Book Review: Anne of Hollywood

DETAILS: Anne of Hollywood by Carol Wolper.  Copyright 2012. Chick lit.

SUMMERY: A rendition of the story of Anne Boleyn set in modern day Hollywood.

PROS: This was a good "escape" book or beach read.  I liked the way she had the story divided between four narrators, with three of them in third person and Anne's in first person.  It was clever and it worked.

CONS: I felt like Ms. Wolper tried too hard sometimes instead of just letting the story flow naturally.  The sex and drug references, while not unrealistic, felt forced and awkward.  I also thought she tried too hard to draw perfect parallels from the real story of Anne Boleyn, when the reality of a modern day adaptation is that sometimes you have to tweak the details.

BOTTOM LINE: This was okay if you're looking for a light, fun book, but I expected a little more.  Three stars out of five.

Book Review: The Paris Wife

~Random note: This is the third book I've read in the last week that has the word "wife" in the title.  That was not intentional but merely a strange coincidence.~

DETAILS: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.  Copyright 2011. Historical fiction.

SUMMERY:  Hadley Richardson was twenty-eight years old when she married Ernest Hemingway.  This book is a fictionalized account chronicling their five-year marriage and their time in the bohemian atmosphere of 1920's Paris.

PROS: I loved this book.  I knew nothing of Hemingway's person life going into this book and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at this portion through the (fictionalized) eyes of Hadley.  Ms. McLain perfectly captures the complexities and the ups and downs that go with any relationship, and she captures the feel of Paris in the 1920's perfectly (I imagine). 

CONS: There really is nothing I would change about this book. 

BOTTOM LINE: Absolutely superb.  I would recommend this book to anyone.  Five stars out of five.

Book Review: How to Become a Famous Writer...

DETAILS: How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights, by Ariel Gore. Copyright 2007. Writing how-to, non-fiction

SUMMERY: Ariel Gore breaks down her advice for becoming a famous writer.

PROS:  This book was sometimes funny and irreverent and it contained some good interviews with famous authors.

CONS:  There was nothing really earth-shattering or new about this book.  I was disappointed over all and I don't feel like I learned much.

BOTTOM LINE: I wouldn't recommend this except maybe for the author interviews. Two stars out of five.

Book Review: The Historian

DETAILS: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Copyright 2005. Fantasy.

SUMMERY: A 16-year-old girl, accompanying her father on diplomatic missions around Cold War Europe, pieces together her family's history of searching for medieval vampires.

PROS:  I enjoyed this book a lot.  It's length is a bit daunting, but it is expertly told.  Ms. Kostova weaves a story within a story within a story with a great deal of care and precision, and the story is paced very nicely and often gripping.

CONS: There was a section of the book (the first half of the third part) that lost my attention a bit and I had to keep myself from skimming.  Also, with the myriad of characters that wind their way into the story, perhaps an old-fashioned character list would have been helpful.

BOTTOM LINE:  I debated a great deal whether to give this book four stars or five.  It is very good, and I would (and have) recommended it to many people.  However, I try to reserve my five-star reviews for books I will read many times, and this book, for me, is probably a one-time read.  So, four out of five stars.

Book Review: A Countess Below Stairs

DETAILS: A Countess Below Stairs, by Eva Ibbotson. Copyright 1981. YA historical fiction.

SUMMERY: Countess Anna Grazinsky and her family are forced to flee their native Russia following the Russian Revolution.  They end up penniless in England and Anna is forced to take a job as a maid for a local earl.  While there, she has to contend with her growing feelings for the earl and the ulterior motives of the earl's evil fiancee.

PROS: This is a light, fun book.  The ending wrapped up nicely and in a slightly unexpected way.  I enjoyed the setting and the idea of a displaced Russian countess.

CONS: The book was quite predictable and the characters were flat and unremarkable.  Anna seemed to have no difficulty adjusting to her life as a maid, even after a childhood in luxury.  She seem to be unrealistically without fault.  Frankly I thought the most interesting character was the earl's nasty fiancee.

BOTTOM LINE: This book is not bad but not particularly good.  Two stars out of five.

Winning!

TODAY BY NUMBERS:

Total word count of The Language of the Unheard: 52,251

Number of form rejections for Finding Innisburg: 0

Number of requests for partials for Finding Innisburg: 1 (yay!)

Number of books read in the last three days: 4 (I'm a fast reader)


Days until my Certified Nursing Assistant exam: 2


So I have gotten hooked on GoodReads.com the last few days.  I have found so many new books I want to read and from there I have sorted them, placed a few holds at the library and discussed book favorites with other members.  And best of all, they give away free books!!!  I know! FREE BOOKS!!!  Authors and publishers give them away before they are actually released in hopes of getting favorable reviews and a fan base.  There are no strings attached; if you win, you are encouraged to write a review, but it is not required. So I've been entering for everything that I feel like I might be interested in, and today I found out I won a book!

The book I won is Rogue, a thriller by Mark Sullivan.  It should come in 4-6 weeks and I'm pretty excited.  When it comes, I'll post a review here for you all.  It is being released October 2nd by St. Martin's Press.

So I would encourage all my reader readers (lol) to get on GoodReads and start entering drawings.  It's fun, and even if you don't win, it's a great way to find out about books you might be interested in reading before they even come out!

So I'm eagerly looking for new reading material, preferably books released in the last 2-3 years.  I like mysteries, thrillers, action-adventure, memoirs, literary fiction (if it's not too slow), chick-lit (no, it's not dead) and commercial fiction.  I don't like romance, stories with sad endings (with a couple of exceptions), erotica, stories about drug abuse, sex abuse, or prostitution.  So what would you recommend to me?  I want to know, please comment below!

Book Review: The Tiger's Wife

DETAILS: The Tiger's Wife: A Novel by Tea Obreht. Copyright 2011. Literary fiction.

SUMMERY: Natalia, a young doctor, is traveling to a remote town on the Balkan peninsula to deliver vaccinations to an orphanage.  While there, she finds out her grandfather has died, and spends the next couple of days dealing with myths, superstitions, and stories, both those of the locals, and the ones that her grandfather passed down to her.

PROS: Masterfully written, Ms. Obreht crafts a story that jumps back and forth through time without ever losing a reader.  Reality and myth are so perfectly entwined that readers begin to loose track of which is which.  The detail and precision of this story are so exquisite and selected so flawlessly that it reads more like a memoir than a novel.  Ms. Obreht is truly a literary talent and I look forward to reading her works for years to come.

CONS: The only flaw I could say is that I felt like the characters could have been a little more developed.  The story was beautiful, but I didn't relate to the characters particularly well.

BOTTOM LINE: Not action packed, but very readable with tangible settings and flavor-packed narrative.  Four stars out of five.