Blood Rites by Jim Butcher

Yeah I know - two in a row - but I couldn't let my 14 year old son get ahead of me so that we could talk about the books on our weekly calls. So I powered through it on the long drives to Nebraska I had this past week. As this is the sixth book in the series, its finally getting to be a little more solid, there was actual character development happening in this book and some really cool background into Dresden's past - and a glimpse into the future as well through some pretty creative foreshadowing.

It seems like Jim Butcher finally got comfortable with his characters and has stopped writing as defensively now that he knows that his stories will continue to be published and not every story line ended up with a nice little "happily ever after" bow tied on the final chapter.

Goodreads Rating: 4 stars (better than the others...)

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

Get used to these brief, unenthusiastic reviews being stuck into this blog - I have to read this series.
Ok so I don't HAVE to read this series but all of my kids and my husband and my best friend have read the entire series and the dinner table is crowded with Harry Dresden references (yes I have 4 very nerdy boys). So I listen to these on audiobook format while I'm driving so I don't give up my precious few reading minutes on - well - Harry Dresden.  The saving grace to this setup is that the narrator is James Masters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame - he brings a lot of life to the characters and I get to visualize his hotness while listening to his voice. Not that these are bad books if you are into this kind of thing.  Wizards and Goblins and Bob the Spirit who lives in a skull etc.  But high fantasy really isn't my bag...

That being said, this book is the fifth in the series (God help me there are 9 more of these!!!) and it is markedly better than the last four were.  The characters seem to be more fleshed out and Butcher has stopped writing so defensively and tying up all of the loose ends at the end.  The other bonus is that there was a pretty awesome - and not at all pornish - love scene in it.  I hope we see more of Susan and soon!

The plot centered around the Shroud of Turin and the Knights of the Holy Cross get involved and things get kind of intense.  I was disappointed by the ending, but I did pick up on some interesting foreshadowing so I hope some of that comes up again in future books.

Goodreads rating: 3 stars

Date read: January 15, 2015

Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer

My second audio book of the year came from Lydia Netzer entitled "Shine Shine Shine"  and was the first book that I couldn't wait to get back to whenever I had to be away from it.  This is the first thing I have read by this author but it will not be the last by any means! Her characters are all just so....real.  I adored Sunny throughout this novel, I loved how she tried so incredibly hard to be the perfect wife and mother and homemaker and party planner and everything to everybody.  I loved that her husband, Maxon was a socially awkward, Aspergers genius who always tried but never really "got" what Sunny needed from him.  I loved their son Bubbers and his struggles in contrast to what was happening with his parents.  And I adored all of the tiny imperfections underneath the story and every single character in it - right down to the ancillary characters - that fit it all together brilliantly and the flashback scenes that explained how everyone became who they are.

So my rating on this novel is 4 star but I really wanted it to be 4.5.  The only places where I thought the book lost its way was near the end in a surreal scene with Bubbers and Maxon.  While I understand the point that the author was trying to make with the symbolic hallucinations, it just fell flat against the brilliance of the rest of the novel.  The other spot that rubbed me the wrong way was the journey into Skip Weather's house also near the end of the book.  Again, though, I thought the reveal of what was behind the door was lovely, it was the other circumstances surrounding the discovery that made everything seem incredibly unreal and I didn't love it.

Bonus: There was an interview with Lydia Netzer at the end of this book that detailed her process in writing it.  In it, she reveals that she really isn't much of a contemporary reader which makes sense in the fact that this book had such a unique voice that was unlike anything else on the bookshelves today.  It was a sweet little surprise there.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone looking to get a fresh perspective on how "perfection" really should be accomplished.

Goodreads rating: 4.5 stars.

Read Date: January 8, 2015

Back for 2015! If I Stay by Gayle Forman

I have been in the midst of my MBA studies and a big move at the end of last year but I have missed this silly little blog so I thought I'd start up again so I can record some of the thoughts about the lovely books that I am reading (or listening to as the case may be).  The great thing about having limited time to read for - if there can be an upside - is that I am very selective about my literary endeavors and, as a result chose some really lovely books since I started this whole educational journey.

The other big change is that I am back out on the road now so audio books have become my best friend.  There is just something so soothing about having someone read to you and experience the characters in a way that the author intended.  The other bonus is that a lot of the books I have read lately via audio format have had additional author interviews tacked on to the end and/or were read by the author.  I tell you, that is just the coolest.

So I am going to start with 2015 books for this year but I may dip back into 2014 for some books that I adored but didn't have a chance to blog.

My first audio book of the year was "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman.  The reason that I picked this one out was due to the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge that my friend Vanessa and I decided to do together - this one satisfied the "Book that was turned into a movie" category.

The premise of this novel centers around Mia, a teenager involved in a tragic accident that took her immediate family.  She realizes that she has the option to either stay on earth or let go into whatever lies beyond.  The story is told from her out of body point of view as she watches her loved ones cope with what has happened to her and her family.

While the writing and the musings of Mia were lovely, there was something in this novel that didn't grab me entirely and I would have loved to have seen more flashback and fewer absurd little subplots (like the rock star distraction). No spoilers but the ending seemed a bit abrupt.  It could have supported another chapter, but now I understand this is part of a series of books so I may have to try book 2 "Where She Went" to see if what I hoped would be fleshed out in this novel is continued by the author.

Goodreads Rating: 3 stars

Read Date: January 6, 2015