Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Audiobook -- Unabridged -- 9 CDs -- ll hours -- Narrated by Stephen Lang

Awesome.

Reminisent of Stephen King at his best, his son Joe Hill has written an awesome ghost story. Aging rock star, Judas Coyne, buys a ghost from the internet. The dead man's suit arrives in a heart shaped box. The ghost has business with Jude. He claims his step-daughter, Anna, killed herself because of him. He says he is going to kill Jude and everyone who helps him.

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

I was sent this book by Barnes & Nobles as part of their "First Look" program. It is an Advance Readers Copy and the book is scheduled to be released February 2008.

Willie Upton is one of the last decedents of the original founders of her hometown, Templeton. She hasn't been home in years, but she returns, pregnant and scared that she is in much deeper trouble for trying to run over her lovers wife with a small plane.

She has always thought herself the child of her hippie mother's years in a commune and that her father was one of the three male members of the group. Soon after Willie's return to Templeton, her mother confesses that Willie's father is actually a local man. However Willie's mother refuses to tell Willie the name of her father, only that he is someone Willie knows and that he is most likely also descended from the town's founding fathers.

I really liked the book and am happy that I was selected to read and discuss the book with it's author.

The Society of S by Susan Hubbard

Arielle Montero never knew her mother. She disappeared shortly after Ari was born and never returned to the house in New York. Ari is home schooled and rarely ever is allowed to leave her house. Shortly after she makes friends with the housekeepers daughter, she begins to notice how different she is from others and how different is her household. Her face is always blurred in pictures and in one taken of her father, he doesn't show up at all. She begins to suspect her father is a vampire. After her best friend, Kathleen, is savagely murdered, she demands that her father tell her why they are different and where is her mother. He doesn't know where her mother is and yes, he is a vampire. Is Ari a vampire also? What happens when a mortal and a vampire have a child together?

This is an amazing book. I did not expect to be this good!

Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert

A young man is missing and an old friend of Gabriel Blackstone calls in a favor. “Frankie” Whittington asks Gabriel to help her husband find his missing son, Robbie. Gabriel has a talent few others have, remote vision. He can enter someone’s mind, see what they see, hear what they hear, and experience what they experience. Using his talent, he discovers that the young man is dead and has most likely been killed by one of two very extraordinary sisters, Morrighan and Minnaloushe Monk. Hacking into their computer, he reads a diary. He also discovers that one of the sisters has his same ability, only she is much stronger. He falls in love with the writer of the diary. He fears the sister with remote vision. Which sister is which?

This was a really good book. I was almost not able to put it down once I started reading it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Jacob Jankowski is ninety, or maybe he is ninety-three, he can’t remember for sure. What he does remember in vivid detail is his life the year after his parents died and he missed his final exam in veterinary medicine at Cornell. He walked out of town, leaving everything behind him and jumped the first train that passed by. This one just happened to belong to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. His life in the circus was hard work, little or no pay, and a political structure that rivals any college campus. He falls in love with Marlena, who is married to the abusive animal trainer. He also falls in love with Rosie the elephant whounderstands Polish and is often the target of Marlena’s husband’s torturous abuse. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I did not like the ending, but what I mean by ending is the very last paragraph. I did not like the very last paragraph. It made no sense, but the rest of the book was awesome! I listened to the unabridged audiobook. It was 11 ½ hours on 10 CDs. It was read by David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

The dead all lived together in one city. They stayed as long as one person left living remembered them. Luka was one of the dead. He printed a newspaper and passed it out among the other dead that grouped together at the coffee shop. Soon, there are less and less dead. More and more were going to that "other place", the place you went when no one living remembers you. A virus has spread and was killing off millions of people. It was a rapid virus, people died within the day the symptoms started. Fewer people were remembered and more and more were going to the other place. Laura Byrd was alone and trapped in Antarctica. She had been working on an exploration team for Coca Cola. The radio had broken. Her two team mates had taken one of the sledges to see if they could make it to the main camp. They had been gone three weeks, far longer than it should have taken them to get there and back. The cabin’s heating was failing. It was getting colder. She finally takes the remaining sledge and makes it to the camp only to find it deserted and twenty burial mounds in back. Where had her team mates gone? What had happened to the team that was stationed here? Back in the city, more and more people were disappearing. How long before they all disappear?

I really liked this book. It was very well written and all the elements of the story tied together in surprising ways.

Inside out

Inside out By:Terry Treuman

Really great book.It is about a young adolescent who is a schizophrenic.You see the world through his eyes.The world in his eye is hurtful and confusing.He is never sure what is real and what is not.

When two teenage brothers attempt to hold up a Spokane coffee shop where Zach, 16, is waiting for his mother to bring his antipsychotic meds, he is among those held hostage. Thus begins this slender, but harrowing novel that depicts the standoff between the desperate pair and the police outside-all narrated by Zach, who is driven by impulsive outbursts, hateful voices in his head, and difficulty with processing reality. Chapters open with a brief passage that illuminates the history of his illness and suicide attempt, and interventions by his mother and psychiatrist. A phone call from the police to the robbers results in freedom for the others, but Zach, now overdue for his medicine, agrees to remain hostage. An odd bonding ensues among the troubled teens, all of whom are portrayed sympathetically. With no ammunition in their guns, the brothers are basically decent boys, scared and worried about their single mother's unemployment and cancer. Tension builds when one of them is wounded by a stray police bullet. They surrender, and Zach is reunited with his mother, his meds, and the simple comfort of a maple bar he had craved. A stark news article three months later imparts word that the unexpected hero of the crisis has committed suicide, the victim of his tragic illness. Trueman uses Zach's narration to challenge readers to feel the confusion and dark struggle of schizophrenia. The effect is disturbing, if somewhat didactic.

Beyond Recall

Beyond Recall By; Stephen Klye-Reveiwed By;Deanna
Artemis is Goddess of the hunt, Protector of children..
and a hideous disease that suddenly strikes three continents,causing fever, convulsions, unstoppable bleeding, anhd 100 percent fatality in hours. A jungle nightmare like Marburg or Ebola, except for two things: Artemis isn't natural, it's an ungodly bioweapon aimed at America. And it kills only women.
But Artemis was created by a woman, Nobel Prize winning Dr.Rachel Lesage, for the one reason that the U.S. government can't understand. To save humanity.
Because another global catastrophe is looming, one the superpowers have ingnored. Now, with implacable logic, Rachel Lesage is about to stop Armageddon-by unleashing the Apocalypse.
The story is fictional but, with a storyline of truth behind it.Our world is heading into all kinds of problems for the furture.People only see yesterday,today,and one day ahead.Not many people think about what can happen is 20 years or 30 years.Instaed of trying to fix a small problem .They will wait until it is a huge problem then try and fix-it.Could it be to late.In the story the government will not render to terrorist threat.Which I could understand because then they will let terrorist make the rules.All the terrorist wanted was a couple of million to Educate three world countries and other countries about overpopulation and birth control.The government was right about not given into the terrorist threat.But they spent millions on finding and taking down the terrorists.If they had the money to use on terrorist threat Why could they not spend some money on an educational program for birth control.All they care about was who had control.If we are the richest country why cann't we spend some money on the problems when they arise before,they are huge problem?This book made me think about the problems that are ahead of us and furture generations.
Maybe I put to must throught into the book?

Sky Dancer, by Witi Ihimaera

So, this is the first review I've written in a number of years - please forgive me if it's a little disjointed and/or incomprehensible... (but also point it out, so I can hopefully improve going forward!)

Witi Ihimaera is a well-known NZ author; outside of New Zealand, he's probably best known as the author of Whale Rider, made into a film a few years back. He's also one of my favourite NZ authors, although he writes of a world I never saw any more than glimpses of, growing up. I think perhaps that's a lot of what fascinates me; how there could be this whole entire world existing right alongside ours, all the time, and yet all we ever saw were displaced edges, thrust into classrooms and learnt by rote, or glimpsed in passing but never understood. I think probably this sort of thing occurs wherever you have one culture alongside another; even as some merging occurs, some deeper parts just never seem to transfer over.

Sky Dancer is an interweaving of the mythic and the prosaic; on the one thread, we have a portion of the Maori creation myths, where the god Tane opens the gates of Heaven for the birds to claim the land and the sea; and on the other thread, a young woman in modern day NZ fleeing with her mother to small-town Tuapa, trying to escape her mother's problems.

The threads cross in a prophecy written in the Great Book of Birds, and handed down from mother to daughter amonst the handmaidens of Tane: that in the third year of the second millennium as it is counted by Man, Armageddon will come; the sky will open, and birds of the future will stream through to fight once again the Great Battle where the seabirds, the manu moana, will challenge for dominion over the land birds, the manu whenua. However all is not hopeless; as well as this second chance granted to the seabirds, Tane will send to the landbirds a chick to assist in the battle - the young woman, Skylark O'Shea. Who, as it turns out, is contrary, antagonistic, and doesn't believe a word of any of this...

Sky Dancer is the story of how the first battle between birds, but mostly of the second; of how it came to be that it was to be fought at all; of how a reluctant Skylark was dragged along to help fight a battle she didn't believe was anything more than a myth, helped along by an assortment of characters across the length of the country, and hounded by seabirds at every step.

It's not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad. The plot falters here and there - gets a little too caught up in intermissions, and a little too preachy here and there - but overall, it's a good read; and if you like discovering myths and cultures of other cultures, then it's a very good book for this. Don't be put off by the fact that the story switches between human and bird characters - my father, who scorns fantasy of any kind and will usually run a mile if there's any hint of fantastical elements, thoroughly enjoyed this book. (Moreso than I did, I think, and I *do* love fantasy).

Anyway, to conclude; I enjoyed this book. It's a good story, well written, and a very good introduction to some Maori myth, although you'll probably need to watch out for where the actual myths end and the storytelling begins...

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Destined to become a modern classic, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is half a coming-of-age tale about a young boy looking for his father's acceptance and half a novel about atonement and cultural conflict. As a young boy growing up in Afghanistan in the seventies, Amir is a disappointment to his father. His mother died giving birth to him, and there is a mild undercurrent of resentment on his father's part because of this. Amir is a sensitive and creative lad, scholarly rather than athletic, and pacifist rather than assertive. His one true friend is Hassan, the son of his father's servant. The relationship between Amir and Hassan is deep and complicated; while Amir truly loves Hassan, he is also ashamed to be with him in public because Hassan is illiterate, an ethnic minority, and deformed with a harelip.

The turning point of the novel comes with the region's annual kite fighting competition. In kite fighting, the goal is to fly your kite so that your string cuts your competitor's string, with the last kite flying as the winner. The children act as "kite runners," who go and retrieve the broken kites. Amir enters the competition with Hassan as his runner. When Hassan does not return from running a kite, Amir goes to look for him and finds Hassan being assaulted by several boys in an alley. Rather than fighting for his friend, Amir simply watches unseen. Hassan is ashamed from the assault while Amir is ashamed for doing nothing; as a result, the two drift apart and are eventually separated after Hassan is accused of stealing.

In the second half of the novel, Amir is living in the United States with his father when he gets a phone call from an old friend of his father's in Afghanistan. He tells Amir to return to Afghanistan right away, as he is very sick and needs Amir's help very badly to do something. Amir leaves his wife to go see what his father's friend wants and is told a startling secret. The revelation of this secret drives the plot for the rest of the book, and, while the ending may not be "happy", it is hopeful.

The writing style of the book is supurb and has the feel of a memoir even though it is completely fiction. As I said above, this book will definitely make its way into the English canon because of the many profound themes it contains. The twists are well-plotted and logical, but not obvious. This is one of those books where you think back to what happened earlier and go, "Oh, that's why he said it that way." There's plenty of action to keep readers engaged and aware that the plot is moving. Issues of abandonment and culture are present throughout the book and connect the many plot points.

There are parts of the book that are violent and graphic, but never simply for shock value. If you are a reader of serious fiction, you will not be disappointed by this book. Rating: 4.5/5

The Poison wood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

Gather your courage and step in to the deep dark jungles of the Congo following the footsteps of the Poison wood preacher and his five wives. The story starts out in the year 1959 with a Baptist Minster and his family headed for the Congo jungle to bring the light of Jesus into the darkness that dwells in the deep the African heart. We meet Brother Price, his wife Orleanna, and four daughters Rachel, Adeh, Leah and Ruth as they are preparing for the trip over to Kilanga to spend a year as missionaries. Once there they discover that their journey will not end with only a year but will extend over a life time as the jungle takes root into their souls. This story is a well crafted combination of the characters journey through life and the turbulent history of the Congo all told in a rich vibrant manner that allows you to hear, see, touch and smell Africa through all the eyes of the family. Each chapter is told in the insightful view of each character by rotating through Orleanna, Rachel, Adeh, Leah and Ruth's personal perspectives of what is occurring at the moment.

The author carefully crafted her characters with unique personalities which causes you to love and hate them at the same time. They become inextricably human as the book progress causing you to feel the joys and sadness each one experiences. You can't help but feel the pull of the jungle and the strife it's people face on a daily basis to survive.

I wish I could put in better words the way this book affected me. It got under my skin and has left me with a warm glow. I highly recommend this book for TBR pile.

reviewed by Tesse aka blissful2beme

Battle Royale

Written by Koushun Takami
.
A Graphic Novel/Manga Series of 15 books. I am not going to review each book in the series individually, since I read all of them in one weekend...it was that good.

This series is not for the light hearted. It is full of violence, sex and tons of gore. The story line is a lot like lord of the flies, only more institutionalized. The story starts out how many typical manga tend to, a lot of happy go lucky teenagers going on a group trip. Only difference is this one has a nasty twist. The teenagers have the not so great luck to be drawn for the governments reality show called the "program". All 42 students are dropped on an island, given a duffle bag, with a random weapon which range from semi-automatic machine guns to acid and have to kill each other till there is only one left standing. Each student have been equipped with a collar which will explode if they try to take it off or escape from the island.

If you can handle the gore this is a must read just for the intense suspense and titillating anticipation to see who will best who each chapter. As the story develops with each chapter you get greater insight to the characters past and current mind set. You will find yourself selecting favorites out of the 42 characters. Rooting them on as they survive horror after horror, you will cry with them as they loose their friends and loved one and as one by one they die.

The characters are pretty well rounded, each one from all main tracks of life; poor, rich, geniuses, idiots, a few insane and a lot that were abused. The main character, Shuuya, only wanted to be a rocker when he grew up finds himself responsible for the class cutie, Noriko. Both are a bit idealistic and are in many ways too trusting in other people to do the right thing. The baddies of this story are serious Kiriyama and the beautiful Mitsuko. I found myself sympathizing with them while I gasped in horror at their actions. They were both my favorites to read about. The characters are what make this story so captivating. Almost every character gets a section where they revel what makes them tick and why they act they way the act to each other. The characters were developed so well that when one dies you feel some type of emotional reaction. As you grow attached to the characters you find yourself getting panicked because as the rules state only one will survive. Which of your favorite characters will be sacrificed so that one will survive?

You will just have to read it to find out -- but you will have to buy your own copies cause mine are staying on my shelf :)

Reviewed by Tesse
http://www.bookmooch.com/m/bio/blissful2beme