Top Ten Tuesday: May 21

It’s that time again! Top Ten Tuesday!
(Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the awesome folks over at The Broke and the Bookish. You should totally check them out!)

This week’s top ten is ten favorite covers of books I’ve read.

As always, in no particular order:

I am not entirely sure what these favorites say about me.

With Incarnate, The Tea Rose, Santa Olivia, The Painted Girls, and Anna Dressed in Blood… I felt myself drawn to the women. Who are they? What is their story?
Incarnate and The Fionavar Tapestry both have visually striking covers in their color and detail.
The Thirteenth Tale… I love books, so who could resist a cover with a stack of books on it??
Rebecca and The Night Circus I just found drew me into the story before I read a word. What was behind those gates or in that tent?
And Cinder… the promise of a retelling with a twist is there. I also got a little hint of The Wizard of Oz because of the shoe being red.

So, what are your favorite book covers? You didn’t have to like the book itself, mind you, but what draws you in about a cover?

A Fantastic Book, and a Dilemma

So I debated about posting this, because as most people know by now, I have a very deep and personal dislike for Amazon. But, I love this book and author…

So what do I do?

The book and author won.

The Wool Omnibus (which I just reviewed a few days ago) and the Shift Omnibus (the sequel to the Wool Omnibus) by Hugh Howey are on sale today at Amazon for $1.99 each. Now, the books are totally worth their normal selling price, but that is a steal of a deal. Without, you know, actually stealing the books (which is BAD and WRONG!)

The best part about this sale? (And really, the turning point for me mentioning it on my blog at all instead of being all BOO HISS AMAZON)
These are DRM-Free, meaning you can buy them from Amazon and convert them into whatever format you choose. LEGALLY.

Bless you, Mr. Howey and Mr. Howey’s Publisher. This is the best thing ever.

*covets her newly purchased, legally converted copy of Shift Omnibus*

Go forth and enjoy one of the best dystopian series ever!

Review: Small Damages by Beth Kephart

Small Damages by Beth Kephart
Read: May 8, 2013
Personal read.

Goodreads Book Blurb: It’s senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she is mourning the loss of her father. She finds solace in the one person she trusts, her boyfriend, and she soon finds herself pregnant. Kenzie’s boyfriend and mother do not understand her determination to keep the baby. She is sent to southern Spain for the summer, where she will live out her pregnancy as a cook’s assistant on a bull ranch, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple.

Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. She begins to open her eyes and her heart to the beauty that is all around her and inside of her.

My Opinion: After last week’s Top Ten Tuesday I felt the need to read something light, so I reached for this book. It was short, it was set abroad, it featured a young woman who was pregnant. I had high hopes it would fill that “light” quota.

Instead, I found myself immensely disappointed. The prose was not my style. I am all for stories that are introspective and don’t really “go” anywhere, but this one had too much ramble in the prose to be truly beautiful to me. I found the switches between past and present to be jarring, and I disconnected from the story every time it happened.

For an introspective book, I didn’t feel connected to Kenzie at all, and that was a huge problem.

As I said, this is pretty much a “go-nowhere” novel, so there isn’t much to talk about. I didn’t connect to the writing, and I didn’t connect to the characters. So for me, this was a big miss.

Bottom Line: A rambling novel that didn’t take me places.

A Personal Update

Hello to my lovely followers!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week! The sun is finally shining here, and we are on the plus side of the thermometer. We are even above 20 degrees! Woohoo! (That is in Celsius, which translates to roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit for all you lovely Americans). However, our air conditioner is kind of dead, so our apartment is hotter than heck, and it is very uncomfortable.

I wanted to post today to let you guys know that I have a few more things queued, but that two things are going on. One is that I have reviewed almost all of the books I have read. So, with that going on, I won’t have as many reviews to post. I know the blog has had daily posts for the last two weeks, but that will likely change. I am reading as much as I can, but I have to do things like work and sleep… so I don’t get as much time to read as I wish I did. But I have added some weekly features to keep things interesting around here.

The other thing going on is that my health is not good right now. If you have read my About Me page, you will know that I suffer from Fibromyalgia and Ulcerative Colitis. And if you haven’t read my About Me page, you now know that I suffer from the aforementioned illnesses. Well, the Colitis has been really giving me a run for my money for the last week or so, and it is exhausting. I have barely been able to move, save for the bare necessities. I have no energy for much aside from staring blankly at the TV, and occasionally reading a few pages. And horizontal life pauses (aka naps).

So, what does this mean? I don’t really know. It means that I am going to the doctor today to see what is going on and if they can help. It means that I am slowing down with reading and with producing new content. And it means if things don’t get better soon, the blog may not see many new posts from me for a while. For that, I apologize… but my health needs to be top priority. After all, if I don’t have my health, what do I have?

So on that note… what kinds of things do you guys do when you are sick? Do you read certain books? Or do you enjoy other activities?

Review: Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey

Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
Read: May 1 – May 7, 2013
Personal read.

Goodreads Book Blurb: This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

My Opinion: I don’t normally do omnibus editions. I don’t normally do short stories. Oh my, am I glad I broke those “rules”, because Wool is hands down the best dystopian I have read in a long time.

I toyed with how to do this review. I wanted to review the work as a whole, but also individually, because the short stories themselves are so intricate.

One thing that is consistent is that Hugh Howey is a fantastic writer. His style is so straightforward and clean. The story keeps moving, and the characters just jump off the page.

One note before I start. This isn’t really a series so much as it is a serial novel. Each section is a direct continuation.

Wool: This is the first volume, and I was completely hooked after I read it. If I had to pick one part to stand alone, this would be it. The suspense is fantastic, and I couldn’t put the book down.

Proper Gauge: The second book is much more introspective, but no less intense. It focuses on the sense of how to ensure things continue running smoothly after you’re gone.

Casting Off: The third book keeps this serial going strong. I love how we are now being shown the differences of community in the Silo, and how a few levels make all the difference.

The Unraveling: OK, the fourth volume is probably my least favorite. We move from a single viewpoint to a multiple viewpoint, and I just don’t feel as drawn into the story here. I especially felt that this part dragged during the Supply bits.

The Stranded: Everything comes to a head, and the pressure is almost too much to handle. Multiple POV continues, but is much more satisfying than the fourth installment.

The Bottom Line: If you get the Omnibus edition, the transition between books is pretty seamless, and it reads like one fantastic dystopian. If you like dystopian, if you think you might like dystopian, or if you hate all dystopian, I recommend you check this book out.

Review: Glory in Death by J.D. Robb

Glory in Death by J.D. Robb (In Death #2)
Read: April 29 – May 1, 2013
Personal read.

Goodreads Book Blurb: It is 2058, New York City. In a world where technology can reveal the darkest of secrets, there’s only one place to hide a crime of passion-in the heart.

Even in the mid-twenty-first century, during a time when genetic testing usually weeds out any violent hereditary traits before they can take over, murder still happens. The first victim is found lying on a sidewalk in the rain. The second is murdered in her own apartment building. Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas has no problem finding connections between the two crimes. Both victims were beautiful and highly successful women. Their glamorous lives and loves were the talk of the city. And their intimate relations with men of great power and wealth provide Eve with a long list of suspects.

My Opinion: This second installment in the crime procedural/romance is even better than the first. Robb/Roberts has gotten her feet under her, and she is running.

I found the characters were much more accessible this time around when I dipped into the world of Eve Dallas. They are still developing, which is fantastic, but they were also so much more present. And of course, this book introduces one of my favorite characters.

I didn’t see who the killer was right away, but I did get it before the reveal, which I liked.

Once again, the sex scenes in Glory in Death are overdone, but I kind of expected that. It doesn’t really add much to the story to know exactly how the characters are boinking each other, but I don’t feel like it took anything away, either.

The futuristic setting is almost an afterthought in this book, but since it just seems to be getting better, I am eager to see how Robb/Roberts tackles it in upcoming books.

Bottom Line: Another great romp through crime and sex. What more could you ask for?

WWW Wednesdays – May 15

WWW Wednesdays is a weekly book meme hosted over at Should Be Reading.

It asks three simple questions:
What are you currently reading?
What did you just finish reading?
What are you going to read next?

The Sugar Queen
Sarah Addison Allen

I started reading this late last night, and I am currently really enjoying it. Though I have to say, it is completely not what I expected. I thought it might be more like Chocolat (Joanne Harris)

 
The Help
Kathryn Stockett

I just finished reading this one late last night, and I absolutely loved it, though it made me pretty uncomfortable to be thrust so wholly into the world of 1960′s Mississippi. My book club read it ages ago and for some reason I wasn’t interested in it back then. Silly me.

Here is where it gets tricky, because I don’t always know what I am going to read next…

Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch) is the upcoming book club selection, so it is for sure going to be read in the near-ish future. The Key (Simon Toyne) is a book I have from Goodreads that I should really get read and reviewed. The other three — Immortal In Death (J.D. Robb), The Iron Duke (Meljean Brook), The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Laure R. King) — are just ones I want to read for me.

So, what is your WWW?