It's Monday, What are you reading?

This week I didn't get any reviews written.  I hope to set aside some time this week to get at least a few done!  We did get our Christmas tree decorated, our treadmill repaired, and a bunch of Christmas shopping done.

In sad reading news, my son accidentally dropped my Kindle Fire and the screen is VERY cracked.  It is out of warranty and drops wouldn't have been covered anyway since we didn't buy the additional insurance.  We made the decision to get a replacement with the discount Amazon offered as well as a new case as the case was part of the issue.

In good news I had an email this weekend letting me know I won a book from Ryan at Wordsmithsonia.

I finished:
The Game of Thrones (iPod audio, library loan)
Iced by Karen Marie Moning (library)

Still reading:
Eragon (car audio with the kids, library)
The Hunger Games (house audio with the kids. I wasn't sure about this one, but so many of their friends have either read the book or have seen the movie that I decided they could see the movie if we read the book first, library)
Jane Eyre (still hating the narrator, it is on my iPod, but I am not in a hurry to listen to it)
Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep
Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath by Helen Boudreux (ebook, library)
Mermaid (ebook, library)
Wild Ride by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer
Rapture by Lauren Kate (library book)
 

It's Monday, What are you reading?

This week I have had a hard time focusing on just one book at a time.  I have some digital audio loans from the library, some ebook loans from the library as well, library books, and then my own books I am also reading.  I've read a bunch, but haven't finished very much.

Finished:
Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Helene Boudreux

Still reading:
Eragon (car audio with the kids, library)
The Hunger Games (house audio with the kids.  I wasn't sure about this one, but so many of their friends have either read the book or have seen the movie that I decided they could see the movie if we read the book first, library)
The Game of Thrones (iPod audio, library loan)
Jane Eyre (still hating the narrator, it is on my iPod, but I am not in a hurry to listen to it)
Iced by Karen Marie Moning (library)
Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep
Real Mermaids Don't Hold Their Breath by Helen Boudreux (ebook, library)
Mermaid (ebook, library)
Wild Ride by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

I love all the books I find at the library, but not the sense of a deadline hanging over me to finish them.

Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings by Helene Boudreux

Overview from Barnes and Noble

Freak of nature takes on a whole new meaning...

If she hadn't been so clueless, she might have seen it coming. But really, who expects to get into a relaxing bathtub after a stressful day of shopping for tankinis and come out with scales and a tail?

Most. Embarrassing. Moment. Ever.

Jade soon discovers she inherited her mermaid tendencies from her mom. But if Mom was a mermaid, how did she drown?

Jade is determined to find out. So how does a plus-size, aqua-phobic mer-girl go about doing that exactly? And how will Jade ever be able to explain her secret to her best friend, Cori, and to her crush, Luke?

This summer is about to get a lot more interesting...

 

My thoughts:

I was browsing through the ebooks available through our public library and decided to look for mermaid books. Not sure why, none of my other searches were getting me anywhere.  I found some books I want to read, but they were checked out so I added myself to the waiting list for them, then found this one.  The title sounded fun so I checked it out. 

 

I enjoyed the lightness of this book and the fun way mermaids were introduced.  Being in middle school is a tough time for a lot of early teenagers and tweens, your body is changing, people start dating, friendships change and hormones are playing all sorts of havoc.  Jade is self conscious of her larger than average body, still having a hard time dealing with her mothers death by drowning a year before, struggling with a new friend who is coming between her and her best friend and surprised by the reappearance of a boy she thinks started a mean nickname about her.  The last thing she needs is another complication, but she gets it when she gets into the tub, falls asleep, and wakes up with a tail!  After finding out her mother was a mermaid new questions arise, such as how her mother could have drowned if she is or was a mermaid.  Jade wants to tell Cori, her best friend all about it, but her father cautions her about it.  How hard would this be for someone else to believe and what might happen to her if scientists were to find out that she could transform into a mermaid.

 

This was a fun, easy read.  I highly recommend people who love to read taking the time to find out if their local library offers either digital audio or ebooks to read.  I think if more people took advantage of them library systems might expand their catalogues even more which is good for all of us.  Plus, being able to search for and immediately check out a book from home is so convenient and easy.

 

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781402244124
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
• Publication date: 12/1/2010
• Pages: 224
• Sales rank: 117,528
• Age range: 10 - 13 Years

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (audio)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called the "milk sickness." Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's unfortunate debts.

When the truth became known to the young Abraham Lincoln, he wrote in his journal: henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things—a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose."

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for reuniting the North with the South and abolishing slavery from our country, no one has ever understood his valiant fight for what it really was. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time—all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War, and uncovering the massive role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

My thoughts:
I loved this book!  I wasn't sure going into it if I would enjoy it or not, but I really did.  I love how the author took real facts and then told Lincoln's life story with a twist.  I am hoping that the non-vampire facts were true, I don't know all the dates and people who were a part of his life, but I have to say this might be a way to get reluctant readers or students who are having trouble memorizing dates and names to learn them in an innovative way!

At the start we meet the reluctant biographer and find out how he came to have journals and records about Abraham Lincoln.  Who gave them to him and for what purpose he was allowed to read and review these items.  From there we get the story of Abe's life and how vampires made their mark on both his life personally and on the country as a whole.  How slavery was perpetuated as a way to keep an easy food supply for vampires and how embedded they were in all forms of government and politics.

Abe comes to life as a hunter.  Some real details such as how be became a lawyer, got involved in politics, married and had children are there to hold the new construct together so the vampire element can be added in.  After finishing the book I commented to my husband that we should rent the movie.  I'd like to see how they developed it all for the screen.  Movies never really seem to live up to my expectations, but I plan to rent it anyway.

I enjoyed the audio for this book.  Sometimes the reader that is chosen doesn't complement the story, but this time I think they really got it right!  I am still struggling through a different audio book because I don't enjoy the woman who is providing the narration, but that was not the case this time at all!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781455510177
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 4/3/2012
• Edition description: Media Tie-In Edition
• Pages: 384

Meet the Author

More by this Author

• Unholy Night
• How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills

 

Seth Grahame-Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. In addition to adapting the screenplay for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seth also wrote Tim Burton's latest film, Dark Shadows. He lives in Los Angeles.

The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Think homeschooling is only for a handful of eccentrics on either end of the political spectrum? Think again. Today in America, two million primary- and secondary-school students are homeschooled. Growing at a rate of 10 percent annually, homeschooling represents the most dramatic change in American education since the invention of the mimeograph—and the story has only just begun.

In The Year of Learning Dangerously, popular blogger, author, and former child actor Quinn Cummings recounts her family’s decision to wade into the unfamiliar waters of homeschooling—despite a chronic lack of discipline, some major gaps in academic knowledge, and a serious case of math aversion. (That description refers to Quinn.)

Trying out the latest trends, attending key conferences (incognito, of course), and recounting the highlights and lowlights along the way, Quinn takes her daughter’s education into her own hands, for better and for worse. Part memoir, part social commentary, and part how-not-to guide, The Year of Learning Dangerously will make you laugh and make you think. And it may or may not have a quiz at the end. OK, there isn’t a quiz. Probably.

My thoughts:
When my oldest two children were younger I went through a time when I wanted to homeschool.  I loved the idea of it and of being able to keep them with me.  Planning field trips and learning at their pace, being able to use their interests to make learning personal and meaningful, but my husband wasn't in favor of the idea and then we had two more children and now I think it would be really hard to be working with all four of them on my own for all their educational needs.  One of the things that really struck me when I started this is how different it must be to just have one child.

Cummings does a great job of making her book entertaining while relating her year homeschooling her daughter and the research she did into the different groups who are homeschooling in America.  The history of homeschooling and even how it is handled in different countries.  I am not sure I would have wanted to disguise myself in order to attend conferences for fundamentalist groups of homeschoolers, but she made it fun and entertaining while still managing to teach something along the way.  If all history books and lessons could be done in such an entertaining fashion I think students of all ages would learn more!

I found myself loving this book.  I picked it up off the shelf at the library when the title jumped out at me.  Sometimes I find the best books that way.  I may or may not have seen a review of it in a magazine, but it just looked like a book I wanted to read.  I found it interesting how she dealt with teaching subjects that she herself wasn't the best at (which had been one of my concerns when I was thinking about homeschooling myself six years ago).  It will be interesting to see if she writes any more books on this subject.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780399537608
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 8/7/2012
• Pages: 240

Meet the Author

Quinn Cummings is an Oscar-nominated actress (The Goodbye Girl, Family), and the critically acclaimed author of the memoir Notes from the Underwire. She writes the popular blog The QC Report, and her work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Los Angeles Magazine, and Newsweek. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and daughter.

It's Monday, What are you reading?

I missed posting last week and then had a very slow reading week, so this week has what I read last week and the week before.  I am still behind on reviews in a big way, but hope to put some time in this weekend writing up reviews for books I have finished.  I'd like to get some more reading time in as well of course!  Things just keep seeming to come up that take longer than I had anticipated.

Finished reading:
The  Year of Learning Dangerously:  Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings
Big Sky Country by Linda Lael Miller
The Third Wheel (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) by Jeff Kinney

Still Reading/Listening to:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer by Seth Grahame-Smith
Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep

Big Sky Country by Linda Lael Miller

 

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

The "First Lady of the West," #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller is back with a new series about Parable, Montana-where love awaits.

The illegitimate son of a wealthy rancher, Sheriff Slade Barlow grew up in a trailer hitched to the Curly-Burly hair salon his mother runs. He was never acknowledged by his father-until now. Suddenly, Slade has inherited half of Whisper Creek Ranch, one of the most prosperous in Parable, Montana. That doesn't sit well with his half brother, Hutch, who grew up with all the rights of a Carmody. Including the affections of Joslyn Kirk, homecoming queen, rodeo queen, beauty queen-whom Slade has never forgotten

But Joslyn is barely holding her head up these days as she works to pay back everyone her crooked stepfather cheated. With a town to protect-plus a rebellious teenage stepdaughter-Slade has his hands full. But someone has to convince Joslyn that she's responsible only for her own actions. Such as her effect on this lawman's guarded heart.

My thoughts:
I love reading Linda Lael Miller.  Her books always bring me up a bit and give me a hopeful view of life.  Her characters have their shares of ups and downs, but still find each other and make their lives better together.  Joslyn has felt guilty for years about all the people who lost money to her step father when she was a teenager and has worked for years with the hope to pay them back.  She has grown and changed from the spoiled girl who left town as a teenager and she is back to make amends, both with repayment of the lost money and by facing awkward and uncomfortable situations with people in town who link her with her stepfather.  Slade has made his own way, with no help from his rich biological father, so to have him recognize him as an heir after his death brings up all the old hurts. 

Along with Joslyn there is her best friend who has had her own relationship issues including a divorce from a wealthy man in England, Hutch who is Slade's half brother and dated Joslyn in high school, Opal who worked for Joslyn's family when she lived in Parable and a host of other colorful characters.  I can make a pretty good guess who will be featured in future books set in Parable if this is part of a trilogy or series.  While with some authors that would bother me, here it just wet my curiosity for the next book.  She makes being a cowboy or being with a cowboy sound like so much fun, somehow missing all the hard work that goes into it as well!  I was so glad to find this on the shelf at the library.

I agree with some reviews that it seemed to take a long time for the couple to get together, but at the same time that made it seem a bit more believable to me.  Most people don't fall madly in love and right into bed when they first meet, so the fact that it took them longer to get to that point made the romance more realistic for me.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780373776436
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Publication date: 5/29/2012
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 384