Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

★★★★ 1/2

"Don't be afraid.  There's the two of us now."

I don't know what to say about this book that hasn't been said before, but I FINALLY was able to get through the first 100+ pages and finished it.  I guess I shouldn't try to read such a huge book right before I have a baby or start a new job or be in the middle of grad school, but those things keep happening lately and I honestly had to start this book at least three times.  I knew it I would love it once I did - and I was right.  A perfect mix of history and romance and - time travel.  Didn't see how that combination could possibly work, but it did.  I would love to read the rest of the series...someday.  But for now I am very excited to FINALLY be able to watch the TV show!!!

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (audio)

★★★

"Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time."

Cinderella meets sci-fi / cyborgs / Beijing in fairy-tale retelling and the first book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer.  I wanted to like this book more, but there was just too much going on and not enough development.  The main problem I had was with the characters - especially in Cinder, the main character.  Her actions seemed very inconsistent and I often thought her decisions were based more on adhering to the "Cinderella" storyline and were not realistic.  I kept hoping that she would develop more as a character, but she didn't.  I also would have liked to see more detail and history in the world that the author created.  I did, however, enjoy the author's creative take on a classic fairy-tale and was interested in where the book would go.  Overall, it was moderately entertaining and worked well as an audio book.

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

★★★★

"There's the story and then there's the real story and then there's the story of how the story came to be told.  Then there's what you leave out of the story.  Which is part of the story too."

The third (and final?) books in the MaddAddam Trilogy left off right where the first and second parallel stories ended.  The first book was told by 'Snowman-the-Jimmy' and the second alternated between the two female characters of Ren and Toby.  The third novel is mostly told from the perspective of Amanda and her stepfather Zeb.  The previous characters are mentioned as well, but the read doesn't really get an inside view into what they're thinking or feeling about what is going on.  There is a lot a back story that explains how the 'Waterless Flood' happened and Crake's history.

For me, this book feel somewhere in the middle of the other two.  I wasn't as impressed by it as the first, but I felt it was a much better story than the second.  I enjoyed reading about how the lives of the characters continued and how everyone interacted once the were reunited.  They basically built their own post-apocalyptic colony and had to face all of the challenges of living in a world where basically everyone has been destroyed.  They also had to figure out how to co-exist with the Crakers, a more gentler species of humans left to inhabit the earth.  The situations that the characters are faced with are very real and I was very captivated by the continual world-building that Atwood created in the first novel.  I felt like most of the questions were answered but, I still am left wondering how all of these different people survived - were they all given an antidote or did I miss something?

So overall - not as good as the first, but well worth the read and I'm glad I finished the series.  

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

★★★

"You can forget who you are if you're alone too much."

I recently finished Margaret Atwood's 'Oryx and Crake' and loved it so I was really excited to read this one as well.  I finally finished all of my required reading for my two library school classes and finally and able to read books that I don't have to read or finish within a week - a much appreciated change!

This second book in the trilogy is a parallel story to the first one.  The chapters go back and forth between two women who have survived the 'Waterless Flood' - both of whom were briefly mentioned in 'Oryx and Crake.' Ren has been locked in a high-end sex club where she worked as a dancer and Toby survived in a spa where she was able to live on many of the edible treatments.

I didn't end up liking this one as much as the first.  I enjoyed reading more about the world - which Atwood does an excellent job of building - but, overall I felt that the novel was a bit slow and uneventful.  The book went into a lot of unnecessary detail and there were way too many coincidences with the characters knowing each other.  I know they were all part of the same organization, but it seems like nearly everyone else on the planet is dead so how did all of these people with connections survive?  I felt like I might have been better off just reading the first book and calling it quits.  There was also a lot of unanswered questions, which I hope are resolved in the third book!

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

★★★★★

"He doesn't know which is worse, a past he can't regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there's the future. Clear vertigo."

This post-apocalyptic novel focuses on the character of Snowman, previously known as Jimmy, as he begins to cope with the idea that he may be the last human on earth.  Snowman is living near a group of human-like creatures called the Crakers that have been genetically engineered to be the ideal species.  The Crakers can communicate, but have simplified speech and thought processes.  They see Snowman as their leader and teacher.  Slowly starving to death, Snowman leaves the group to return to the ruins of a compound that he worked at in search of food and supplies.   He must escape from hybrid pigs that have overrun the area in order to get back to the Crakers.

During this time, Snowman has frequent flashbacks to his previous life as Jimmy and readers slowly piece together the events that lead to world-wide destruction.  Jimmy lives in what seems to be the early twenty-second century.  The United States is dominated by corporations called compounds where scientists are exploring areas such as immortality, bioengineering, and reproduction. In grade school, Jimmy meets his best friend Crake and they spend time playing advanced computer games and watching executions and porn on the internet.  After attending college, Jimmy goes to work with Crake who has become the leader of a bioengineering company that specializes in allowing parents to chose ideal traits for their children.  Jimmy falls in love with Oryx, Crakes lover and employee who works with the Crakers.  Crake’s company creates a drug that is marketed to cure all sicknesses and imperfections, but a global pandemic breaks out shortly after it is distributed.  Jimmy has been given a vaccine to the disease and is left to deal with the collapse of society.

I read The Handmaid’s Tale by the same author in high school and thought that this one sounded interesting as well.  I have read a few science fiction books, (although not many) but I really enjoyed this book.  It was very engaging and had a perfect mix of technology and interaction between the characters.  I loved how the author used flashbacks to slowly reveal to readers how the events unfolded.  I am very excited to read the two remaining books in the trilogy!

This book was #4 on my top ten list of 2015.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

★★★★

"What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right?  Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Goodreads Summary: On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Clearly history (and Kate Atkinson) have plans for her: In Ursula rests nothing less than the fate of civilization.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

This was somewhat of a difficult novel for me.  It was a bit confusing and I wasn't sure I "got" everything. Even though I struggled to get through it at times, there were many things that I loved about this book.  I read a lot of books, and I sometimes find myself reading the "same story" over and over again.  Kate Atkinson managed to take a simple concept (being born over and over again into the same life) and create a unique and complex story.

Each time Ursula is reborn, her life takes a slightly different path.  She managed to avoid one disaster after another, but then ends up with a different problem. I kept hoping that Ursula would finally "get it right," but that wasn't really the goal of the story. This novel is more about life more than anything and how it is effected by the everyday choices that we make.  I also loved the the novel was set in England during both World War I and II.  Usually books tend to focus on one war or the other.  I also really loved all of the different characters that Atkinson created to weave in and out of Ursula's life.

This book was #8 on my top ten list of 2014.

Son by Lois Lowry (audio)

★★★★ 1/2

"It'd be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating what you're leaving."

I really enjoyed this book!  I read the first three books of the quartet a few years ago in my children's lit class, and was excited to see that Lowry had written a fourth and final book.  The book was written almost twenty years after The Giver and tells the story of Claire, Gabe's mother.  It comes full circle and begins in the society that Jonas and Gabe grew up in.  When Claire is assigned "birth mother" at the ceremony of twelve, she is a little disappointed, but takes her new role seriously.  After a troubling birth, her "product" survives, but it is deemed that Claire can no longer have children.  She is reassigned to the fish hatchery and is expected to forget her child.  As the months pass, finds herself drawn to Gabe.  When Jonas and Gabe leave the community (the ending of The Giver), Claire goes after then.  After her boat crashes, she finds herself in a new places and struggles to remember her past.  Over the years, memories of her son slowly come back to her and she is determined to find him.

I've been waiting a year or two to read this book and finally got around to it.  I loved Lois Lowry's unique description and world-building in the quartet.  I loved that each book focused on a different futuristic society. With so many "dytopian" books coming out lately, it was really interesting to read one that was started two decades ago.  A big comparison that I found was that these books didn't center as much on relationships. Recent books like The Hunger Games and Divergent have such huge themes of romance.  While entertaining, I feel that these aspects sometimes take away other elements of the book. There was some mention of young love and romance, but the main focus was the big picture of the characters and the different societies that had been created.  

I really liked Lowry's theme of community throughout the four books.  Each one focused on a very different type of community - often focusing on taking a logical idea to the extreme.  Some worked well (like in The Messenger and Son), and others ( like in The Giver and Gathering Blue) did not.  It was also interesting to see how the different communities dealt with problems they were having.  The books had a lot of political themes and brought of questions of sacrifice and choices.

The Messenger by Lois Lowry

★★★★

"That's why they call you Seer.  You see more than most."

Updated: 5/23/2014

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

★★★★

"Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none."

Updated: 5/22/2014

Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables by Stephen L. Antczak (audio)

★★★ 1/2

" 'Not my job to judge, boy.' Baba Yaga filled and fit the pipe again.  'But I do observe that its difficult to escape familiar patterns.  When you live your life with cruel words, you look for people to give them to you.  When you escape and evil stepmother, you take an uncaring bride.  When your father throws you out, you love someone who won't love you back.  And to keep yourself in cruelty, you're willing to risk head and hands on the mayors side board.  Keep the pattern going. Hm.' "

Short stories are hard to review.  I found myself really enjoying some of the stories, but others not so much. This collection combines classic fairy-tales with steampunk.  I found the incorporate of steampunk elements in the stories to be really interesting and I'm always up for fairy-tales.  My first introduction to the "steampunk genre" was last year when I read Clockwork Angels by Cassandra Clare.  I had to do a bit of research because I knew practically nothing about it - definitely a unique genre!  My favorite stories from the collection included La Valse, Fair Vasyl, You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens, and The Mechanical Wings.

I've always been really interested in fairy-tales and re-tellings of them.  I am currently reading the Barnes and Noble edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales - and I have Brother's Grimm waiting on my dresser.  Since I listened to the audio book, I had a hard time finding a complete list for the fairy-tales.  Here's what I came up with:

La Valse by K.W. Jeter - based on The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen

Fair Vasyl by Stephen Harper - based on Vasilisa the Beautiful by Alexander Afanasyev and tales of Baby Yaga

The Hollow Hounds by Kat Richardson - based on The Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen

The Kings of Mount Golden by Paul Di Filippo - based on The King of the Golden Mountain by The Brothers Grimm

You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens by Jay Lake - based on Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault with an adaptation of Little Briar Rose by The Brothers Grimm

Mose and the Automatic Fireman by Nancy A. Collins - based on legends of Mose the Fireboy

The Clockwork Suit by G.K. Hayes - based on The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen

The Steampiper, the Stovepiper, and the Pied Piper of New Hamelin, Texas by Gregory Nicoll - based on legends of the Pied Piper

The Mechanical Wings by Pip Ballantine - based on The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen

The Giver by Lois Lowry

★★★★★

"The worst part of holding of holding the memories is not the pain.  It's the loneliness of it.  Memories need to be shared."

Updated: 5/20/2014

Since Lois Lowry's fourth and final book of the Giver Quartet, "Son" came out a few years ago, I figured I should re-read the whole series again.  Luckily, they are quite short and I listened to this one in less than two days.  

I can't say enough good things about this book!  It's one of those books that can be re-read again and again and you still find something new and interesting about it.  I loved Lowry's ability to create a dystopian world in less than 200 pages.  She had me hooked from the very beginning.

The reality is that there are both good and bad parts of life.  In Jonas's society, all of the "bad things" have been taken away to create a "perfect" world.  Everything is the same.  Everything is provided for.  There is no pain.  No suffering.  Everything is decided in the best interest of the people.  When Jonas is choose to receive special training from the Giver, he begins to realize that the world that was created, is also missing the love, pleasure, and pain of life before.  As he is slowly introduced to the memories of the past, he also sees the true horrors of his society.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the simple layout of a world where everything bad is taken away.  Every negative thing about life could have a solution, but at what cost?  

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (audio)

★★★★★

"But it's so easy, when you never meet people, when you never know the Earth itself, it's easy to forget why Earth is worth saving.  Why the world of people might be worth the price you pay."

First read: 5/14/2009

Update: I read this book about five years ago and finished listening to the "Ender's Game Alive" audio version.  I enjoyed it just as must as I did the first time I read it!!  I don't remember everything, so I'm not sure how different it was from the original (I've heard mixed reviews), but I really liked all of the different fast members and added sound effects into the reading.  The first time I read it, I remember being really surprised at the ending.  With all of the young adult science fiction/dystopia coming out in the recent years, it was nice to go back to the of the early one.  Now, on to see the movie!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

★★★ 1/2
"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."

This book wasn't the next Harry Potter.  Or Twilight.  Or even the next Hunger Games.  Not for me anyways.  The story was engaging, and I did enjoy reading it, but I don't have a huge desire to read the next two books right away.  The world that Veronica Roth created was interesting enough and I really liked the idea of grouping everyone into a world by a single character trait (which we know from the beginning is going to fail).  I tried placing myself in a facet, and it was impossible to pick just one.  True to real-life, there are so many positives and negatives of a single characteristic! After reading the book, I felt that there was a little too much focus on the action of the training and not enough on exploring the world and the character.  

Looking forward to seeing how the movie is when it comes out :)

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

★★★★

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever."

Just re-read this one again before the movie came out.  A few years later, this remains one of my favorite YA dystopia series.  When they first came out, I read all three books in about a week.  After the first book, I wasn't sure how the next two were going to turn out.  I was expecting something big for the Quarter Quell, but the ending took me by surprise!!!  I really enjoyed reading about all of the secondary characters in this book - all of the past winners of the Hunger Games.

1984 by George Orwell

★★★

"War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength."

1984 is one of those books that I've always meant to read, but never got around to until now.  I'm still not quiet sure how I feel about this book.  When I first started it, I must have picked it up and put it back down again at least a dozen times. It took me until about page 80 or so before I was actually able to stick with it.  It was interesting and thought-provoking, but not really something I actually enjoyed reading it.  

Orwell creating in erie, but realistic future in which the world is run exclusively by "Big Brother," an organization that controls not only all political aspects of the world, but people's minds as well. Winston Smith is a typical citizen - he follows the rules of the party and works for the Minister of Truth, where he rewrites the past.  Even though he secretly despises Big Brother, he would never reveal this to anyone. Then he begins a relationship with his co-worker Julia and is thrown into a world of uncertainly and betrayal.

What surprised me the most about this novel was how realistic Orwell's perception of the future was - especially after learning that it was written in 1948, almost forty years before the novel takes place.  

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

★★★

 " 'One must always be careful of books,' said Tessa, 'and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.' "

" 'You know,' Gabriel said, 'there was a time when I thought we could be friends, Will.'

'There was a time when I thought I was a ferret,' Will said, 'but that turned out to be the opium haze. Did you know it had that effect? Because I didn't.' "

I read this book as part of a workshop on book discussions that I attended last week in Madison called Reading by the Lake.  Only finished it a couple of days late...

This book was ok.  It had a lot of really interesting fantasy and steampunk (I learned what that was this weekend!) elements.  When a young girl named Tessa travels to England in 1878 to live with her brother, she is captured by the Dark Sisters.  She is suddenly thrown into an underground world of vampires, warlocks, and demons and learns that she has an ability as well - the ability to transform into another person.  She is recused by the Shadowhunters, where she begins to learn about herself and is caught up in the mysteries underworld.

I'd say that the book was an average young adult fantasy novel.  It had some unique twists with the characters and elements of the early industrial revolution. I really liked the historical aspects of 19th century England and Tessa's love of books.  The plot was so-so, but it caught my attention enough to finish the book. 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

★★★★★

"We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.  Not until the future eats the present, anyways.  We know when it's too late."

"For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all.  Don't we all secretly know this?  It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life.  Behind it?  Below it and around it?  Chaos, storms.  Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns.  Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand.  A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted state where mortals dance in defiance of the dark."

"You never knew me, but I love you, honey."

This book was amazing! I probably never would have picked it up if I hadn't been reading it from book club, but I'm so glad I did! 

Over the past two weeks I've been very obsessed with the book and when I'm really into a book I bring it every where with me. To work, to appointment, to my friend's houses...everywhere. So everyone kept asking me what I was reading. When I started raving about it and said it was Stephen King, I got a lot of the same responses: "Oh, Stephen King? He writes all those creepy horror novels. Those freak me out." I've only read the first three dark tower novels, so I can't judge, but this is NOT a horror book! Suspense-thriller, maybe. Mystery, yes. A novel about time travel, definitely. Historical fiction, absolutely. And a love story, yep it's got that too! And dancing. There's a lot of dancing.

The basic premise of the novel is a teacher named Jack Epping who travels through time to 1958 where he tries to stop the John F. Kennedy assassination. But changing the past is a lot hard then he thinks. And to top it off, he realizes that he really likes living in the late 1950s / early 1960s. And, of course, he falls in love.

I haven't read too much about this time period, or the assassination for that matter, so I really enjoyed King's perspective of this important time in America's past. I read a book review that I think sums it up quite nicely: "As a book, it is incredible. Once again King takes us back to the late 50's in a way no one else seems to be able to do. The stark difference between that time and ours is almost like reading a fairy tale or ancient history."

This book was #1 on my top ten list of 2013.

The Walking Dead: Compendium One, Vol. 1-48 by Robert Kirkman

★★★
"Maybe we were just fooling ourselves until something happened that was big enough to make us stop and realize how crazy our world really is."

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

★★★★★

" 'One more time?  For the audience?' he says.  His voice isn't angry.  It's hallow, which is worse.  Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.  I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go."

"Happy Hunger Games!  And many the odds be ever in your favor."

Mockingjay bu Suzanne Collins

★★★★

"It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart."