Book Blog Hop

Another Book Blogger Hop from Crazy-for-Books:

Thanks to Lori for this week’s question!(you can find the Book Blogger Hop question @ Crazy-for-Book's page here)

Many of us primarily read one genre of books, with others sprinkled in. If authors stopped writing that genre, what genre would you start reading? Or would you give up reading completely if you couldn't read that genre anymore?


This question doesn't really apply to me as I read many types of books. I probably concentrate mostly on YA and chick-lit, but I also love biographies and a some fantasy. I don't think I would quit reading at all, but if chick-lit no longer existed, I think I would turn to non-fiction by women (perhaps thinks by Chelsea Handler). I don't think I could ever stop reading, it's way too much a part of who I am.

One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell

The past few days I have spent a lot of time reading. I also finally got my Pottermore welcome email and got access to the site. Mind-blowing. There is SO much detail, its hard to let it all sink in.

So, in my recent book thirst, I have finished up One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell. I have read all of her novels except the 3 about 'Sex and the City'. I haven't bothered because I love the show so much, I don't want one to taint the other in anyway. I am very curious about the 2 newer ones though, so I may pick them up some day. My favorite by her has been 'Trading Up', for no real particular reason. Bushnell is a sassy writer, and puts in just enough sex to keep it interesting.

Back of the Book Summary: Where your zip code is as important as your handbag... Another look at the tough and tender women of New York city from Candace Bushnell, the author of Sex and the City, Trading Up, and Lipstick Jungle. In One Fifth Avenue, Bushnell tells the intertwined stories of five women at one swanky Manhattan address. One Fifth is the building--the chicest, the hottest, the one with the best pedigree, the one with all the most interesting people. And within its gorgeous pre-war walls, fortunes fall and rise in the early days of the new millennium. Here, as in her previous novels, Bushnell turns a gimlet eye on the social and sexual politics of New York's elite, this time through the lens of where they live.

Why I Read This Book: I read this book, because as I said above, I have read most of Bushnell's books, and although not my most favorite books of all time, I like them. So, I was over at a friend's house and she had it on her bookshelf, so I borrowed it.

Review: This has probably been my least favorite of all Bushnell's books. Maybe I'm getting tired of the recipe, but this one seemed a little dry, and perhaps a bit predictable. It had some unexpected parts, but there is only so many times you can read about Manhattan's elite and not feel like you already know what's going to happen. I do like Bushnell's writing style though, I love how she can change the point of view so quickly, turning the words from one persons head to another's in the same paragraph, at times in the same sentence. I like a lot of different perspectives. The characters in this book are pretty boring, they may be writers, and movie stars, and gold diggers, but they aren't at all exciting people really. This is probably more real, but in a story I don't want to hear about boring people (isn't that why we have real friends? haha). I also felt it was unnecessarily long, with the only reason I was able to read it so fast being that I was stranded in an airport for about 6 hours. I did like the book fine though, maybe in the same way as when you can't sleep you will watch your favorite TV show again at 12pm, even though you already watched it when it was on the first time at 9pm. It's a good book, but it definitely isn't something you "can't put down."

Rating:

Life Updates

So today was a pretty big day for me, it was the first day of school :) I started my MBA today! Yahoo! So in 3-4 short years I will have a few new letters after my name. This time next year I will also (hopefully) be starting my CMA (Certified Managerial Accountant - don't know if it's called the same thing outside of Canada) designation. I write the entrance exam for that in June, and will need to start studying in approx. April.... ugh.

Other than that I also had an interview for a part-time job I mentioned I was looking for awhile back. So hopefully I hear back from that soon - I need some extra $$$!!

I didn't get much reading done over the long weekend as I had anticipated. We decided to remodel our half bathroom which was in pretty rough shape. It was pretty interesting, we refinished the counter tops, changed the flooring, got a new faucet, and gave it a fresh coat of paint. I will post some pics later when I get them loaded on the computer.

I have however updated my Goodreads TBR list... I think its almost at 300! Lots to read. I'm almost done One Fifth by Candace Bushell too, so I can review that (and mention a few of her others as well) and I'm about a 1/4 way through the 2nd Sookie Stackhouse Novel by Charlaine Harris, but I'm going to wait to do a post about a few of them together.

Well, that's really all I have to say today, I'll leave you with this picture for the day:

I'm delightful and cute and so happy to be reading my book
- unlike Jessica who will have to cook and study school things, I have nothing else to do!

A Dog Named Slugger - Leigh Brill

Goodreads Summary: The true life story of a dog who changed everything for one woman. For the first time in my life, I didn't need to pretend, I didn't need to be tough: I only needed to be honest. "I have cerebral palsy. I walk funny and my balance is bad. I fall a lot. My hands shake, too. That means I'm not so good at carrying things. And if I drop stuff, sometimes it's hard to just bend down and get it." I waited anxiously for the interviewer's response. She smiled. "It sounds like a service dog could be great for you." So began Leigh Brill's journey toward independence and confidence, all thanks to a trained companion dog named Slugger. The struggling college student and the Labrador with a "a coat like sunshine" and a tail that never stopped wagging became an instant team. Together, they transformed a challenge into a triumph. Together, they inspired and educated everyone they met. Now, Leigh honors her friend with the story of their life, together.


Why I Read This Book: I found this one on Kobo for free, and since I'm a sucker for books about animals, and had nothing new to read I downloaded it.


Review: This book very quickly made it on to my 'Favorites' list. As I mentioned above, I'm a sucker for anything about animals, and this book made me cry several times. I have to say it wasn't the most amazingly written book, but at the same time it was. It felt like I was sitting with Brill and she was telling me the story of her life over tea rather than on paper. There were times when the main story would break for flashbacks of her earlier years, and when it got back to the story it would take me a few minutes to remember what we were talking about. Also, there was some issues in the book that didn't seem to get resolved, but I would suspect that maybe that's because their outcomes are yet to happen in her life.


This book was extremely touching, and really made me appreciate the amazing abilities dogs have. If you are looking for an amazing read, this probably isn't it, but if you are looking for an emotional, touching story about a real lady with real stories, definitely read this one.


Rating:

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Goodreads Summary: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Why I Read This Book: I decided to go for this book when I first saw the preview for the movie. It sounded like an interesting story, and I always regret seeing the movie of a book I want to read prior to having read the book (because you always imagine the Hollywood characters instead of using your imagination). So I bought this one for my e-reader that same day.

Review: I really liked this book, I liked the characters and the writing and the story. I can accept that it was not a perfectly factual book on how things really were, and I can accept that Stockett took a  serious topic (the civil rights movement) and wrote about it in a very light way. I actually really enjoy when authors do those. They often take a lot of criticism for novels like this, but I think they are a good thing, and I'll tell you why. First of all it is human nature to pay more attention to things we relate to. So, for me, as a white, 25 year old, Canadian who went to school with just as many black kids as white kids, and never really saw a day of racism in her life, I do not relate to it. I can recognize that they way black people were treated is horrifying, I find it awful and disgusting, but I do not relate to it. The same can be said for stories about the Holocaust, its a nightmare, and I feel for the history of it, but I do not relate to it. So, an author like Stockett wrote this book, and I found myself relating to the characters, both the maids personalities, that of Skeeter, and sometimes that of Elizabeth. This is important because once you take a topic in history and make someone like myself, who wasn't alive for it, feel part of the story it becomes part of their knowledge base. So, perhaps someday I'm flicking through channels on TV and I come across a documentary about civil rights which normally I would pass, now I may stop and say "Oh, I know about this, I read that book" so I stop and watch for a bit. And then I learn more, deeper stuff than what Stockett may have touched on in her book. Do you see what I mean? So, many people have criticized Stockett for "making light" of a serious historical topic (much like the backlash raised when 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' was released) I think it is a great thing because it breaks the ground into teaching people who don't feel like they relate, or may not have an interest in learning history, to dig deeper and really learn about it.

Now that I have that tangent out there, back to the book itself. I really liked Stockett's writing style, I enjoyed how she wrote the southern slang for Aibileen and Minny's characters, but I don't understand why there was no southern slang for the white women. I don't care how white they are, people from the South talk with a different twang than people in Canada, or New York, or Boston. This kind of irritated me a bit, but it was pretty easy to look past. I really liked the message of the book which showed how these white babies are raised by black women, and they love them SO much, but then they get to a certain age, and they stop, and they end up like their parents. I think that message translates to so many areas of humanity that it is really important to stop and think about.

And I will leave this review with that though. I recommend this book to anyone that isn't passionate about the civil rights movement, as they will probably hate it.

Rating:

Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares

So, getting back to my roots of doing a book review I thought I would choose Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares because it accomplishes two things for me. I have recently finished this book, so it gets that off my to do list, but also I can't write about Sisterhood Everlasting without mentioning the first four, and I like to at least touch on some books i have read in the past (just so you learn a little bit about my reading history).


One of my first blog posts mentioned Sisterhood Everlasting while I was reviewing Sweet Valley Confidential (didn't see that one - find it here... done reading? Okay). As I mentioned in that post I have a love hate relationship with these types of books. I really enjoyed the Travelling Pants series, so when I saw Sisterhood Everlasting, I had to read it.

Goodreads Summary: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome return of the characters whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation. Now Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget have grown up, starting their lives on their own. And though the jeans they shared are long gone, the sisterhood is everlasting. 

Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness.

Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion that they all breathlessly await. And indeed, it will change their lives forever—but in ways that none of them could ever have expected.

As moving and life-changing as an encounter with long-lost best friends, Sisterhood Everlasting is a powerful story about growing up, losing your way, and finding the courage to create a new one.

Why I Read This Book: I suppose it would be more fitting to describe why I read the first Sisterhood book then to say why I read this one. I remember sometime in high school going to a movie with a friend and being too early so we went into the bookstore. Back then I could not go into a book store and not buy a book (I have a little more restraint now). So, not having too much time, I grabbed this one because the cover looked interesting. As for the rest of the series, I acquired as birthday or Christmas gifts when they came out. This last one however, I bought as an e-book and I may have to go get the hardcover, as looking at my bookshelf it bothers me that I have 4, but know there is 5.

Review: This is a difficult book to review as its hard to speak about it without giving anything away (which I try really hard not to do). First of all I think Brashares did a pretty good job of writing this book, especially in the areas where I found the recently reviewed Sweet Valley Confidential lacked. The story had continuity, and it didn't contradict itself. This could be because 10 years haven't actually passed since the fourth novel came out. The book did a really good job at describing the characters and their personal development stories. In Brashares style, she was able to incorporate each girls story told in the first person without having it get confusing. There are definitely things that she did with the girls lives and personalities that I didn't love, but that isn't really the point, she was still able to write it believably. I could picture how each girl got to where they were, and although infuriating at times, it was again, believable. When doing a "10 years later" type of story I think it is more important to take the reader down that path of how the character got to that place than making readers 'like' the characters. Obviously there had to be some sort of 'shock factor' in the book to give it a purpose and I think it was good. I read the book in about 3 days, which is pretty fast since I normally only have about an hour a day to read.

I liked it, and I think it was a good book. I also hated it because I don't like what happened!! But, if you are a fan of the series, read it. I shouldn't think you will be disappointed.

Rating:

Book Blog Hop

So, this week was pretty crazy for me. I had to go away for work to Corner Brook, which is a very beautiful place on the west coast of Newfoundland. The 13 hour days I was working didn't leave me with a whole lot of time to blog, but I did get a fair amount of reading done, so hopefully I can get a few reviews in this week.

I enjoyed participating in last weeks Book Blog Hop hosted by Crazy for Books, so I thought I would do it again this week. For the original post, and to check out her great blog, you can click here.


This week's Hop Question is:

“What are you most looking forward to this fall/autumn season – A particular book release? Halloween? The leaves changing color? Cooler temperatures? A vacation? (If your next season is other than fall/autumn, tell us about it and what you are most looking forward to in your part of the world!)”

For me this fall I am looking forward to a lot of things actually, it is probably my favorite season, because its still nice, but its not sweltering (not that is ever really gets that hot in Newfoundland). To choose one though, I will pick school. I am looking forward to starting school. I graduated from my undergraduate degree in May of 2010, and this Wednesday will be my first day of school for my Master's degree. I am going to be working on it part time, and I have full time employment. I love the first day of school, and all the hope and excitement that comes with it. After the first few weeks it gets tough, but those first few classes are always so much fun.

Otherwise, I look forward to reading some of your answers, and getting out a few more review posts this week!

Happy Hopping!