Quick Review: Instinct by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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Featured imageI will say this for Nick Gautier. His life is never boring. He would tell you that is a bad thing but it’s way too entertaining.  I don’t know even where to begin to talk about this book without spoiling the previous books so I’ll keep this short. I’ve already talked about this series before so you know how I feel about Nick and his friends. Instinct is no different.  It’s the same snarky Nick as always.  He gets into trouble but always talks or finds away out of it by staying true to himself.  He’s not about to let destiny take control of him and his future.  In the past books, he’s friends had to really step up and help him out but this one, he was basically on his own.  It’s been two years since he found out who he really is and who his friends really are and is finally starting to come into his own.  I know there are a couple more books to go but I feel like we are starting to see the endgame for the series.  Also a bonus is that all of these books are very fast paced and fast reads. Nick is always tasked with multiple crisis’ that seemed to have  nothing in common yet always do that keep him going back and forth between the two but the reader never gets tangled or confused as to what’s going on.  You are there for the ride as is Nick.  So Yeah!  Well done.  I’m looking forward to reading the next book.

Review: Rogue by Julie Kagawa

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Featured imageEmber is the kind of character that is likeably annoying.  On the one hand she’s brave, loyal and fierce.  Her wide-eyed curiosity is charming.  On the other hand, she’s stubborn and doesn’t know how to listen to directions which usually leads to something bad happening.  Whether it directly leads to it or is just enough to distract her friends that make them make stupid mistakes, It always leads to trouble. Despite her faults I’m still rooting for her.  After the cut contains spoilers for Rogue and the first book Talon. So if you haven’t read Talon and planning on it, best not to read further.

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Review: How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper

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Mo is a Southern woman born to hippie parents and raised in Mississippi. She’s always lived close to home and her parents have always been a huge (and kind of overbearing) part of her life. Following on the heels of a breakup she decides to back up her life and move across the country to Grundy, Alaska. There’s a romantic element to that: striking out on one’s own, becoming self-reliant, living in the wilderness. Who hasn’t considered packing themselves up and going on an adventure? Mo rents a cabin in the woods and gets herself squared away. She finds a job cooking at the local tavern after the cook and co-owner injures himself. She makes friends with the co-owners wife. And, she runs afoul of the wife’s cousin Cooper Graham who hates outsiders. He’s sure that once the first snow sets in that she’ll pack up her stuff and move back to the lower 48.

While she’s settling into becoming a townie, she has some run-ins with the local wildlife. One night she awakens to a huge wolf with piercing eyes taking down an elk. She sees the wolf again within the town limits. And, there are a few hikers who go missing after what appears to be a wolf attack. Then one night she’s confronted with an unusual sight: Cooper Graham, naked, on her porch, caught in a bear a trap. I’d say spoilers, but if you saw the cover of the book and if you’ve ever read a romance novel you know who/what Cooper Graham is. He’s the werewolf love interest. He has to come clean about who and what he is while he’s healing from the bear trap on Moe’s rug. But, now there’s this mystery: Is he responsible for the missing hikers? Could he be a killer in wolf form? Also, will he ever stop being surly so that they can get this romance off the ground?

This was book was fun and it was also very funny. I immediately liked Mo and the other townies. I also liked surly and standoffish Cooper. The mystery unraveled a little slowly but it was a satisfying ending. This is the first book of a series set in Grundy, Alaska and I’m thinking about picking up the next one.

Review: The Replaced by Kimberley Derting

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Featured imageI read this a month ago so I have sort of forgot what I wanted to say about it.  (Note to self: Make notes while reading)  So this is going to be a sketchy.

The Replaced is the sequel of the The Taken. It’s about Kyra, who is abducted by aliens for five years but to her she has only been gone for hours.  In those five years, she hasn’t aged a day but everyone else has.  Her boyfriend is now in college and dating her best friend, her parents are divorced and her  Mom is remarried and has a child.  The most interesting development is that the younger brother of her ex-boyfriend, Tyler is now her age and is of course hot.  As Kyra tries to piece together what happened to her, she falls in love with Tyler, finds other abductees and discovers a conspiracy with the government and the aliens that abducted her.  I could go on but I feel that would spoil The Taken so I  leave it here.

The book is good and just okay. The characters a likeable enough but not completely memorable.  I liked it enough that I’ll read the next book.  The ending I found intriguing as I think we will finally get some answers as to what the aliens want with us.  I think that has been missing from the plot so far:  the reason why teenagers are being abducted and then returned after their DNA is changed so that they age more slowly.  Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is it’s a good book.  I’ll try to do better the next review.

Reader Problems

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You know when you are reading a book.  You love it.  You love the characters.  You become invested in one or two of the characters. For this instance, you are involved with two.  You want them together.  You totally ship them.  They are finally realized they are in love with each other and finally, FINALLY, do something about it.  They are happy.  You are happy.  All is great and then realize that you haven’t even reached the half way point of the book and there are at least two more books to come.  You start to panic because you know the happiness your characters feel now is not going to last that much longer.  Something bad is about to happen.  You accidentally read the synopsis of the next book in the series, so you know there is a death is coming.  Now your even more frazzled because what if it’s one of your beloved!  NO!  It can’t be!  They are HAPPY!  Can’t they be happy?  You want to turn away and stop reading but you can’t.  It’s a like a car accident as much as you want to look the other direction, you can’t help yourself from looking straight ahead.  So you keep reading towards the inevitable.  Hoping for the best but bracing yourself for the worst.

That is exactly where I am right now in the The Crown of Midnight.  Something book is about to happen.  I just know it and I’m not prepared for it.  Nope, not at all.  Pray for me brothers and sisters readers.

This Month in Reality…..Travel as a metaphor for personal growth!

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Let us rejoice in today, March 32nd! 

I am indeed back after a lovely vacation hanging out with my sister and our parents! And, let me tell you: not only do I love traveling, but I also love travel memoirs! Since I discovered the genre of travel memoir in college it has been a genre I’ve always been happy to come back to. So, it might surprise you to know that until this month I hadn’t read Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, I saw all the hype when the book came out and then when the book was optioned and made into a movie. I avoided it because it seemed like a travel memoir that was going to make me angry. I thought it was going to make me angry because here’s this woman who is making a good living and has a good job and a husband who loves her and she just throws it away and travels the world. I thought she’d make me angry or worse, that she wouldn’t be sympathetic at all and I’d be reading an entire memoir where I don’t care about the person at the center of the story. (Yes, that’s right, not being relatable is a bigger problem than making me angry.) On top of that, traveling and exploring other cultures while either talking about how cheap everything is or glossing over the problems and idealizing the not-problems really bothers me. I was concerned that Elizabeth Gilbert was going to go to an ashram in India and talk about how deep and spiritual all Indians are and not put this ashram in the context of a country with large populations of people who have different religions which are antagonistic to each other. Or, worse, I was worried her biggest concern would be about the dogs. (Note: I’m happy when people are worried about animal welfare. I’m not happy when they’re so worried about animal welfare that it affects how they feel about seeing poverty-stricken people. This is especially troubling when you also think those poverty-stricken people have the most beautiful culture. Anyway, that’s probably a hypocritical rant for another day.) So, I didn’t read the book when it came out. Or, when it was made into a movie. Plus, I didn’t see the movie. I picked it up hoping that I would hate it and that would make me feel vindicated for avoiding it up until now.

No such luck. (Spoilers behind the cut).
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