Kristin

This book reminded me why I do not read this genre. I thought I would just try to enjoy a light Christmas-y read but instead I just kept getting angry at the hateful characters. Ugh. I do not recommend unless this is your thing.

Another “why did I bother” romance novel. I think I have learned my lesson now. Just because a book has the word Christmas in the title does not mean I will automatically enjoy it. Apparently, it also does not mean that the book will actually take place at Christmastime, because this one doesn't until the last few chapters.

I received this in a Goodreads giveaway, so thanks, Goodreads!

I had not heard of the Tales of the City series before, let alone read them, but I'm so glad to have read this one! At times, I did feel a little out of the loop, but I can't blame that on anyone but myself for reading this one before its prequels. That aside, I really enjoyed this book. The characters are interesting and there is plenty of drama and action to keep the story moving. I had guessed parts of the ending, but I was still sort of blindsided by a lot of it, which is something I LOVE in a book.

If you already love Tales of the City, this is a great addition to the series (I've heard it stays very true to the rest of books). If you haven't, I think it's worth checking out. I'll probably try to read the rest of them (in order!) at some point.

When Zoomy, a young boy who is legally blind, comes to own a mysterious notebook, a series of events is set into place that change how he feels about family, friendship, and history.

I found the beginning of this book extremely entertaining. I was intrigued by Zoomy's interesting narrative style and by his description of his life. Due to his blindness, he has a unique way of seeing the world. Baillett also gives the reader glimpses into two other storylines that are related to Zoomy's life, including a paper containing clues to a mysterious figure from history. Although I think the historical person was revealed too early on in the book (all was revealed at the midway point) it was an uncommon and effective strategy of imparting facts about a person children know fairly little about. Don't want to give away any spoilers!

Not sure what it is about this series that had me so hooked. Normally, the snobby part of my brain cares very much about things like writing quality and clarity and mistakes in the text. Occasionally, there comes a story so enthralling that the excellence, or lack thereof, of the storytelling matters little. The Maze Runner series is one of those stories.

That said, yes, there were things that bothered me in this book. There were too many action scenes that I dragged myself through to get to the dialogue, which was lacking. Apparently, of paramount importance to Dashner was that his readers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Thomas, Newt, and Minho are friends. Message received, sir. No need to shove that in my face every few chapters. It would have been nicer if there had been more dialogue among the three to prove it.

I did, for the most part, like the way the ending wrapped up. I'm a sucker for a “big reveal” type ending and while that didn't quite happen (there was not that much to be revealed by the end) there were some nice touches in the end. I was a tad melancholy as I was finishing, knowing this would be the end. If there's a better indication of a good book, I don't know what it is.

A young boy sees monsters everywhere but his parents never see them. Isn't that always the way?
My first grade boys in clinic LOVED this book. It was one of the first books we read and they told me weeks later that it was their favorite book of the summer. It was a bit of a challenging read for them so I read it to them while they followed along in their own copies. The book is entertaining and the pictures are great. Highly recommended for young reluctant readers. Will definitely buy and teach again should the opportunity arise.

In this installment of the Percy Jackson series, Percy must rescue his friend Annabeth from the clutches of the power hungry Kronos. He teams up with many old and new characters in his quest which takes him across the United States. This book is just as entertaining as the ones before it. The series is thoroughly enjoyable and readable. I love that Riordan does not really water down a lot of the violence. People die in this book and sometimes they are the wrong people. Some of the good guys go down and some of the bad guys don't. It's very real but still very kid friendly.

Eeee...kind of one of those that I'm not quite sure I even want people to know I read it, let alone gave it three stars. When I say the premise out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but trust me, it works here. The characters were interesting, if a little one-dimensional, and I could choke down the theory while still keeping it at arm's length because it's pretty crazy. I've never read Kathy Reichs's other stuff but I think I might like it.

I confess that I didn't like this installment as much as Big Woods. I really enjoyed the addition of Mr. Edwards. I felt I could see Laura growing little by little in this book, moving from reluctantly giving up her Indian beads to helping her sickly/dying family in a time of great need. I am hopeful that the next setting will be more like the big woods and less like the prairie!

For about a week, my sister and I became re-obsessed with the Amanda Knox trial. I checked this book out of the library not really intending to read the whole thing. When I first started reading it, I could barely put it down. There's something so compelling about the case that I can't help but study everything I can on it. I am also intrigued by the fact that nobody knows for sure what happened (except maybe the murderer(s), but even he/she/they probably only remember the night through a drugged up haze). This book offered the most realistic and logical account I have seen on what probably happened that night. If you are at all interested in this case, you might want to check out this book.

I hate to give half stars because I feel like that's a slippery slope, but seriously this is more like 3.5. A pretty classic dystopian scenario with a romance undercurrent. Much of a dystopian plot points were very similar to the background of [b:The Giver 3636 The Giver (The Giver, #1) Lois Lowry http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266448651s/3636.jpg 2543234] but it really didn't bother me too much because I think it's still a very interesting concept to explore and it held my interest. The casual descriptions of Society were more enjoyable than the romance part for me because I generally don't like angsty who-should-I-pick ramblings (I don't want to be Team Peeta or Team Jacob or Team Anything except Team USA). I also thought the characters were pretty well developed and showed growth throughout the book, especially Cassia.Read if you enjoyed The Giver but won't be overly offended by some pretty bold rip-offs.

I received this as a Christmas gift and read it within 48 hours of opening it. I loved most of the stories (there are 7!) with my least favorite being “Steak for Supper.” A few of the stories had elements that were reused in the good doctor's later works, including whole lines of text, but that didn't bother me so much. I would recommend this to any Dr. Seuss fan and I look forward to reading these aloud to my class. “The Great Henry McBride” on career day, anyone?

I'm definitely jumping on the young adult dystopia novel bandwagon. I found this book as hard to put down as [b:The Maze Runner 6186357 The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1) James Dashner http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nsLLtEfdL.SL75.jpg 6366642], the first in the series. I did not like the setting as much and the new characters made my blood boil (I don't even know why I hate them, I think I'm supposed to like them) but I still found it impossible to stay away from this book for too long. It was extremely suspenseful and even terrifying at times. It's going to be a long wait for The Death Cure which doesn't come out until October!

I really only read this because I used to love Richard Peck. I can't believe the guy who wrote [b:A Long Way from Chicago 39963 A Long Way from Chicago Richard Peck http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VVT0Z2BWL.SL75.jpg 1207111] wrote this. Just doesn't compute.This was a strange book. A bit creepy, but if you like scary stories you won't be impressed. Not really recommended to anyone.

In the city of Jewel, children are physically connected by a chain to an adult at all times (except at night when they're chained to the bed). They are released from their bonds on their Separation Day. On one particular Separation Day, something goes wrong and Goldie, the heroine of the story, finds herself unchained and runs away. She joins up with an eclectic gang of softy criminals in the Museum of Dunt and adventures ensue, etc, etc.After my experience with [b:Incarceron 332775 Incarceron (Incarceron, #1) Catherine Fisher http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51baJ9ujjcL.SL75.jpg 323310] I should learn to avoid books with buildings that may or may not have a mind of their own. This book did nothing for me. I thought it would be a fun dystopia story but it was really quite boring. Also, I take offense at the word “spit” being thrust upon me so often in the name of “Toadspit” because I really hate the word “spit” but I understand that is a personal problem that should have no bearing on the amount of stars a book deserves. But it really does only deserve 2 stars. Read only if you want to feel better about how overprotective your parents are. I guarantee the parents in this book are worse.

This was required reading for teachers this summer. It's been on my list and my bookshelf since college but I never had the motivation to read it because it looks like a textbook. I had heard so much hype about this book that I'm sorry to report I was disappointed. The whole time I felt like someone was trying to sell me something that I already had. It does have some neato ideas but probably nothing I couldn't have come up with on my own. It's filled with MANY pithy sayings about how great teaching is and it did inspire me to hit the ground running in my own classroom. I'll probably consult it once or twice throughout the year but I don't expect it to be the Teaching Bible it's been pitched as (to me, on multiple occasions).

I'm still searching for a Christopher Moore book as good as Lamb. Stupidest Angel was a cute story with some laugh-out-loud parts. It wasn't the best Christmas book I read this season, but it certainly wasn't the worst. I'm not sure I'd buy it or read it again, but I did enjoy reading it this year.

I don't know what to say about this book. Sometimes I really enjoyed reading it and other times I felt ambivalent toward it. The family's craziness makes for a compelling read most of the time and it works even better because the reader knows it's all true. I think I may have missed the point of this book about how family should stick together because I kept wanting to shout at the kids, “Get out and leave your crazy parents behind!” There's not a lot to like about the parents in this story, which may be part of the reason I'm not over the moon about it as many people are. I really need to care about the characters and most of the time in this case I just didn't.

On a very hot summer day, Dog makes many attempts to get cool with people and animals around him but he finds he cannot cool off like everyone else.
This lesson was a complete flop. The book is a very easy read and thus it is light on content so I had trouble coming up with things to teach. This was also in my text-specific stage so most of what I did with the students was boring and text-based. Not sure how I would change it for next time but I do like the book for emergent readers.

I found this a suspenseful and moderately compelling read that nevertheless falls a bit flat. The writing was repetitive but not dull. The multiple perspectives were interesting but I think the reader could have benefited from the parents' perspectives a little earlier in the book. As it is, by the time the parents chime in, it feels a little random and seemingly comes out of nowhere. Recommended for girls who like suspense but not violence.

I finished this book a few days ago, but it's going to end up being my last review of 2011, so I'm sorry to send the year out on such a mediocre note.

Simply put, Mockingjay was not as strong as the other two in the series. Some of it was action packed to the point of confusion and some of it was downright draggy. I've never been a big fan of the three-way love triangle in this series so the fact that this book really played that up was a problem for me. I enjoyed reading it because the characters matter to me, (except Katniss because I found her insufferable in this installment) but that's a strength from the previous two books.

All in all, this is a definite read if you've read the first two books. I do recommend you read those, though, so I guess it's inevitable that you'll have to read this one eventually!

Definitely my least favorite of the Crank trilogy. Worth the read if you've read the other two, but be warned that it's not nearly as addictive or intense. This book doesn't focus on Kristina. It's about her offspring and it's a speculation of what might happen based on the past and the personalities of the characters. I really enjoyed the ending but it was kind of a long haul to get there. There were some nice warm fuzzies to read about Kristina's whole family having Christmas dinner together.

I have complained about this series pretty much the whole way through, but I almost think the final book makes the other nine worth it. This totally changed my perspective of the whole thing. Also, I don't think it's possible to read 10 books about the same characters and not come to care for them at least a little bit, which was the position I found myself in at the end of this book.

I think I'm going to read Cahills vs. Vespers too. Yikes, now the Internet knows.

I was disappointed by this one. Mina's somewhat precocious writing voice was cute at first but got old. She has quite the imagination–she has this whole story cooked up about how her family is the Lincoln family reincarnated. It grew annoying pretty quickly. I also thought her dad was a pretty despicable guy masquerading as a kindhearted activist. Most of the time his heart was in the right place despite his cringe-worthy comments about race but around Carla he made me totally uncomfortable. I can't see myself recommending this, especially to anyone in its intended audience.

This is not nearly as good as the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The beginning was good and got me really excited for the book. The ending was epic and also very entertaining. The large majority of the book is not so great. The worst part by far for me was the way the characters were written. I spent a big part of the book absolutely hating the main children, Carter and Sadie. I felt they were rude and silly and not at all like the likeable characters Riordan has created before. In fact, I think the only character I actually liked was Bast.

Additionally, the Egyptian gods seem pretty pathetic compared with the Greek gods. I think Riordan was going for the same sort of thing as in his previous series but I just didn't feel it this time.

All that said, it wasn't terrible. I will probably read everything Riordan ever writes because the Percy Jackson series was spot on.