New Moon

By Stephanie Meyer 2/5

Well its fluff, lots of fast reading fluff. I have to start out by saying I picked this one up first and never read Twilight, because I was confused on which one was the first one.

Basically… Girl had been in love with hottest guy in school who happens to be vampire. Girl is accepted by non-human-biting family clan, the Cullens, and her main desire is to turn into a vampire because at 18 years of age she is 100% sure that she wants to spend all of eternity with this guy! Girl is clutsy and gets into trouble a lot, cuts herself at the Cullens and causes family drama, boy dumps girl!

Girl is sick and heartbroken over teenage love, finds comfort in sexy tall guy friend that happens to be a werewolf! He loves her, she is confused, her love comes back and gets mixed up the THE Family of Vampires that want her changed also. Werewolf does not want her changed but she has to or the Volturi (The IT Family) will kill her if she doesn’t become vampire!

All this in like 500 pages! Doesn’t mean I probably won’t read the following books because they are great traveling fast reads!

Slaughterhouse Five

By: Kurt Vonnegut 4.5/5

First Kurt Vonnegut book I have ever read, it won’t be the last. Kurt is a weirdo that is for sure. Not as weird as Palahniuk.

Slaughterhouse Five is supposed to a be a literary masterpiece for antiwar books written in the late 60s. Not having particularly studied it, I might have missed much of the hidden text. Though you can tell from the writing and Vonnegut’s point of  view why this book would be considered an Antiwar book.

The story starts off with the writer describing his need to write a book about Dresdan, a small town in Germany.  As it turns out the book isn’t completely fiction, as the “city was completely destroyed by the controversial Allied aerial bombing towards the end of World War II.” Wikipedia. 

The Bombing of Dresden was a military bombing by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) as part of the allied forces between 13 February and 15 February 1945 in the Second World War. In four raids, 1,300 heavy bombers dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city, the Baroque capital of the German state of Saxony. The resulting firestorm destroyed 39 square kilometres (15 sq mi) of the city centre. (Wikipedia)

The story is followed by a presumably fictional character Billy Pilgrim, and Vonnegut reports over 135,000 people dead. Though actual facts…. In the first few decades after the war, some death toll estimates were as high as 250,000, which are now considered unreasonable.^[6] An independent investigation commissioned by the city council in 2010 finaly reported a minimum of 22,700 victims with a maximum total number of fatalities of 25,000. (Wikipedia).

Billy Pilgrim, isn’t your typical hero, but turns out that with much luck he carries on his story, his very colorful story which makes this book very unique. Can it be that Pilgrim has what is now known as PPD!

This book also explores the fine lines of war and the characterization of humanness in time of great pressures. What is a human to do when faced with the gruesomeness of WWII.  I am surprised I was never told to read this in school through a History class, as it was very fascination especially following the battle.

I look forward to reading more of his book! 

Fingersmith

Sarah Walters 5/5

WOW! Talk about a surprise! Romantic and sexy in Victorian England, of family secrets and betrayals. Great book.

The story of two girls whose lives were bound to be intertwined in the long run. There is the Lady and the thief who would never have met in normal circumstances but under a suspenseful Victorian novel they do. There is murder, sexy, pornography, books, plots and trickery and more, all of which shock you when it is not expected.

There are so many bends and twists to the novel you never see it coming. You care for one character and then you hate them, you love them and then you betray them like they betrayed you. Your emotions are on a roller coaster when reading this story.

 The story of Maud and Sue, of different love and what can friendship mean. Even the ending is unexpected. I highly recommend this book but it is not for the feint of heart. An uncle that sits in his Briar home that doesn’t understand normal little girls, puts Maud in a very serious position that would be shameful to Ladies of London, the only one who really appreciates Maud is Sue, the little thief from the roads of London that comes to be the maid to Ms. Maud. And so they story unfolds.

Travels in Small Town America

Bill Bryson 4.5/5

Like all Bill Bryson, I really enjoyed this book.  I am not sure of what order Bryson wrote his books though I do know that this book was published in 1987, and much has changed since then, including Bryson’s writing.

I was surprised at the ease of his writing and the social commentary he makes on races, economy and more. In today’s world he would have been considered a racist, though in 1987 it was a different time. People were not afraid of using certain terms with the constant fear of being called or charged of racism. I think his book was an honest look at America during that time. Could it be relative today? Sure.  I was genuinely pleased at the lack of being held back. I also think that he wrote more to the reader, to the avid reader by using some of my favorite words; chagrin, curmudgeon and more. There are many passages in his book that could be reread and reread where you can always laugh!

This book, like all, are stories of his travels, he was younger, faster at judging and had a different perspective on life.  Knowing and having read his previous books this was a treat. It really was a travel through America at the time, has it change? Maybe not!

Rant Finished

 3/5

Bizarre and weird like many of Palahniuks books. The story of Rant Casey the unbreakable strange boy that hops through time.  Rant Casey starts out having a normal life like any other person and learns of his inability to be hurt by poisons, he becomes a thrill seeker, to be bitten and poisoned and becomes pretty invincible. He ends up in a world where there are day timers and night timers and he falls in love with a girl. They are car chasers like bumper cars with real cars. These night car chasing days are themed and he becomes very good at this.

Sometimes the book is hard to follow, to understand all the different Rant Caseys that hop through time and interact between themselves. The whole idea is that they keep reproducing a better built human the can survive more. The final Rant Casey kills himself in a car chase and that is the climax of the book and ends well…. You will just have to see!

I think I liked this book I think less than I liked for example, Lullaby. I look forward to his other book that came out… Pygmy