I began reading The Charlatan's Boy by Jonathon Rogers with high hopes, but I soon discovered that this book was anything but great. This story is about a young boy, Grady, who travels from town to town in the Corenwald frontier with a huckster named Floyd pulling a variety of hoaxes and side shows to make money. Grady, an orphan, has never known any family so he has had to rely on Floyd and his schemes in order to create some sort of an identity. Grady tries to base his life around whatever flam that Floyd is pulling and it ultimately confuses him. He has no friends or family to rely on, he just has Floyd, who never really regarded Grady's feelings or needs. The story seemed like it would pull together, but it was very... elementary and simple. I never felt invested in any of the characters or their schemes. It was an all right read and it went by fast, but it's definitely not something I would ever re-read.
I've just started reading A Fist in the Hornet's Nest by Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent and so far it is already 10x better than The Charlatan's Boy.
Happy reading!
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Slacking, A National Phenomenom
Well it's been far too long since my last post and for that I apologize. I'd like to say I had a really good reason or excuse to be absent for over a month, but really I must have just gotten lazy. Per usual. I've missed out on writing about the blizzaster, classes starting, the superbowl, and the rest of my generally boring life. So maybe in actuallity you didn't really miss out on all that much... maybe I was really doing you a favor?? Haha, I wish, I'll just stick with lazy, much more believable.
But anyhoo, the true purpose of today's blog, is to share an awesome book that I was privlidged to read when I was iced in during the blizzaster last month. Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner happened to be one of the best things about being cut off from the rest of the world and locked in my dorm. It was soo good. I couldn't put it down. I was a little sketchy about it at first, because it is a romance novel and it has a historical background, and there is nothing I hate more in the world than historical fiction that isn't all that historical and is based on "imaginary" facts. Here I was plesently suprised. The entire novel isn't set in 16th century Britain, half of it is set in present day Manhattan. The book alternates chapters between a forty something year old antique dealer, Jane, who is going through a marital crisis and is trying to piece together what has happened to her and a young seamstress, Lucy, who is a dressmaker to a noble family hoping to marry their daughter with the king. Both are going through some major trials in their lives and are trying to grow and learn from them. When Jane finds an antique ring embedded in an old prayerbook she begins a journey of discovering the mystery of the ring and discovering a little bit more about herself as well. Like I said, I'm not a huge romance nut, but I finished this book in less than a day and it wasn't overwhelmingly romantic or sleazy or anything like that. It was a good light romantic and historical read. It was really intriguing to see how the two different stories interweaved together even though they were centuries apart. I would highly reccomend this book and if any of Susan Meissner's other books are half as good as this one, I would definitely reccomend them as well. I know that I've personally inter-library loaned them in and I'm sure I won't be disappointed.
Well that about does it for this lovely little book rant :) I enjoyed this book a great deal and I hope that someone else gets as much enjoyment out of it as I did as well.
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
But anyhoo, the true purpose of today's blog, is to share an awesome book that I was privlidged to read when I was iced in during the blizzaster last month. Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner happened to be one of the best things about being cut off from the rest of the world and locked in my dorm. It was soo good. I couldn't put it down. I was a little sketchy about it at first, because it is a romance novel and it has a historical background, and there is nothing I hate more in the world than historical fiction that isn't all that historical and is based on "imaginary" facts. Here I was plesently suprised. The entire novel isn't set in 16th century Britain, half of it is set in present day Manhattan. The book alternates chapters between a forty something year old antique dealer, Jane, who is going through a marital crisis and is trying to piece together what has happened to her and a young seamstress, Lucy, who is a dressmaker to a noble family hoping to marry their daughter with the king. Both are going through some major trials in their lives and are trying to grow and learn from them. When Jane finds an antique ring embedded in an old prayerbook she begins a journey of discovering the mystery of the ring and discovering a little bit more about herself as well. Like I said, I'm not a huge romance nut, but I finished this book in less than a day and it wasn't overwhelmingly romantic or sleazy or anything like that. It was a good light romantic and historical read. It was really intriguing to see how the two different stories interweaved together even though they were centuries apart. I would highly reccomend this book and if any of Susan Meissner's other books are half as good as this one, I would definitely reccomend them as well. I know that I've personally inter-library loaned them in and I'm sure I won't be disappointed.
Well that about does it for this lovely little book rant :) I enjoyed this book a great deal and I hope that someone else gets as much enjoyment out of it as I did as well.
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
Monday, January 10, 2011
A New Beginning?
Everyone seems to jump on the bandwagon and start something new every January, so what the hell, I'll start a blog. I'll apologize in advance because I don't think that it will be nearly as entertaining as I think it's going to be. My sense of humor generally only comes across as funny to myself.
But oh well, I'll still take a stab at the blogging phenomenon. There is however another motive for doing this whole blog thing besides my "new years resolution" and that my friend is free books (I know, I'm a dork). My real ulterior motive is to score free books by reviewing them on my blog. I'm a poor college student who loves to read and what better way to score some free books than blogging book reviews (besides prostituting myself of course)?
I promise I'll do more than give crappily written reviews on books that probably no one besides myself and a few other book nerds might ever read in their lifetime. I'll try and update on my ridiculously crazy life and hopefully someone else (besides myself) can get some amusement out of my pathetically dull life.
Farewell for now!
But oh well, I'll still take a stab at the blogging phenomenon. There is however another motive for doing this whole blog thing besides my "new years resolution" and that my friend is free books (I know, I'm a dork). My real ulterior motive is to score free books by reviewing them on my blog. I'm a poor college student who loves to read and what better way to score some free books than blogging book reviews (besides prostituting myself of course)?
I promise I'll do more than give crappily written reviews on books that probably no one besides myself and a few other book nerds might ever read in their lifetime. I'll try and update on my ridiculously crazy life and hopefully someone else (besides myself) can get some amusement out of my pathetically dull life.
Farewell for now!
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