The Book Thief, A Review

The Book Thief
By: Markus Zusak
My Rating: 5/5

Full disclaimer about this book, it sat on my shelf for a good four years, yes years, before I got around to reading it.  Once I finally cracked it open, I was mad a myself for not picking it up sooner.

To get the first thing out of the way, this is a book about the Holocaust.  That was the biggest thing that kept me from picking up the book in the first place.  I could not bring myself to start reading it, I did not know how the author would handle such a dark time in history.  To my surprise, he handled it very well, and kept me on the edge of my seat through the whole book.

The narrator of this story is Death.  There is no way to sugar coat it, but it is very well thought out and done.  He talks about how busy he was during that time in human history, which is hurtful to think about but makes the story so good.

This book kept me pulled into the story from the begining.  I laughed, I cried (a lot) and I just fell in love with it. It quickly became one of my all time favorite books.

I loved the characters and grew attached quickly, which is not a good idea considering the time period this book is sat in.  I was completely invested in what I was reading because I needed to know what happened next.

Thanks for reading!!
Love, Stephanie

Have you read The Book Thief?  If so, what are your thoughts? 

Lady Midnight Spoiler Free Review

Lady Midnight
By: Cassandra Clare
My Rating: 5/5

GoodReads summary:

“In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word.
A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love.

Emma Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation. She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with Shadowhunters.”

My thoughts:

I have to get one thing off my chest before I say anything else about this book.
*Looks around cautiously*
I haven’t read The Mortal Instruments series yet.
I know! I’m awful, and I should have read those first, but you guys, I missed the boat when they first came out and don’t have the time to commit to reading them right now.

With that being said, I loved this book.  I wasn’t worried about things being spoiled too much because that has never been a problem for me.  I have been known to skip ahead and read the last chapter a time or two as well.

This is my first book by Cassandra Clare, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.  I loved her writing style, and her story building is incredible.  Her characters were good, and fun to read from.  Sometimes she would change points of view in the middle of the chapter, which threw me off a little at first, but once I got used to it I went with it just fine.

This book had a little bit of everything, it had action, mystery, and a little romance.  I also like how she showed a little mental illness in her book.  It wasn’t thrown in your face saying look at this guy he has a mental illness!!  It was done tastefully and I enjoyed watching the characters learn and grow with the book.

If you’ve been putting this book off because its size, I highly recommend you pick it up and start it today!!

Love,
Stephanie

The picture is a link to the Amazon page where you can buy Lady Midnight, and if you happen to buy from that link I do get a small commission.  Thank you for your support! 

A Book Review: The Martian

The Martian
By: Andy Weir
My Rating: 5/5

Guys, stop what you're doing at this very moment and go read this book!  Yes, even if you're in the middle of reading my review, I'll wait.

*Waits patiently on you*

Okay, now that you're done, we can get into the review!

Mark Watney, botanist, engineer, and first man to be alone on Mars.  After a severe dust storm forces the crew to evacuate Mars, Mark finds himself alone on the surface clinging to life.  His crew believing him dead flee from the red planet just before their only form of escape fatally tips over.  Having made it safely onto their escape ship, the whole crew wishes there was something more they could have done to save him.

Mark is on his own.  The first step was to grow some food.  Being a botanist did come in handy on Mars!  To grow food, Mark needed to "make" more water.  This is where the book lost me a little.  I'm sure someone else could read this and understand just fine, but it just went slightly over my head.  With some potato plants growing he started to use his engineering skills.  Mark starts brewing up ideas for communication.

After about a month of mourning, NASA takes a look at Mars. They would have to make any images they found public, so for obvious reasons they were very hesitant.  With a nudge from an administrator of NASA Venkat finally caved and gave him the satellite time he was after.  They expected to find a body, but instead they found Watney alive!  There was no way to communicate with him, but they knew he was alive and were working on a way to get to him.

Mark planned to travel to the Pathfinder site.  NASA lost contact with that rover long ago, but he's an engineer, fixing things is his job.  All he knows is if he can make it there he may be able to communicate with Earth, and let someone know he is still alive.

Its been a long time since I've actually wanted to read a book so full of suspense.  After seeing the movie, and hearing such good things about the book I talked about it so much I got it for Christmas. (Thanks Issac!!)

I have so much that I want to say about this book.  I'm a sucker for anything written in journal format and most of this book was done just like that.  Watneys humor kept me laughing through the darkest parts of his journey.  It kind of made me want to be an astronaut.  Kind of.

Stephanie Need this book for yourself? Here's a link to its Amazon page! I do get a small commission if you use my link so it's a win-win! Thank you for your support! The Martian Amazon Page

Ender's Game, A Review about the book (mostly)

Ender's Game
By: Orsan Scott Card
My Rating: 4.5/5 Loved it, will probably read again


This book seems a little intimidating at first, science fiction, space travel, and aliens.  No thanks, I would normally skip over that one.  To be honest, I only picked it up after watching the movie.   My boyfriend actually let me borrow his copy of it after he read it and said it was extremely good, and even better than the movie.  So that got me thinking "huh, I wonder how the book compares to movie."

The first thought I had was "wait, the kids are six?! I don't think they were that young in the movie!"  The answer is no, they did not show them that young.   They start off in battle school, training to fight an inevitable return attack by the Buggers, an alien species that almost wiped out humanity the first round. All of the kids grew up watching videos of the final battle with the Buggers. Then finally a heroic fighter pilot sacrificed him and his fighter jet to blow up the "mother ship" hoping that would put an end to the bloodshed.

Ender is a third child, which was unheard of, during the time in the books and was very uncommon.  Ender grows up before our eyes, and rather quickly.  He is so smart for only being six (must have something to do with being a special third child) and outsmarts bullies that are way larger than him.  His siblings, Valentine and Peter both went to the battle school Ender is in.  Peter failed out for being too quick to turn to violence and Valentine didn't make the cut because she was too kind.

The movie left out most of the subplot about Valentine and Peter, which I understand, but it is a shame.  For kids they are both highly intelligent and think like adults.  They were honestly two of my favorite characters in the whole series. 

With so much action, and a young unknowing hero, I couldn't put this book down and flew threw it.  So if you think this book it too intimidating, like me, just give it a chance!  You may just be surprised, I know I was.

Stephanie 




Want to start the series get the book here.  If you buy the book on Amazon with my link I do get a small commission.  Thank you for your support!!

Eleanor and Park, A Review

Eleanor And Park
By: Rainbow Rowell
My Rating: 3/5 It was good, but not great

I had very high hopes coming into this one because I had just come off my high of reading Fangirl.  Not saying this book was bad, it definitely had some great things going on for it.  I loved the 80's references she threw into the book.  Example, all the talk about music he was introducing her to and also the different comic books they would read.  It just left me feeling kinda blah.

Eleanor has moved back in with her mother and step-father in Omaha, with all of her younger siblings.  She walks onto the bus as "the new girl" drawing all of the unwanted attention from her soon to be classmates.  Eleanor's fire red hair and her body shape are both working against her.  She's not doing herself any favors with her unique style of dress, crazy even for the eighties.  I do admire Eleanor for being herself and for how quirky she was because I honestly can't say the same about myself while I was in high school.

Park isn't exactly popular, but he gets along with the popular kids so that means they tend to leave him alone.  He is half Korean, which stands out more in a primarily white school he is in. His life is the complete opposite of Eleanor's, he has one other sibling, loving parents, and a nice house.  The first day he sees Eleanor on the bus he feels embarrassed for her.  Not a soul would move over and let her sit with them for fear of being made fun of.  Begrudgingly, Park looks at Eleanor and tells her to sit down with him.

The story follows the two as they live very different lives, and how they slowly go from bus friends, to being in love.  Eleanor eventually opens up her world to Park after she tries to hide everything from him.  Most of this story felt very real to me.  I could see the two sitting by each other on the bus, her reading the different comics he would bring every day, then eventually listening to music together.  First love is a hard thing to get across with out it sounding too Romeo and Juliet.  Rainbow Rowell did a pretty good job with it. 

Stephanie

Me, And Earl, And The Dying Girl

Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl
By: Jesse Andrews
Rating: 3.5/5 Liked it, but would not read again

There seems to be a cult following for this book and either you love it, or you absolutely hate it.  To be honest, I didn't exactly hate this book, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

The narrator (Greg) kind of got on my nerves in the beginning, in the way he kept saying "you shouldn't read this book, it's so bad" or "you will probably want to come punch me in the face when you're finished with this book" just didn't sit well with me.  I can appreciate how he was trying to be funny, and maybe a little cheeky. I do however think the book could have stood on its own with out it.  Towards the middle I really started to get into the story, and the characters.  I laughed more than I thought I would during a book with "Dying Girl" in the title.

One thing I did like about this book is the fact that the author wrote some of the passages in film script formatting.  He mentions in the first chapter that he is more of a filmmaker not a writer. Now that I think about it, that probably explains why I was thrown off in the beginning.  So, in the long run I feel like I learned a little about film making, even though Greg and Earl were pretty bad at it.

Earl and Greg are just "coworkers" they hardly ever define themselves as friends because Greg is obsessed with being able to blend in while in class, or at home.  Earl is extremely crude, makes super offensive jokes, and has the worst dialect to read. That was one of the hardest things for me to get past was how Earl was written. However he does have some pretty good lines, and can be super emotional but I still could not get past his dialect. 

Then enter The Dying Girl, Rachel.  She is diagnosed with leukemia at the beginning of their senior year, and her story I did appreciate.  He didn't write about Rachel to make you feel deep things about her situation, (he states that very clearly in the beginning) nor would he put paradoxical lines in italics.  He never sugar coated the emotions she was feeling and how the treatments had an effect on her daily life.

In the end this book is hardly about cancer, its really just about a teenage boy trying to define himself, trying to be less (or more) invisible and bringing a little more focus on his future.  I did like how realistic this book felt, it wasn't a hard read, even for someone with cancer treatment history.

If you're looking for something a little different, I recommend picking up this one.  

Stephanie

A Review, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl
By: Rainbow Rowell
My Raiting: 5/5 Would read again

If I only had a few words to say about this book they would simply be, READ IT NOW!  If you like a fun, easy read this is for you.  The characters are all very relate-able and believable, however the plot was a little predictable, but I honestly enjoy that in books.

This is my first Rainbow Rowell book to pick up, and she did not disappoint.  Other books by her are Eleanor & Park, Attachments, Landline, and Carry On all of which are now higher on my list of books I need to read.

Cather (Cath) and Wren are twin sisters on their way to college.  Cath assumes she and Wren will room together, because why not? They have been rooming together for eighteen years, why change things now? While Wren, the more outgoing of the two, decided she wanted a new roommate in college and to shed her childhood of writing fanficion about a world centered around Simon Snow.

The world of Simon Snow is sprinkled throughout the book with little snippets of the fan fiction she is writing, and of the actual story they are drawing from.  The Simon Snow serious has a vague resemblance to another orphaned boy who can do magic.  I won't say who that is, I will let your imagination take care of that one.

Cath struggles to make new friends, (she has plenty on the internet!) especially with her new roommate Reagan. 

Regan is an upperclassman who applied to have a private room, but she got paired with Cath.  Regan spends most of the start of the book out of the room, Cath thinks its weird but she likes having the room to herself most of the time.  Regan is the polar opposite of Cath; Reagan is strong-willed and outspoken, some may even call her "rude" although she started to grow on me as the story progressed just as she did towards Cath.

Will Cath break out of her shell, and see there is more to life than Simon Snow?

I honestly could go on for ever about this book, but I just want you to read and experience it for yourself.  So, save yourself from me rambling on and on about this and go check it out as soon as possible, you won't regret it!

Stephanie