Mid June 2016 Wrap-Up

This update runs May 15th through today.  My biggest news this month:  I'm only 6 books away from completing the Outdo Yourself Challenge!  I am still not where I was back in 2011.  Back in 2011, I had already read 71 books by this time, but I am up to 51 today and that is so much better than just a year ago!

I've completed two more challenges, Read My Own Damn Books and Women Challenge.

Once again, there were a few really good books and picking a favorite is hard!


It may not have gotten the highest rating of the three, but I'm going to choose Unhinged by A. G. Howard because I was completely unprepared for how much I'd love this book!  Plus the cover artwork is fantastic!

Three more states crossed off this time around - total 22!  I'm seriously loving keeping a map and keeping track of where my books take me.  I think the Around the World Challenge is one of my favorites!

Unhinged by A. G. Howard

Title:  Unhinged
Author:  A. G. Howard
Pages:  387
Genre:  YA Fantasy
Publisher:  Amulet, 2014
Series:  Splintered, Book 2

Synopsis: Alyssa Gardner has been down the rabbit hole. She was crowned Queen of the Red Court and faced the bandersnatch. She saved the life of Jeb, the boy she loves, and escaped the machinations of the disturbingly appealing Morpheus. Now all she has to do is graduate high school.

That would be easier without her mother, freshly released from an asylum, acting overly protective and suspicious. And it would be much simpler if the mysterious Morpheus didn't show up at school one day to tempt her with another dangerous quest in the dark, challenging Wonderland - where she (partly) belongs.

Could she leave Jeb and her parents behind again, for the sake of a man she knows has manipulated her before? Will her mother and Jeb trust her to do what's right?  Readers will swoon over the satisfying return to Howard's bold, sensual reimagining of Carroll's classic.

Review:  This second novel is much better than the first one was.  The characters have grown up quite a bit after their experiences in Wonderland and that is a good thing.  Sure, there is still a bit of sappy love and teen angst and plenty of fashion description, but not enough to deter my enjoyment of the story.  I even found it possible to like Jeb and Morpheus a little better.  Plus, the story itself was a little darker and set in the human world which made it even more appealing.

There was still plenty of Wonderland fantasy to go around, but the story was far more exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat.  I finished it in just over 24 hours and couldn't put it down.

It's ended in a bit of a cliffhanger, so I've got book three ready to begin tomorrow.

Rating:  9 / 10

Big Driver - The Movie

I purchased the movie Big Driver on Itunes for $3.99.  You can also get it on Amazon for the same price.  This was originally a Lifetime movie and the price led me to believe I was about to be disappointed.

It stars Maria Bello as Tess.  It also has Olympia Dukakis and Joan Jett.  The new-to-me Will Harris starred as the bad guy.

Let me tell you, this movie is worth every penny of $4 and then some.  It wasn't exactly the same as the original story by Stephen King (from Full Dark, No Stars) but it was close enough.  In fact, it scared me even more in some places than the story did....and that's saying something.

No, it's not the very best movie based on a Stephen King story ever.  The Stand or Shawshank Redemption are better, but this one had me on the edge of my seat for the full 1.5 hours and I only hope I don't have nightmares tonight!!  I give this a full ten stars.

Splintered by A. G. Howard

Title:  Splintered
Author:  A. G. Howard
Pages:  371
Genre:  YA Fantasy
Publisher:  Amulet, 2013
Series:  Splintered, Book 1

Synopsis: This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl's pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers - precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother's mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice's tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice's mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

Review:  Well, this story is certainly original.  Alyssa's great-great-great grandmother was Alice Liddell.  Her grandmother was supposedly insane.  Her mother is in an asylum.  And Alyssa hears bugs talking to her.

The dark Wonderland is like a nightmare.  It didn't sound very much like a place I'd want to visit, but it was a place I very much enjoyed reading about.

Jeb is over-protective and bossy.  Morpheus is lying and sneaky.  But, somehow, Alyssa loves them both.  The detailed descriptions of what everyone is wearing made me wonder if I'd stumbled into a fashion magazine without realizing it.  The teen angst and sappy love scenes left me feeling like I'd eaten too much sugar.  That being said, the story was pure fantasy and while I didn't much care for most of the characters, I am a sucker for original fantasy stories.

I'm going to give the second book a try.  Since I've been told Splintered is the best of the series, I'm a little afraid to.

Rating:  5.5 / 10

A Good Marriage - The Movie

I found the movie A Good Marriage on Netflix.  It stars Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia.  It's based on the story A Good Marriage from Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King.  It's not exactly the same as the book version, but it has all the same horrible believability as the written work.  I thought the book version was better, but the movie is worth watching.

I give it 4.5 stars.  If they'd stuck closer to the original story, I think they'd have been better off.

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

Title:  The Almost Moon
Author:  Alice Sebold
Pages:  304
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Back Bay, 2007
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis: A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky.

For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.

Review:  This book is dark.  It's darker than dark.  It opens with the main character, Helen, confessing that she's killed her mother.  It goes on to describe her life, both past and present, and it's not a pretty picture.  There are almost no characters in this story who are not broken.  And none of the characters are especially likable.  In fact, some of them I ended up disliking immensely.  The only really likable characters you meet are Mr. Forrest, a neighbor, and Helen's daughter, Sarah, who has been obviously hurt by the life she's led.

This is a look into mental illness and the long-term effects it has on the family.  It is stark and awful and completely believable.  It raises the question of genes versus environment and brought me to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter how mental illness is caused.  That it is passed on is all that really matters.

I cannot say I loved this book as much as I did The Lovely Bones.  I can say that it was incredibly intense and I'm very glad I read it.  There is hope, in the end, I thought.  Hope that maybe the next generation will be better than the one previous.

Rating:  8 / 10

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Title:  Full Dark, No Stars
Author:  Stephen King
Pages:  368
Genre:  Horror
Publisher:  Scribner, 2010
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis:  Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of four intense short stories with retribution as the central theme. Released in the fall of 2010 in hardcover and audiobook formats, Full Dark, No Stars is a powerful read featuring some of Stephen's most graphic and merciless content to date. ~ From StephenKing.com

Review:  Four stories, all of them unforgettable.  The stories included are:  1922, Big Driver, A Good Marriage, and Fair Extension.

I think I loved them all equally, but 1922 was the most gruesome, while A Good Marriage was the most completely believable, while Big Driver scared me the most.  I understand that Big Driver and A Good Marriage have been made into movies, which I'll probably see very soon.  For the most part, I can't watch a movie until I've read the book.  There are exceptions, but this is pretty much the rule.

Mr. King is at his best when writing about things that really are partially mundane and partially horrific.  In this group of stories, he does it again and I couldn't put the book down for just about the entire weekend.

Rating:  9 / 10  

Weaveworld by Clive Barker

Title:  Weaveworld
Author:  Clive Barker
Pages:  584
Genre:  Fantasy / Horror
Publisher:  Poseidon, 1987
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis:  Here is storytelling on a grand scale — the stuff of which a classic is made. Weaveworld begins with a rug — a wondrous, magnificent rug — into which a world has been woven. It is the world of the Seerkind, a people more ancient than man, who possesses raptures — the power to make magic. In the last century they were hunted down by an unspeakable horror known as the Scourge, and, threatened with annihilation, they worked their strongest raptures to weave themselves and their culture into a rug for safekeeping. Since then, the rug has been guarded by human caretakers.

The last of the caretakers has just died.

Vying for possession of the rug is a spectrum of unforgettable characters: Suzanna, granddaughter of the last caretaker, who feels the pull of the Weaveworld long before she knows the extent of her own powers; Calhoun Mooney, a pigeon-raising clerk who finds the world he's always dreamed of in a fleeting glimpse of the rug; Immacolata, an exiled Seerkind witch intent on destroying her race even if it means calling back the Scourge; and her sidekick, Shadwell, the Salesman, who will sell the Weaveworld to the highest bidder.

In the course of the novel the rug is unwoven, and we travel deep into the glorious raptures of the Weaveworld before we witness the final, cataclysmic struggle for its possession.

Review:  This is the third time I've read this novel.  I borrowed it from the library and read it sometime in the late 1980's and was captured by the dark fantasy and hope that is this story.  I read it again about 8 years ago when I got a very good hardback edition to add to my collection and I still loved it, although not quite as much as I remembered.  I finished it again today and, while it's still one of the best dark fantasy novels out there, I think I've read it for the last time.  Some books just don't work for multiple re-reads and this is one of them, at least for me.

The magic is still there and I still want Weaveworld to be a real place, but I'm going to find a new home for this book.  However, I'm giving it the rating I would have given it the first time around, if I'd been rating books back then.  This story is well worth finding and reading, especially the first time around.

Rating:  9.5 / 10

What An Animal Reading Challenge IX ~ Wrap-Up

Well, I finished the What An Animal Challenge IX (hosted by Yvonne at Socrates' Book Reviews) today.  I got Level 4 (read 21 or more books with or about or with pictures of animals).

I saw everything from a Demon, to Beshti (space camels), to a Selkie -- eight different types of animals in all!  Dogs were the animal I saw the most often, in eight different books.  Dragons came in second place.  I think the animal character I liked the most was Manchee, a dog from The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.  But I met so many wonderful (and sometimes scary!) critters that it is a hard choice.

Either way, this challenge was fun and it's only May and I'm done.  I had no idea I read so many books with animals in them!  I'll probably keep tracking just to see how far I get though!