic, and endings unexpected.