The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Dutton Books, 2012. 316p. (9780525478812)

I finally got around to reading this last week. What a bleak outlook on life and eternity!

Goodreads Summary:

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent [yep!], and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

My Review:

The story is engaging and terminal cancer patients do tug at ones heart strings; I never even came close to crying though. The writing and vocabulary is at a middle/high school level (for the most part) but the author throws in obscure words (hamartia for one, but its explained) and doesn’t ever talk down to his audience. I think that’s perhaps why so many YAs love this book. The author deals with big issues with candor and grittiness but he also lighten things up with laugh out loud wittiness.

But boy do those kids need their mouths washed with soap. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with so much bad language. Which is a sad reflection on American society because I highly suspect that’s how a lot of teens talk. Though I highly doubt that even a small fraction could use the college and graduate level vocabulary Augustus and Hazel use and launch into very prosaic and philosophical monologues they way they do, especially if they aren’t widely and well read individuals, just as these two aren’t.

**Spoiler alert – not really, you probably heard by now** Augustus and Hazel have sex. Just a short time after their first kiss. Which is another sad reflection on American society. Why is it assumed that having sex is the only way to prove/show how in love or committed a couple is? That’s baloney!

Especially if the couple is in high school. Especially because he's really just using her. God has good reasons for forbidding sex outside of marriage.

Brains are amazing organs and one of the neurochemicals it releases during sex is dopamine which makes you feel good, it creates an addiction to that feeling. To use Dannah Gresh’s words from her book What are You Waiting for? The One Thing No One Ever Tells You about Sex:

Dopamine emotionally “attaches” you to the source of pleasure – even if that source is “just a friend.” … The limbic system was created to store sexual memory and emotion for us. A little walnut-sized mass called the thalamus…is the seat of our romantic “heart.” The purpose of the limbic system and dopamine is to turn the visceral drives of passion into a deep, lasting attachment – into knowing and being known. But when this gets misused, our system becomes confused and we feel great pain. (p.42)

Out of the 33,000+ reviews on Amazon only 104 mention that the teens (who are underage by the way) have sex (and use the word sex in their review). And well over half of those were 4 or 5 star reviews. Also Hazel’s friend Kaitlyn says some very crude things when she finds out Augustus and Hazel are (semi) dating.

I had obtained this free for the library using book club reward money, but I don’t think I’ll be cataloging it and adding it to the library. The collection development policy states, “All material, particularly fiction, should promote faithfulness to Philippians 4:8. 'Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.'” And this book doesn’t align with that at all.

Read this if you’ve got YAs in your life that love it (or will read it) and if you keep up with pop culture, otherwise don’t bother.

If you must read it: Find it at a library near you; Buy it from Amazon ($2.99/$6.60/$10.70); Buy it from Barnes& Noble ($2.99/ $8.32/$10.75)

(Ebook / paper back / hardcover prices good as of January 7, 2015 always double check for yourself)

Disclosure: I got this from the library. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission.

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

Top Ten Most Anticipated Novels For 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Most Anticipated Novels For 2015

The topic is technically 'most anticipated debut novels, but I don't keep track of debut authors very well and there are so many other books I'm looking forward to this year. So I decided to share those instead. Technically my #1 will most likely include debut authors.

1. Five Enchanted Roses by five different authors

2. Poison Crown by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

(This banner is from the title reveal. The cover reveal will be sometime this month or next.)

 3. Always on My Mind by Susan May Warren

(Ok, so technically this came out in Dec, but I still want to read it! And the next one after it which does come out in 2015: The Wonder of You 

 4. The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson

5. A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade

6. A Worthy Pursuit by Karen Witemeyer

7. An Uncertain Choice by Jody Hedlund

8. Taken by Dee Henderson

9. How to Catch a Prince by Rachel Hauck

10. Miles from Nowhere by Amy Clipston

What books are you looking forward to reading this year?

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

9 Books & Bookish Gifts to Complete your entire Christmas Shopping

Happy Advent! And happy let's-go-crazy-and-spend-money-and-buy-gifts weekend. Don't forget to support all your favorite bloggers by using affiliate links on Cyber Monday and throughout your online shopping trips.

I'm an ocean away from friends & family so I have to do a lot of my Christmas shopping online. Here are a few good books and bookish gifts I've found:

9 Books & Bookish Gifts to Complete your entire Christmas Shopping

Grandparents:

Book stand pillow

Give wrists a rest while reading in bed.

Amazon

Moms and Aunts:

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond
Over 8000 5-star ratings on Goodreads, over 1300 on Amazon, must be good.
Amazon; Barnes & Noble; ChristianBook

Dads and Uncles:

The Auschwitz Escape by Joel C. Rosenberg

Over 1,100 5-star reviews on Amazon and over 1,400 5-stars ratings on Goodreads

ChristianBook; Amazon; Barnes & Noble

Adult nieces, cousins, sisters:

Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Newest book in my favorite series. You know I had to put it somewhere in the list.
Amazon; Barnes & Noble

Adult nephews, cousins, brothers

or 

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Amazon (a deal on Monday!) or Barnes & Noble

Teen nieces, cousins, sisters:

Live Original by Sadie Robertson

I've enjoyed watching her on Dancing with the Stars this season; I'm sure her book is as warm, friendly, and genuine as she appears.

ChristianBook; Amazon; Barnes & Noble

Teen nephews, cousins, brothers:

The Keeper: The Unguarded Story of Tim Howard by Tim Howard with Ali Benjamin

The goalie for Team USA during the World Cup in 2014 tells his story. Releases Dec 9th.
Amazon; Barnes & Noble; ChristianBook

Under 10 niece, nephew, cousin, sibling, best friend's kids:

The Jesus Storybook Bible 

Over 1440 people gave it a 5-star rating on Amazon

CBD (save 59%!); Amazon; Barnes & Noble

Friends:
Any of the above (or below)

White Elephant gift:

Book Pillows

Amazon

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

Unspoken by Dee Henderson

Unspoken by Dee Henderson. Bethany House, 2013. 441p. (9780764211713) Series: (Not officially but Full Disclosure and Undetected are related, this one falls in the middle)

Oh my. What a complex book of emotions, fear, sacrifice, hope and dreams. And I just love that the author mentioned her O’Malley series and credited them to a character in this book (I hadn’t read Full Disclosure yet and this fun tidbit plays an important part in that story). I think I’ve found a new favorite author.

Goodreads Summary (edited):

Charlotte Graham is at the center of the most famous kidnapping in Chicago history.

The task force of FBI and local cops found her two abductors, killed them, rescued her, but it took four very long years. The fact she was found less than three miles from her home, had been there the entire time, haunts them. She's changed her identity, found a profession she loves, and rebuilt her life. She's never said a word--to the cops, to her doctors, to family--about those four years.

A family legacy has brought her back to Chicago. Bryce Bishop doesn't know her past, he only knows she has coins to sell from her grandfather's estate--and that the FBI director for the Chicago office made the introduction. The more he gets to know Charlotte, the more interested he becomes. But nothing else is working in his favor.

My Review:

Bryce Bishop is “bored out of his mind” with his life and his enjoyable job running a high-end coin shop. But both he and the reader don’t know how much that is going to change when Charlotte Graham shows up in his parking lot. And goodness what a ride it is.

I really don’t want to give away any surprises in this story! The intensity of this book is not in the drama or action, but it simply waiting alongside Charlotte and Bryce for things to progress, for trust to be built, for cold cases to be solved. In watching Charlotte struggle through continuing to figure out life 19 years after being held captive for four years.

Some reviewers have complained about the length – and it is a long book, but who hasn’t wished a story had been a bit longer just so you could spend more time with the characters. Some reviewers have complained about the details regarding the coins in the collection, but I found it interesting and it helps explain the grandfather’s estate, lets the reader get to know Bryce’s character and is an interesting glimpse into the world of coin collectors.

The romance was incredibly sweet and slow and subtle; a very clean romance too. They don’t make a big deal out of their faith either, the author is quite adept at creating characters who are Christians – she doesn’t include any sermons and isn’t pushy.

If you like suspense, mystery and romance, then this is a book for you.

Go read it! Find it at a library near you  ; Buy it from Amazon ($13.41/$8.63) ; Buy it from ChristianBooks.com ($9.49/$8.67); Buy it from Barnes & Noble ($13.67/$9.99); Buy it from anIndependent Bookstore near you

(Paperback/ebook prices good as of November 14, 2014 always double check for yourself)

Disclosure: I borrowed this book from the library. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Links include affiliate links. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission.

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. Rogglewood Press, 2014. 570p. (9780989447850) Series: Tales of Goldstone Wood, #7

I don’t even know where to begin in describing how amazing this book is. Epic, vast, complex, at times humorous, complicated, long (in a good way) would all be apt descriptions. Even though this is book 7 in the series it can be read at any time, chronologically it takes place way before Heartless, Veiled Rose and Moonblood and one mortal year after the Faerie world events of Shadowhand.

Goodreads Summary:

BEYOND THE REALM OF DREAMS IS A WORLD SHE NEVER IMAGINED

Masayi Sairu was raised to be dainty, delicate, demure . . . and deadly. She is one of the emperor’s Golden Daughters, as much a legend as she is a commodity. One day, Sairu will be contracted in marriage to a patron, whom she will secretly guard for the rest of her life.

But when she learns that a sacred Dream Walker of the temple seeks the protection of a Golden Daughter, Sairu forgoes marriage in favor of this role. Her skills are stretched to the limit, for assassins hunt in the shadows, and phantoms haunt in dreams. With only a mysterious Faerie cat and a handsome slave—possessed of his own strange abilities—to help her, can Sairu shield her new mistress from evils she can neither see nor touch?

For the Dragon is building an army of fire. And soon the heavens will burn.

My Review:

This is a cosmically complex story. As much as I tend to read books in one sitting I knew I couldn’t with this one. (Though part of that was because I was reading the ARC as a pdf on my kindle and my kindle didn’t like the large file size.) This is a book I fully tend to reread as soon as I can get my hands on a physical copy.

But also the writing and deep themes that Anne Elisabeth weaves into her stories make it such that it takes a bit longer to read (a good thing) and to fully absorb the tale.

Masayi Sairu
as drawn by AES

Goldstone Wood characters are always such “real” people. You get to know them personally. Eanrin as always was amazing (can he please walk out of the Wood and come visit?!). Masayi Sairu is a new favorite heroine; to use a crass (sorry Mom!) but apt word, she’s the epitome of a kick-ass heroine who also keeps a hold of her femininity.

As promised we get to know Sunan’s story and discover in part how he is also the ship captain in Veiled Rose and Goddess Tithe. But there’s still more to his story! What about the portrait on his wall!? I did enjoy finding out the origin of Una’s ring – well, the jewels in her ring. :-) But how did they get to her?!

Lady Hariwan was a first a bit of a conundrum – do we like her, do we fear her? And by the end – do we pity her, do we grieve her, or knowing what Ay-Ibunda is in Veiled Rose do we shudder at her? (Back in January 2012, Anne Elisabeth wrote a blog post about the temple. It’s interesting going back and reading that now.)

The Blue Star 

But more important than all that is the reason for the story: the night of the moonblood, and the goldstone. Two vast and very important pieces in the history of Goldstone Wood that have been hinted at since the very first book are finally told.

If you love fantasy, cosmic epicness, a good moral buried deep in the foundation, and the most famous bard to roam the Woods, then this is a book for you.

If you read this before 7pm - 9pm EST on Nov 10, 2014 then join the Golden Daughter Chat Party on Facebook!

Go read it! Buy it from Amazon ($4.99 / $15.29); Buy it from Barnes & Noble ($4.99); Buy it from Smashwords ($4.99)

(E-book/paperback prices good as of November 9, 2014; always double check for yourself)

Disclosure: I received this ARC for free from the publisher and author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission.

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

The Bravest Princess by E.D. Baker

The Bravest Princess by E.D. Baker. Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 2014. 263p. (9781619631366) Series: Wide-Awake Princess, #3

I really enjoyed the first two books in the series, The Wide-AwakePrincess and Unlocking the Spell, but it’s been so long since I read them that I’ve forgotten the details of the story, including how Princess Annie and Prince Liam met. Which is rather important since they are engaged.

Goodreads Summary:

Sleeping Beauty's younger, non-magical sister, Annie, still can't rest while trouble in the [neighboring] kingdom threatens her good friend, Snow White. Snow White's evil stepmother has disappeared, and her father wants her married off right away--but who should she choose? How can she tell which prince is best? It's Annie and her good friend Liam to the rescue! A hilarious and and fantastical romp through a fairy tale landscape from beloved author E D Baker.

My Review:

The first 50-100 pages or so were a bit slow as the story focus mainly on Princess Gwendolyn’s wedding and then locking up Granny Bentbone who had been captured in the previous book (I assume). But once Annie and Liam got close to Snow White’s castle things got a lot more interesting.

The reason I enjoyed the first two books so much is the way so many fairytales were re-imagined and woven into the story. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with this one. Sure there were the several characters from different fairy tales but it lacked the creativity and charm of the previous books.

The adventure was interesting though and the reader is kept wondering where the wicked witch is hiding and who she might be disguised as. The 

Fairy tales very often have a simplistic and idealist view of love and marriage. I liked that the Snow White looked for more than a handsome face and a brave knight when choosing a prince. And that Annie and Liam were learning that love involves caring for the other more than oneself (and recognizing that in the other) and having the freedom to be themselves. Annie and Liam’s relationship was enjoyable and since this is a children’s book and the two are engaged there were a few times they kissed but that’s all that was said about it.

If you enjoy fairy tale retellings then you should read this series. If you enjoy children’s adventure and romance then this is also a book for you.

(View my rating system)

Go read it! Find it at a library near you; Buy it from Amazon ($13.59 / $9.99); Buy it from Barnes & Noble ($13.86 / $10.49); Buy it from an Independent Bookstore near you 

(Hardback / Ebook Prices good as of October 24, 2014 always double check for yourself)

Disclosure: I borrowed this from the library (after purchasing it for the library). The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission.

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.

Top Ten Books On My Fall To-Be-Read list

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Books On My Fall To-Be-Read list

1. Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

My favorite series! The next book comes out in November! Can't wait! 

2. The Vow: the true story that inspired the movie by Kim & Krickett Carpenter

While cataloging it for the library I started flipping through it, looks interesting!

3. The Giver by Lois Lowry

Confession: I've never read this book. Yet.

4. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Yeah, this was on a TTT-read-in-2013 list and this years TTT-spring-TBR list... hopefully this season.

5. When I Fall in Love by Susan May Warren
 
I fell in love with Susan May Warren's Deep Haven series last winter and then started her Christiansen Family series. This is book three in the series.

6. An Eye for an Eye by Irene Hannon

Because I enjoyed Dee Henderson's O'Malley series I thought I'd try Irene Hannon's Heroes of Quantico series. Book one certainly kept me turning the pages and I'd love to find out Mark's story.

7. From Slave to Governor by Perry Thomas

I've met the author and my mom really enjoyed this book. But I've never gotten around to reading it. I want to though.

8. The notorious Benedict Arnold : a true story of adventure, heroism, & treachery by Steve Sheinkin

I need to read more non-fiction... And I like American Revolutionary War history. And I really liked the other book by this author that I read. 

9. Thursday's with the Crown by Jessica Day George

I'm reading the first book in the series to 2nd grade and book two ends on a bit of a cliff hanger, so I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next!

10. The Bravest Princess by E.D. Baker

This is also book three in a middle-grade series that I've really enjoyed. A fun twist on classic fairytales all jumbled together. Book #1: Wide Awake Princess

What books do you want to read this fall?

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Remember - Anytime you visit Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com or ChristianBooks.com or Independent Bookstores use an affiliate link to get there. Any purchase you make from a link on my site generates a small kickback. You need not purchase the item I'm featuring, any purchase counts. It costs you nothing extra and is an easy way to support this site.