Book 134 Life After Phantom by Samantha

Life After Phantom: Opera Erotica
Kindle Edition
866 books to go!

Since this is a phantom book the review is in my phantom blog, my phantom of the opera book reviews don't really follow the format I have with this blog.

 

Book 133 Acceptable Risk by Robin Cook

Acceptable Risk
Kindle Edition
867 books to go!

Summary: Kim Stewart and Dr. Edward Armstrong begin a relationship. While working to research facts about her great ancestor Elizabeth Stewart, Edward finds a mold inside of the basement which could have been responsible for Elizabeth's conviction as a witch during the Salem witch trials. Eventually Kim moves in with Edward to the cottage that her and her brother inherited. Edward asks Kim if he can build a lab for a new drug he's planning to market on the same property of the cottage. Kim and her brother okay the building and operation of Omni Labs on the property. Strange things start to happen after Edward and his team of researchers take an experimental dosage of the new drug.

Opinion: At first this was a slow read, but it was one of those slow reads that are worth it to me. Sometimes a book starts off slow but if you keep reading you get a sweet suspenseful pay off at the end. From the moment Edward decided to take the experimental drug with his researchers I knew crazy creepy things would start to happen. I'm also familiar with Robin Cook because I read one or two of his medical thrillers when I was a young girl.

Why I chose to read this: My reason for reading this book was a little random. I used to read hard copy versions of books while I was at work. Personally I don't see anything wrong with reading a book on my down time at work, especially if I'm not working on a current project. I also know reading helps because if a patron asks me what I'm reading or what I have read I can offer up a recommendation. The more widely read I am the better it is. Unfortunately the powers that be say that even though I'm working in a library it's a little bit unprofessional to read at the desk. So now if I have down time and am not busy with some sort of work project I read a book on the kindle cloud. Which is how I read this book. I checked it out from the library and read it on the kindle cloud. This means I now heavily read e-books and I have to save my physical hard copy book reading for my leisure time at home.

 

Book 132 Autumn by David Moody

Autumn
kindle edition
878 books to go!

Summary: A virus infects most of the world's population, virtually almost everyone dies in an instant. About 25 survivors hole up together in London, 3 of them end up separating and seeking refuge on an isolated farm. Soon the infected dead begin to rise again. At first they are harmless, then they begin to exhibit your classic zombie behavior. This book is first in a four part series.

Opinion: This book was downright creepy. It's not as interesting as Moody's hater trilogy, but it's still a cut above what's currently trending regarding zombies at the moment. It was a quick read for me, it did take me a few days here and there to get through but when I did pick it up the reading went very fast.

Why I chose to read this: I like Moody's hater trilogy. I'm still trying to get the third book through the library. If I can't get it, I might buy it in a few weeks through amazon. While I was reading the first two books in the hater trilogy I learned about this book. This book is interesting because Moody got his start and his author fame by giving this book away for free. Eventually it took off on the internet, now it's a film, and a book series.

 

Book 131 Forever by Judy Blume

Forever . . .
879 books to go!

Summary: Michael and Katherine are a couple together in their senior year of high school. They believe that their love is powerful and will last forever.

Opinion: Judy Blume is pretty legendary and I think for her time she was controversial but I can't be sure about that. To me the book was sort of dated and a little bit cheesy. I have another book checked out by her from the library I'll see if that one is more enjoyable. I did like another book I read by her called Summer Sisters. This one though I wasn't too fond of. I got really annoyed with Katherine's character at the end of the novel as well. I sort of understood her but still got annoyed with her.

Why I chose to read this: This was another read inspired by a patron request. I figured I should read a little more Judy Blume since I only read one of her books.

 

Book 130 The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Kindle Edition
880 books to go!

Summary: Jeanette Walls writes an autobiographical memoir of her childhood. She writes about her dysfunctional family, about her life on the move as a child doing the "skedaddle", and how she overcame obstacles to make something of herself despite the fact that the odds were against her.

Opinion: This book was terrific. It was a shocking eye opener. I try not to complain about my life, although often I find myself complaining about some particular aspect of it that I'm unhappy with. After reading about how Ms. Walls lived as a child though I really shouldn't complain. My parents did the best they could for the four of us, my dad inspired and encouraged me to go to school and now because of that I have a decent job and a pretty good life.

Why I chose to read this: I sort of read half of this book a few years ago. I picked it up on playaway (playaways are mini players some libraries offer for rent that have one book pre loaded onto them). I always wanted to finish the book and one day I just picked up a copy to check out after a patron asked for a copy of the book.


 

Book 129 The Prvileges by Jonathan Dee

The Privileges: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle)
Kindle Edition
881 books to go!

Summary:
Cynthia and Adam get married and start a family. Adam keeps on working harder and harder eventually he is able to start his own fund and a charity foundation. The Morey family is swimming in money due to Adam's ethical and unethical work habits. The novel is about the life of privilege they lead and how it affects them.

Opinion:
This book was alright. Jonas Morey is the novel's most interesting character to me. April was more of a Paris Hilton type causing slight embarrassment to her family due to her club hopping and drug activities. The story was written very nicely but I didn't care for the content of the story all that much. I also seriously dislike really rich twits which this novel was sort of featuring.

Why I chose to read this:
I found out about this book when I used to read the NY times book review religiously and the book review made it sound like it was worth the read. It is one of the books magically obtained by Shawn that I placed on my kindle, so it was the next kindle read I chose. Right now I'm recovering with some phan phic that I thought might be bad but right now seems surprisingly good.

 

128 The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

The Amityville Horror


882 books to go!

Summary: This book is a true account of 28 days that the Lutz family endured after moving into their new home in Amityville, NY. Apparently the house was haunted by quite a few different entities and spirits. They moved in after the DeFoe family, most of the DeFoe family never left the house alive as they were shot and murdered by their son and brother Ronnie DeFoe.

Opinion: The book wasn't bad. It's good if you want to read accounts that the movie was based on. I wasn't too fond of the writing and the book didn't really scare me all that much. It was a factual to the point account of the Lutz family's 28 days of terror.

Why I chose to read this: This was one of three scary stories I picked up during the month of October for Halloween. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get around to reading other scary stories, but I tend to read scary stuff year round anyway.

 

Book 127 Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

Black and Blue: A Novel
Kindle edition
883 books to go!

Summary: Fran Benedetto runs away to Florida with her son Robert after withstanding 17 years of being hit by her husband Bobby. Fran makes a life in Florida with Robert until the other shoes finally drops.

Opinion: I like Anna Quindlen's work and I was really enjoying this book until the very end. Personally the ending upset me, it was bittersweet and sort of awful. I love Anna Quindlen's writing style, it's very descriptive she knows how to wrap her readers up in her stories. Both books I've read by her I just could not put down after starting them.

Why I chose to read this: I read Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. While I was looking it up Black and Blue was mentioned in the reviews I read. Since I enjoyed Every Last One I wanted to read Black and Blue as well. In the future I would like to read more of Quindlen's books but I have a lot of other reading on my plate to get through at the moment.

 

Book 126 America's Painted Ladies by Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen

America's Painted Ladies: The Ultimate Celebration of Our Victorians

 884 books to go!

Summary: This is a collection of photographs, the photographs are of different Victorian homes throughout the United States. Each photograph is accompanied with a summary of the featured home, details about the paint job, and a little bit of history about the house. There are some interior shots as well.

Opinion: This book is absolutely stunning. The homes featured and photographed are just wonderful, the information provided about each home is not too much and not too little. If you are interested in the Victorian Era and like to look at some pretty houses this is worth a reading.

Why I chose to read this: I chose to read this book because of my wedding. I still have five wedding planning books I'd like to get through before my wedding actually happens, and I have a bunch of books having to do with the Victorian era to read through as well. Shawn and I are going with a partial masquerade, partial Victorian theme to our wedding. I'm trying to get some bits of phantom involved here and there as well. So I picked out a bunch of Victorian books for hopeful ideas. Although I do like this book the only thing it could have helped us with is the color scheme which we've picked out already.

    

Book 125 Dog Blood by David Moody

Dog Blood

885 books to go!

I'm reformatting this blog yet again. It seems like it's ever evolving. In addition to a quick summary and my opinion, I'm also going to provide my reasoning for choosing this particular book to read, just because I miss writing about my reasons. I'm not sure if anyone cares but if you'd like to know my logic for reading whichever book gets an entry then you shall know. With that said here's the entry for dog blood.

Summary: Dog blood is number two in a hater trilogy. The world has gone to hell, there's a war brewing between haters and the unchanged. Danny McCoyne the main character of these trilogies is on the hunt for his daughter Ellis who's a hater like him.

Opinion: I enjoyed this book, lots of horror, semi post apocalyptic madness, devastation. The haters are interesting to me, they are sort of like zombies but much different. They have an urge to kill their fellow unchanged humans, but most of them have a sense of intelligence, they still know who they were in their former life. They are also not infected and turned into a hater via hater bite, the hate is something inside of them that randomly emerges. If you tire of zombies this is different horror, apparently it's a specific genre entitled survival horror. I'm enjoying Moody's work can't wait to read the third novel of the trilogy as well as another zombie series he's written.

Why I chose to read this: I picked up the first hater novel a few years back. I was eager to read the next novel but it wasn't released yet. Finally I learned about the release and was able to obtain a copy for my kindle. I'm going to read the third in the trilogy as well as another series he's working on so look for future entries.

 

Book 124 The Leftovers by Tom Perotta

The Leftovers

886 books to go!

Summary: A cataclysmic event named as the sudden departure causes much of the world's population to disappear. It isn't the rapture because the people who are gone weren't all Christian, there was no rhyme or reason between those who disappeared and those who survived. The characters featured in this novel are the survivors in the small town of Mapleton, the novel is about their lives on Earth after the sudden departure.

Opinion: This book is a definite winner. It was one of the books that held me captive, I couldn't put it down until I got to the very last page. Lots of events go on, it's definitely not action packed, but there's a minor mystery to solve, a few murders, and a couple of interesting groups that sprout up after the sudden departure. My favorite group is the Guilty Remnants, known as the G.R. They are pretty amusing as well as very disturbing.

Book 123 Sugar in my bowl edited by Erica Jong

Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex

887 books to go!

Summary: Sugar in my bowl is a compilation of short stories some are real, some are fiction written by female authors. Every single story is about sex.

Opinion: Some of these stories did not sit well with me but I still enjoyed reading this book. The writing was absolutely wonderful, the writers are well accomplished and intelligent. As for the fact that some of the stories didn't sit well with me, they are just stories and it doesn't matter since I was not the one performing the actions of cheating or sleeping with my cousin, I was just only reading them.