Oh, post apocalyptic novels, how I love thee. What kind of phase is this? I can’t seem to get enough. (I am getting killer tips for prepping and food storage though, ha ha.) One Second After covers the fall of American civilization as we know it after an electromagnetic pulse blast [...]
Category Archives: Contemporary
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
January 26, 2010 – 4:26 am
The Help follows three women, two Black maids and one White woman in Mississipi in the racially heated 1960’s. It is well written and full of emotion. I really enjoyed reading their stories and read it in one sitting. I was a little concerned about a White author talking in a Black [...]
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
January 12, 2010 – 12:40 am
Ender’s game is set in a future world where humanity is in a war with an alien race of giant bugs. Genius children have been bread and molded to become the greatest military leaders and win the war. This is my first Orson Scott Card book and I liked it. He writes [...]
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
January 5, 2010 – 12:01 am
Alas Babylon follows a group of survivors in a small town in Florida after the USA and USSR launch their nukes in a MAD war. I liked this book. On one hand I thought it felt dated, and on the other hand I really enjoyed peeking into the mindset of 1960 and the [...]
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
December 29, 2009 – 10:28 pm
Foundation is the first novel in the foundation series. The Galactic Empire is about to fail and Hari Seldon and the new science of psychohistory are attempting to save all human knowledge and bring humanity through the resulting dark ages. I am split on my feelings about this book. I have just [...]
The Cinderella Pact a novel by Sarah Strohmeyer
December 1, 2009 – 4:35 pm
The main character of this novel (written in first person) is overweight and living a double life. The double life thing has been done and done, but I have honestly never read a book with a chubby main character. I liked that part. I’m really sick of reading books with skinny perfect women taking the [...]
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
October 22, 2009 – 6:48 am
I absolutely fell in love with this book. It has been a long time since I finished a book and wanted to immediately start reading it again. The Red Tent follows the life of Dinah from the Old Testament. From her mother’s lives through her own childhood and to the end of [...]
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
October 18, 2009 – 6:41 am
I enjoyed this book. The Hunger Games is a very quick read and a real page turner. Set in a near future dystopia after the fall of the United States of America, a young girl and boy from the 12th district in the nation of Panem must compete in a death match type [...]
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
October 7, 2009 – 4:24 am
This book follows two sisters as their lives change through tragedy and the decline of the world as we know it. Have I mentioned before I’m an apocalypse junkie? This book is a fairly easy read. It isn’t split into traditional chapters but flows more as a diary. I think the [...]
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
September 21, 2009 – 10:58 am
Wow. This book has a lot of impact. This is a story about the love between a father and son in a post-apocalyptic world. They only have each other and must keep moving on the road. I have seldom read a book that more perfectly combines raw terror and simple heart [...]
The Stranger by Albert Camus
September 17, 2009 – 6:34 am
I am undecided on my feelings for this book. I was looking for books that explore philosophical concepts and was recommended this book as a starting place for existentialism. After doing some research on the author I discovered he had refused the existential label. Published in 1942, The Stranger chronicles a young [...]
The Children of Men by P.D. James
September 15, 2009 – 6:31 am
This book was well written and very thought provoking. I find myself still working over some of the moral dilemmas given in the book days after reading it. The year is 2021 and the human race is preparing for the end of civilization after worldwide infertility extinguished the ability to procreate in [...]
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
September 8, 2009 – 9:15 am
I seriously enjoyed this book. Written in the style of a classic Gothic melodrama this novel has a little bit of everything. Layer upon layer of mystery, danger, and tragic love. Set in Barcelona during the Franco dictatorship, this book follows the mysteries of a book touched by destiny, the author [...]
The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson
September 4, 2009 – 2:51 am
I liked this book. It was entertaining and a quick read. The book follows two women’s stories, one set in London in the present day and one set in Cornwall in 1625. I liked the idea of the two parallel stories, but I found Julia and the present day story more of [...]
Sleep No More by Greg Iles
September 3, 2009 – 8:14 am
This book is not bad. I’m not a huge fan of suspense novels (anymore) but I did go through a big suspense phase a while back and this one is pretty good. It is a fatal attraction type story based on a supernatural premise. If you can say sure, I believe [...]
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
September 2, 2009 – 1:18 am
A frightening dystopian novel. The story is compelling and the characters are well developed. You don’t have to be a feminist to relate to the themes of women’s rights. Thankfully we can stop reading and say, I’m glad we don’t live in a world like that today. Oh, wait, yes we do. There are lots [...]
Tell it to the Skies a novel by Erica James
August 26, 2009 – 6:39 pm
I have been putting off posting this one for a while. I have to say, I fell in love with this novel. Which is part of the reason I didn’t want to post it. What if other people read it and thought it was a waste of time? That shouldn’t matter to me, it really [...]
Literacy and Longing in L.A. a novel by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
August 20, 2009 – 11:50 pm
A long hot shower and books. Those are my weaknesses, at least the ones that come to mind at the moment. But they are in the wrong order. Books come before showers, literally usually. And it doesn’t need to be a good book. I can make due with lack lustre books with pitiful plot lines. [...]
Lavinia a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin
July 18, 2009 – 1:22 pm
How do I describe this one? I’ve never read anything quite like it before. The story was told by Lavinia as someone would tell a story. She kept switching from a flashback to the present and then she would skip ahead to the end. At first I found it confusing and a little disorienting, but [...]
Emergency by Neil Strauss
March 24, 2009 – 11:00 pm
I really enjoyed this book. It was a perfect blend of easy reading humor and useful information. I will preface this review by saying I have a strong bias towards survival books of any kind since I am a bit of an appocolypse junkie. I found some of the information in Emergency was common sense [...]
Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern
February 10, 2009 – 7:51 am
I would call this book slightly better than average but mostly forgettable. Sorry Cecelia Ahern, I really tried to like it. Read it if you are in the mood for a light hearted romantic comedy with well written, colloquial irish humor. Don’t read it if you want something more than skin deep, a premise that [...]
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a fable by John Boyne
January 11, 2009 – 4:46 am
This little story is written in the point of view of a nine year old little boy. The boy is named Bruno and he has an innocent and simple way of viewing the world. The story takes place in Nazi Germany. Bruno’s father works for “the fury”. He is taken to a place in the [...]
Wit’s End a novel by Karen Joy Fowler
September 7, 2008 – 6:45 pm
I really enjoyed reading most of this novel. The characters were well developed, and the writing was full of wit. Fowler used a somewhat omnisceint narrator. It was mostly told through the point of view of the main character Rita, but then occasionally we would be privy to the thoughts of Rita’s god mother. Although [...]
A Golden Age a novel by Tahmima Anam
August 6, 2008 – 10:53 pm
This is the story of a woman’s life. It is beautifully written and drew me in from the start. The backdrop to the novel is a civil war in East Pakistan (now called Bangladesh). It is a story of war and sacrifice. It was a real page turner but was also graphic in it’s descriptions. [...]
The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes
April 30, 2008 – 9:36 am
I loved this book. I loved it as a study of the free market vs government intervention, and also for the examples it provides on how individuals can be the greatest factor in a strong economy. It makes you wonder when the mentality of spending economic problems away and printing the value of the dollar [...]
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
April 30, 2008 – 9:29 am
Hosseini does a remarkable job of bringing the hardships of war to life. I was seriously impressed with his ability to write authentic women. I appreciated the honesty, even when dealing with brutality, and how the author stills ends on a note of hope. I would have liked to have see a [...]
Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
February 5, 2008 – 9:46 am
This is a thoughtful and engaging book about a young girl struggling with a socially debilitating disorder in Kentucky in the 1950’s. I enjoyed the writing style and soon became lost in another place and time. I thought the colloquial dialog was slightly repetitive, but that was easy to forgive. Icy’s character [...]
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
December 19, 2007 – 4:34 pm
This is a novel in a different sense. A work of non-fiction which follows a real event as closely as possible by bringing together all clues and evidence left behind. There were many things I enjoyed about this book. The life and death of Chris McCandless, his quest for freedom and discovery of the human [...]
Scandalmonger by William Safire
December 17, 2007 – 4:26 pm
This book follows the politics and scandals of the newly formed United States government in the late 1800’s. Much of the book is focused on the role of journalism and the hardships of sedition laws. Though technically historical fiction, much of the dialogue between Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe are drawn from their [...]
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
December 17, 2007 – 4:25 pm
This book was fantastic. It was fantastic as an eloquent, entertaining work of fiction as well as a deeper set of life values and an introduction to the study of objectivism. Now that being said, I don’t agree with every thought or idea of this book. That is partly why this book was so wonderful [...]
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund
December 17, 2007 – 4:24 pm
A beautifully written, vibrant, and intimate account of Marie Antoinette. A thoroughly engaging piece of historical fiction. I really enjoyed reading this book and was pleasantly surprised by the personal focus instead of a recitation of economic and political factors. I think the writing was as decadent as the subject it describes. With an [...]
Charlie’s Monument by Blaine M. Yorgason
December 17, 2007 – 4:22 pm
I didn’t really enjoy this book. I will say from the beginning that I mostly liked the message, just not the book. The book is very short and it does not go any farther than the surface for character development. Everything is just told or explained, and most characters and descriptions come across as flat [...]
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
August 13, 2006 – 9:53 pm
I loved this book. There were so many different themes in this book. To name a few, love, mother daughter relationships, motherless daughters, race, human rights, family, and of course… bees. This novel was amazing to read. I took my own truckload of emotions into this book so that probably changed the way that I [...]
On the Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark
August 9, 2006 – 9:06 pm
I was walking through the Library and I couldn’t figure out what to read when I saw the Mary Higgins Clark section. The titles seemed catchy to I picked one that wasn’t a Christmas one and left. I thought I should at least try one of her books. That same trip to the library I [...]
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
February 2, 2006 – 4:52 pm
This book is about Japanese Americans living in California during WWII shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It shows how they were sent to internment camps in the Utah desert. The father of the story has a nondescript job that sends him all over the world before the war. Shortly after Pearl Harbour he [...]