163/200

Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen

Finn is a socially awkward 15-year-old who wants to spend his summer quietly avoiding people. But when his neighbor Johanna steps into the picture everything changes. Johanna is battling cancer and Finn, along with his friend Matthew, find themselves joining the battle - whether they mean to or not. This book was a fast read and almost seemed too short. I would've liked to stay with Finn a while longer.

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162/200

Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I need to stop reading short stories. They just don't do anything for me. And these stories just made me feel sad.

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161/200

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Eh. Going into this book I was expecting something amazing like The Handmaid's Tale. I was disappointed. For one thing I was not as riveted as THT. I felt myself slogging through the chapters. I found the characters boring and not at all compelling. I didn't really care what happened to them. I cared about Grace to an extent, but when it is revealed that she did, in fact, commit the murder but under a split personality, I felt kind of cheated. I was also a little confused. This could very well be because I had been skimming in an effort to just be done with the book already. But I just didn't feel invested and I wanted it to be over already.

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160/200

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am a little surprised that this book is rated as high as it is. It isn't a bad book by any means, but I don't think it was 4+ worthy. I felt like the main character, Remy, tried to be a bad girl, but all of her bad girl cred was from the past that the reader only gets mention of. For some reason I noticed that the characters kept saying things "flatly." I guess the bottom line is that I really didn't care too much about the characters. Remy's mom seems clueless, Remy's friends are forgettable, and there seem to be so many of them that I can't keep track. Dexter and his bandmates just seemed annoying to me. I think this book may have just been a little too young adult for my tastes. Not a bad book, just didn't interest me as much as it could have.

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159/200

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The back of this book says something along the lines of how the book is divided into two stories, one from the past and one from the present. The person writing the review writes something about how the latter is their favorite of the two. I took this as a bad sign. It was totally true that the story involving the murder and the present day of the church was far more interesting than the story of the 19th wife of the past. Every time I got to the other story, I groaned a little that it was still talking about that. Overall, I thought it was quite interesting to read about the polygamous lifestyle. I thought the book was longwinded though, and I was glad to be done with it by the end.

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158/200

Knit Two by Kate Jacobs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book in that I wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen. In fact, I liked it better than the first book. However, there were so many pieces that were nauseatingly predictable. And I am typically terrible with that. I thought Anita was extra annoying this book, and I found the whole thing with her sister to be silly. What's with the blank postcards? I was at the part with the party at Marco's and I was thinking, "Thank God her sister isn't one of the relatives or something." Two pages later: meh. When Rosie went upstairs to use the bathroom, I was thinking, "I sure hope she remembers to turn the water off." Bleh. So it was grotesquely predictable, I think, but I still enjoyed it as a chick lit.

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157/200

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 3 of 5 stars I'm not really sure how to feel about this. I put off reading HP for a loooonngg time. When I started reading it, I thought, "Hey, this isn't half bad." But towards the end I just got tired of the magic and the broomsticks and the spells. And this book is only 300 pages, which is nothing compared to the rest. I just don't know if I am cut out for wizardry. I liked the beginning, when Harry is rescued by his dreadful relatives that are forced to "take care" of him. I wonder if I will like the series more once it gets more grown up. At this point, I am not sure if I will continue, although I probably will eventually so I can call myself a true book lover! View all my reviews >>