Book Review: Blackbirds

Picture and information taken from Amazon

4 STARS

Miriam Black knows when you will die.

Still in her early twenties, she's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name.

Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.

~~~

About a month ago I discovered Chuck Wendig on Twitter and through his pretty awesome blog. I really like his no nonsense writing advice. Then, a couple weeks ago, this happened:

So I took his advice and bought a copy. 

I'd like to start this review with a warning that this book is pretty much rated NC-17. It's graphic, vulgar and intense. But obviously, I still liked it.

At first, I wasn't so sure. And it wasn't the grittiness that threw me off, it was the writing style. This is written in present tense, which isn't very common in fiction (at least that I've read), so it took my a while to get into it. Also, Mirriam is a rambler when she talks, and thinks. At first the writer part of my brain was dying to pull out my Big Red Pen and start cutting this thing down to size. I mean, really, do we need five different ways to describe the same thing? I swear at one point, she uses a dozen different foul words to describe one person. It made me roll my eyes a bit.

But, as I kept reading I got used to it and realized there's a certain poetry to it. And that's what saved the book for me. As much as Wendig's style threw me off, it was so masterfully done I ended up enjoying it.

The other thing that docked this book a star was the ending. It was good, but I knew from the beginning that was how the story would end. I won't say much more for fear of spoiling it. It's just one of those things that you think, "Well of course that's how it's going to end because other wise this would be a really crappy book."

And the main character, Mirriam, is the best part of this, despite the rambling. She's well rounded, complex and intense. Being in her head is a strange joy and I believe I'll be visiting again soon.

Overall, if you like wonderful characters, an interesting story and don't mind a little foul language, sex and gore then you should like this book.

 

I'm Not Dead

Hello dear readers! I know, I've been gone for a while. It's my own fault really and I'm sorry. You see, my laptop and I got in a little fight. He did something really stupid, I got mad and then he had to go away for a couple weeks. It was a rough time for both of us, but I think our relationship is stronger for it now.

He knows to do what he's freaking told and I know to be nicer to him. He's a lot more fragile than he looks. ;)

Anyway! Not much has been going on in the Kricket household. Still working on potty training the Toddler. Some days are better than others, but overall, he's getting better at it. Baby is everywhere now. He's really fast and gets into everything. He can now say "Mama!" and "Dada!" and he still doesn't have any teeth.

Other than that, my life has been pretty boring. I've got a couple topics I'd like to cover in the next couple weeks and a book review that will pop up soon on the Writing Blog. So look forward to those.

Until then, have a happy Wednesday and thanks for reading!

Book Review: Changeling

I'm doing a lot of book reviews back to back, which I don't like. So I promise you won't see another one for a while and I"ll come up with something new for y'all next time.

Info & Picture taken from Amazon

2 STARS

HEROES FOR HIRE

After barely escaping a madman’s attempt to annihilate all MetaHumans, Kelly Meding’s supernatural crime fighters have banded together to take back the streets of war-ravaged Los Angeles.

Dahlia “Ember” Perkins still feels like an outsider among her new Meta friends, despite everything she’s been through since coming into her miraculous ability to absorb heat and extinguish fires. But when the police need help investigating human skins discarded like slipcovers on the street, the Metas’ youngest team member quickly finds her place. Evidence points to a murderer the likes of which they have never encountered but who inexplicably seems to be gunning for Dahlia—and who may be neither human nor Meta. After a bullet meant for her nearly kills one of her teammates, Dahlia uncovers a connection to the crimes buried deep in her past. As the danger escalates and her personal life falls apart, Dahlia soon learns there’s no such thing as a “normal” relationship when you’re a superhero. . . .

~~~

Normally I try not to spoil stuff in my reviews, but I'm not sure I can do that this time. So fair warning, there are spoilers.

I was seriously disappointed in this book. I really enjoyed the first book of this series, Trance, but this one just falls so flat.

First, Dahlia was such a weak character after reading about Teresa. And at first, it works. Dahlia is new to the group and uncertain of her place in it. But her character didn't change much by the end of the book. If anything, she sounded weaker by the end than she did in the beginning.

Second, this book was both predictable and then confusing. I totally saw it coming that Noah would be a bad guy. The moment the whole Changeling thing was explained I said to my self, "And Noah is totally one of them". The middle of the story was one big ball of What the Hell is Happening. There is so much misdirection that it's just too confusing.

Third, the ending is totally insane, in a bad way. There is a cool fight scene, granted, with bad guy characters we just met and so have no emotion towards because their motives are weak. But the very end is totally wrong. I understand having a cliff hanger at the end. The first book had that a little bit, in the form of "Now that's we're all together what do we do now?" Which totally works. But this? "Oh look, I'm stuck in my boy friend's body with no way out, I guess I'll go to sleep now." No.

This book was hovering at a three or four stars for me until that ending. And I really hate giving this such a bad rating. It makes me sad because I liked the first book so much. 

I do think this book suffers from that Second Book in the Series Syndrome. Where the first book is a solid start, and could pretty much be a stand alone book because all the major loose ends are tied up. Authors write the first book that way because there's no guarantee that the rest of the series will be published. But then they write the second book and to make sure that you will read the third and fourth book they leave a lot of ends loose. Forcing you to read the next books if you want to know what happens. And for the most part that's okay and it works. But this time around, leaving such a huge issue up in the air is just maddening.

There is a third book coming out soon, like later this year, and while I want to know what happens I'm not sure I'll be reading it.

Thanks for reading! Have a great Monday! What books are you reading this month? Leave a comment for me below or on my Facebook or Twitter.

Book Review: Memories of the Future

Info and Picture taken from Amazon

5 STARS

From Encounter at Farpoint to Datalore, relive the first half of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s unintentionally hilarious first season through the eyes, ears and memories of cast member and fan Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) as he shares his unique perspective in the episode guide you didn’t even know you were dying to read. 

ENJOY snarky episode recaps! 

EXPAND your Technobabble vocabulary! 

AMUSE your friends with quotable dialog! 

BOLDLY go behind the scenes!

~~~

So I heard about this book online, bought and read it in about 4 hours yesterday. I could have taken a nap because a truely amazing miracle happened and both of my boys slept at the same time, for the same amount of time. But no, I was too busy laughing at Wil Wheaton being snarky.

If you're a fan of Wil Wheaton in general and a fan of Star Trek: Next Generation then I highly recommend this book. I love all the snarky retelling of the episodes and the honesty that Wheaton inserts throughout the entire thing.

Now, I came to my love of ST:TNG late in game. When the episodes originally aired, I was 1 year old. It wasn't until my college years and into adult hood that I got to see the entire series. And I, unlike many others, liked Weasley Crusher. I had no idea until reading this book why people hated that character so much.

Wheaton puts an interesting spin on everything that happened while making those first 12 episodes and now I want to re-watch that first half of the first season to see if I now notice all those little things he pointed out.

So if you're a TNG fan, I suggest you read this book. It's only 138 pages long. And I really hope Wheaton continues to write these.

Also, in related news, this happened on Twitter yesterday. :D

The Joys (?) of Potty Training

Oh potty training. We started training Will two weeks ago. I thought I was prepared. I thought I had a plan, but within the first couple days it all went down the toilet, so to speak. ;)

I originally planed to do this every 15 minute thing. Where you load him up on salty foods and water or juice and then make him sit on the toilet every 15 minutes. Well that didn't work. William would just wait until I put his pants back on and then to pee. So then I tried something that people had suggested to me a few times but I was scared to try. I just let him run around half naked for a couple days.

And yes, there were some wonderfully epic accidents, but it worked. Will learned it was better to go in the potty then face Mommy's wrath. Cookies helped enforce that. :)

So he's got going pee in the potty down well, and only in the last couple days has he figured out that it's better to poop in the potty than in the pants.

He's a smart kid and I knew he'd get it, but that first week was rough, for me. I was convinced that he'd get it within the first day or two, so when that didn't happen I started stressing out. Like a lot. I took his slow learning to mean that I was a bad mom in some way. I know now that was stupid thinking, but at the time it was really eating me up.

But now things are going really well. He's starting to use the potty without even telling me until he's done. We haven't tackled night time stuff yet. I figure we need to get the routine down for day time before we go there. So for now he's still sleeps in pull ups.

I know we're not done training, but he's making good progress and that makes me happy. Now the next step is getting this kid to sleep all night and not try to get into bed with us at 3 in the morning. But that's another post for another time.

Book Review: Wool

Info & Picture from Amazon

5 STARS!

This Omnibus Edition collects the five Wool books into a single volume. It is for those who arrived late to the party and who wish to save a dollar or two while picking up the same stories in a single package.

The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months. My thanks go out to those reviewers who clamored for more. Without you, none of this would exist. Your demand created this as much as I did.

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

~~~


Over on the AW Forums in the Sci-fi/Fantasy section there a monthly book discussion thread. I try to participate when I can. :) And this month they book that was chosen was Wool. It wasn't my first choice but I don't regret it.

Normally I'm not one for dystopia. It's always so dark and bleak, or at least the summaries sound that way, and thus I don't pick them up to read them. Now Wool is a collection of short stories and novellas. The first one is pretty bleak but it get better and it becomes more and more interesting.

By the middle of the book I was dying to know all the answers. Why was humanity stuck in under ground silos? What happened to the Earth to make it so awful on the surface? Why weren't the people in charge telling their people the truth? Howey did a good job in keeping me guessing.

He also created some great characters. Even the ones that you don't see much of are well rounded, fleshed out people. And of course, the main character, Juliette, is a fun and interesting character to follow. She fights for what is right and is not afraid of a little hard work or struggle to get what she needs. She's a good strong female lead.

And the end of the book, wow, I did not see that coming. I honestly wasn't sure if everything would end happy or not. The first couple stories in the book don't end on a happy note at all, so I had no idea how the whole thing would turn out.

In the end I really enjoyed the read. There's more to this series and I'm very curious to read it. So I'll be adding those to my massive To Be Read pile.

Book Review: Judas Unchained

(Info & Pic taken from Amazon)

4 STARS!

Peter F. Hamilton’s superbly imagined, cunningly plotted interstellar adventures are conceived on a staggeringly epic scale and filled with fully realized human and alien characters as complex as they are engaging. No mere world builder, Hamilton creates entire universes–and he does so with irresistible flair and intelligence. His previous novel, the acclaimed Pandora’s Star, introduced the Intersolar Commonwealth, a star-spanning civilization of the twenty-fourth century. Robust, peaceful, and confident, the Commonwealth dispatched a ship to investigate the mystery of a disappearing star, only to inadvertently unleash a predatory alien species that turned on its liberators, striking hard, fast, and utterly without mercy. 

The Prime are the Commonwealth’s worst nightmare. Coexistence is impossible with the technologically advanced aliens, who are genetically hardwired to exterminate all other forms of life. Twenty-three planets have already fallen to the invaders, with casualties in the hundreds of millions. And no one knows when or where the genocidal Prime will strike next.

Nor are the Prime the only threat. For more than a hundred years, a shadowy cult, the Guardians of Selfhood, has warned that an alien with mind-control abilities impossible to detect or resist–the Starflyer–has secretly infiltrated the Commonwealth. Branded as terrorists, the Guardians and their leader, Bradley Johansson, have been hunted by relentless investigator Paula Myo. But now evidence suggests that the Guardians were right all along, and that the Starflyer has placed agents in vital posts throughout the Commonwealth–agents who are now sabotaging the war effort. Is the Starflyer an ally of the Prime, or has it orchestrated a fight to the death between the two species for its own advantage?

Caught between two deadly enemies, one a brutal invader striking from without, the other a remorseless cancer killing from within, the fractious Commonwealth must unite as never before.

This will be humanity’s finest hour–or its last gasp.

~~~~~~

I'm giving this one 4 stars for a lot of the same reasons I gave Pandora's Star 4 stars. You can't read one without the other. I get the feeling that when Hamilton wrote this story it was all one big manuscript that had to be cut into two books. But I'd give the story all together a definite 5 stars.

Judas Unchained picked up where Pandora's Star left off. You're dealing with all the same characters with the same problems. And what makes this so magical is that Hamilton manages to bring pretty much every character into the final conflict in one way or another. And that final battle takes a long time and I was honestly not sure if the good guys would win or not.

But what amazes me most about these two books is from a writing perspective. There is so much creativity here. So many characters and worlds and alien races, I can't even imagine how Hamilton kept track of all of it while he was writing.

Anyway, if you like space opera on an epic scale, then you'll like this. There's something for everyone within these two books.

Well, thanks for reading, and have a great Wednesday!