The Book Geek

I'm giving this 4 stars because I really loved about 92% of it or so, but the ending was super rushed and disappointing, and it left me hanging so badly, that I couldn't give it the full 5 I planned. I'm going to just leave my updates as a review though, lol, sorry.

To see Emily's fabulous review, click here.

This is getting released in June, but there's no synopsis or cover yet?!

I'm dropping this at 7% complete. There's no loyalty with the best friend, there's cheating, probable girl hate, I bet slut shaming (no idea yet though), and I'm just not feeling it. There might be a day I come back to it, but I'm thinking it unlikely.

Anna Van Housen is thirteen the first time she breaks her mother out of jail. By sixteen she’s street smart and savvy, assisting her mother, the renowned medium Marguerite Van Housen, in her stage show and séances, and easily navigating the underground world of magicians, mediums and mentalists in 1920’s New York City. Handcuffs and sleight of hand illusions have never been much of a challenge for Anna. The real trick is keeping her true gifts secret from her opportunistic mother, who will stop at nothing to gain her ambition of becoming the most famous medium who ever lived. But when a strange, serious young man moves into the flat downstairs, introducing her to a secret society that studies people with gifts like hers, he threatens to reveal the secrets Anna has fought so hard to keep, forcing her to face the truth about her past.

The synopsis is perfectly written and there's nothing I need to add to it (amazing that). I liked the way that the story was written, and told, even though it was very predictable. I think that [a:Teri Brown|1055343|Teri Brown|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1261104323p2/1055343.jpg] did something I usually have trouble with, and that's keeping my interest with a period piece. It's not that I dislike them exactly, but I don't go out of my way to read them, and if they're anything like what I just read I've been missing out.

I liked Anna right away, and ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. I didn't expect it to be bad mind you, but I wasn't expecting to stay up past 2 in the morning to read the end either. I've been spoiled with my recent book choices because every one of them have actual strong heroines, and none of them annoyed me at all.

"My mother says I'm a show-off, but I prefer to think of myself as a performer."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
""You're quite good--for a girl." "Thank you," I tell him, ignoring the girl remark. If I argued with every male magician who made a snide comment about my gender, I'd never have the time to do magic. I prefer to outperform them on stage, where it really matters."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"That's three times in the past week I've felt someone watching me, and I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm irresistible."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The day when I show her once and for all that I'm not hers--that I don't belong to her. I love her and would do anything to protect her, but I won't allow her to play me like she does her clients. If she wants a relationship with me, it's going to have to be one of equality."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Throughout the book Anna impressed me, and coupled with Cole (*drools*), and everyone else actually, made this a really enjoyable book. Anna's mom was horrible, and told with perfect precision to make me hate her, but also want Anna to save her, and it was refreshing to read about a parent who deserved scorn (even though Anna wasn't horrible to her). I would have liked to have an epilogue though since the rest of the series seems to be planned with other characters in mind (unless I read that wrong, and feel free to correct me).

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone, and plan on reading the rest in the series as it comes available.

I absolutely loved this book! I haven't felt a really good connection to anyone in a while, and not because I haven't read some good books recently (The 5th Wave, and Not a Drop to Drink come to mind), but even with those two I didn't get that instant pull I want. You know what I mean.

The story is about an Amish girl named Katie who witnesses the zombie apocalypse. Wait don't go!! Hear me out first. Now, I know you might be thinking that yet another zombie book isn't going to be special, but it is! I'm not a big fan of zombie books at all actually, and I think it's safe to say I've read no more than 5, if that, so I put this one off for a long time, and what a disservice it was to put this book off! Don't make my mistake.

[a:Laura Bickle|2964564|Laura Bickle|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1297811577p2/2964564.jpg] can write, and tell, a helluva story folks. I've always been fascinated by the Amish; I wish I could be more self reliant like them, and reading this book made it feel like I was experiencing the real Amish way of life. I can't say that everything was accurate, but it felt true. I will be reading everything that comes out for this series, as well as checking out her other works. She just got herself a fangirl.

Our protagonist is Katie, like I was saying, and she is one strong young woman! There is no damsel in distress here, this chick is brave...and sometimes foolish, lol. There's a time for bravery and time to hide under the covers girl! It all started with a helicopter crash in their corn field, and she saw something unnatural in the wreckage. Shortly thereafter she finds a man wounded outside of their fence and the Elders refuse to help him since they're afraid of what's happening on the Outside. Katie makes some difficult choices and in the end, they change her whole future. I absolutely adore this girl.

I did not want to lie down and wait for death like Ginger and the others, with their veil of ignorance drawn around them and surrendering their will to live to others.
I wanted my life to matter.
And I wanted to choose how it mattered.

Katie is not the only character here that I can't get enough of. Every single person was fully realized and came to matter to me, whether I disliked them or not, they became part of my world. Elijah, Alex, Ginger, and their families. I teared up a few times while seeing the pain that Ginger was in, and found myself glaring at the Kindle when the Elders were pissing me off. I can't say enough about how great this book was for me.

This is a story about love, friendship, survival, and freedom. It's a story about accepting yourself, and your own power, and overcoming insurmountable obstacles to do what you feel is right. I highly recommended this to anyone who would enjoy such stories.

1.5 Stars

The story is about Parker, who hasn't actually slept in 4 years, and is an invisible bystander to the dreams of the last person he made eye contact with. As things get progressively worse he can only trust his best friend, and his friend's sister, to help him uncover what is wrong with him, and help the girl that he found out he can sleep with (har har).

For such a wholly original idea (to me anyway), this book sure wasn't anything special. I mean, watching the dreams of the last person you made eye contact with?! I've never read a book like that, and I was so hyped up for this one to be amazing, but it's actually the same thing I've read over and over. Spoiled brat MC, absent parent, another with the audacity to care, funny BFF, crush on BFf's sister, and solves the case.

Parker annoyed the crap out of me from the get go. He's a selfish, spoiled brat! His father left and his mother actually cares about him which annoys him to no end. He looks like shit and his mother has been looking for/asking about him taking drugs, because why else would he be changing the way he is, but Parker can't handle it: I had enough problems right now. Why did she feel the need to add to them?

"Do you have a better explanation?" She waited a moment before continuing. "Because, believe me, I don't want to find drugs ... but I don't know what else to think."
"I've told you." I shook my head and looked back at her. "I don't sleep well."
She lowered her chin and raised her eyebrows.
"Parker, you sleep all the time."
A hot wave of anger flowed over me. Why did she keep bringing it up? She never believed what I said, anyway. I stood up from the table and turned back toward the hall. "Well then, guess it must be drugs."

His mom forces the issue after this and points out that if it's just sleep then go to the doctor! He breaks down but thinks about how he's been avoiding it because he doesn't want anyone to think he's crazy (eye roll), but I'm thinking, it's been 4 fricken years since he slept and he hasn't already gone crazy?! Of course, the doc also thinks it's drugs and Parker gets all bent out of shape again, but then asks him what happens to people who don't sleep; the doctor tells him how eventually the person would die, and now suddenly Parker has a time limit left on this earth. "The person would become psychotic, experiencing a variety of dangerous psychological symptoms, and then ... well, then the person would die." It wasn't like the doctor told him a person would die in x-amount of time, and considering that Parker hasn't slept in 4 years, I don't get why he kept going on and on about dieing fast (he goes on and on throughout the book about how he doesn't have long to live, but yet his whole issue spans months). Just, this whole aspect of the story was dumb to me.

Enter Mia, Finn, and Addie. Finn is his best friend, who always has funny one-liners on his t-shirts (this is relevant only because we get to read what most of them say), and Addie who is his gorgeous sister but Parker can't date for fear of the "brocode", and Mia whose dreams were the first Parker had ever been able to sleep in. When Parker was thirteen he told Finn about how he watches other people's dreams, and naturally Finn didn't believe him, and Parker dropped it, but not before making sure to get all broody about it for the rest of his life. His bitching over how mistreated and misunderstood he was got on every single nerve I have. Another little irritant was Parker saying things like Finn's dreams were the closest I could get to what I thought my own dreams might've been like. He had twelve years worth of dreams before this started, so he aught to know what kind of dreams he had! He is also a fan of judging people on their dreams. One of the hottest cheerleaders wasn't worthy of dating because she once had a crazy dream about her cat, and the most popular kid at school wasn't worth idolizing because he was a "momma's boy".

Having sworn off girls because ...girls were so much work. It wasn't worth wasting the time I had left on them. And at one point Finn asks (sort of) if he wasn't into girls, but guys, and Parker got super pissed off. There was a lot of this girls-are-less-than crap in here too. The boys soccer team was like, the best thing eva, but the girls sucked (but the coaches talked training together). But it was ok because the boys let them practice and taught them some skills. "A few more joint practices, they might stand a chance." **massive eye roll**

And Parker, who is the co-captain (the most popular kid at school was the captain), thinks he has another ability along with his dream watching, that he refers to as "maneuvering" people. Spoiler alert--it's just paying attention to body language!!! That's it!! He mentions how he uses this ability in soccer and how it makes him like, the best eva, and even the coach was in awe over him always being so awesome. Because nobody else has heard of body language but Parker. I swear every time I had to read about this as if it were special I wanted to punch him.

There's more, but as you can see Parker got on my nerves a great deal. He was a jerk to him mom, but then turned around later and said how she didn't deserve it, he was an ass to his best friend, but later said it wasn't fair, he was crazy with Mia, but turned around and swore to protect her after he put her through hell. Nothing about that made any sense to me. He was being so crazy with Mia, and she was actually afraid of him, but then he makes it his life's mission to protect her because of it?! And in order to protect her, he has to keep stalking her?! It just..what?!

The big reveal about who the big-bad is wasn't all that surprising in my opinion. We have this big showdown, and afterward everyone fawns over Parker some more, even though Parker had been stalking Mia, he was still the hero. It just didn't work for me.

There's a scene in here in which Parker is watching the dreams of Mia's therapist, and in the dream he kills him by beating his head in with a paperweight. The weight of taking a life--it would always be there. I shit you not, Addie tells him he's not really a murderer. Even though the guy died in real life because of his actions. The way she was justifying that whole thing was sleazy. She squeezed my hand. "Even if you did kill him, you can't change it. All you can do is make sure it doesn't happen again." --What?! Ok Addie.

Basically, nothing worked for me in this entire book. The writing was very choppy (always having short sentences, repetition, ect), I didn't believe anything, and considered not even finishing it. This might be one of those book that has people either loving it or hating it, but not many in the middle. The idea was amazing, but the execution fell miles too short to make me like it.

Holly hell that was crazy!

You may have been hearing that this book is The Next Big Thing. The next Hunger Games even. Well, it's true. Even though I've rated it slightly lower that seems appropriate considering what I've just said, the fact remains that this series is going to be huge.

**Edit 6/8/13** I'm lowering my rating to a 3 instead of 4 stars, because as time as passed I have to shamefully admit that the hype got to me with this one. :hangs head in shame: It wasn't that it was bad, but my problems with it were pretty big.**

"It wasn't the aliens that first made us gear up for war; it was our fellow humans."

The story is about first contact and what happens next. 1st Wave: lights out. 2nd Wave: surf's up. 3rd Wave: pestilence. 4th Wave: Silencer. As I was reading this a friend of mine on Facebook was talking about how excited they were for the real thing, and I think to myself, well not if this book is anything to go by. It was genius really, the way that [a:Rick Yancey|3377941|Rick Yancey|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1267926830p2/3377941.jpg] wrote this novel, and the man deserves some serious credit for his mad geniusness, imo. I can't think of anything I've read that is quite like this. And I'll be happy to never see an alien now thankyouverymuch.

For such an amazing story it was not without it's faults, and that is what drove my rating down some. Among my issues was the fact that it took way too long to feel completely connected for some reason. One of the first things that bothered me was the transition between characters. The first one in particular was rough, and I actually back tracked to see if I had missed something because I hadn't expected to be in the mind of someone else all of a sudden. It got easier after that to see who I was reading, but that first one really caught me off guard, and I should say partly because of the way that Yancey had written the story to that point, because I really felt like Cassie was the very last person on the planet.

Another issue I had was how exactly did the pestilence come to pass? We're told how it's brought into the world, but I want to know more. And for the record, this was yet another brilliant aspect of the story, and it's probably just me who wanted to know a little more.How did they get all the birds to transmit it like that? Did I miss something there, because I wanted to know what changed, or how they were able to infect them.

After the first 4 waves we see the survivors being whipped into an Army to serve as the resistance, but I had major problems with this. Some of my problems were resolved later on in the story, which I'm seriously grateful for as I was really frustrated, but one thing that I thought Mr. Yancey should have known better with some research were rank structures.
--At one point Cassie's dad calls someone Corporal (I didn't highlight that part, so it might have been another rank, but for the sake of my point I'm going to leave it as Cpl) and mentions another as having officer insignia, and my first thought was, how the hell would he know?! There wasn't any mention of why her dad would know anything about the Army at all, and I don't think of the average person as having very much by way of that kind of knowledge. I certainly didn't before joining, so I could be wrong, but to me the majority of people wouldn't know what rank patch a person was wearing.
--Then there is the parts where Zombie calls the others in the squad privates, and refers to himself as the CO (Commanding Officer), when he's actually just a Sgt (a Non-Commissioned Officer), and those two ranks are very different. Or when they call him Sarge...that just isn't done unless you're being a smart ass. You are called Sergeant, not sarge. And you only call officers Sir, never enlisted.
--In fairness I can see this bothering only people like me, and it's doesn't detract from the story, but when I have to read so much Army crap, including the correct stance for being at ease, then it really gets on my nerves. A lot.

Also, why in the name of anything would the mother ship park itself over Ohio and never leave? Shouldn't it be spreading terror to other parts of the world too?! This was sort of explained with the explanation of the Air Force base that the new Army trains in, but still. I expected this to feel more global. Why on Earth was that base the one chosen?! It's not the most centrally located, so what made it so special? They get all this shit running but have no idea what's happening for the rest of the planet. I would have been happy with just offhand remarks like "meanwhile in Germany there are pockets of survivors that we need to bring in" or something like that.

I'm not a big fan of the ending either honestly. The way they were sitting together like that made it look like they were a little family, or it's setting up a triangle...or quadrangle.

Now that I've ranted about that let's move on to positives! The characters are pretty speculator, humor abounds, and I found Cassie's voice completely believable. I felt my heart get ripped out with this line: "A shark who dreamed he was a man." Oh, and Cassie's little brother gives her his Bear to keep her from being scared, and that whole thing just tore me up. I have a 7 y/o son with a stuffed animal named Bear so I kept picturing his face in Sams' scenes. I have a total crush on Ringer. Ok fine, the main characters all have a special place in my heart.

In closing, I'll say that even though it took me way too long to feel connected, and I had some issues with some parts of it, overall I enjoyed this story immensely and think that you will too. Ricky Yancey is some kind of awesome.

Have you ever gone through a drought? Maybe had your community pass around 'drought preparedness' fliers, or had to face fines for not following a watering schedule? I have and I found it really very ulcer inducing. I remember reading about when Georgia had a really bad one several years ago that had the water shut off for certain hours, and people with a set number of gallons to use a day; I remember being so thankful that I had never been through a drought. Last summer wasn't the first drought I've been through since then, but when we had a drought here in upstate New York I was caught completely off guard, and my anxiety went through the roof! I had thought a place like this wasn't in danger of all that really, but times, they are a-changin. My point with this back story is that I've always been very anxious about water, and reading stories like [b:Not a Drop to Drink|13112869|Not a Drop to Drink |Mindy McGinnis|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360951660s/13112869.jpg|18286567] really stoke that fear.

The only water she'd ever known was laced with dirt and tasted slightly of fish.

..."life was falling from the sky."

The story is about two women, a mother and daughter, who for the last 16 years have perfected the art of survival. Lynn's mother is hard; she has become a killer in order to secure the only reliable water source available to her and her only child, and taught Lynn to be just as hard. "Lynn was nine the first time she killed..." "Death and gun powder were scents from her childhood..."

Then one day everything changes when Lynn no longer has her mother for protection, and she ends up not only forming an uneasy friendship with her only neighbor, but she actually takes on a dying little girl she found in the woods. Lynn had only ever had her mother, but when she finds Lucy, and the others with her, suddenly she realizes that you can help people without compromising your own safety.

The only thing I will say that I wasn't happy with was having the back story for why there was a water shortage be so late in the book. This could just be a personal issue, because there are hints leading up to the why of it, but I prefer to know earlier than later.

I really loved the prose and the way that [a:Mindy McGinnis|5351825|Mindy McGinnis|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1350399720p2/5351825.jpg] cultivated a sense of desperation and loneliness without ever going over the top for the sake of it. She created a situation that was believable, and characters that work their way into your heart. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes survival stories, strong female characters, and realism.

I was so excited about this book when I found it, and it should have been completely perfect for me, but instead I find myself forcing to finish it. I really mean forcing too; I checked the weather at least five times and circled my favorite sites at least 10 before finishing what turned out to be two minutes worth of reading. I'll try to break down where Rootless and I went wrong.

"In this dazzling debut, Howard presents a disturbing world with uncanny similarities to our own. Like the forests Banyan seeks to rebuild, this visionary novel is both beautiful and haunting—full of images that will take permanent root in your mind . . . and forever change the way you think about nature." It should have made me feel something! It didn't change the way I view nature at all, and I am passionate about the Earth and making sure I do all I can to stop damaging it. When I was a kid my parents referred to me as a tree and bunny hugger. I never said I came from a particularly PC family.

I question this new world that has a closer moon, no trees, and really no living thing other than humans and locusts zombie locusts at that-sort of. It was seriously gross and disturbing to think of them the way they were portrayed here. They evolved to eat humans because there was nothing else other than corn. And genetically modified corn. How were people able to survive for hundreds of years with no trees/oxygen producing material? Things are bleak certainly, but unless I want to really suspend belief I didn't feel like this new world would actually be possible, even though I took this to be one of those books that make people uncomfortable and show them that changes need to be made before it's too late. Pop said trees didn't just use to look pretty and grow food for eating. They didn't just give shade and break up the wind. They cleaned the water and held the soil together, and they made the air feel good for those breathing. Just stories now, though. Even my grandfather hadn't seen a real one. People date the Darkness more than a hundred years back.

There were mentions of lava fields, and the ocean being higher and stronger, but I feel like this area of the story was far too weak. Something about the moon, people said. Something happened to the moon and brought it closer. I guess it didn't used to fill up such a big chunk of sky. But it wound up close at the end of the Darkness. There was twenty years of night and when the sun came back, that moon was so close it made the ocean go crazy as hell. I didn't really feel the sting of dust in my eyes, or feel the sweat roll down my body while I was with Banyan, and I wanted to.

On a side note, Banyan referred the ocean as the Surge so I assumed that the name had evolved the way the rest of the dialect, but he flips through terms like this a lot for several things. When I read a book that has an evolved language setting I expect to see continuity.

Beyond my unease with how the world functions, were the characters. Banyan is oddly blank for me; I was thinking of him as very young (maybe 13 or so) and I can't bring his face to mind at all (but I did like the that author named him after a tree). I'm not sure at this point if it's because I feel so far removed from his story, if it was the story itself. Frost was decent as a sleazy bad guy I suppose. The main "bad guy" here is the GenTech company with their purple suited employees. Crow was like a bodyguard for Frost, although we later see that he is more than that, and yet never learn much of anything about him, like we never really learn much about anybody. Zee is a mystery to me still and I don't understand how she seemingly came back to life after being blown up?!, as well as her mother who was a clone. Alpha was one of the small good parts in the story, but again, I didn't know as much as I wanted to about her, and I didn't think her and Banyan had any chemistry at all. She was pretty badass though, I'll give the author that. When she firsts meets Banyan on the road he's broken down with Frost's son that was left behind, and Alpha sees that he was moving his hand to the nail gun he carried, so she shoots him right in the arm with no hesitation and pointed out to him later that he brought it on himself by trying to shoot her first. She wasn't sorry at all, and I liked that. She was also very much the able one of the couple, and Banyan was useless except when the author decided to make Banyan some kind of hero at the end. I guess. I didn't think it worked at all.

Why did everyone know who Banyan was in all the little settlements, and what made him so uber special, I'm not sure. It was made out like he was the best tree builder so there's that, but I don't know that he was the only tree builder.


Basically, this book had amazing promise, and not only failed to live up to said promise, but failed to entertain me at all. It could be me, so by all means give this a try and come let me know what you thought, but I won't be reading anything further in this series.


If you want to read a survival story that, in my opinion, was nothing short of amazing, read [b:Ashfall|9644151|Ashfall (Ashfall, #1)|Mike Mullin|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1301592315s/9644151.jpg|14531613]. The female is stronger than the male in that one too, but it all works seamlessly, and is realistic.

ARGH!!

I need to know more about Christian, gaht damnit. I love this story...I just can't even...so good. What about Jefferey damnit!! Ms. Hand, how could you leave me hanging like this!!

4.5 Stars

I've been unforgivably lazy with my reviews for a while now. :/ I'm sorry friends.

So the aunt does all that and then there's no story to follow it. The revelation about the brother with no information about it. Best friend goes through all that with nothing later. Insta-love with the triangle already forming...

This was ok. I'll do a full review later on.

Rip my heart out! review tomorrow.

I forgot how much I had liked this story!! I was going to reread the first one though to brush up on some of the finer plot lines, but in the end I couldn't wait long enough to get into this one. I read this in roughly 4 hours. That's how good it is.

Oh Perry, Perry, Perry. Aria laughed. The was attractive. She smelled like horse. "Do you ever miss anything?" Perry smiled. "You, all the time." Swoon! I love him. He's so loyal and fierce. Even if he thinks Aria smells like violets during her time of the moon, lol. We got to see plenty of character growth in this book as well which was wonderful. The way Perry grew into Blood Lord was great, even if I hurt for him. I kind of wanted to rip his face off when he was talking to Kirra on the beach, but it was minor, and in the end it worked out just as I would have thought. He made my heart break by thinking he'd failed Aria.

Aria grew a great deal in this one, and I was thrilled to see her becoming such a force! She took no crap (though really she could have at least tripped Brooke once or something), and she's really coming into her own, despite the confusion of her place in the world Who the hell is her father?!. It was great seeing her friendship with Roar, even though I kept waiting to have the author turn that into a romance, and I love that she didn't. I'm not even sure I can remember the last book I read that had actual platonic friends?! She'd been seeking the comfort of a place. Of walls. A roof. A pillow to rest her head on. Now she realized that the people she loved were what gave her life shape, and comfort, and meaning. Perry and Roar were home.

I don't like the direction Roar's story took there at the end to be honest. That was so painful. I wonder too how this will affect his relationship with Aria? I really love him as a character though. "I got that, thanks. Did he just call you pretty?" Roar nodded, chewing. "Can you blame him?"

This series so far is wonderfully original, skillfully written, and certainly worth your money to own. I know it's a story I'll want to visit many times.

rtc/I'm just glad to be done,