Tara

Reviewer Note: I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. I have not received any financial compensation in exchange for a review. This review may contain spoilers.

Lunchmeat tells the story of Victor Ferraro, a Jewish-Italian boy living in New Jersey, from 1997 to 2009, grades 1 through 12. Victor, Vito/Vic, is a young boy obsessed with stories about knights and chivalry, fascinated with a TV evangelist, and curious about everything. The book follows Victor as he navigates childhood, family, friends, and the very awful bully, Pierce Stone. His love of knights puts him on his own “holy” quest, the search for Hell. Along the way, Victor will learn about popularity, puberty, the opposite sex, drugs, and importance of family. The story reaches an explosive end that leaves the reader speculating about Victor's future downward spiral.

When the story opens, Victor is a young and innocent 6 year old, a first grader, who loves his older brother, Tony, and looks up to his best friend and neighbor Karl Geiger. Victor has a younger sister, Brittney, who is autistic and responds to life with Disney movie quotes and her best friend is a toy horse named Marlene. Victor's father works for the school district, but interestingly while we know his mother works, we do not know what her career is or where it is, all Victor says is that “they” don't know where his mom works. It is in Part One of the book that the reader first hears about Victor's search for Hell, a place he quests for the same way King Arthur's men quested for the Holy Grail. At one point, he thinks he has found Hell, but the place he and a group of boys venture to is merely a field near a parking lot. Part One closes with Victor surviving second grade, still enamored with knights and still searching for Hell. He joined other boys in competitive games of Pokémon and did his best to avoid his arch-nemesis, Pierce Stone.

In Parts Two and Three, Victor experiences the tragedy of September 11, 2001, goes through puberty, develops a growing curiosity and interest in girls, becomes a very good athlete, encounters drugs and alcohol, and continues his search for Hell. In Middle School, Victor has to make new friends, as his guide and protector Karl is attending a different school. In High School, Victor has to navigate the fears of an unplanned pregnancy and a relationship that rocks between loving and volatile on a fairly regular basis. It's while protecting his sister that he discovers what and where Hell is.

I have mixed feelings about this story. I really enjoyed Part One of the book. I found Victor to be very endearing and sweet, probably due to his naivete and curiosity. The bullying he suffers from Pierce Stone is awful, yet he never teases Pierce for wetting his pants when their group encounters a terrifying snake. Karl Geiger is a wonderful friend to Victor, he's the one who protects Victor from Pierce's teasing and bullying, and he's the one who patiently answers Victor's questions about life. Parts Two and Three were a little harder for me to get into. As Victor aged, I found my interest in him decreasing. I still found some of his more innocent moments, a few different scenes involving middle school girls and his confusion when agreeing to “date” these girls were humorous. His growing fascination with the TV evangelist was interesting and it helped to support his search for Hell. By the time Victor got to high school (Part Three), I had lost much of my interest in him and had almost forgotten about the search for Hell. The book ended very rapidly and I had to reread the last few pages to make sure I understood what happened.

I think this book was very well written and, while I did not enjoy all of it, that will not prevent me from reading more books by Ben D'Alessio. I did lose interest in the story the older the main character got, and by the end of the book, I just did not like him nor really care about him. The way the book ended bothered me to some degree; it was a very fast escalation from calm to murderous rage, but given the path Victor's life took, I was not surprised by his actions at the end. While I did not enjoy this book the further I got into it, I do like and appreciate the way the author told the story. He humanized his characters, they seemed like people you could encounter during the course of your own life, and that is what will bring me back to the author's other works.

This was a free e-book at BN.com so I figured “what the hay, I'll check it out”. It's a self-published work by this author. Although the topic was interesting (being able to repeat one particular day in your life in the hopes of correcting it), I found the story itself pretty depressing. It seemed that the chapters jumped around a lot, and there were several times where I wasn't quite sure how the story got from one place to another. I rarely make comments about grammar and punctuation, but the lack of proofreading and editing did interfere in a smooth reading experience. There were several places where sentences did not make sense and I had to mentally add a word (or two) to make it sound right in my head.

I do think this author should continue her writing. According to the “about the author” info at the end of the story, she's currently in college. This story has a lot of promise and would greatly benefit from proofreading and editing. Since she's at college, I'm sure there's an English professor or two who might be willing to assist with the editing process.

I took a writing class from Jack Cady my junior year of college and he was awesome. He was a gruff, weathered man who didn't care what others thought of him or his writing. He was my favorite instructor in college and I was so honored when he offered to read some of my writing and offer me advice. He gave me really great advice: keep working on my colon/semicolon use. He thought I was very publishable, and I've been writing with that advice in my head ever since. I have yet to publish, but my first published work will be dedicated to the memory of Jack Cady (unfortunately, he lost his battle to cancer several years ago so he'll never get to read my novel).

This book touched me very deeply and I was overwhelmed by how open Jessica Queller was with her very personal experience. I'm still kind of reeling from it.

Jessica Queller was a 35 year old writer for the hit TV show Gilmore Girls when she was struck a mighty blow – she tested positive for the BRCA-1 gene mutation, which meant she had an 87% chance of getting breast cancer and a 44% chance of getting ovarian cancer by age 50. She faced the very personal decision – prevent the cancer by having a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy and oompherectomy or undergo aggressive surveillance for cancer every 6 months for the rest of her life.

Jessica and her sister Danielle, along with their father Fred, helped their mother fight breast cancer and then helplessly watched as their mother Stephanie, died from ovarian cancer. Jessica was prompted by a doctor cousin to go ahead and get tested for the gene mutation that would indicate the possibility of breast cancer. When she tested positive for BRCA-1 she was overwhelmed. Jessica began a lengthy research adventure to learn her options as well as gain strength from friends and family as she determined what to do with this new information.

At the time Jessica found out she was positive, she was single and had no children. The idea of removing her breasts and ovaries was very concerning for her – what man would want a woman who had no breasts and no ovaries? Jessica began meeting other women who had either tested positive or were in the middle of fighting their own breast cancer. She made her decision, have the prophylactic bilateral mastectomy and eventually have the oompherectomy (but first have a child or 2 – even on her own – before removing the ovaries). Jessica then wrote an Op-Ed piece that appeared in the New York Times about her mother's battles with cancer as well as her own pre-vivor battle and all the information she was able to find. She was met with an overwhelming response from women who wished her luck and felt great sympathy for her but were also amazed by the decision she had made. The decision to have the mastectomy turns out to be a good one when the doctor tells her she did have pre-cancer cells in her breast tissues. At the time she wrote the book (2008), she was still single at age 37 but was looking forward to having a child before removing the ovaries.

Jessica's courage flows throughout the book. Her fears over a future without breasts and ovaries are very honest and upfront. She does not take on the issue of cancer and surgery lightly and she did a lot of research on her own as well as had many discussions with a lot of doctors before she made her decision. She also found a lot of support from her friends and family, as well as strangers she met over the course of her journey. To me, she is courageous and brave. I don't know if I would have the strength or the courage to forge that road. She found strength on the website FORCE and she grew into a whole new person. As a single woman, I sympathized with her dating dramas and her fears of what a man would think of her post-surgery; cancer has deeply affected my own family. I found myself crying throughout most of this book, some of those tears were out of sadness (the scene where Jessica and Danielle find out their mother has died was heartbreaking) and some tears of joy (the birth of Jessica's nephew).

This is a book I would recommend to anyone, it doesn't matter if your life has been touched by cancer or not, read this book. She is fresh and upfront and honest and I found that to be so wonderful. I rarely read memoirs, but this is one that I think I could read repeatedly and learn something new from it every time.

I saw Jenny McCarthy talking about this book on Oprah so I bought it. I have not read any of Jenny's other books, but I was very interested in learning how autism effected her life.

I have to say, Jenny McCarthy is a very dedicated mother who was going to stop at nothing to find out what was wrong with her son and how to “fix” it. I thought her journey, from the initial incorrect diagnosis to the numerous breakthroughs Evan completed was both heartbreaking and hopeful.

At age 2.5, Evan is discovered in his room seizing and Jenny immediately is thrust into a world of terror and incorrect medical diagnoses until she begins to push for the answers. The road leading to Evan's diagnosis of autism is a difficult one, with Jenny fighting with her pediatrician and a neurologist, who both think his problems are epilepsy and do not feel it is necessary to do any other tests. Jenny's marriage becomes more strained as the months go by and she discovers that her and her husband have very different ways of dealing with the stress of Evan's illness.

Jenny, finally, arrives in the office of a very brilliant doctor who takes one look at Evan and tells Jenny he's autistic, not epileptic, and he begins a new treatment for Evan as well as encourages her to continue to fight for her son. She does. She uses Google for research and meets other mothers with autistic children, and finds hope in their stories.

Jenny is very upfront and in your face with this story, and she is very honest. I remember Jenny from her MTV days and never realized there was more to her than that MTV persona. This book gave me a completely new idea/opinion of her as well as gave her all of my respect. I think anyone, whether they have children or not, would learn a lot about life, faith, love, and autism from this book. I do not have children of my own, but one day I might and with the statistics being so high, 1 in 150 diagnosed with autism, I think it would be absolutely ridiculous for me to put my head in the sand and think “It won't be my child”. It pays to be diligent in the world of parenting, and Jenny was very diligent. She brought her son through some very dark days and he is getting better. Her love and her faith helped her pull through those hard days and nights. Her strength is something I envy and it is that strength that I think all autistic children and parents of autistic children need from those around them: their friends and family. That's definitely the message I got.

This book was a free e-book on the B&N website and the summary intrigued me. I read this book in about 3 days, mainly while commuting back and forth to work and really enjoyed it. This is the story of Edith, a lively and adventurous 22 year old, preparing for her sister, Delaney's wedding. She decides to head to the hotel where the wedding will take place a week before everyone else, so she can have some time to relax, as her sister is a bit of a nightmare (Delaney gives a whole new meaning to the term Bridezilla). While at the hotel, Edith runs into a good friend Mac, who is there for a conference and meets his co-worker, Jake, who is overwhelmed by Edith's beauty and strength. Through the scheming of Edith's mother, Elaine, and Mac (and Mac's mother) Edith ends up taking Jake as her date to her sister's wedding. Things heat up between Edith and Jake, resulting an ending that made me smile and do a little cheer.

This is a very short e-book and moves along quickly. It takes place over a short period of time, the week leading upto Delaney's wedding. Edith's family, mainly her sister and mother, are overwhelming in many ways, especially Delaney. I have seen some episodes of the TLC show, Bridezillas, and even many of those women at their worse werent' as bad as Delaney, and the main thing that makes Delaney so horrible is the way she treats Edith. She is degrading, insulting and belittling to her younger sister, which made my heart break for Edith. At one point, Jake has to step in to protect Edith from Delaney as she verbally destroys her younger sister. Delaney is an extremely ungrateful character.

Jake and Edith have a relationship that develops very quickly, but it doesn't seem forced or unrealistic. The phrase “when you know, you know” rolled through my head as things played out between Jake and Edith. Jake is sincere, sensitive and completely inlove with Edith, which was remarkable. If there are men like Jake out there, I'd certainly like to know where they are hiding.

Being that this was a quick read, I felt the ending was very good. It didn't seem forced or hurried to me, but it did seem inevitable. I thought “well, of course that's how it ends, duh”, so it wasn't any kind of big surprise at all (but it did make me smile). Edith was a likeable character and it was very easy for me to relate to her. Elaine, Edith's mother, seemed to me to be the stereotypical mother of the bride, in that she wants everything to go well for her daughter on her big day, but I also thought Elaine was a bit spineless when it came to Delaney's actions and treatment of Edith. Delaney – well, there's nothing good to say about this character. Mac was very funny and a good friend to both Jake and Edith. As I said above, if there are men out there like Jake, I'd love to meet them. He was almost too good to be true, but I do have friends who would say Jake is very much like their own significant others.

I'd recommend this book if you want something quick, girly and has a happy ending.

I received an advanced copy of this book and immediately fell into the story. The characters were easy for me to relate to and the secret that mother and daughter shared was the kind of nightmarish reality that I think many people worry about. I don't want to give away anything, but I would recommend this book to anyone.

I just finished this book this past weekend. I have to say this was a splendid novel. There have been times when I just was so angry with my sister, I thought my head would pop off and I think the author does a wonderful job of detailing those things that just irritate us about our siblings, while also examining the strength of blood even after a betrayal.

That being said, here's a short summary: Eve and Kerry are twin sisters raised solely by their father since the age of 6. When tragedy strikes, the girls must face the responsibilities of the adult world while also trying to complete high school. They also have to deal with the ups and downs of love, sex, betrayal, and loss. The story occurs in the 1990s and in the year 2007, which I think works very well for helping move the story along and show how these two sisters are able to put their past behind them and forgive each other.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone. It was a well written story from a new author and I look forward to reading more by her in the future.

There is something so blasphemous about this book and yet I just laughed from page 1 to the end!

I was raised in a Christian household and knew the story of Jesus forwards and backwards. Or at least I thought I did. Now, I try not to take myself to seriously and I try to maintain a certain amount of humor about my faith and religion as a whole. This book made me bust a gut and there were several times when just a little of “pee” came out, that's how hard I was laughing.

I happened upon this book at a “going out of business sale” at my favorite Colorado Springs indy bookstore: The Chinook. After reading the back cover and learning that this is the story of Jesus as told by his best friend from childhood, Bif, I decided to buy and see what happens. From my knowledge of the Bible, I know that there is a gap in ages for Jesus – we see him as a child and then we see him as a man of about age 30. “Lamb” fills in the gap by providing the reader with the adventures of Jesus and his best friend Bif, leading up to his the day he meets his 12 disciples and is crucified. The reader is introduced to a young Mary Magdalene, who is sweet and beautiful and very much the fantasy of young Bif. As Jesus and Bif journey through childhood and puberty, on their way to Jesus' destiny, they travel the world and meet various people.

This is a fun imagining of the years of Jesus' life that are not mentioned in the Bible. The author has managed to maintain the divinity of Jesus but has also made him a not so typical human being with a divine future at hand. Bif is downright hilarious (and lewd and crude and way too horny) and makes a good foil to the goodness of young Jesus. It's good for a laugh!

When I am in a bookstore I have a tendency to just wander around until a book jumps out at me. On occasion, I will go to the bookstore with the intention of purchasing a specific book, but most of the time I just like to wander and see what jumps out at me.




That's how I came across the book Captive by Clara Rojas. I was wandering around the bookstore, drinking some wonderfully pomegranate flavored tea when I came across this memoir. I kind of run hot/cold on memoirs, finding some of them to be really quite wonderful and others to be really quite self-centered, but I grabbed this book from the shelf and looked at it. At the bottom of the front cover it says “2,147 Days of Terror in the Colombian Jungle”. Well, that made me flip the book to the back cover to read about this book, which I promptly added to my growing stack of books.

Captive is the story of Clara Rojas' kidnapping by the Colombian guerrilla army, FARC, and the years she spent held as their hostage. Rojas was kidnapped in 2002, along with her then friend Ingrid Betancourt, and was held until 2008, when a negotiation mediated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba resulted in the release of Clara Rojas, Consuelo Gonzales and Rojas' young son, Emmanuel (whom she conceived and delivered in the jungle while held in captivity). This book was translated from Spanish to English by Adriana V. Lopez (I don't really know if that makes any kind of difference to a reader, it certainly doesn't make a difference to me, I love reading works by authors from all over the world and I am greatly appreciative of the fact that there are people out there who can translate their works for me to enjoy). Rojas lays out the details of her captivity with clarity and, in my opinion, honesty. She is very real about how she felt during those years as a hostage of the FARC and in many ways I think this made her perseverance more amazing to me.

The book begins with what she was doing the day before she was kidnapped and then moves forward to her life after release. Unlike some memoirs, where the author takes you on a daily or even weekly trip with them, Rojas tells her story according to the theme of the chapter. Each chapter is titled, things like “The Day Before the Kidnapping” or “Doubt and Anxiety” or “Pastimes”, and within that chapter the story followed the the idea presented in the title. I liked that presentation of her story, it presented her story on several layers and gave a good picture of what the hostages did at each camp they were held at.

After finishing this book on July 20, 2011, I felt a lot of things. I was glued to this story, Rojas' is a very strong woman, I think. I don't know if I'd be able to hold up as well if I were to be in that same situation. I guess you never know just how strong you are until. . . I don't know, I guess until that's all you have. Clara Rojas was strong on many levels while in captivity. I definitely believe her faith and belief in God helped see her through days that could have resulted in a weaker person taking their own life to end the pain. Hope, she had a lot of that. She hoped to one day see her mother and brother and the rest of her family. She hoped to one day be free and away from that hot jungle. I believe that faith and hope can get a person very far in this world, it's when you lose all hope and all faith, that you're soul dies. That's my own personal belief, and I think in some ways reading about Ms. Rojas' captivity, it made me look at my own beliefs in a way.

I believe she is strong, and as a strong woman she was able to survive her ordeal by remaining hopeful. There were definitely points where she fell into a depression, who wouldn't? In her case, I think those times of depression only resulted in strengthening her resolve to remain hopeful and believe that God was with her and would take care of her. That's some pretty strong belief right there. I admire that about her, actually. I admire that her faith figured so strongly for her during the 6 years she was held by the FARC. I honestly don't know if I would be able to find that strength in my own faith. My religious beliefs waiver on many occasions and at this point in time, I'm rebuilding my own beliefs and figuring out what where God is in my life and quite possibly where I am in His/Hers.

Clara Rojas' friendship with Ingrid Betancourt fell apart while they were captives, which is unfortunate, but maybe it was also for the best. I wonder if, in some ways, if this was a friendship that fits in the “reasons, seasons, lifetime” type of process. Possibly this was a friendship for a reason – Rojas was an attorney who worked on Betancourt's political campaign and they were both from the same party? Possibly this was a friendship for a season – political allies traveling together through FARC controlled territory to discuss party issues with allies in another Colombian city? I don't know, but I don't think this was a friendship that was meant to be a lifetime one. The way Clara describes the discussions she had with Ingrid leading up to the day they were kidnapped, it did not seem to me that these were two women who shared a sisterly type of love and friendship for one another. I could be wrong, of course. Although I think it is for the best that their friendship ended, I was saddened by the pain that Rojas felt as their friendship fell apart. It is always painful to lose a friend and I can sympathize with Rojas as she lost the only friend she had in the jungle. Overall, by the end of the ordeal, Clara shows herself to be the bigger person when it came to Ingrid.

I was curious about the fact that she gave birth to a son in the middle of the jungle and wondered for most of the book how it happened. Not so much how she got pregnant, I know all about the birds and the bees, but more wondering if there was going to be some kind of love story wrapped into this captivity story. I couldn't really imagine falling in love with someone in the middle of something so stressful as a hostage crisis, but stranger things have happened to people and since I'm not in her shoes, I can't really say I know anything about it anyway. The thing I have to say I respect and admire about this particular part of her story is that she chooses to keep it private. She does not, as she relates the story of her pregnancy and harrowing delivery, go into detail about how she came to be pregnant, she does not reveal the identity of the father, does not indicate if he was a guerrilla or a fellow hostage. What she does is say that she has decided to leave the details of her pregnancy for a time when her son, Emmanuel, approaches her and asks. I like that. It makes sense, because, honestly, it's none of my business how she came to be pregnant, what is my business is what is on the page and I respect that she is choosing not to tell me anything more. She manages to survive an unexpected pregnancy at the age of 39 in the middle of the Colombian jungle and delivers with little medical comfort – a male nurse, a female nurse and a group of guerrillas providing light and support. Here's the kicker – due to complications, her son is brought into this world in a hut by Cesarean section while she is heavily sedated, and a single 100 watt light bulb shining over them. I realize there are people out there who will say “women have been giving birth much longer than there's been doctors and modern medicine and hospitals” but really? No woman should have to be delivered by C-section by a nurse in the middle of a jungle while being held against her will, and yet that's what happened to Clara Rojas and it's pretty amazing that she and her son survived.

At that point in the book, I had to go online and see if I could find a picture of her and her son. I was curious to see them. On the cover of the book, there is a small picture of her, but I wanted a better one. I actually wanted to see her smiling, I thought “I bet she has one of those smiles that feels like the warmth of the sun upon your skin”. I was right too. She does. There are several pictures of her alone as well as pictures of her with her son and her family (the family ones are from when she arrived in Venezuela after her release). She does have a warm smile. The birth of her son is a miracle really, given the little medical resources that were available. After his birth, she continues to push forward, wanting to live and survive for her son and her mother, because she knew one day she'd be with her mother again. Hope. Faith. Strength.

Unfortunately, young Emmanuel becomes ill and after attempting to deal with the parasitic infection he gets from a bug bite, he is taken away from Clara to be treated. He was only 8 months old when they took him away from her, and she wouldn't see him again until close to his 4th birthday. Now that's what I call heartbreaking, and she definitely was heartbroken but she still had that strength of spirit or strength of will, but she knew that she'd see him again. This is a woman that the word “pessimism” is not in the vocabulary for. Neither is “skepticism”. Through the efforts of President Hugo Chavez and Senator Piedad Cordoba, the hostages discovered that Clara and Consuelo would be released to the Red Cross International, as well as Emmanuel, and they would be sent to Venezuela to be reunited with their families. Her hope and faith and strength saw her through to the day she'd been praying for, but of course it was going to take awhile for her to actually taste sweet freedom, but not once did I get the impression that she didn't realize this either. She was practical and realistic, while remaining hopeful in the knowledge that she would soon be out of that jungle and safe with her family. How can someone not lose their mind at the thought of being free? I think I would have gone crazy in the days leading up to my freedom, especially since there was no specific date set. But, she remained calm outwardly (she does admit that she rejoiced inwardly, thanking God repeatedly), and she just made sure she was prepared because at any moment the Commandante could tell her she was leaving to go home. The days leading up to freedom coincided with the Christmas and New Year's holidays and each day, as people around the world were eagerly looking forward towards opening presents and welcoming in a new year with new possibilities, she was looking forward to a day when she would see her son and mother again, and be able to taste the sweetness of freedom.

I am an emotional person and, while I was able to maintain most of my calm while reading her story, I have to admit I fought back tears as she related what it was like seeing the Red Cross International helicopters and flying out of the jungle towards the Colombian/Venezuelan border, leaving the copters and getting on a plane to be reunited with her family, scanning the crowd to find her mother as the plane taxied to a stop. All of that just made my heart leap and tears came to my eyes. I think she probably downplayed just how wonderful she felt as she landed and was able to actually touch her mother and her nieces and brother and cousins. She was surrounded by media as she was reunited with her family, but it doesn't seem like they were suffocating. Maybe that's how she chose to report it, maybe they really weren't all that suffocating, I don't know. I mean, I've seen on the news how the media can rush at someone to get comments, but I've also seen how the media maintains a respectful distance in some situations, so maybe the media did it that way, remained at a respectful distance and just snapped pictures and waited patiently for her to give a press conference. I kind of think not though. Anyway, it was the way Clara was greeted by her family that tore at my heart. She said she saw her mother who was now using a walker (she hadn't been using one the last time Clara saw her, so I'm sure it was a shock) and her mother took her face in her hands and looked at her. Oh, tug at my heartstrings, why don't you? I will admit, tears fell when I read about being reunited with her son, who thankfully had been delivered into the hands of the Colombian child welfare services organization and had been treated for his infection and was well fed and healthy by the time she saw him. This is just happy ending all around, really.

Based on how Clara Rojas ends her book, where she talks about being able to forgive those who held her and her son captive, and being able to move forward with her life and returning to a normal life, I have to say she came out of this remarkably intact. Her soul was not destroyed and she has learned something that so many of us don't always truly learn – how to forgive those who have hurt us. It's not easy being able to forgive someone for a wrong they have done against us, and I would think that being held captive for 6 years and being separated from your own child for 4 years would qualify for an unforgivable act, yet she has forgiven her captors. She has dedicated her life to fighting for what she believes is right, working to release more hostages from the FARC, as well as working to improve child welfare and the environment. I admire her, on a lot of levels. If I could end up with a tenth of the strength this woman has, I'd consider myself pretty lucky. I am adding Ms. Rojas to my list of people I admire and who have had an impact on me. I don't think her story is one that I am going to forget, ever, but I think it will stick with me for quite some time. This is an example of strength of the human spirit, and I'm glad to have been able to learn about it.

To Ms. Clara Rojas, I am humbled by your story and wish to send my thoughts and prayers to you and your son, Emmanuel. I hope your continued efforts to release more hostages are so successful that one day you won't have to work so hard because there won't be any hostages! Bless you, Ms. Rojas! I hope one day, I may meet you and tell you in person just how remarkable I think you are.

I won this book in a drawing on the author's blog. I received it free in electronic form and was able to easily download it to my Nook. I have to say I LOVED IT! The story was really heartwarming and romantic (I realize that might sound cheesy, but I had warm fuzzy feelings all day from this book). This is a novella about finding your true love after 20 years, and it definitely reaffirmed my opinion that true love does exist.

Kelly and Brandon reconnect over Facebook and feelings they had 20 years before come bubbling to the service. There's a lot of things that happen in the story, and it's presented both in present time and in 2nd/3rd grades. I found that it was very easy to relate to Kelly, both in the present time period and when she was being tormented by girls at her school. Kelly is a very strong character, well written and three dimensional. I don't want to write too much cause I don't want to ruin it for anyone else. I will say I really enjoyed this book and had fun reading it!

I really enjoyed this book until the end. The epilogue didn't really give me anything, as far as closure. I really wanted to know more about what happened with the characters and their journey to Rome, but it just sort of ended. I'm hoping that this is actually part of a series and the second book will pick up where the first one left off, but at this moment I do not know if there is a sequel.

The nitpicky stuff: there were some grammar issues which sometimes hung me up, but for the most part it was well written.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any financial compensation or reward for this review. This review may contain SPOILERS

Individutopia follows the life of an Individual named Renee, as she survives living, working, and competing in London, a large city filled with thousands of other Individuals who are also living, working, and competing. Renee only interacts with her avatar images, created by her at various stages of her life. She is able to monitor her debt and order all the products she needs through a feed she sees in special lenses called Plenses. Her avatars cheer for her, keeping her motivated to be the best Individual she can be, as she interviews for jobs and competes with other Individuals to rise up in the ranks of the workforce. Then, one day, something goes wrong and this one incident puts her on a path to let go of her individualism and seek out companions and relationships, things she has never had. This path leads her outside of London to an unfamiliar territory where she has to learn how to live as part of a society. Living within a society changes her in ways she didn't expect.

I was intrigued by the plot of the story and it did not disappoint. The London society Renee lives in is all about the individual. Renee only interacts with the avatars she has made and has never met or spent time with any of the people she's competing against. At the beginning of the story, we are informed of Renee's debt and how the debt system works within this society that isn't a society. The individuals living in the city are charged various amounts for doing basic everyday things, such as steps taken or breaths inhaled. It's difficult to know what London looks like since Renee's vision is affected by special lenses she wears, called Plenses. The Plenses allow her to see her own avatars as she interviews for jobs on a daily basis. When she makes money from various jobs performed, her debt goes down, but it immediately goes back up as she buys necessities like food and hygiene products, very much like our current society. We earn, we spend, we spend a lot of time on our cell phones and on social media, and maybe not enough time with real people.

Renee's life starts to change when she destroys a kettle, and it throws her off the track she's on. This destruction and the following confusion it causes in her head leads to her leaving London in search of others who want to be with her. She doesn't have a word for what she is looking for, all she knows is that she wants to find another Individual that wants to be with her – two Individuals existing together. Renee is a good example of our own society – for all of the time we spend on our cellphones interacting with social media, we spend less time with others, but deep down there is a part of us that desires to be with other people. Renee discovers this desire and seeks out a society of people, and begins to learn what it is like to share with others, cooperate within a group, and how to feel real emotions for other people.

I think this book is a thought-provoking exploration of society and the impact technology and social media has on our lives. We spend a lot of time interacting with the world through Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media sites, that our vision becomes distorted. We see the world through a false lens, impacted by the seemingly perfect lives others share on their social media feeds. It's when we put down the phones and spend time with other people, that our lives become richer. That is exactly what happens to Renee.

A short note about the closure of the book: throughout the book, Renee steps over a homeless man living on the street outside of her “pod”. At the end of the book, we discover who this man is and why he's on the street rather than being a part of the Individutopia of London. It was not something I expected. I also was surprised by the reveal of the omniscient Narrator, also not what I expected.

Overall, I found this story entertaining and a creative example of what society becomes when each member of that society focuses on individual needs instead of the good of the whole.

I just finished reading this book and it definitely was a page turner. I have never read Tess Gerritsen before, and knew nothing about her, but I'm glad I picked this book up.

This is the story about 1830 Boston and present day Boston, and how the lives of people in the past and present collide. In 1830 Boston, the city is rocked with a series of murders by a killer the press has called The West End Reaper. In present day, a woman discovers a body in her yard as she working the soil. This body leads her to search through boxes of the previous owner of her home, along with the help of her previous owner's brother. They discovers articles and letters relating to the West End Reaper murders.

The 1830s portion of the book focuses on young medical students, including Oliver Wendell Holmes who later wrote a medical journal/discovery that doctors would prevent the spread of disease by (here's a shocking idea) washing their hands, and a group of students struggling to learn the profession as well as defend themselves from the rumors that the West End Reaper is possibly a doctor.

The characters are very easy to relate to and easy to fall in love with. I loved Norris and Rose from 1830 Boston, and Julia, Henry and Tom in present day Boston. I haven't read very many books where the past and present blended so well together, but Tess Gerritsen does a marvelous job of mixing the two and combining the lives of her characters, past and present.

I got this book out of sheer curiosity. What was my education missing, I wondered. This isn't the kind of book where you have to read it from front cover to back, page by page. You can jump around and start where ever you want. It's a fun book. There were topics I remembered learning in school but had forgotten about and then there were topics that I didn't remember learning about at all. I am still reading this book, I just jump around between the different subjects. If only school had been this fun.

Marked is the first book in the House of Night series, written by mother/daughter team P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. I picked up this series after it was recommended to me by Amazon.com, because I ordered the entire Twilight Saga series. I wanted to let a little bit of time (a couple months) pass after completing the last book in the Twilight Saga before starting to read this series, so I would have a fresh mind. I have to say that I really enjoyed this first book in the series. I'm very excited to read the rest of the series.

Marked is about teen Zoey Redbird who receives the mark of the vampyre while at school. Vampyres (this is the spelling the authors use) are fairly common in society in this story and most humans have managed to live side by side with them, admiring and fearing them at the same time. When Zoey receives the crescent moon mark, she must leave her home and move to the vampyre school, The House of Night. As a fledgling vampyre, she is introduced to a whole new way of living: attending school from 8pm to 4am, participating in the nightly ritual calling for the favor of the Vampyre Goddess Nyx and surviving the typical teenage drama (boys, bullies, popularity, and just trying to “fit in”).

I thought the teenage “voice” of the characters was extremely authentic. Both of the authors are very familiar with the teen “voice”: P.C. is a high school teacher and Kristin is currently in college. I was able to relate to Zoey's experiences as the new student as well. I was always a new student growing up, moving around every 3 years, but there always seemed to be a group of kids at each of my new schools, who opened their circle to me and accepted me. Like me, Zoey is also welcomed by a small group of friends and thus finds a bit of relief in the drama-filled world of high school (even if it is a vampyre high school).

I just started the second book in the series and I'm very excited to read more of Zoey's adventures.