November ~ 2011

152. Under the Feet of Jesus...Helena Marie Viramontes

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Migrant Mexicans shackled to a life of itinerant farm labor form the backdrop for a summer in the life of young Estrella and her family. Seemingly a prescription for sorrow, in Viramontes' hands the canvas instead teems with color and builds toward hope for a liberating future--at least for Estrella. Her mother, Petra, and stepfather, Perfecto, remain confined to their tattered possessions and dusty poverty, and much of Viramontes' imagery--imaginative and allusive descriptions of land, orchards, and worn-out clothes--fix in readers' minds that they will not escape. Estrella, too, partakes of this despair of the migrant's world, but being young she is not resign to her seeming fate.

I had to read this book for a literature class I'm taking. It was pretty sad and I hate to know that there are still families out there living like this.

I've been reading a ton of essays, short stories, and poems for this class over the last couple of weeks, so I haven't had much time for fun reading.


I really need to start posting my books more often instead of waiting and posting a bunch at once. I have a feeling I've left out a couple of books here.


153. Courting Darkness...Yasmine Galenorn

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We're the D'Artigo sisters: sexy, savvy ex-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But being half-human, half-Fae means our powers go haywire at all the wrong times. My sister Delilah is a Death Maiden and werecat who belongs to the Autumn Lord. My sister Menolly is a vampire who's dating a gorgeous werepuma, and the godfather of the undead-set. And me? I'm Camille, Priestess of the Moon Mother, married to a dragon, a youkai, and a Svartan. But my dragon father-in-law has decided that he doesn't like having me for a member of the family...

It's Winter Solstice, and Aeval welcomes me into her Court of Darkness. With Morio still dangerously weak from his injuries and Vanzir alive only thanks to my silence, the thought of training under Morgaine doesn't seem as daunting as it did. But then, Hyto returns to shatter my life. Captured and swept off to the Dragon Reaches, can I manage to stay alive long enough to escape, even as Smoky's father intends to break my spirit, then my body?

154. Blood Wyne...Yasmine Galenorn

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When a vampire serial killer starts rampaging through the city, Menolly knows it's only a matter of time before the humans start fighting back in retaliation, putting all vamps in danger. She sets out to stop the killer before he finds another victim, but when the group tracks him to a section of the city with some serious poltergeist activity, she quickly realizes they are way over their heads.

This is a fun little series. I do wish they would get back to the demon war, though. These two books were kind of sub-plots.



155. The Night Circus...Erin Morgenstern

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The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

Not sure how to describe what I think about this book. I loved it, but I didn't like it. The story was interesting and the writing was delicious, but the ending was too clean and simple and there was so much left hanging and unexplained. I think it could have been so much better if it had been a trilogy or even a series.




156. The Restorer...Amanda Stevens

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My name is Amelia Gray. I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe. It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore. The clues to the killer—and to his other victims—lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I've vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

I absolutely loved this book and can't wait until the next in the series comes out!




157. The Dark and Hollow Places...Carrie Ryan

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There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face when she and Elias left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the horde as they found their way to the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah's world stopped that day and she's been waiting for him to come home ever since. Without him, her life doesn't feel much different from that of the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Then she meets Catcher and everything feels alive again.

Except, Catcher has his own secrets -- dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah's longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah -- can she continue to live in a world drenched in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

Great ending to the Forest of Hands and Teeth trilogy. If you like apocolyptic zombie books, these are really good. It certainly did not end up how I expected from the first book. I really need to go back and re-read them all together.





158. The Librarian: Quest for the Spear...Christopher Tracy

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Down through the ages, mystical artifacts have been watched over by The Librarian. Forced to find a job- his very first- Flynn Carson, the perpetual student, and geek extrordinaire, is the unlikely choice for the newest Librarian.

On his first day at work, Flynn finds that one of the artifacts, one segment of the legendary Spear of Destiny, has been stolen. His mission is to retrieve the other two parts before they can be reunited by the evil serpent brotherhood, and used for, of course, world domination.

Ugh. You'd think I would have learned my lesson (after The Mummy debacle) to not read books that were based on movies. This was a good idea for a story, but the execution was horrible. The writing was just plain bad.




159. Flash and Bones...Kathy Reichs

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Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story. Twelve years earlier, Wayne Gamble’s sister, Cindi, then a high school senior and aspiring racer, disappeared along with her boyfriend, Cale Lovette. Lovette kept company with a group of right-wing extremists known as the Patriot Posse. Could the body be Cindi’s? Or Cale’s?

This series is still good, but I wish she would go back and write more about the forensic anthropology side of her stories like she did in her earlier books.




160. Spellbound...Kelley Armstrong

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Savannah Levine is in terrible danger, and for once she's powerless to help herself. At the heartbreaking conclusion of Waking the Witch, Savannah swore that she would give up her powers if it would prevent further pain for a young orphan. Little did she know that someone would take her up on that promise.

And now, witch-hunting assassins, necromancers, half-demons, and rogue witches all seem to be after her. The threat is not just for Savannah; every member of the Otherworld might be at risk. While most of her fellow supernaturals are circling the wagons at a gathering of the council in Miami, Savannah is caught on the road, isolated from those who can protect her and unable to use her vast spell-casting talent, the thing she counts on most. In a story that will change the shape of the Otherworld forever, Armstrong gathers Elena, Clay, Paige, Lucas, Jamie, Hope, and other beloved characters, who soon learn that the greatest threat to supernaturals just may come from within.

Another good one in the Women of the Otherworld series!



161. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven...Sherman Alexie

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In this darkly comic collection, Alexie brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These twenty-two interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and, most poetically, modern Indians and the traditions of the past.

Another book for my lit. class.



162. Starting an Etsy Business for Dummies...Allison Strine
Just thinking about selling some stuff online and picked up this book. It is pretty clear and straightforward.