Second Bookses
It's like second breakfast. Only with books.
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews August 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/coming-unbound
Colonist's Wife
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews August 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/colonists-wife
I need to preface this review by saying I have not yet seen the movie version of this book, and am wary of doing so because the book was such a terrific experience, and I can't quite picture Bradley Cooper as the main character (although, oddly enough, even with the age difference, I can easily see Jennifer Lawrence as her character).As The Silver Linings Playbook opens, Pat Peoples is living with his parents after a stint in a psychiatric hospital. He has no job; his mother doles out his medication as if he were still in the hospital, and he works out frequently as part of his plan to get back together with his wife, Nikki, at the end of "apart time."Along the way, he reconnects with an old friend, who introduces him to his sister-in-law, Tiffany, who is having problems of her own after the death of her husband. Pat and Tiffany form a tentative friendship, but the closer he gets to Tiffany, the more Pat realizes there's more going on than his family has been telling him.What makes The Silver Linings Playbook such an incredible book isn't the plot -- it isn't really all that complicated, and you will probably see the big twist coming from a mile away -- but the realistic portrayal of how those with mental illness are treated by their families and friends. Pat's narration is almost childlike in its simplicity; he talks about his separation from his wife as "apart time" and has simplified his plan to get back together with his wife to an almost toddler-like rote schedule.Tiffany, on the other hand, is bristly, and where Pat is coddled and too protected by his family, Tiffany's family views her as a ticking time bomb. Quick has given her a vulnerability that pokes through even in the moments when you most want to hate her. Her treatment of Pat is raw, but at the same time, it's the desperation of two people trying to swim to the surface against the tide of their families' efforts to keep them in their niches of the "mentally unstable family member."
Loved. 4.5 Stars. Reviewed for RT Book Reviews June 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/tiger-magic
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/crazy-blood
Caged Warrior (Dragon Kings)
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/caged-warrior
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/perfect-mate
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/my-boyfriend
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/bride-midnight
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/mourning-hours
Love Letters Volume 3: Wicked Whispers
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews July 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/love-letters-volume-3-wicked-whispers
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews June 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/miss-chatterley
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews June 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/miss-chatterley
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews June 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/miss-chatterley
Reviewed for RT Book Reviews June 2013 issue: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/miss-chatterley
The promise of Ten Thousand Saints was huge to me: a period piece that dealt with Straight Edge, a culture I've been curious about for ages (though not enough to actually try it).The set-up is perfect; two kids getting high on anything that holds still long enough, and one ends up dead. Jude has to make sense of his life after his friend dies, and he gets involved with Straight Edge as a result. It's a morality tale without getting too moral, and a way to show how someone who once fed his addictions with substance abuse switches that same personality to a life where he eschews everything he once did.Had the book stuck to this story, it could have been brilliant. However, it involves several messy subplots with hippie parents coming to grips with things and a teen pregnancy that complicates things even further, and makes the story less about Jude and more about everything BUT Jude, and his story gets lost in the muddle.
Currently reading
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography
Diary of a Submissive: A Modern True Tale of Sexual Awakening
Bellman & Black
Deep into the Heart of a Rose
