No comments about Invincible (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force, Book 9).

5 comments about Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10).

1. I loved the take on a classic fairy tale creature and giving it a new twist. The basic story was good and left me wanting the next book.



2. I think Jim Butcher gets better with every book he writes. My only complaint is I am ready for another one!



3. I have read every one of the Dresden Files Books by Jim Butcher. Love them. I got acqainted with his character Harry Dresden when the SciFi channel did a series based on these books. Each one is better and better. Word to the wise....read these books in numerical order in order to enjoy to the fullest extent. I love the recurring characters, Dresden's sense of humor, etc.



4. I just finished reading this book. Normally when I read a bok in a seriees I re-read the previous books in the series. The book started out almost with canned responses from the characters, like Jim was forcing the reaction. Towards the end of the book things started to flow better. Not sure why he was trying to do this. I forsee two reasons (1)intentional - this is a way for us to see that a certain event has occurred in the book that we don't know about (2) unintentional - had a difficult time getting the flow back.



5. Jim Butcher keeps polishing and improving his style and characters, so much so that each new book is 10 times more addictive than the last. Small Favor is the 10th Dresden Files book, and it's characters, storyline, and fantasy world keep avid readers continually coming back for more.
   This time, we're following Harry as he is again roped into working for the winter court of the faires. Abused, lied to and usually half dead, Harry continually shows us what it takes to keep swinging when your the underdog. His sharp humor and hysterical observations plant a smile on the readers face from page one, despite the tense and often dramatic confrontations that await our hero.
   
   A solid series and an outstanding addition to it.

5 comments about Dark Needs at Night's Edge (The Immortals After Dark Series, Book 4).

1. I loved this book as much as the ones that came before. I love the concept of the world she has created. My only complaint is that she isn't writing fast enough, I want to read more! :)



2. I would first like to say that I really really really love the paranormal genre and its books like this that remind me why. This novel was absolutely flawless from start to finish. In fact, EVERY book in this series has been above par. I finally understood how talented the author is when I went back and read her novella "The Warlord Wants Forever." I loved that story and I Hate novellas. If interested, you can find it in Playing Easy to Get. Anyways...
   
   The beginning of the book takes the reader to a chaotic chain of events that takes place during the Jazz Age in 1927. Former burlesque dancer and famous ballerina Neomi Laress gets stabbed in the heart or (in Mariketa's words) shanked in the ticker by her spurned ex-boyfriend. Neomi's ghost becomes trapped in a type of spirit limbo and she is unable to leave the confinements of Élancourt, her once beloved home. She remains in this sad state for several decades, but things start to get really interesting fast when a certain deranged assassin vampire invades her home.
   
   The vamp in question is Conrad Wroth. Kresley Cole allows the reader to view events in the novel from his point of view and I got to warn you that it is very incoherent and fragmented in the first portion of the novel. But I guess when you're brutally murdered and turned into the very thing that you swore an oath to kill; you're allowed to go off the deep bend on occasion. At the very start of the story, things become very dicey for Conrad because he is forced to contend with a long list of enemies that want to see him dead (for good this time). Conrad is also bent on seeking vengeance against his older brothers for the part they took in his first death.
   
   All of these various elements become insignificant once he meets Neomi. The romance between them is very well written. I think the thing that I loved most about the story was the fact that there was an actual (gasp) ROMANCE in this novel. Because of Neomi's ghostly status, they couldn't rip each other's clothes off immediately. I have gotten so tired of other authors stringing a bunch of sex scenes together and proclaiming it a novel. Please don't misinterpret me; this IS a very sexy read. Conrad is a virgin when he first meets Neomi and she willingly becomes his sex tutor. I DON'T BLAME HER!
   
   Look for past characters to make cameos in this newest addition. Nix and Mariketa are absolutely hilarious.



3. she did it again! every one of these lore books have been amazing and thi one was no exception. i was leery about the whole ghost thing, but i couldnt put the book down. i actually found myself laughing out loud,



4. I actually would give this a 2.5, not a three, but I rounded up.
   First off I really love Kresly Cole, and will probably buy more of her books in the future, but this one just didn't really work. If felt forced. It started off with a great premise and I was actually looking forward to it, but as it progressed I stopped caring.
   You have the leading man, who is insane in the beginning, a killer, blood thirsty, horrible, and misunderstood. You expect a change in him for the better, which happens, but in matter of pages, not chapters. There wasn't a slow progression towards sanity, so that when it happened it seemed fake. Also, Cole included many of the characters from the other books, which is fine, but they kinda took over towards the end in an annoying way.
   The majority of this book seemed to be people explaining the world around them. I could have use a couple of refresher pages, but not chapters. The last chapter, which is normally the chapter where the lovers bask in their happiness, this one was pages of explanation of how the heroine lived through another endeavor.
   Overall it was not a pleasing read, but won't stop me from reading the next book she puts out.



5. One of the best books in the series. I dont give 5 stars easily. But this gets one. Nough said.

No comments about Blood Noir (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 16).

5 comments about The Road (Oprah's Book Club).

1. Great book despite all the inconsistencies, but who cares.
   
   Whatever the cause behind the Apocalypse, it is hard for me to buy into humans being the only species to survive. Quite the opposite would be more appropriate, but then again, McCarthy needs to sell books. All rules are broken, yet one of the "bad guys" decides to hike down a ravine to find privacy to relieve himself-but if he didn't McCarthy wouldn't have been able to develop the interaction with the "bad guys". But even during an Apocalypse, demons still have to have good toilet habits, right? Coincidentally finding a shelter stocked with food and a working toilet; but Cormac had to have the "good guys" survive in fashion.
   
   Despite all the inconsistencies of the human element during the Apocalypse, the book was totally engrossing and for the first time in a long time I read a book in one day as I didn't want to put it down. What better compliment of a book than that.
   
   McCarthy creates visuals so lifelike, in simple vernacular, that its this simplicity that is the genius behind this book. The darkness of the Apocalypse contrasted with the simple and primal interaction between two survivors, make this relationship all the more powerful.
   
   I am do not like books with a "message" and I don't think McCarthy delivers one, other than to paint the picture of what if.
   
   I highly recommend it.



2. I normally like McCarthy's books but this one doesn't make any sense. Why would every living thing but way too many starving humans be killed by whatever it is that happened? And why does he leave it a mystery what the cause of the mass extinction was?



3. The Road is a literary mash up composed of equal parts William Faulkner, Raymond Carver, Samuel Beckett, and pulp sci-fi. This sounds great on paper but works only about 50% of the time.
   
   For the first 25-30 pages of The Road my BS detector rang like a fire alarm. It soon quieted down, but ultimately the things I disliked about the book--it's egregiously overwritten in places and some of McCarthy's more "experimental" techniques seem arbitrary --kept me from fully appreciating its virtues. It took James Wood's definitive review in The New Republic to help me see what there is to like about it. Wood praises The Road for: the way the McCarthy taps into a post 9/11 fear of apocalypse; his combination of an ornate lyricism a'la William Faulkner with the deadpan minimalism of Raymond Carver; and for McCarthy's rigorous attempt to imagine what a post-apocalyptic world would look and feel like. The Road doesn't extrapolate a dystopian future from some present fear or potential calamity. Rather it plops its characters down in a world engulfed by some kind of nuclear winter (the cause of the catastrophe is never specified) and obsessively imagines what that world would look and feel like.
   
   Despite these virtues, there's just something about the way The Road is executed that puts me off. Critics praise McCarthy for his linguistic inventiveness, and there are some beautiful passages in The Road, but the writing often struck me as showy rather than inventive. I mean, what's so "inventive" about the arbitrary splicing together of two words? How much linguistic creativity does it take to call a cash register a cashregister, or a pump organ a pumporgan. Such devices occur frequently enough to annoy but not often enough to add much to the musicality of the prose. Then there's the frequent use of antiquated words: gryke, discalced, scribing, laved, etc. There's nothing wrong with this in principle--writers should make maximum use of the linguistic resources available to them. A generous interpretation of this tic would be that it adds to the sense of inhabiting a time that's spiritually detached from the present, or makes the point that the future involves regression rather than progress. But it struck me as showy and gratuitous--a kind of screw you to 21st century sub-literates.
   
   The other thing that bugged me was the frequent dropping of profundity bombs--brief portentous statements tacked onto the end of a paragraph that hint at philosophical or religious themes. Two problems with these: First, they are almost always duds; they are never developed and rarely explode into meaning. Second, they often come wrapped in convoluted syntax that I suspect obscures their banality. So, in this case, is McCarthy tweaking the language to make the banal sound profound?
   
   Despite these misgivings I liked the book and found it hard to put down. When McCarthy stays in his minimalist register the writing is quite good. He definitely creates a mood, and many of the word-pictures he paints, especially when describing landscapes or the objects necessary to the two main characters' survival, are quite beautiful. And I do have to give him props, as Wood notes, for advancing the post-apocalypse sub-genre by creating a remorselessly unedifying world in which our present concerns have almost completely faded from memory. Most of the dialogue in The Road is banal in the extreme, and the characters are almost completely without inner lives. But give McCarthy credit for credibly representing the psychological reality of a world in which the things that support inner lives--history, culture, community, an unacknowledged but ever present sense that humanity will extend into the indefinite future--have all but disappeared. McCarthy doesn't tell us how to avoid the apocalypse, but he gives us a pretty good sense of how we'll be spending our days when it comes.



4. Upon reading the reviews for this book and the plot summary, I bought this book thinking that it would be one of those that I just fell into love with. I was horribly wrong. It was very difficult to read, not because of how it is written, but mostly because it was boring and there was really no climax in the book. I kept waiting, but in the end I was truly disappointed. I will say this.. McCarthy is very talented in his choice of words. If he were to write a collection of poetry, I would buy it and most definitely enjoy it. Otherwise, I will probably not read any more books by Mr. McCarthy simply for the fact that this story failed to grab my attention.



5. If you are a father to a son, prepare yourself. This book will hit you hard. It will stay with you long after you've turned the last page. If you've read the author's other work, also be prepared. This one's colder in more ways than one.

No comments about Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal.

5 comments about From Dead to Worse (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 8).

1. I really enjoyed reading the other books in this series - I love the sarcastic humor and the engaging characters. This latest release however, was a disappointment. I read it all in one sitting and when I was done I felt like there was nothing to talk about - not a whole lot happened with Sookie. I was disappointed that Quinn was taken out of the story so abruptly and I wished there was more dialog with Sookie and Bill and Eric. My least favorite of her books so far.



2. I LOVE this series! I have read a couple of other reviews on this book, and I can say with the greatest feeling - Charlaine Harris, YOU ROCK! I have followed Sookie since Book 1, and I love this one as much as the others. I just bought it yesterday, and finished it today. The ending is the greatest, and the in-between, I can honestly say, kept my attention from page 1. If you've read the other seven, this one will just carry you along with the stories and happenings of those characters that you have come to know and love. I think a lot of the mystery here may not be a case-solving, but of a carrying you along- what is happening next kind of thing. And getting to be a part of Bon Temps life is so much fun!
   
   Enjoy this book for what it is - a GREAT read!



3. I've been waiting for this book for a year and I was not disapointed! I wish Sookie and Eric had their little talk, but putting that off only makes me hungry for the next book! Harris does not let faithful fans and new readers down in From Dead to Worse. She even brings back characters you love, and love to hate. This is a definite must have! You will not want to put it down!!



4. Definitely a bridge book with no mystery and more to the point no sensual experiences for Sookie.



5. I really wanted to like "From Dead to Worse", since I love the southern vampire series and the Sookie character. But the plot meandered all over the place, and really lacks cohesiveness. I also thought that two of the major characters from past books were portrayed in a negative way in this book, and in a way that was uncharacteristic of their past behavior. I hope the series gets back on track with the next book.

No comments about Dungeons and Dragons Core Rulebook Gift Set, 4th Edition.

5 comments about The Host: A Novel.

1. Stephenie Meyer has described herself as being "anti-human" in response to critics accusing her Twilight stories of being anti-feminist, just short of misogynistic, behind a glittery group of vampires that seems to take up everyone's attention. After writing The Host, Meyer might want to change her tune.
   
   The main premise is this: earth has been invaded, its human occupants no more than host bodies for tiny aliens. Melanie Stryder is one such human, forced into cohabitation with an alien called Wanderer. Only, that's not how it's supposed to go. Melanie was supposed to disappear, and Wanderer, struck by memories of Melanie's past and a seemingly impossible future with Melanie still inside her head, begins to change. She flees her alien society, striking out for the Arizona deserts on the memory that Melanie's humans -- in particular, a brother and a lover -- are there. She is blindly chased by one of a feared group of Seekers, the aliens' version of law enforcement, a woman with secrets and an agenda of her own.
   
   To get the critique out of the way first, I will say that this book is overly long and quite slow. It meanders through the first three hundred pages as surely as the main character does, getting lost in several places along the way. The plot has been done before: Body Snatchers and Animorphs come to mind. There's nothing new about alien invasions, and when Meyer tries to explain the history of the "feathery ribbons" that took over the world with smiles on their hosts' faces it seems hokey and overdone, almost a waste of time. I couldn't find myself caring about their previous host worlds, and in fact Meyer makes such worlds seem like Disney World rides rather than functioning systems there for the taking.
   
   But that's the first three hundred pages. It's a marathon of a slow start, but the story builds to a satisfactory climax. What Wanderer finds in the desert challenge her notions of what it means to be human, what it feels like to fall into love, into friendship and family. That is the strength of the story, above the science fiction and the two men she must negotiate between -- one in love with Melanie, the other with Wanderer (four people, three bodies, a problem if ever there was one) -- pushing Wanderer to finally make a choice as to her place and meaning in this world.



2. I never really like doing reviews but after finishing this book I had to let others know how wonderful it is, to spread the joy, as the saying goes. Have you ever felt that happy and satisfied feeling when you get to the last page of a book, yet leaves you thirsting for more, for it to never end? I felt that feeling after reading the Twilight Series and this book doesn't disappoint either, so much that I can't stop smiling.
   
   I must admit that I was a bit hesitant before reading this book because 1.) Twilight was so good I wasn't sure that Stephanie Meyer could top that and I didn't want to be disappointed and 2.) After reading the synopsis I felt like this wasn't my type of book, I mean aliens taking over Earth? I'm not a sci-fi type of reader (despite Twilight and Harry Potter) and felt that this storyline was a little too far out there for me to enjoy. But I told myself to have a little more faith and asked myself what was the worse that can happen. I am wholeheartedly glad that I went through with it; once I started I couldn't put the book down, except to sleep last night.
   
   Why did I love this book you ask? Well I couldn't help falling in love with Wanderer, Melanie, Jamie, Ian, Jared and the list goes on. I found myself immersed in Wanderer's and Melanie's journey and internal struggle. Stephanie definitely knows how to write so as you feel like you are there, like you are the characters, feeling what they are feeling, the love, the hate, the hope, the despair. Other reviews have said that this book is slow and contains too much detail so that it drags in places, but I respectfully disagree. I believe that the descriptions are beautiful and vivid and necessary to enjoy and understand the story thoroughly. I admit that it's not an action packed book, but it is an amazing story, and those who have more patience and appreciation for something deeper will most likely agree. This book is a perfect mix of suspense, drama, and romance; I forgot that I was reading a sci-fi book. I don't know what else to say because I don't want to give anything away (Personally I don't like when reviews do that: giving more of the plot away like a spoiler; I believe that the synopsis on a book is just enough info for someone to know before reading). Anyways, just read this book and I am 99% sure that you will love it just as much as I did. I hope that Stephanie Meyers continues this story because it was just that good.



3. This may be the first review I have written, but I just had to respond to the comment that all the good reviews were just "written out of loyalty to Stephanie". Yes i love the Twilight series, no, I feel no need to say i like a book just to be loyal to the author. I am a 37 year old single mom (my son brought home a borrowed copy of Twilight that I devoured in 1 night, now I own all 3)I bought the Host at Walmart Friday night and I finished it this morning (would have finished it sooner, but I had cleaning to do yesterday). Personally, this will go on my "will read again" shelf.



4. I've stayed away in the past from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, but "The Host" was a very welcome adult piece of fiction. I loved it and hope everyone reading this buys it as well. Great writing and great job.
   
   Editor of Michele Cozzens' award winning women's fiction A Line Between Friends



5. It took me a total of three days to read Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. I loved this series and I was very excited for this book to come out thinking it would be another great read.
   
   Far from it! I have spent the last six days forcing myself through the pages of this book. I love reading and have not enjoyed a book less than this in a very long time.
   
   I would not recommend this book to anyone.

No comments about Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4).