Book: Warm Bodies

 Book: Warm Bodies

Author: Isaac Marion

Pages: 256

This is my 35th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

"R" is a zombie.  He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams.  He is a little different from his fellow Dead.  Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl.  Her name is Julie an she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape.  For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.  This has never happened before.  It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave.  He wants to breathe again, he wants to live and Julie wants to help him. But their grim rotting world won't be changed without a fight.

This was a pretty good book.  I have seen the movie a few times and really like it.  The book and the movie are pretty similar so no surprises here.  But it was decently written and the story flows well. I like R and Julie.  There is good character development there.  Story is sweet and this is a first book in the series, so it ends with a "Sort of" cliff hanger, but enough of a wrap up that you could stop here and be satisfied.

Stars: 4

Book: Brigadoon

 Book: Brigadoon

Author: Alan Jay Lerner

Pages: 56

This is my 34th read for the year

This is the musical - yes.  It is on the Rory Gilmore reading challenge, so I grabbed it to "read".  It is mostly the songs, but the story is in there too.  It is one of my favorite musicals, so it was fun.

Stars: 4

Book: Mabuhay!

Book: Mabuhay!

Author: Zachary Sterling

Pages: 240

This is my 33rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Can two kids save the world and work their family food truck?  First-generation Filipino siblings JJ and Althea struggle to belong at school.  JJ wants to fit in with the crowd, while Althea wants to be accepted as she is.  To make matters worse, they have to help their parents run the family food truck by dressing up as a dancing pig and passing out samples.  And their mom is always pointing out lessons from Filipino folklore - annoying tales they've heard again and again.  But when witches, ogres, and other creatures from those same stories threaten their family, JJ and Althea realize that the folklore may be more real than they'd suspected.  Can they embrace who they really are and save their family?

This book was not well written.  I KNOW it is a kids graphic novel (and I read it for a reading challenge where a food truck needed to be on the cover), but reading many many of these over the years with Finley - there are much better GNs out there for this age group.  Not well written, the character development wasn't there, and I just wanted to get through it.

Stars: 2

 

 Book: Red Rising

Author: Pierce Brown

Pages: 416

This is my 32nd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future.  Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.  Yet he toils willingly, trusting that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.  But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed.  Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago.  Vast cities and lush wilds spread across the planet.  Darrow - and Reds like him - are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.  Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power.  He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class.  There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies - even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

To start - this is pretty deep Sci Fi.  And while I am a fan, this is a bit futher than I was interested in to continue the series.  I liked Darrow.  I liked the twist - didn't see that coming.  Once he discovered the secret and he infiltrated the "enemy", it lost me a bit.  It moves very fast - even for a 400 page book.  Too many adversaries  It is Darrow's point of view for the whole book which actually got a bit tiresome.  I didn't love the writing style.  The world building was interesting, but not enough to make me want to continue with book 2.

Stars: 3

Book: The Snow Child

 Book: The Snow Child

Author: Eowyn Ivey

Pages: 389

This is my 31st book of the year

What Amazon says:

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel.  Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair.  In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of the snow.  The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.  This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods.  She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness.  As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, tey come to love her as their own daughter.  But in this beautiful, violent place things are arely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

This was an okay book.  I liked the beginning and the idea.  But as the story progressed, and definitely the end was just okay.  Ending got predictable and was underwhelming.  In the beginning the characters were well developed and the mystery of Fiana was intriguing.  But one the mystery was solved and then Fiana enters a relationship with a neighborhood boy, I lost interest.  I am glad I read it, but I wouldn't really recommend it.

Stars: 3

Book: The Traveling Cat Chronicles

 Book: The Traveling Cat Chronicles

Author: Hiro Arikawa

Pages: 288

This is my 30th read for the year

What Amazon says:

With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends.  Or so Nana is led to believe.  With his crooked tail - a sign of good fortune - and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray.  And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude of loyalty and love.

This was a great little book.  It is a fast read - the book is very short in stature so 288 pages flew by.  The story is sweet with the cat and Satoru - traveling to find the cat a new home.  It is pretty obvious from the beginning why the search, but it isn't until near the end when it is revealed.  It is well written an the characters are great.  Glad I read it.

Stars: 4

Book: History of the Nashobah Praying Indians

 Book: History of the Nashobah Praying Indians

Author: Daniel Boudillion

Pages: 192

This is my 29th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Littleton, Massachusetts was originally the Praying Indian Plantation of Nashobah.  Prior to 1654 it was the Native village of Nashope under Chief Tahattawan, a Massachusett Federation Sagamore.  For the first time ever, the history of the Nashobah Praying Indians is told here in full, from 1654 to 1736.  It is a story of suffering and loss, of a people who kept both their faith and heritage in the face of encroachment, war, and disease.  The book begins at the roots of the Praying Indian experiment, follows the doing and sifferings through King Phillip's war and Deer Island, and the long decline afterwards as the Plantation was sold off bit by bit, eventually to become the town of Littleton.  It has been more than 280 years since Wunnuhhew (Sarah Doublet), the last of the Nashobah Praying Indians that lived in Nashobah, passed away, and the Plantation was lost.  Here her story, and the story of all the Nashobah Praying Indians told in full for the first time.  The Nashobah Praying Indians are alive and well in the world, and are still Praying Indians more than 350 years later.  This is their story.

This was a pretty good book.  I am a little biased because I live in Littleton and walk the Sarah Doublet forest often.  I knew a little of the history, but this book is so much more.  We get a good indepth history of the land, the people, and Sarah herself.  I learned so much that as soon as our weather turns for the better, I want to seek out some of these spots, and rewalk the forest with a different view.  He did an excellent job with the writing and the history.  Glad I found this one.

Stars: 4.5