• The Submission by Amy Waldman
• The Midwife’s Confession by Diane Chamberlain
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
• Allah, Liberty and Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom by Irshad Manj
• The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Caroline Mackler
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
• The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
• How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue
• The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Have you read any of these?  Discussed them with your book club?  Help me decide what to vote for!

Summary via Goodreads:

“The body you are wearing used to be mine.” So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.

She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.

In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

My Top 10 Reasons for Liking The Rook:

10) It’s a good thriller, with secret agents, characters with questionable loyalties, and multiple action sequences. Myfanwy (she explains that it rhymes with Tiffany) can really kick butt!

9) The world building was very complete, and although the basic concept isn’t at all new (people among us with special powers, and a secret branch of government to deal with the problems among them), I did feel like this was a new approach.

8) Crazy cool bad guys. Having special powers helps make more than run of the mill evildoers.

7) The setup (Myfanwy waking up unaware of who she is, and making sense of the life her body had been living) was quite clever, and I felt it pulled together through the book.

6) The method of communicating Myfanwy’s back story worked well for the characters in the book and me as a reader.

5) I loved Myfanwy and I love the person that wakes up in Myfanwy’s body, trying to figure out who she is and what happened to her. And when you have someone that starts out as a blank slate, character growth is practically guaranteed!

4) The supporting characters were a great part of the book. Myfanwy’s assistant Ingrid was so unflappable, and reminded me of someone that I used to work with. The other members of the Checquy, their American counterparts, the people Myfanwy meets outside of work… they all contribute to the book.

3) Humor that made me laugh out loud because it popped up in the most unexpected places.

2) All the pieces came together into a darn good story.

1) Superheroes, acting like adults! Complete with politics, personalities, job conflicts, and (don’t forget) butt kicking! What’s not to like?

I really enjoyed reading this book, and hope there are more to come.

Thank you to Little, Brown for sending me this book for review.

This was a cute piece of Jane Austen related fluff. I went into it looking for nothing more than that, and at first, I thought I wouldn’t be disappointed. And perhaps I shouldn’t have been disappointed in the last half, either.

Summary via Goodreads:

Fledgling illustrator and Darcy fanatic Kay Ashton settles in the seaside town of Lyme to finish her book, The Illustrated Mr. Darcy, when a film company arrives to make a new adaptation of Persuasion. Kay is soon falling for the handsome bad boy actor playing Captain Wentworth, but it’s the quiet screenwriter Adam Craig who has more in common with her beloved Mr. Darcy. Though still healing from a broken heart, Adam finds himself unexpectedly in love with Kay, but it will take more than good intentions to convince her that her real happy ending is with him.

Certainly, the Jane Austen references were lots of fun. Since the book revolved around the production of a movie version of Persuasion, those are the ones that I was expecting, but many more elements were borrowed from Emma, which I am immensely more fond of. These aspects are responsible for lifting the book from 3 to 3.5 stars, and were enough to leave me happy that I read the book.

I’m satisfied with the plot, which primarily needed to frame the Jane Austen references and the characters themselves.

My problems with Dreaming of Mr. Darcy are all in the characters, which are really what I read books like this for.

All of the characters were somewhat flatter than I’d like– not enough to be fatal to the book, but not well rounded enough for me to care what Gemma decides to do about her movie career, or to be surprised by the twist near the end (which I did see coming, there was no other reason for some of the material setting it up to be there).

But really, I just didn’t like Kay. Granted, many of her flaws were patterned after Emma, but Emma had a little more texture to her, and just never felt quite so clueless to me.

Kay is star struck, and when she meets the actor playing the object of her dreams, the fantasies fly. That’s not a problem, although the direction her fantasies went didn’t resonate with me. It’s where she goes with them that doesn’t work for me. If she’d pursued them with a real sense of laughing at herself while doing so, I could have loved her for it. But as it was (and I don’t want to give too much away)she just wasn’t my kind of heroine.

Beyond that, I never felt the chemistry between Adam and Kay. I liked him well enough, but just didn’t feel what he was feeling for her,in spite of being told it was happening.

I can see this book working much better for someone else, someone that values following your dreams, wherever they take you.

I received this book for review from the publisher.  Thank you, Sourcebooks!

• Matched (Matched #1) by Ally Condie
• The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner #2) by James Dashner
  The Death Cure (Maze Runner #3) by James Dashner
• In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth
• Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg
• Where She Went (If I Stay #2) by Gayle Forman
• Pies & Prejudice (The Mother-Daughter Book Club #4) by Heather Vogel Frederick
• Stormbreaker (Alex Rider #1) by Anthony Horowitz
• Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe *reviewed on this blog*
• Aurelia (Aurelia #1) by Anne Osterlund
• The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2) by Rick Riordan
• The Time-Traveling Fashionista by Bianca Turetsky

The two novellas were both fast fun reads.

Summary via goodreads:

Love is in the air this Christmas!

Christy was hoping to skip Christmas this year. Her kids have other ideas – they’ve put their dad’s name at number one on their Christmas list. So it looks as if Christy will be hightailing it up to the Lake District to play happy families with her ex!

Snow-capped mountains and roaring log fires – Alessandro’s home is like walking into a Christmas card. Is it really safe for her to spend Christmas with her dreamy, funny – no! – entirely infuriating ex-hubby?

Miranda has completely the opposite problem. Being single and pregnant at Christmas was certainly not her wish come true. She doesn’t believe in miracles, but then resident hunk Jake sweeps her off her snow-covered shoes. Come Boxing Day dare she dream that Mr Sex-on-Legs might be for more than just Christmas?

The first was a romance within an on-the-rocks relationship, and (taken as fluff) it was very entertaining. A highly volatile couple, a precocious kid, and a heavy dose of wish fulfillment to top it off.

I admit, I was more interested in the characters in the second story. Jake was introduced in the first story, and this good looking guy (who is very in tune with women and what they want) is my kind of romance hero. I liked the wounded (but recovering) Miranda as well, and I enjoyed getting to know them as they got to know each other.

Both of these stories were perfect as novellas, which gave just enough time to get to know the characters and the situations, then have them resolve without unnecessarily complex obstacles. Whether in front of a winter fire or as an escape from a hot summer day, these winter stories are an enjoyable getaway.

I read this book as an electronic review copy via NetGalley.  Thank you to the publisher for allowing me access.

Summary via goodreads.com:

LAPD lieutenant detective Decker and his wife, Rina, have willingly welcomed fifteen-year-old Gabriel Whitman, the son of a troubled former friend, into their home. While the enigmatic teen seems to be adapting easily, Decker knows only too well the secrets adolescents keep—witnessed by the tragic suicide of another teen, Gregory Hesse, a student at Bell and Wakefield, one of the city’s most exclusive prep schools.

Gregory’s mother, Wendy, refuses to believe her son shot himself and convinces Decker to look deeper. What he finds disturbs him. The gun used in the tragedy was stolen—evidence that propels him to launch a full investigation with his trusted team, Sergeant Marge Dunn and Detective Scott Oliver. But the case becomes darkly complicated by the suicide of another Bell and Wakefield student—a death that leads them to uncover an especially nasty group of rich and privileged students with a predilection for guns and violence. Decker thought he understood kids, yet the closer he and his team get to the truth, the clearer it becomes that he knows very little about them, including his own charge, Gabe. The son of a gangster and an absent parent, the boy has had a life filled with too much free time, too many unexplained absences, and too little adult supervision.

Before it’s over, the case and all its terrifying ramifications will take Decker and his detectives down a dark alley of twisted allegiances and unholy alliances, culminating at a heart-stopping point of no return

I’ve been a fan of this series for many, many years. As sometimes happens with long-running series, I’ve lost track of it a bit. When I started reading this book, I was surprised at all that has happened since I last visited Peter Decker, Rina Lazarus and family. I checked and saw that I’ve missed two books, which I need to go back and fill in.

I’m impressed at how Faye Kellerman keeps shifting the focus of the series to keep it fresh,while still remaining true to the characters. There’s only so much character growth any one or two characters can reasonably have! Over the course of 20 books, the focus has gone from religious, professional, personal, and family. She’s looked at other family members (most memorably, Decker’s daughter, who is also a police officer). Here, the focus is on a foster child, one that came to live with the family in one of the books that I missed.

I really liked Gabriel, who was simultaneously very, very young (when it comes to his love life) and much, much older (when it comes to his music, and to knowledge of the seamy side of the world.) He’s Romeo to a very naive Juliet. He manages to stumble into a situation that Decker is investigating, and it’s a good thing he has the skills to navigate some very risky waters.

I found the look into the lives of the privileged teens he crosses paths with to be terrifying.  I’m not looking forward to my daughter starting high school next year, even if her world will be fairly different.

The mystery itself is good, but not outstanding. What I enjoyed was the quick visit with all the characters I know so well, and getting to know a few more even better.

There is no need to have read the full list of previous books in the series to enjoy this one. I haven’t read Hangman, the previous book, but suspect the context from that one might be nice, and there are clearly spoilers here for the events there. I’ll go back and read it anyway.

I received Gun Games for review from the publisher.  Thank you, Harper Collins.

I accepted each of these books for review, and read and enjoyed them, for the most part. Then I sat with open tabs for months, trying to figure out how to write the reviews. I’ve now lost the details of the individual stories and writers in my brain, so I thought I’d set down a few overall thoughts on each and call it a day.

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link

I picked up this book because I’m intrigued by Steampunk, and would like to know more about it. I love the look, I find the concept fascinating.

After reading the stories in this anthology, I’m still a little puzzled about how Steampunk plays out. In general, I enjoyed them, I’m just not certain they all met my image of what Steampunk is.

Steampunk meets the Wild West seems like an interesting variant– the same time period but another location. Steampunk meets ancient prophets and Steampunk meets the Faery world seemed like an interesting something else (I loved the Faery Story, it was one of my favorites in the book).

I think I need to look up a definitive Steampunk work, and base my genre impressions off of that instead.

Some better reviews of this collection:

• Dear Author
• Bookhounds
• Popcorn Reads
• Bart’s Bookshelf

The Urban Fantasy Anthology edited by Peter S. Beagle and Joe R. Lansdale

It’s hard to rate an anthology. I always go in expecting to skip over some stories as being not for me, so if you leave those out, what remains is at about 4 stars for me.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to review this for the 6 months since I read it, and have finally given up. If I couldn’t figure out what to say before, I’m not going to now.

Overall, I enjoyed my reading. Unfortunately for me, the stories I enjoyed most were by authors I already know and enjoy, so I didn’t add to my list of people to try as much as I’d hoped.

More than confirming that I’m a big fan of Charles de Lint, Peter S. Beagle, and Neil Gaiman, among others, it confirmed that I’m a big fan of the subset of Urban Fantasy they describe as Mythic Fiction, and I that I have mixed opinions on Paranormal Romance. I’d never heard of Noir Fantasy before, and I don’t think I’ll make an effort to find more (although I did enjoy a few of the stories in that section as well).

I’ll recommend this for some good writing, and a chance to try out a collection of styles and authors underneath the Urban Fantasy umbrella.

Some other reviews:

• Sniffly Kitty
• Neth Space
• Bookhounds

I’m sorry for the lack of detailed reviews on both of these books!

I went back and forth on what to choose for my top books of 2011, and on how to present them.  I’m going to just present a list of books alphabetically by author, and pull out one I want to flag as my favorite– not necessarily the best, but the one that I just found delightful!

These aren’t necessarily books that were published in 2011, but books that I read for the first time last year.

My top reads:

1. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (2011)
2. Science Fair Season by Judy Dutton (2011)
3. Horns by Joe Hill (2010)
4. Pirate King by Laurie R. King (2011)
5. Original Sin by Beth McMullen (2011)
6. Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman (2011)
7. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (2011)
8. The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond (2007)
9. Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos (2011)
10. The Cat, the Professor, and the Poison by Leann Sweeney (2010)

Honorable Mentions go to those that I had a really hard time not putting on this list– I probably could legitimately made it  a top 20 list, and not differentiated between those and these.:  The Last Unicorn (Graphic Novel) by Peter S. Beagle, Peter Gillis, Renae De Liz, & Ray Dillon (2011), Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel (2010),   Where She Went by Gayle Forman (2011), A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (2011), Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson (2010), The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (2006), Defending Jacob by William Landay (2012), I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (2010), Devotion by Dani Shapiro (2010), and The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton (2010),

The book I want to pull out as my favorite of 2011 is Original Sin by Beth McMullen.  I was delighted by this book as a crazy spy adventure, and I laughed out loud many times at the wording and the situations.  Even more than that, I loved the look at the change of self-identity with a major life change– in this case, motherhood, but other events can and do prompt a total change in how you see yourself.  I haven’t seen this book around the Internet much, so I want to encourage more people to pick this book up and read it.  (Ironically, there was another book by the same name published around the same time, so keep an eye on the author’s name on this one!).

I read 169 books total last year.  This is a few less than the previous year, which doesn’t particularly bother me.  I want to push myself to keep reading a variety of books  I did do that this year.

At the end of the year, I started cutting down on books I received for review..  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first part of the year is significantly overrepresented on my lists above.  60 of the books  (36%) I read this year were review copies. 70% of my top 10 list and 65% of my top 20 list were review books.  Between TLC Book Tours, NetGalley, various publicists and the publishers themselves, I find out about books that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, and as long as I remain cautious about what I accept, I think I’ll be thrilled to be in this position.

I read 24 books for my two book clubs. Of my top 20 books of the year, 4 of them were books I read for one of them.  Interestingly, 3 of my bottom 10 were also book club books.  4 of the bottom 10 were review books, and 3 of those were tour books.  That makes sense, since if it’s a book I’m reading for myself, I have the option of giving up on it and picking up something that is a better match.

Last year, I had a strong set of non-fiction books in my favorites of the year,   I made an effort to continue reading more non-fiction this year.  I’m glad I did, but only one made my top 10, (and just one more in the next 10).  I think I want to make an effort to track down better recommendations for non-fiction, to try to find more great books for next years lists.

I don’t have any real changes planned for my reading.  I do want to get back to posting more regularly.  I also want to be realistic about my expectations. My daughter is starting her rhythmic gymnastics season, I’m planning on taking one or two classes starting in February, so I don’t want to get too ambitious and not be able to meet my goals.

I hope every one of you had a good 2011 and has an even better 2012!

While there was a really interesting book in there somewhere, there were also way too many coincidences, characters that I could only keep track of by what I was told about them, and just simply too much book.

Summary via Goodreads:

Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune. With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing virtual gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers—young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.

For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain. But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.

In this edgy, 21st century tale, Neal Stephenson, one of the most ambitious and prophetic writers of our time, returns to the terrain of his cyberpunk masterpieces Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, leading readers through the looking glass and into the dark heart of imagination.

If the book had just stuck to that, I would have loved it!  The best part of the book was this core plotline, around an advanced multi-player computer game, and a group of hackers that stashed the cash from the computer virus (REAMDE) they wrote there. The details of the game and the people involved in it were rich and rang true, and the plot itself was ingenious.

I can see the plot necessity of the Russian gangsters that came into it, to provide the conflict to make the plot move. These characters never quite clicked for me, but didn’t upset the balance of the book.

Where the story went overboard for me was when the Islamic terrorists got involved. They convoluted the plot, and added chapter after chapter of running and chasing, and for very little payoff.

The book started with a set of fairly outrageous coincidences. I can deal with this as part of the setup. Unfortunately, there was another round toward the end. This was probably necessary to wrap up everything that was thrown in, but didn’t add to my enjoyment of the book, but rather to the feeling there were just too many pieces needing to be dealt with.

It took me a month to read the 1000+ pages, which is a very long time for me. I enjoyed the core story and some of the primary characters enough to keep me going, but not to find time to keep picking it up, and I can’t quite find the payoff for the time it took.