Top Ten Tuesday

Today  The Broke and the Bookish asks the question: What Are The Top Ten Sequels You're Dying To Read?

Oh dear. Just ten? K, I'll try.

1 Vanish (firelight 2) By Sophie Jordan
I've just heard too much about Cassian and I'm very curious now.

2 Black Heart (curse workers 3) By Holly black
So excited!!!!

3 The Minority Council (urban magic 4) By Kate Griffin
This is the one I'm most excited about. Just in case you wondered. ;)

4 Endure (need 4) By Carrie Jones
She just has to end up with Astley!

5 Shine (shade 3) By Jeri Smith-Ready
I've gobbled up the first two and now I want the next one now....please!  

6 Inheritance (inheritance 4) By Christopher Paolini
And it only makes it worse that I've waited so long!

7 Bitterblue (the seven kingdoms 3) By Kristen Cashore
Well, I get a little sick of feeling like the author is pushing feminism but I still love her writing.

8 Exile (mercy 2) By Rebecca Lim
After the cliffhanger at the end of Mercy...yeah. I hate that it's out a whole year before us in Australia.

9 The Sending and The Red Queen (chronicles of obernewtyn 7 & 8) By Isobelle Carmody
Not long now!!! Can't wait!

10 Untitled Odd Thomas (odd thomas 5) By Dean Koontz
There IS going to be a fifth one dangit! Please, Dean, please write it!

And then there's all the sequels that are already out but I haven't gotten to yet. I could make a whole list of them too. Sigh. : (

Review The Body Finder

Title The Body Finder
By Kimberly Derting
For Fun
Source I own it

First Sentence The sound of the alarm clock was an irritating intrusion into the comfortable haze of sleep that wrapped its arms around Violet.

Synopsis
Violet can sense echos from the bodies of the murdered. She's suddenly having new feelings for her best friend Jay, and there's a serial killer in town killing young girls. It's a lot to deal with and to make things worse, if she helps the police, it will lead the killer right to her.

General thoughts
Despite too much telling not showing, and the amount of adjectives, and the lack of excitement I was expecting, I was still trying to enjoy this one but there was way too much romance! Ahhhh! First off, Jay was completely unrealistic. With all the girls following him around, and his goofy smile, and his holding her hand, and talking to her on the phone, and the tickle fights...I was going nuts. And then we see that he isn't perfect, after all. (well, at least in my opinion) He's a control freak. What is it with authors creating all these control freak guys. Is that really appealing to girls?! Seriously?! He was one step away from standing over Violet with a bloody fist saying, "look what you made me do?!". Argh! I hate guys like that. Anywho, I guess what I'm trying to say is I wanted this one to be more about Violet's interesting talent and the mystery and adventure and it was just pages and pages of romance. And then, at the end, I started thinking, "oh, boy! Maybe the reason she's talking Jay up so much is because she wants us to be sad when she kills him". No such luck! I'll continue the series in the hope that it will be a little more adventurous and less romantic but I don't have much faith in that happening. I could go on and on about what bugged me but I won't. You're welcome. ;)

Characters
Violet: I wanted to like her but any girl that dates a guy who's that controlling...yeah, no respect here.
Jay: Do I need to say anything else nasty about this unrealistic guy with control freak issues?
Violet's friends: Yes, I'm not separating them. Why? Because they were all the "cliche" friends. There was no substance or depth to them. I felt like they were just there to make Violet seem well adjusted.
The Killer: I actually enjoyed the chapters from his perspective the most. Not because I liked him but because the writing was honest and simple and at least we weren't listening to Jay and Violet talk about who loved who more.

Would I recommend it?
Meh, I've read worse. If you WUUUV romance then this is the book for you, but if you were expecting a little more action...I'd look elsewhere.

What Type Are You?

If you ask me, there are three types of readers.

1 The "Everyone else was doing it" kind. These are those who don't particularly care what a book is about; if everyone else is reading it, they are too. They aren't mindless and they don't read something out of their comfort zone but for the most part they just can't resist the sway of the masses. Everywhere they look a certain book is dancing before their eyes. Everyone's talking about it. Every store is selling it. They have to read it.

2 The "Everyone else is doing it so I'm NOT" kind. These are the kind that stubbornly refuse to read anything that becomes popular. If said book is dancing before their eyes and everyone is talking about it they fold their arms turn their noses up and obstinately refuse to read it...period....even if they might want to, or think they might secretly like it.

3 And then there's the "If it piques my interest, popular or not, I'll read it" kind. These are the types that pick up this popular book read the synopsis and decide yay or nay. They aren't swayed by the masses, they keep their reading preferences no matter what the crowd says.

OK, there's probably lot's more types of reading people. I've just met all these three kinds and wanted to focus on them. I personally like to think I lean towards number three but I'll admit I sometimes lean towards that obstinate side of things. I hate following the crowd and I've often refused to read something just because everyone else is. And, yet, sometimes those masses are awfully convincing and I wonder what all the fuss is about. So, what about you? What type of reader are you? Are you a mixture like me, or do you lean strongly one certain way?

Review: Birthmarked

Title Birthmarked
By Caragh O'Brien
For Fun
Source I own it

First Sentence In the dim hovel, the mother clenched her body into one final, straining push, and the baby slithered out into Gaia's ready hands.

Synopsis
Sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone and her mother faithfully deliver their quota of three infants every month to the Enclave. But when Gaia’s mother is brutally taken away by the very people she serves, Gaia must question whether the Enclave deserves such loyalty. 

                        ***********Spoilers*************

General thoughts
I went into this one with excitement. First of all it was refreshing to be reading a book written in third person. We had a interesting new world, mystery from nearly the first page, and a brooding love interest with dark eyes. And then...the rest of the book reared its ugly head.  The third person became tiresome. I know you need to watch it with the pronouns in writing but when a characters name is leaping out of one page 50 times it starts getting on your nerves! The interesting world started coming off as showy and "look at me, look at me", and where, oh where, did the brooding dark eyed guy go? He turned into the biggest sap! Other things that bothered me to no end...
1 The whole code thing. There was way to much explanation about it, and I started thinking, "I bet the author loves codes and thinks we all find it as fascinating as she does...." and guess what? After finishing the book I looked at the back flap and, yep, the author loves codes. 
2 Every so often the author would throw in a big, fancy, needless word to...what? Maybe increase our vocabulary, but it just came off sounding pretentious and out of place. 
3 The pacing drove me insane. When Gaia and Leon are running through the tunnels with the guard hot on their heels and then they stop and choose right then to have a heart to heart?!!! What?! 
4 The whole DNA/chromosome thing. It didn't even make scientific sense. I don't claim to be smart and I'm sure I just missed something but by then I was so irritated I didn't even want to waste any more time thinking about it. (why would a "scientist" think that one baby from sector three who had the suppressor gene was more than just a fluke? Seriously? There's no reasoning behind that?!) 
5 The amount of descriptive detail. Oh my heck! On page 304 Gaia "...jammed her thumb into the latch and yanked."  Seriously? It couldn't just say, she opened the door? Or, if it wanted to be more frantic, say she yanked the door open. Why did it need to be so dang detailed? I could care less what Gaia did with her thumb!
So, yeah, not my favorite book...at all! 


Characters
Gaia: Her sudden transformation to trusting, obedient midwife to full on rebel just didn't come off as believable.
Leon: Can you say girly man? 
...I just don't care enough to talk about any of the other stereotypical characters in this one. 

Would I recommend it?  
I guess if you love pretentious, unbelievable books with annoying stereotypical characters then sure. 


PS. I'm sorry if anyone out there loved this one and was highly offended at my review. It just rubbed me the wrong way and I had to vent somewhere!

August and Summer Wrapup

Phew! Summer is finally out of here! Poor Summer it's not its fault I'm such a fair weathered friend. Oh well. This month was a slower calmer reading month for me but I think  enjoyed everything I read. How nice is that?


Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready
A wonderful, well thought out, attention to the details, book.

Possession by Elana Johnson
It was all like a strange, strange dream.

Nightlife by Rob Thurman
Action packed adventure meets amazingly relatable characters in this fun urban fantasy.


Shift (Shade 2) by Jeri Smith-Ready
Bring on the answers to the first book. Whoohoo!


The Power of Six (Lorien Legacies 2) by Pittacus Lore
When bad writing is good. So good!


Favorite of the month were Shade and Shift. Least favorite was Possession but even it wasn't that bad. All in all, a good reading month.

Now onto my Summer wrapup. You may recall I wrote a post about the books I planned on reading this summer here. Well, with the exception of a few books I pretty much stuck to it.

Books I read that were not on my summer reading list:
The Vampire Stalker
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Shiver
Shift (Shade 2)

Books that WERE on my list but didn't get read....yet.
Under the Dome
The Virgins Lover
Colonel Brandon's Diary
Birthmarked...but I'm reading it now and counting it as a summer read. ;)

So my original plans were to read 21 and I managed 22 so I don't feel guilty at all. So did you have reading plans this summer? Did you fulfill said plans?