Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Ok SLACKERS!!!

SLACK McSlacksters!!

I'm assuming nobody else is going to vote...

In which case, we have a FOUR WAY tie.

Therefore, I'm going to make an executive decision and cast two of them as August's books and two of them as September's books.

Work for you? It works for me!! :)

So, here goes...

August:
The Island (Because it's a summery book)
Juliet, Naked

September:
One Day
Promises to Keep

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

VOTE!!!

WOW, What a slacker I am!

I've been meaning to post this since yesterday morning and one thing or another kept side-tracking my brain.

Please, oh PLEASE, everyone VOTE!!!

Tempie and I are the only ones who suggested books this month, so everyone, just vote for your top three that you'd like to read! :)

Tomorrow midnight if you possibly can!

Thanks everyone! :)

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Garlic & Sapphires


This was my book club's selection for July. The book is the story of the author's job as the restaurant critic for the NY times. Each chapter gives the details on a different restaurant and the disguise she would use for her visits. This book made me so hungry. She could describe food almost well enough for you to taste. My book club had our meeting today and some people called this book food porn. :) I thought the book was pretty good. She has two other books out that is suppose to be even better than this one so I think I will check them out.

Some recent reads of mine...


This is the only one of the Women's Murder Club I have read, but I loved it and want to backtrack and read them all. Fabulous. And this is also my 1st Mary Kay Andrews novel, but so far I am really enjoying her! She reminds me of Janet Evanovich in her style of writing but this one does not have mystery or a crime involved like most J.E. books (at least not so far, I'm 1/2 way through)...SO, Candace, you may wanna give her a shot! ;D She's fun and girlie. Otherwise, I 've just been catching up with you girls. I've read Barefoot and A Summer Affair and Summer People ( all Elin Hilderbrand) and The Glass Castle (wow!) and hmmmm......some others but my brain can't recall them at this moment.

Disturbed!

Okay, this blog is for anyone who's read James Patterson's Where the Wind Blows and has at least started the Maximum Ride Series.

Tempie, you're the only one I know for sure has read these, so at this point, I'm asking YOU....

I THOUGHT the Maximum Ride books were about Max and the rest of the kids from THE SCHOOL. Icarus... Matthew... Wendy... Peter...

Am I wrong?

I'm so confused, because I started the first Maximum Ride book last night and there's a character named Max, but the others all have different names. Also, are Kit and Frannie menitoned in these books?

I'm so disappointed. I don't know if I'll be able to read these if they're not the same characters.

My August Vote

1. The Island
2. Fly Away Home
3. Promises to Keep
Holy smokes! These authors are my FAVES!!! Sorry I have been AWOL.....its just been crazy around here! ;D Not complaining, just saying;) I am really looking forward to this month, hoping that one (or more) of my girls (authors;)) wins! LOL

Saturday, July 24, 2010

August






Here are my suggestions for August:






My June and July Book Reviews!

These are all the books I've read outside of our monthly books during June and July.

I've never been a fan of Nora Roberts. My mom is a HUGE fan of hers and she's always trying and trying to get me to read her books, but everytime I've tried, I just couldn't get into them.

I think it's because the books of hers that I've tried out were strictly romance novels and I'm not much of a romance novel girl. I like when the books I read have romance IN THEM, but not when that's the sole focus of the book.

Anyway, this book, THE SEARCH, was soooo good! I could hardly put it down. Not only is the story completely engrossing, but her character development is awesome.

And this book was also so interesting because it was about a woman whose profession is training dogs to be search and rescue dogs and she leads search and rescue teams looking for missing people. And it had a little bit of a love story entertwined and a HUGE amount of mystery, which is where my heart lies. :)

Because of this book, I now can't WAIT to read another Nora Roberts mystery novel.
You guys should know by now that I'm a huge James Patterson fan. Some people take issue with his short chapters and stories that move at lightning speed, but I love them. They never disappoint in being true nail biters and I especially love to read one of his books after I've just read a book that had excruciatingly LONG chapters and a million words per chapter with tiny writing on the page. LOL... his books are the complete opposite of that.

This one, The 9th Judgment, was really good, but it's the kind that can really turn your stomach as well. Not because it's super gory, because it wasn't that at all, but this one was about a killer in San Fransisco whose targets are always women and their children.

I knew that that particular subject matter would both draw me to the book out of pure fascination and also make me want to throw it on the ground and stomp it to death everytime a sweet mother and her baby were MURDERED.

The good thing is that the murders were NEVER detailed. I think the writers did it that way because of the extremely sensitive subject matter.

Anyway, if you like a good, fast paced mystery, read it, you'll like it! :)
Well, looky there, another Patterson (along with the next two!!).

I have about a million unread (not really, but close) books in my house, but I can't hardly bare for any of them to be James Patterson books. You know he cranks out about 4-6 new books a year and I am an avid collector of his books, so no matter how many unread books I have, his always have top priority in my house.

This one was great, but different. It was different because they never really named the killer! So odd. But it was a fantastic story and I have a feeling this one will have a sequel in the future because of the fact of not naming the killer. One thing that really got me about this story was the fact that I could really see some psycho path doing something like this. This one was actually, though, about a GROUP of psychos. The killer in this book kidnapped famous people and then videoed the murders for this group of super rich people located all over the world just for their watching pleasure.

It was different, but good.
When the Wind Blows.... I was honestly a little hesitant to read this one, because it has a bit of fantasy involved, but in the end I gave in and read it and boy am I glad I did! This one is my favorite Patterson book. Favorite. Ugh. I want to read it again just thinking about it.

I don't want to give too much away, but this book is the beginning of a whole slew of his books in the Maximum Ride series.

The basis is that there are a group of scientists who manufacture children who have avian dna.

They can fly.

It's awesome.

Read it. :)
I'm reading The Lake House right now. It's the sequel to When the Wind Blows. I'll be finishing it up sometime today. I really like it a lot, can't wait to see where it ends up...


Nantucket Nights... I liked it. It was not my favorite Hilderbrand book. I almost quit it, but I'm so glad I didn't.

It's one of those books that just takes a little bit to get into, but once it started going, it was really, really a good story.

Thanks Heather, for convincing me to keep going. ;)

Castaways... I was told by someone... Heather, was it you?... that this is the book that put Elin Hilderbrand on the map.

I have to say I am surprised by that. I liked this book, but A Summer Affair was sooooo much better and that one was written one year BEFORE this one, so I'm kind of confused by that.

Castaways was a major mystery. It's about a group of 8 friends, 4 couples, and all of them have history together. They've been friends a really long time and have major, major drama that has played out between them and will play out between them.

In the beginning of this story, one of the couples dies and the whole story is focused on trying to figure out exactly what happened because there are a ton of mysterious circumstances. Each chapter is told by a different member of their group, so you really get to know each character intimately.

And really, I would highly recommend this book, it was a great story. I think what disappointed me was that the story was not what I thought it was going to be about. I thought the couple who died were really going to be found as "castaways" on an island. But that is not it at all! Instead, the book is called The Castaways because that was the nickname of their "group". Anyway, it's great, and I would read it again.



I know I just went through those really fast, but that was a lot of typing and remembering to do all at one time! ;)

Can't wait to see what you guys end up recommending for our August read! Try to get your recommendations in by tomorrow midnight if you can!

My August Suggestions!!




ONE DAY: I first saw this book in People magazine and since then, I've seen it all over the place. I want to read it sooooo bad. It sounds amazing to me! :)

The Island: Elin Hilderbrand. Enough said.

Fly Away Home: Jennifer Weiner. Enough said.

Promises to Keep: I have to be honest. Jane Green is very hit or miss for me. I either LOVE her books and they're some of my all-time faves, or I just can't get past the first chapter. I think I'll love this one. It's about a photographer. What's not to love about a photographer. Right? Right. ;)

Okay, I can't wait to see what the rest of you guys come up with! Bring em on!!!

Oh, and on another note. I haven't done any book reviews since I got my new computer. Why, you ask? Because it's a Mac and Mac's don't have the right click option, which is how I always went to B&N and saved my book images. WELL, I just learned that with a Mac you do CONTROL CLICK and it's the same as right click on a PC. What can I say? Sometimes I'm a slow learner. ;)

So, because of that, I'll soon be doing a review post reviewing the last 10 or so books that I've read. :)

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Talking to Girls about Duran Duran


I won this book from the Goodreads Giveaway. I am a child of the 80s and I love everything about it. The music, the movies, etc. This books is about the authors life during the 80s. Each chapter is named after a song and how it related to his life. I can totally relate to this because my life has a huge soundtrack. If I hear the remade version of "It's My Life" by No Doubt or "The Pretender" by the Foo Fighters I instantly think of when both of my kids were newborns. Why you may ask? Because I would watch MTV for those middle of the night feedings because that is the only time they played videos and those two got played every night. Anyway, if you are too youngs to remember much during that decade or if you don't really like it than you may not enjoy this book. I liked it but I think it was mainly because it brought back a lot of memories from my childhood.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Summer's Child

I've been meaning to do this post for a couple of days now, but we've been super duper busy, going non-stop, as I'm sure all you girls have. Summer is CA-RAZZZZYYYY!!!

I am in the homestretch with this book, and I think it's AMAZING. This is my absolute favorite kind of writing. There is constantly something happening and the mystery just keeps getting thicker and thicker by the page. I don't want to say too much, because I'm not sure if the rest of you have gotten around to starting it yet, but if you have, pLEASE tell me in the comments, because I would LOVE to have a conversation about all that's going on in the story!! :)