Friends n' Family #4: Ender's Game -Orson Scott Card

Okay so in my Friends and Family challenge I have been unable to read as many books this past month as I would have liked to. Also all of my books this past month have been family recommendations except for this one. My roommate Adrienne recommended this book to me along with a great many others. She reads just about everything and her recommendations are all over the map, which I like.

Ender Wiggin is growing up in a world constantly at war with an Alien race known as the Buggars. In a world constantly at war the military needs soldiers and brilliant ones to lead the armed forces and put and end to a neverending war. Ender, along with his brother Peter and Sister Valentine are all candidates to enter the Battle school but for one reason or another both Peter and Valentine are rejected for the program but Ender makes the cut. He is sent into space to Battle school and bred to be a solider. He is only a child but he will be a solider. His brother and sister are also only children but have power all their own. The human race needs a leader and they need it now otherwise humanity as they know it may cease to exist. h

I liked this book. It's not any secret that I like science fiction so this book was pretty interesting. Orson Scott Card weaves an interesting tale about what the future could be like. We have no idea what could be waiting out in space and while a race of bug-people does seem unlikely the threat to Earth  may not be. Now if you haven't decide that I'm completely insane and are still reading this blog than I would like to add Card captured me with an interesting story and a unique one. I loved this book so thank you to my roommate for recommending this book.

Biographies #2: Happy Accidents - Jane Lynch

I jumped right into this book after finishing "Night". With all the emotion and imagery conjured up by "Night" I needed something light to read before going to sleep. I'd been wanting to read Jane Lynch's biography since it came out so I grabbed it.

Jane Lynch has been the ultimate guest star, a wonder on stage, and laugh out loud scary as Coach Sue Sylvester on Glee. But behind the scenes after the curtain falls there is more to her story. How Jane Lynch discovered she had the acting bug and how she struggled and came to terms with her sexuality.

Ripe with Lynch's well known dry wit and sarcasm "Happy Accidents" is a wonderful journey of how Jane Lynch followed her dream of becoming an actress. More than just another run of the mill celebrity biography "Happy Accidents" also talks about the struggle that is far more common than celebrity, the difficulty in accepting yourself. With wit and humor Lynch talks about the accidents that culminated in getting her where she is today. Though not all of her story is a funny one her writing and ability to accept herself make even parts of the tough stuff funnier. This is a wonderful biography about a truly remarkable person.

Friends n' Family #3: The White Queen - Philippa Greggory

Okay again another well timed book with my budding interest in British History. While home on a visit I was talking to my Aunt (my mother's sister) and telling her about watching The Tudors and my new interest in British history. My Aunt who has always been into British history started talking about an author who does a lot of writing about British history. So my aunt suggested Philippa Gregory's The White Queen. While not about Tudor England like a lot of her other work it is still set in Britian's turbulent past and starts setting the stage for the reign of the Tudors.

The White Queen is the story of Elizabeth Woodville who rose from the life of a common woman to be Queen of England. She had beauty that capture the eye of a king and the strength of will to keep her family together and protected for years. Her two royal sons were the central figures in one of the most confusing mysteries in British history. "The Princes in the Tower" were her two York sons who while being kept in the tower went missing. The White Queen shares the story of how Elizabeth rose to royalty and her long fight to make sure she and her family stayed there.

While parts of the story are fictitious Philippa Gregory uses fact and deductive reasoning to create a story that is believable. This story is well written and captured my attention from the beginning and held onto it with an iron grip until the very end. The story incorporated the history behind Elizabeth Woodville but also mythology connected with her and her family. Another draw to the story for me was the fact that Elizabeth was a strong, fierce woman who demanded respect and fought tooth and nail for it. She went from being a woman with no power and a family supporting the loosing side to marrying the oppose and becoming the most powerful woman in England. I loved this book.

Friends & Family #2: Green Darkness - Anya Seton

Ok a bit of a slow month for me  but the month has been a bit of a wonky month for me work wise. Nevertheless here is book number two for the month, my Mom's favorite book and recommendation for the month. She read this book a while ago and then got my Aunt to read it and she in turn liked it so now it was my turn to give it a go. Generally my Mom and I have similar taste in books however this book isn't one of of typical books we share. Usually my Mom and I share mysteries and this while technically not a mystery certainly has that aspect.

Celia Marsdon looks like everything a proper English lady should be and married to a proper English gentleman. However not is well in Celia's marriage her husband Richard has become withdrawn and then suddenly Celia has suddenly started behaving completely out of character. When the problems in their marriage become life and death the only way to stop a horrible end it to go back, back to the first time they met not the 1960's but further back to 16th Century England. Celia and Richard's story goes back further to when their souls were first introduced bi ack to Tudor England. Saving their lives in the present all goes back to reliving what happened to their souls in the past.

I loved this book there was mystery, drama, romance, and history. Seton created a brilliant story that had you entangled in the web from the get go and keeps you trapped until the very end. The wonderful thing about a book that goes back an forth between two times is that you get to try and connect the characters from one time to the other. Who given what you know about them would be this person and who would be that. The mystery of the story comes from trying to figure out what happened to these two people hundreds of years ago and how the people in their lives are connected both past and present. The history in the book is fantastic. The story spans throughout the three reigns of Henry VIII's children, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. More than a story about love it is a story of England and of the constant state of fluctuation it saw with it's monarchs.

Friends and Family #1 : Dies the Fire - S M Stirling

Okay so challenge month one has started and that means for the month of April I'm going to read as many of my Friends & Family favorite books as possible. I started with my Dad's favorite book. He's been trying to get me to read this book for years and I started it a while back but then some books by my favorite authors came up and so I got distracted. So when I made this challenge I made sure to add this book to my last and made sure it was the first book I started with. My Dad is a big Sci-fi/Fantasy buff so a lot of the books he reads tend to fall in those categories which is fine with me because I like those too.

Mike Havel is flying a family to their country home when he looses all power in his plane. Forced to land the plane in the Idaho wilderness he then must lead the family to safety. Quickly he finds that the problems may not be confined to his plane. Meanwhile Juniper Mackenzie is performing in a small town Oregon pub when the lights go out. Cars have stopped where they were and planes are falling out of the sky sending the town into panic and a blazing fire. Juniper with her and daughter and an ever expanding group of friends head to the country and Juniper's cabin to farm and help those who survive the crisis. But while some have helping others on their mind others have nothing but conquest and power.

I have to say that the first time I tried to read this I didn't really get into the book which is probably part of the reason I was so easily pulled away and into other books. This time however when I started reading the book I found that I got pulled into the story. It was interesting to see how a world so dependent on technology fared once they had to do without it. The writing was well down and the characters unique and well developed. I liked that there were two main groups of people experiencing the same phenomenon and that they react to the Change in different ways. One thing I had a hard time with was the quick passage of time. In the beginning the passage of time was consistent and easy to follow. Later time jumped rapidly and took a while to figure out how much time had passed. All in all however I really enjoyed this book. Thanks Dad.

The 9 Month Challenge

Dear Friends, Family, Followers, and Facebook Stalkers,
 I have decided to expand my reading habits and give myself a different challenge every month for the rest of the year. My goal is to read as many books in that month meet the challenge. While I've already picked out the various month challenges I welcome the input of you all for books I can read. Here are the challenges:

April: Friends and Family Favorites
May: Classics
June: Biographies
July: American Fiction/Non-fiction
August: Book/Movie Crossovers
September: Women's Fiction
October: Horror
November: Relgion
December: Kid's Fiction

This is going to be difficult to say the least because there are a lot of books between now and the end of the year that I am going to want to read, books that don't meet the challenge requirements, but that is the point. So here I will be posting all my reviews of my challenge books. Here we go.

#35: The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown

3/31/12

A funny story (or not really funny more just slightly interesting) about how I stumbled upon this book. We were doing a massive store wide inventory scan and I was scanning the Teen Fiction section when I pulled this book off to scan the barcode. I figured this was probably going to have some copies sent back because there quite a few copies in section. After pushing the button on the scanner I looked at my screen and saw that none of them were going back but also I noticed it was in the wrong section all together. So I checked the book out and read the back of it. It sounded good and I needed something to read so I grabbed a copy.

When you are named after three of Shakespeare's characters you are destined to lead interesting lives. That is the case for the three Andreas sisters Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia who's Shakespeare quoting father named them. When they learn that their mother has breast cancer the three girls return home to help out. But there is more than just being good daughter bringing the three girls back home. There are challenges worthy of any Shakespearean character hovering around these three ladies will they be strong enough to meet these challenges before the final curtain? 

This book was unique in the fact that the entire book was written in collective first person. I'll admit I had a difficult time at first getting used to this but after a while it was easier. I liked it the story was complex and intriguing. With the collective first person I got to be inside all their heads and experience all their stories in a way typical third or first person doesn't allow. It was a great story about family and the connections that bind us together and also the connections that bind us to a place. There is no place like home and sometimes you have to go back there to remember it.