New School, New Germs

So, I know that I've been absent from the blogging world for several weeks. I want to offer a heartfelt "Thank you" to all of you who emailed me asking if I was okay and wondering what was going on. I have been sick. Not once. Not twice. I have been sick with multiple illnesses. First I had strep throat. Then I had the stomach flu. Twice. Then I had a sinus infection, followed by an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was taking for said sinus infection. Another bout with stomach flu followed the allergic reaction. Needless to say it was a struggle just to keep up with work and school. Keeping up with my blog, no matter how fun it is, was just too much for me to handle during this time. I've decided that I have never been sick this much in my life, and that it must be a combination of a new school, with it's new germs, and the stress that I've been under. I'm back now though, and I hope to keep up more regularly with my blog.

Here is what readers can expect to see coming up:

I have a few new books that I'm looking forward to reading:




And I've started a Sims 3 Challenge that I will be blogging about.

Here is a link to the rules of the Challenge



Happy blogging!

Mid-terms

I've been having a bad couple of weeks. I'm sorry for the lack of postings, I have a bunch of reviews that I need to write up and I promise to do that soon. I had my last midterm today, so the semester is officially half over. My apartment is trashed. I know that's something that people say without meaning it, but it's true. There's something funky growing in the bathtub, I had to wash dishes because the kitchen was starting to smell funny, and I couldn't find any clean socks today. I can't see the kitchen table (which I use like a desk) because there is a whole mountain range of clutter on it (from my seat on the couch I can see bills, junk mail, catalogs, books, a bag of cookies, a sweatshirt or maybe two, two boxes of kleenex, a bag of rice that needs to go in the pantry and my purse). Oh, and Sims 3 Late Night was released yesterday so I didn't even study for my midterm today. Scarily I still think that I did all right. So, I hope to get all of this mess cleaned up and be back to regular posting again soon.

Sims 3 - Vampires

The vampires in Sims 3 are going to be awesome! A producer at EA games apparently feels the same way I do about, ahem, sparkling vampires because they started the most recent press release with this statement:

"Let’s get a few things clear – Vampires in The Sims 3 Late Night do not twinkle, sparkle, or cry. Vampire men look like men and vampire women, well, they’re clearly girls. When in daylight they smolder with fire and are in deep trouble as they should be. They aren’t “beautiful” in the eyes of silly, adolescent girls."

Check out the full release here!


That's freaking fabulous! I thought that the first thing I would do would be to have a sim create a band and become a celebrity. After reading this press release I think that the first thing I will do will have to be having a sim become a vampire.

Did I mention that I took October 26th off from work so that I will be able to stay home and play Late Night all day? The sad thing is that I will be knee deep in mid-terms that week. Think I'll find any time for studying?

Teaser Tuesday #2

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

After two disappointing reads this week I decided to reread an old favorite that I knew wouldn't let me down.

BookGirl's Teaser:
"I cried out as a pulse of ecstasy shot through me from the lingering effects of the vampire saliva. The bleeding had slowed, and I wondered if it was from Jenk's pixy dust."
---From Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

Kéthani - Review

Title: Kéthani

Author: Eric Brown

Synopsis: “When a mysterious alien race known as the Kéthani make contact with the people of Earth they bring with them the dubious gift of eternal life. These enigmatic aliens will change the course of the human race forever but also touch people’s live on a personal level, not least in a small town in the English countryside. But do the Kéthani have a hidden agenda and will the human race choose to evolve or turn in on itself in the face of this momentous revelation?”

Review: **Spoiler Alert** Science Fiction is my favorite genre. It’s also the genre about which I’m the pickiest. I really enjoyed Brown’s previous novel Helix. I was disappointed with Kéthani. Part of this is my fault. I thought that it was going to be an aliens-take-over-the-Earth horror/science fiction novel. It’s not. This novel is about everyone learning to live in peace and harmony and the implications of immortality. Can you say boring? The second cause of disappointment (this is the one that is not my fault) is the constantly switching points of view. Similar to the horrible book I read yesterday, Ex-heroes, Kéthani is written in part first person and part third person points of view, and the first person sections are not always in the head of the same person. It’s head-hopping and I hate it! If an author is going to write in first person they need to pick a character’s head to be in and stay there! This is another book to avoid if you can.

Publisher: Solaris
ISBN: 978-1844167128

Skip this book and read one of these instead:



Helix by Eric Brown (ISBN: 978-1844164721)



Beholder’s Eye by Julie E. Czerneda (ISBN: 978-0886778187)

Ex-Heroes - Review

Title: Ex-Heroes

Author: Peter Cline

Synopsis: “Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes. Vigilantes. Crusaders for justice, using their superhuman abilities to make Los Angeles a better place.
“Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Despite the best efforts of the superheroes, the police, and the military, the hungry corpses rose up and overwhelmed the country. The population was decimated, heroes fell, and the city of angel was left a desolate zombie wasteland like so many others.
“Now, a year later, the Mighty Dragon and his companions must overcome their differences and recover from their own scars to protect the thousands of survivors sheltered in their film studio-turned-fortress, the Mount. The heroes lead teams out to scavenge supplies, keep the peace within the walls of their home, and try to be the symbols the survivors so desperately need.
“For while the ex-humans walk the streets night and day, they are not the only threat left in the world, and the people of the Mount are not the only survivors left in Los Angeles. Across the city, another group has grown and gained power.
“And they are not heroes.”

Review: Superheroes and zombies together in one novel? I thought that Ex-Heroes had a combination that could not fail. Surprise. This novel was one big epic fail.
Fault number 1: Cline tries to do too much. There are too many main characters and too many plot twists. As a result the characters are one dimensional and the storyline is hard to follow. The confusing storyline leads into
Fault number 2: switching points of view. This is one of my many pet peeves. Pick a point of view and stick with it for goodness sake! Cline switches back and forth between first and third person points of view constantly and the first person chapters are never about the same character and he doesn’t tell you who it is for at least a page.
Fault number 3: Cline switches between “then” and “now” frequently. This would not be a problem, as he nicely labels each chapter, if it were not for the already prevalent confusion.
I almost gave up reading Ex-Heroes halfway through, but decided to stick it out in the hopes that it would get better. It didn’t. I think that I tend to be overly optimistic when it comes to books as they rarely let me down. I don’t recommend this novel. Don’t let the waste of my time be meaningless. Read something else!

Publisher: Permuted Press
ISBN: 978-1934861288

Don’t read this book. Try one of these instead:



Feed by Mira Grant (ISBN: 978-0316081054)
See my review of Feed here.



Monster Island by David Wellington (ISBN: 978-1560258506)
See my review of Monster Island here.

Monster Island - Review

Title: Monster Island

Author: David Wellington

Series: Zombie Novels #1

Synopsis: “It’s one month after a global disaster. The most “developed” nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive…
“In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers comes in search of desperately needed medicine, with a former UN weapons inspector as their local guide. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than undeath.”

Review: I read this book in one sitting. It’s a good thing that today was Columbus Day and so I didn’t have to work or go to classes. Once I started reading Monster Island I couldn’t put it down. Wellington’s characters are realistic and I couldn’t help feeling compassion for them. Dekalb, who is searching the world for the AIDS drugs he needs to give to a female warlord in Somalia in exchange for his daughter’s safety; Jack, the unwilling leader of 200 survivors in NYC; Gary, the doctor who figured out how to keep his brain functioning when he turned himself undead and is now stuck as something worse than undead and Ayaan, the Somali schoolgirl-turned-soldier who longs to live but knows that she will die.
The description in this book, while not overly graphic, is chilling:

"We could make out most of Liberty Island now and the shadow of Ellis Island beyond. The girls were pointing with agitation at the walkway that ringed Liberty, at the people there. American clothes, American hair exposed to the elements. Tourists, perhaps. Perhaps not.”
…“On the island I saw hundreds of them, hundreds of people. They waved at us, their arms moving stiffly like something from a silent movie. They pushed toward the railing, to get closer to us. As the trawler rolled closer I could see them crawling over one another in their desperation to touch us, to swarm onboard.
“I thought maybe, just maybe they were alright, maybe they’d run to Liberty Island for refuge and been safer there and were just waiting for us, waiting for rescue but then I smelled them and I knew. I knew they weren’t alright at all. Give me your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse, my brain repeated over and over, a mantra” (pg 4&5).

This novel started out as an online serial and was quickly picked up by a publisher because of its popularity. I think it’s excellent, although I do need to warn readers that it has a cliff-hanger ending. I can’t wait to get the next one to see what’s going to happen!

Publisher: Running Press
ISBN: 978-1560258506

If you like this book you may want to read:

Monster Nation by David Wellington (ISBN: 978-1560258667)

Feed by Mira Grant (ISBN: 978-0316081054)
Check out my review of Feed here.

Interview

Hi all. I had a bit of a bad week so I apologize for not posting very much. I did do an interview with a fellow blogger, Daniel Carter. You can see it here: Interview . His blog is great and these interviews with bloggers are truly fascinating. He also very nicely made me a logo. Look!


Isn't that awesome?
Thank you so much Daniel!

To Be Read #2

To Be Read is a weekly meme that I'll try to post every Sunday listing the books I bought/received that week. This meme was started by The Story Siren as: In My Mailbox. Check it out here
(Sorry I'm late this week. Work and school are kicking my butt!)
Here are the books that I got this week:

Late Night

I can't wait to have my sims start a band. The latest news from the folks at Sims 3 tells us how, in Late Night our sims can start up a band with their friends. Check it out here

Sugar Queen, The - Review

Title: The Sugar Queen

Author: Sarah Addison Allen

Synopsis: “Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night… Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis – and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them – and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.”

Review: Everyone needs a little magic in their lives. I know I do. My first experience with the novels of Sarah Addison Allen was when I read Garden Spells last year. I loved it. So when I saw that she had two other novels out I had to buy them both. Of course, after a novel as good as Garden Spells I was expecting The Sugar Queen to be a bit disappointing. Imagine my surprise to find this novel as enchanting as her first. I love the way that Allen writes, and I savored every word of this novel. My favorite part is when Adam first realizes that he’s falling in love with Josey.

“She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled slightly. His breath caught.

“He felt a strange stirring, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It felt a little like when a limb falls asleep but then slowly, surely, there’s a tingling, an almost uncomfortable sensation… of waking up" (page 153)

I think I liked this description because I had a similar experience about a year and half ago, and until now I didn’t have a good way to explain what that “waking up” felt like. (My reaction was a bit different from Adam’s however; I got scared and ran away from the situation. It was a reflex that I regret now, but one that it’s too late to change.)

I like Sarah Addison Allen’s novels because her characters are real people who are fortunate enough to have a little magic in their lives. If you could use a little magic in your life you should read this book!

Publisher: Bantam Dell a division of Random House, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0553384840

If you like this book you may want to read:

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (ISBN: 978-0553590326)

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman (ISBN: 978-0425190371)

Teaser Tuesday #1

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


BookGirl's Teaser:

"She'd found the door between the two closets by accident, when she would sit in her closet and eat candy she hid in her pockets when she was young. Back then she used to hide from her mother in the secret space just to worry her, but now she stocked it with magazines, paperback romances and sweets." ---from The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Versatile Blogger Award

First I have to say "THANK YOU" to my new friend Lou at Reader Recommended for sending me this award. If you haven't checked out her truly awesome blog you should.

I'm actually having trouble believing that she gave this award to me. I guess you could say it hasn't truly sunk in yet.

The conditions of this award are that all recipients must:

1. Thank and link back to the person that gave this award
2. Write 7 things about yourself
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked to let them know about the award


7 Things About Myself

1. I love books. It's not just the stories, it's the books themselves. The smell of the paper and the glue combined with a good story is intoxicating.

2. I'm allergic to cats.

3. I have a cat named Tempest. I know, I know, you're wondering: "How can you have a cat if you're allergic?" I have to vacuum almost everyday and I should buy stock in febreeze because I use the allergen reducer one on everything. But she's worth it.

4. I'm a full-time student & part-time pharmacy technician.

5. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek TNG.

6. I love computer games almost as much as I love books. Specifically Sims 3, Civ 5, Zoo Tycoon 2 and World of Warcraft.

7. I wish I could read and write for a living instead of trying to squeeze it in after school and work. (I sorta stole that one from Lou. :) Thanks Lou.)

Now, for the 15 wonderful bloggers that I am sending this award along too. I started my blog after reading many of these because I decided that they made it look so great that I wanted to do it too. Some of these are also new bloggers like me, so check them out and give them some love and support. (This was actually harder than it looks because I'm trying not to send the award to the same people as Lou!)

Angus and Robertson Edwardstown

Babbling about Books and More

Bewitched Bookworms

Splash of Our Worlds

Panic in the Lingerie

Read All Over Reviews

My Overstuffed Bookshelf

Magic Faerie's Paranormal Review

Home Girl's Book Blog

Good Books And Good Wine

Falcata Times

Escape Between the Pages

Book Lovers Den

Book Chick City

Babbling Flow

Congratulations to these 15 wonderful blogs and thank you to everyone for being my inspiration. And thank you again to Lou at Reader Recommended for sending this award my way!

To Be Read #1

To Be Read is a weekly meme that I'll try to post every Sunday listing the books I bought/received that week. This meme was started by The Story Siren as: In My Mailbox. Check it out here

Here are the books that I got this week:










Unless otherwise mentioned you can assume that I either bought or borrowed the books mentioned in To Be Read. I am not important yet so I have to buy the books I review.

Beastly-Review

Title: Beastly

Author: Alex Flinn

Synopsis: “I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature with fangs, claws, and hair springing from every pore. I am a walking monster.
“You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. And I’ll stay this way forever – unless I can break the spell.
“Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, the perfect girl, and the perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly… beastly.”

Review: Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale. Out of all the familiar childhood tales this is the only one where the woman saves the day. However, this is not so in Beastly. Flinn has neglected the best part of Beauty and the Beast. That being said, this was still a pretty good book. I liked how Flinn used a YA book to teach a lesson without being overly preachy about it. Kyle, the main character has to learn that life is not all about good looks and money. A witch decides to teach him that lesson by turning him into a beast, but because of a small kindness he had done she gives him two years to find someone to love who can love him back in spite of the way he looks.
The format of this book is cool and different. Separating the parts of the book are sections that look like a print-out of a chat room. This is an online conversation that Kyle (BeastNYC) is having with others who have been transformed, generally against their will. I thought this was refreshing and certainly something that readers of YA fiction can relate too.
I also wanted to mention that Beastly is being made into movie currently set to be released March 2011. Here is a trailer for the movie:

Publisher: Harper Teen
ISBN: 978-0061998669
If you like this book you may want to read:

A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn (ISBN: 978-0060874216)

Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley (ISBN: 978-0441005833)

Civilization V

So... I haven't been doing much of anything since yesterday morning. Yesterday one of the video games I have been anxiously awaiting was released. Civilization V has been occupying the vast majority of my time. I haven't been doing any homework. I go to work and then I come home and veg in front of the computer. I went to class today and barely paid any attention, watching the clock until I could speed home to veg in front of the computer. I'll be back to blogging and paying attention and, ahem, showering in a couple of days. I promise.

Monday

Mondays are cruel. I dread Mondays, and not only because I have an 8:30am French class. I have that same class on Wednesday and Friday and I don't dread them nearly as much as I do Monday. I've tried to figure out why I hate Mondays so terribly. Is it because I work all weekend and am then extra tired on Monday? Is it because I try to cram too much into my "extra" time after work on the weekend? No, I have decided that, like Garfield, Mondays are just out to get me.





Take today for instance, this morning when leaving my apartment I fell. I'm not talking a little stumble here, no. I'm sure it was hilarious to watch and I would not have blamed anyone for laughing. Somehow I half stepped off of the paved path and turned my weak ankle. This led to a drunken looking stagger sideways across the path. It is there that I fell, arms windmilling, into the mud. (Only my pride was seriously wounded, although I did scrape my left palm and right elbow.) Then, in my English class I choked. I wasn't eating, I wasn't drinking. I just choked on my own spit. This caused me to cough loudly and repeatedly and when I tried to stifle the coughing I looked and sounded like a cat getting ready to bring up a hairball. My soda wasn't helping to soothe the coughing so I decided to get up and go into the hall and find a water fountain. Of course, I was sitting in the back corner of the classroom the farthest from the door. Needless to say, my trip out of the classroom disrupted the entire class, all eyes were on me as I managed to escape into the hall.

So now, after the worlds worst Monday I am going to hibernate in bed with a book, and I'm not coming out until it's not Monday anymore!

Kraken - Review

Title: Kraken

Author: China Mieville

Synopsis: “Deep in the research wing of London’s Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?
“For curator Billy Harrow it’s the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates, and assassins. It might just be that the creature he’s been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it’s a god.
“A God that someone is hoping will end the world.”

Review: I want to like Mieville’s books. I really do. I love his ideas, and I would like to poke around in his brain with a stick to figure out where these awe-inspiring ideas are coming from. It’s his writing however that leaves a bit to be desired. Kraken is full of brilliant paragraphs of description and thought, without the benefit of a character. Take this section for instance: “There is no knowing beyond that membrane, the meniscus of death. What can be seen from here is distorted, refracted. All we can know are those untrustworthy glimpses – that and rumour.” While this is beautiful language, I am confused and suddenly removed from the story. Who is the “we” he is talking about? The book is not written in first person, so these aren’t the main character’s thoughts. The other two books by Mieville that I’ve read, The Scar and Perdido Street Station (gorgeous stories) are also plagued by these descriptive paragraphs that are characterless and confusing. I read his books, and I enjoy them. Mieville’s stories are rich and complex if you are able to get past a few writing glitches.

Publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 978-0345497499

If you like this book you may want to read:

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (ISBN: 978-0345459404)



Scar Night by by Alan Campbell (ISBN: 978-0553589313)

Feed - Review

Title: Feed

Author: Mira Grant (also writes as Seanan McGuire)

Series: The Newsflesh Trilogy #1

Synopsis: “The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we had created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.
“Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives --- the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.”

Review: I loved this book, even if it did scare the shit out of me. The idea of people having to live in constant readiness for a zombie invasion freaked me out. I realized that I would be more than likely to die within the first day of a zombie uprising, due to my amazing ability to ignore bad and scary things until it’s too late to do anything about them.
I absolutely loved the opening line of Feed: “Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot – in this case, my brother Shaun – deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.” A normal zombie story (is there such a thing?) would have ended with Shaun poking the zombie with a stick. This zombie story starts with that. After that first line I knew that this was going to be a thrill ride of a novel.

Even though I loved this story I did see Georgia’s frequent reflections about the Rising and how the zombies came to be slightly disruptive to the flow of the first person narrative. It was information that we, as readers need but is extremely difficult for the author to work in seamlessly.
I loved Georgia and Shaun and I saw a lot of myself in Buffy, the techno genius/fiction writer. The zombies terrified me. Many of you who know me know that, as a rule, I stay away from horror. I feel that I’ve had enough horror in my life. I don’t need to add more fuel for the nightmares. Every once in awhile there is a story good enough to make me bend this rule. Although I’m not sure that I’ll be buying the sequel when it comes out, I’ve had enough trouble sleeping the last few nights, terrified that zombies are going to break through my windows and feast on my flesh while I sleep.

Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 978-0316081054

If you like this book you may want to read:


Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (ISBN: 978-0756405717)

Monster Island

by David Wellington (ISBN: 978-1560258506)
See my review of Monster Island here.

Sims 3 - Late Night

In addition to being a bookaholic I am also addicted to PC games. My particular favorite is Sims 3. I love playing God (or Goddess if you will) with an entire town of unsuspecting sims. I grant wishes and I take them away. Last week I gave a sim the life goal of super hero firefighter, and then I forced him to be a stylist. He spent his days giving people make-overs when he really wanted to be rescuing other sims from life-threatening fires. He died old and unhappy. I had fun ruining his life. I recently discovered that this game has a new expansion pack being released this fall. Here's the trailer:

I can't wait. I think the first thing that I want to do is turn a sim into a vampire. Or maybe a celebrity who lives in a penthouse and hits all the hot spots in town after dark. Of course I'll have to skimp on groceries and eat nothing but ramen noodles for a few weeks so I can afford this expansion pack on the day it's released (and then I'll get no homework done for a few days), but it's worth it. Isn't it?

Cupid Cats - Review

Title: Cupid Cats
Authors: Katie MacAlister; Vicki Lewis & Connie Brockway

Synopsis: Three short stories revolving around the Cupid Cats Shelter. The cats at the Cupid Cats Shelter are not your average house cats. They’re magic. These cats bring romance into their companion’s lives, romance that leads to true love.

Review: I love cats. I did not love this book. I was disappointed because usually I am a huge Katie MacAlister fan, but in this anthology the only story I enjoyed was the second one. “Cat Scratch Fever” by Connie Brockway was witty and entertaining. The other two tales (pun intended) were flat and predictable.

Publisher: Signet Eclipse
ISBN: 978-0451230720

If you like this book you may want to read:

The Corset Diaries by Katie MacAlister (ISBN: 978-0451411129)

Chick with a Charm by Vicki Lewis Thompson (ISBN: 978-0451229366)