The Hunger Games Trilogy

Where you were growing up did people tell you not to judge a book by it's cover?  I have to admit that normally when I am choosing books to read, the first things I look at is the cover.  I try to steer clear of half naked men or posters from movies.  BUT simple cover of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is not to be missed!  The trilogy, which also includes Catching Fire and Mockingjay, tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl who is forced into the deadly Hunger Games. 

Now, you are probably wondering what the Hunger Games are and how these games drastically change the life of a 16 year old girl.  Well, without giving away too much of the story, here is s brief synopsis of the games.  The Hunger Games take place once a year in the country of Panem, a country that was formed by the remnants of North America after a war.  Split into 12 districts, 2 children are chosen from each district to fight to the death for the nation's entertainment.  The victor receives acclaim and wealth, which in the poor districts of Panem can drastically change a person's life.  But each game is different so the competitors never know what to expect when entering the arena.  Katniss was stunned upon first glancing the arena for her games seconds before they began. 

Katniss Everdeen is the strong female lead that most authors can only dream of creating.  Strong, independent, and a fierce fighter, Katniss is a role model for the ages.  When she is compared to other popular female leads, like Bella Swan from Twilight, Katniss may seem uncaring.  But this is entirely untrue.  Throughout all three novels Katniss shows her love for both her mother and her sister, Prim with all of her actions.  Katniss is also involved in a love triangle throughout the novels.  I don't want to give away any spoliers, but this love triangle has you screaming for her to choose a side! 

The settings in the novels are realistic to a nuclear war, and make you think about what would happen if the war was an actuality.  The arenas created for the games are creative with horrors that would scare anyone to run for their lives. 

The characters are both lovable people and people that you loathe.  With their own distinct personalities, these characters give you someone to root for throughout the triology.  There were times, especially in the concluding novel, Mockingjay, when I found myself crying along with the characters. 

The Hunger Games is on the the best novels I have read in a long time, and the trilogy left me begging for more.  It shocked me, made me cry. and made me root for characters in a way that I haven't done in a long time. At the end of each novel, I could not wait to start the next one. 

The Hunger Games is also soon to be a major motion picture.  Hopefully, the movie will be out next summer.  It stars Jennifer Lawrence at Katniss.  If the movie is anything like the book, this is the must see movie of 2012.  It has blockbuster written all over it!

The Help

Like most Americans, I get information on which new books to read by what movies are soon to come out in theaters.  While on date night with my husband, I saw a preview for The Help, and I had to look it up!  Once it was downloaded on my Nook, I was unable to put it down.  This book isn't suspenseful.  It isn't a mystery, but it is a page turner.  The Help by Karen Stockett is one of the best stories I have ever read.  It is easy to become immersed in these characters. 

Told in three different characters perspectives, this is the story of what living in Mississippi during the 1960's was like.  This story shows how the lives of  three women intersect when Skeeter, a young white woman from an affluent family, decides to write a book about what really happens in the lives of the African American servants in her town.  With the help of Aibileen and Minnie, two maids in the town of Jackson, Skeeter learns the deepest, darkest secrets of her friends and neighbors.  Through the lives of these three women, the reader laughs, cries, and has the ability to form their own opinions of the other characters without bias.  Trust me, there will be those characters you love, and those you love to hate. 

I loved every aspect of this story.  Stockett wasn't afraid to implant in her characters the biases and prejudices that would have been the norm in the South in the 1960's.  Hilly Holbrook, the most biased woman in the story, has some of the best scenes in the novel.  And Mrs. Celia Foote, along with Ms. Skeeter, show the beginnings of the changes America was going through by forming their own opinions before judging those around them.  These characters all have so much depth.  Each one, like every person you will encounter throughout your life, has their own story.  And Stockett weaves all those stories together beautifully. 

She was not afraid to take chances with her characters either.  I was pleased to see that, although it was a sub-plot, she did not focus of Skeeter gaining the husband her mother so greatly desired for her.  She created strong, brave female characters, especially for the time peroid in which the book is set. 

This novel is amazing!  It is a must read for anyone and everyone.  Please do yourself a favor and pick up this book today.  And if you aren't interested in reading the book then, although it isn't out yet, go see the movie.  If it is as good as the book, it is a a necessity for the at home collection. 

I REALLY want a cupcake!

I recently finished Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich, and now all I can think about is how badly I want a cupcake. 

This story focuses on Lizzy Tucker, a pasty chef at a small bakery in Salem, Massachusetts.  Lizzy is living a normal life until one day when a smokin' hot blonde named Diesel struts into the bakery and tells her that she is an unmentionable.  Together, Lizzy and Diesel, must find all the SALIGIA stones which represent the seven deadly sins, and keep them from Wulf.  Lizzy and Diesel work throughout the novel to find all the stones related to gluttony.   

The story takes some unusual twists that include a one-eyed cat, a flying broom, and an incredibly crass monkey named Carl.  Told with Evanovich's usual humor, this story is a fast-paced read.  It is a good summer read, but I don't know if it would be my first choice of novels to pick up off the shelf.  Since it is such a quick read, I finished the novel in just one day, but even though it ended in a cliff-hanger, I didn't find myself wanting more.  And I usually hate when a novel ends in a cliff hanger! 

It is obvious that Evanovich wishes for this to be a new series of novels, and I can't help but compare it to similar novels by J.R. Ward.  Ward writes "The Fallen Angel" series.  Her series had more action the Evanovich's  and it causes the reader to turn the pages at a faster pace.  Ward also has more romance in her novels, and she has the ability to create loveable characters in which ever characters she can think up.  The characters Evanovich has created in this novel are likeable, but I didn't find myself rooting for them.  I was only reading to complete the story.  I could have cared less whether the good guys won or lost.            

This novel is a great read for the beach or your summer vacation because it is such an easy, fast-paced read.  It is also great for lover's of Janet Evanovich.  You will had a hard time not noticing her characteristic humor throughout this new novel.  I just don't see this new novel having the success of Evanonvich's other popular series.   

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolirck

Ralph Truitt places an add in a Chicago newspaper looking for a wife to keep him company in the harsh Wisconsin winters.  Truitt, a very wealthy man at the turn of the century, has many deep, dark secrets which are the reasons for his loneliness.  Cathrine Land, who answers his add, has many secrets of her own.  Her largest secret is that she is solely after Truitt to murder him and leave herself a wealthy widow. Throughout the first harsh winter of the relationship, Truitt and Land's secrets start to come out.       

A Reliable Wife  is marketed as a "psychological thriller".  I can't see the thriller aspect in the novel, but I did see a psychological love story unfold in a very unconventional way.  I know what you are thinking, "What is a psychological love story?"  Well, I would describe it was a love story that has many different sides to it.  It has secrets, and both good and bad times.  It plays with the minds of the characters so that they do not know which way to feel throughout the story.  It is a love story that keeps everyone guessing until the end.  

The novel opens to a mystery that the reader already knows the answer too.  But as the novel unfolds, the reader learns new bits and pieces of the mystery.  Some of them you can guess and some of them you cannot.  These pieces create an intricate layering of story aspects that develop the final conclusion.  To me this is my favorite kind of mystery to read.  I want to keep reading until the characters figure out what I already know.  It allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about what the characters final reactions will be.    

And these characters have such deep personalities that you never know which way they will turn.  The story's narration is told in an omniscient point of view, so the reader never knows that the characters are actually thinking.  Only after they have made their decision and acted upon it, does the reader find out about the character's ACTUAL motives.  Throughout this story, the characters grow and change.  Some of them change so drastically that the reader is shocked by their actions in good and bad ways. 

This novel really surprised me.  I was shocked to see the love story unfold.  It was not the normal mushy love story that makes you cry and hope your husband brings home roses.  It was a real love story.  A love story with ups and downs.  Happy times and bad.   I would recommend this book to anyone.  But when you begin, keep an open mind because this book will surprise you to the very last page. 

10th Anniversary by James Patterson

In an earlier posting on this blog, I wrote a letter to James Patterson explaining to him that I felt he was only out to make a buck now a days.  Well, after reading this book I am not sure if I still believe that.  10th Anniversary is the new novel in the Women's Murder Club series.  This amazing series not only spawned 10 books, but a television show on ABC!  (Granted the show only lasted one season, but I don't think it had anything to do with the storyline.  There are just a lot of murder shows on television.)

The Women's Murder Club series chronicles the lives of Lindsay Boxer, a homicide detective; Claire Washburn, the medical examiner and Cindy Thomas, a newspaper reporter.  In the first two books, Jill Bernhardt is the assistant district attorney, but in this novel, Yuki Castellano assumes the role.  These four women work together, both in their personal lives and in their professions, to solve the biggest crimes in the San Francisco area.    

Each novel is a new mystery, and as the series progresses so do the characters.  As a reader and as a woman, I am able to relate to these characters like no others.  They live normal lives, have normal relationships, and have the same everyday problems any woman would have.  10th Anniversary  takes a break from the traditional mystery/thriller and places the mystery in the background.  This novel focuses on growing the characters personalities and taking them to places where they have never been.  Upon first reading this novel, I felt a little let down, because I expected to be sitting on the edge of my seat the entire time.  Now that I have left the story sink in, I am quite pleased with the novel.  I am so excited that these characters can now take on new heights!

I know that I have left the major storyline out of this review.  Don't look to far into that.  The mystery in this novel was good, and avid mystery readers will enjoy it; but this was not the purpose of this novel in my mind.  I would recommend that a reader begins this series with the first novel, 1st To Die, and work their way up to 10th Anniversary.  It is only by starting at the beginning that a reader can see the dramatic changes that have taken place in these characters.  If you don't choose to read the series in this way, than you can still be captivated by the mysteries and thrills in the previous novels.

Novels like this one are the reason that I fell in love with James Patterson. If he keeps writing like this, I will have to eat my words.  I look foreward to being able to grab a fork and dig in!

http://www.jamespatterson.com/books_wmc.php      This link will take you to James Patterson's personal website.  On this page, you will be able to find synopsis of all ten of the Women's Murder Club novels.  ENJOY!

Dead Reckoning: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

Yes, the image is small for a reason. 
I could not get the image to rotate!

Dead Reckoning is the eleventh novel in the popular Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.  And this novel picks up where the previous novel, Dead in the Family, left off.  It is a lot to explain since this is the eleventh book, but just know that with any Sookie Stackhouse novel there is always drama, mystery, love and of course, vampires.  This series, which was the basis for the popular HBO series, True Blood, is in a league of it's own in the world of vampire fiction. 

This is one of my favorite book series.  Each story is new.  Harris does her best to never repeat a storyline so that the reader never gets bored. Each new novel is a development of the novels that came before it.  Because of this the story line is complex, but riveting.  

All of these books take place in a very short amount of time considering some series can take place over an entire lifetime.  I love that Harris allows the characters to grow even in this short amount of time.  You learn to love characters, and hate others.  Harris allows you to make these conclusions on your own as well, because she allows you to judge characters on their actions and not through narration.

Harris does not introduce any new mythological creatures in this novel.  It focuses on the relationships between the characters.  The Sookie and Eric storyline takes a dramatic turn that the reader will never expect, while Pam's storyline focus on the vampire's usually well-hidden emotions.         

This series of books is a great summer read for anyone.  I highly recommend that readers begin with the first novel in the series, Dead After Dark, because in order to enjoy any series you need to start at the beginning.  All of these novels will keep you on your toes with the mystery, the love triangles, and the suspense.  A must read.

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants  is one of the best books that I have ever read!

This is the story of Jacob Jankowski and how he grew into a man.  While completing his finals at Cornell, Jacob suffers a horrific accident which causes him to run away from home during the Great Depression.  Unsure of what to do, Jacob jumps the nearest train.  This train, which belongs to the Benzini Brother's traveling circus, brings Jacob into a world he never could have imagined.  The story, told by an 80 year old Jacob, will bring you into a world of courage, corruption, and everlasting love. 

I could not put this book down.  The story draws you in from the beginning and does not let go until its unforgettable ending.  I fell in love with the characters.  I rooted for them.  I cried with them, and I was angry at them. 

The three main characters, Jacob, Marlena, and August, are characters that the reader can relate too.  Jacob is strong, hardworking and romantic.  Marlena is quiet, cunning and just wants to be loved.  August is hot-tempered and mean.   

I had a discussion with my mother the other day about the book and how it related to the movie. She has yet to read the book but was deeply moved by the beautifully directed film.  I told her that she has to read the novel now because the passion that is portrayed on screen is only a fraction of that depicted in the book. 

I do not have much more to say about this book, except for READ IT.  This is one of the books that must be read.  Now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon even the movie is a must see.

Lover Unleashed

Lover Unleashed is the newest novel in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series written by J.R. Ward.

Payne, the twin sister of Vishous, has suffered a horrific accident and has been brought into the Brotherhood mansion for treatment. However, the only person who can save her is a human named, Manny Manello. As the story develops, so does the relationship between the two unconventional lovers. They must decide if their love can survive their differences and any dangers that they may face.

This novel also introduces a new group of vampire warriors into the Brotherhood's world. This group is a brotherhood in their own right, and have a connection just as strong as that of the brotherhood we love. However, they have many secrets that are yet to be uncovered. I am excited about these new characters. They are a great way to prolong the series while still creating the characters and the love stories that this series is known for.

To me the overall plot was a little slow. I hate to say that, because I wait in eager anticipation every year for the new book in this series to be released. No one can write a story of star-crossed, eternal lovers like J.R. Ward. What I was missing was the action and adventure that is usually encompassed in a BDB novel. This novel had very few fight scenes. I missed the "edge of you seat" feeling BDB novels tend to provide as the lovers fight for each others. It does however provide readers with much needed character development of new characters and characters that you already thought you knew. Ward does provide the reader with a few twists about their favorite characters. I loved getting to know more about the brothers, but I would have liked a little more excitement and a little less emotional.

Overall, this novel is a must read for any Brotherhood fan. It is a classic love story that will make you laugh and cry. All of your favorite characters are there waiting to tell you about their new adventures in Caldwell, New York. And with all of the new story lines that Ward has created, the reader needs to stay up to date because with this series you don't want to miss a thing.

J.R. Ward has used this simple, classic love story to set the foundation for some explosive new twists in the Brothers' lives and I can't wait to see where she takes them.

It has taken my long enough...

It has been a long time since my last blog post. I have been able to read but I haven't been devouring books with my usual gusto. I am not exactly sure as to why this is. O well, let's move on to the books that I have read over the last month.

The four books I have read are:

1. sTORItelling by Tori Spelling
2. Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon
3. Witch and Wizard: The Gift by James Patterson
4. The Pawn by Steven James

We can start with book number 1. And I already know what you are thinking, "Tori Spelling? Really? And you read the whole thing?" YES! YES I DID! And I enjoyed it. Books are supposed to be a way to go into another world, to participate in something that you never would have been able to participate in throughout your normal life, so what better way to do that than to read about someone else's crazy far-fetched life? Ms. Spelling is able to bring you into the crazy parties, dinners, and sounds studios of her life growing up. Her story is an interesting fast paced story. I highly recommend this novel.

Dance with the Devil is just like the other two Kenyon books that I have reviewed in the last few months. There are vampires and sex. Enough said. Luckily for this 20 book series, this novel contained more plot! We are able to learn more about Archeron and his magic powers, and the hierarchy of the Dark Hunters. But the unveiling of Zarek as a caring and loving character is very reminiscent of Zadist in J.R. Ward's Blackdagger Brotherhood. And I loved Zadist. Zarek is like a sloppy Zadist wannabe.

I always sound so glass half empty in my blog! Oh well.

The Gift is the second book in the Witch and Wizard series. The novels are such fast-paced exhilarating reads! I love these books. Whitford and Wisteria, the story's main characters, are the smart ass kids everyone wishes they could be while growing up. And add their magical powers and good looks into the mix and you have two characters who the reader instantly feels a bond with. The story involves a new world order in which everything that was ever loved is banned. Wisty and Whit have to fight, along with many other kids, to free the world from "The One who is the One". Their fight is something you won't ever forget.

Since there are already two books in this series, I strongly recommend reading them in order, otherwise you will be lost! Also try to read them as closely together as possible. I forget some key aspects of the story during the year it took for the second book to be released. These books can be a wonderful addition to any household library, and they can be loved by your children as well.

I will review The Pawn in a few days when I am also able to review The Rook, the second book in the Patrick Bower's series.