Book Review - The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

Read this 4 months ago, and just got around to writing my thoughts about it now. Or should I say, my lack of thoughts. I honestly do not remember much of the plot or characters when I looked at the title. I read the description, and it brought back a bit of memory. So it was a fast thriller / mystery while it lasted - at least I finished it and wanted to find out what happened, though I did make a note that it was a bit predictable, without many twists or turns. It was a debut novel.

I picked this one up after hearing good things about the author's latest book, The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes.  I actually won a copy of Two Deaths, and will give it a try since the author may have improved in the past 4 years.

I did like this quote: "That a man was measured by the way he acted, not what he had." (p290)

2 / 5 .

Note - borrowed from the library.



All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.

Book Review - Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

This was Sarah Addison Allen's first book, and many of her readers' favorites. Earlier in 2011 I read The Sugar Queen (my review here) and really enjoyed it, so I decided to read everything else by Allen. Magical realism became a new favorite genre for me.

I read this back in September, and now 4 months later, I hardly remember the plot but I remember it was a cute, sweet but predictable story. I could see its appeal to readers given its magical aspect, though it was magic without a feasible explanation (yes I am weird about that, it's hard for me to just believe in magic without some logic. In fact, have you read the article about Santa Clause from an engineering's perspective?  No I am not an engineer, but my mind works kinda like that.)

Anyway I digress.

None of the characters really stood out (apart from the apple tree!) and I remembered some of them were a bit stereotypical. I did enjoy Allen's writing though. My favorite part of the book was reading about the unusual pairing of exotic favors in cakes or other dishes - they sounded magical (hehe - see, there is a plausible explanation for this type of food magic!) 

At that time, I gave this book a 3.5. But now I think I'll lower it to 3 since it didn't have much staying power for me, unlike The Sugar Queen.

3 / 5 .

Note - borrowed from the library.


All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.

Book Review - The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar 

Mostly based in India, Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita, and Nishta were once best friends. Due to circumstances, they had drifted apart and had not seen each other since. Thirty years later, one of them was dying in America and her last wish was to see her friends once more. Would they be able to honor her wish? I chose this ARC to review (out today!) because I wanted a good friendship story.

I liked the characters (loved their names!) - they were all flawed but seemed realistic. Though some characters were developed more than others. In fact, I thought the two male characters (husbands of two characters, who were also friends with all four girls back in the days) were the more complex characters even though they were not the main focus. I also was hoping for a more emotional read - after all, a close friend was dying! - but I thought it fell a bit flat.

One of the other themes of the book reminded me of Megan's Way by Melissa Foster - what would you do if you have a terminal disease - would you go for treatments or not?  If not, why not?

Usually I shy away from literary fiction because I do not like overly descriptive story without much action. Fortunately I did not have much problem with this book, as the writing was quite easy to read. I also liked that I learned a little bit more about modern India. 


This is definitely a character-driven novel, and more about the journey than the destination. Because of that I am quite disappointed by the ending - not quite how it ended, but where it ended. I thought there would be more to the story, or at least the book should have an epilogue to tie up some lose ends. Right now it just felt unfinished.



3.25 / 5

Note - ARC was given HarperCollins in exchange for an unbiased review.



All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.

What a great start...

What a great start in 2012 - my first book is a Did Not Finish! :)  It is The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson, which is for one of my two book clubs. I'll share my thoughts about it in a separate post.

But true to my word, I am not wasting time on books I don't enjoy. So 2012 will probably be a year of book abandonment!

I hope you had a better start than I did :)

Note - I am enjoying this graphic novel series in Chinese (originally from Japan) called Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫. I am not sure if it comes in English, but they are short stories about this talented unlicensed doctor practicing on patients... (ummm looks like they DO come in English? See this link).

It seems like I like graphic novels in Chinese better than in English (they are mostly translated from Japanese manga). The other graphic novel author I liked from last year was Fumi Saimon, again, I don't know if her books are translated into English... I guess these books have become my guilty pleasure when I am in a slump.

Books Read in 2012

Fiction:

1. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (2 Stars)
2. Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu (4 Stars) 
3. The Restorer (Graveyard Queen #1) by Amanda Stevens  (3.5 Stars)
4. 1222 (Hanne Wilhelmsen #8) by Anne Holt (3.5 Stars) 
5. Half-Past Dawn by Richard Doetsch (3 Stars) 
6. The Devotion of Suspect X 容疑者Xの献身 by Keigo Higashino 東野圭吾(4.5 Stars) 
7. The Three Coffins (Dr. Gideon Fell, #6) / The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (3.5 Stars)
8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (4 Stars)
9. Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, #1) by Marissa Meyer (4 Stars) 
10. Legend by Marie Lu (4 Stars) 
11. Delaney's Shadow by Ingrid Weaver (3.5 Stars)
12. The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi  (3 Stars)
13. The Phantom of the Post Office by Kate Klise (3 Stars)
14. XO (Kathryn Dance #3) by Jeffrey Deaver (2 Stars)
15. Into the Darkest Corner by Elisabeth Haynes (3 Stars)
16. The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams (3 Stars)
17. Love Anthony by Lisa Genova (3.75 Stars) 
18. UnWholly (Unwind Trilogy #2) by Neal Shusterman (3.5 Stars)
19. On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves (3 Stars)
20. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (4 Stars)

Non-Fiction:

1. A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan (3.5 Stars)
2. The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters by Jeffrey Zaslow 
3. How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy) by Julia Cameron (2 Stars)
4. Helicopters, Drill Sergent and Consultants: Parenting Styles and the Messages They Send (Love and Logic series) by Jim Fay (4 Stars)
5. What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir by Alice Eve Cohen (3.5 Stars)
6. French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters by Karen Le Billon  (4 Stars)
7. Bringing the Baby Home: An Owner's Manual for First Time Parents by Laura Zahn (4 Stars) 
8. HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie F. Mongan  
9. The First Eight Days of Being a Mom by Gea Meijering

Did Not Finish (DNF):

1. The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
2. The Night Circus: A Novel by Erin Morgenstern  
3. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan 
4. Darkfever (Fever, #1) by Karen Marie Moning  

Chinese:

1. Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 (Vol 6) by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫 
2. Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 (Vol 7) by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫  
3. Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 (Vol 8) by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫 
4. Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 (Vol 9) by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫  
5. Black Jack 怪醫秦博士/ 怪醫黑傑克 (Vol 10) by Tezuka Osamu 手塚治虫  

2nd Blogging Anverisory and Reading Goals in 2012

As of 1/1/12, I'd have been blogging for 2 years! Can't believe it. The biggest reward is to get to know some like-minded bloggers! :)

I will continue to blog in 2012 as time permitted :) Hopefully I can do a better job, and post more consistently than I did this year. I am such a spontaneous/mood blogger that I blog only when I feel like it...




Let's see what goals I should set for 2012:

#1 - I like what Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness said about not becoming a reading robot (see her post here), and specifically that reading should be a transporting experience. So I want to continue to emphasis on quality over quantity, and choose books I really want to read, and abandon books that couldn't hold my interest. I already know 2012 is going to be a very busy year for me due to several projects in the works.

#2 - I will continue to try to blog every book I read (and not finished). I think I will do shorter, more to-the-point reviews. Well, truth be told, my posts aren't actually reviews since I don't go into deep analysis over language, structure, plot, characters... I really just want to share my thoughts on the book. And if I can write shorter posts, maybe I won't be so delayed on my reviews!

#3 - I also want to continue to read out-loud some books with hubby. Maybe we'll aim for 3 this year. It takes more time to finish the book when I read it out loud to him (compared to me just reading it silently to myself), but we do enjoy the experience, and it gives us something to do together.

#4 - I don't care how many fiction or non-fiction I read, as long as I read both! I am such a mood reader, so I can't plan ahead what I will read next (apart from the book clubs read - I belong to 2 of them)

#5 - Lastly, I still want to give at least 1 audio book a try, while being on the elliptical! 2012 is a year to get healthy! :)



All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.

Review Reading Goals in 2011

Let's reflect - these were my 10 reading goals set on 1/1/11. Let's see how badly I did lol:

1. Quality over quantity. If I can reach 100 books again for the 4th year in a row - fine. If not, I won't stress out much about it.
   
   Well, it depends on whether you count the Chinese books I read!
   I read 71 Fiction, 24 Non-Fiction, and 16 Chinese books. Thus in total - 95 (excluding Chinese books) or 111 (including Chinese books). Granted, quite a few of the Chinese books were graphic novels... so I'd let you be the judge. I probably would have finished over 100 (excluding Chinese) but I was in a reading slump starting in October. I was still reading, but my pace had slowed down A LOT. I usually read 2 books a week, but now it usually takes me at least a week to finish a book... To see the complete list of books I read in 2011, see here.
   
   
   
   
2. Read approximately half fiction and half non-fiction 
   
   BIG FAILED! I read roughly 3 Fiction : 1 Non-Fiction instead... I blamed other blogs lol, since most of you read fiction, and so many of the books you read sounded so good!
   
   
   
3. Continue to blog every book, hopefully within a week
   
   BIG FAILED! It started of well, but in the second half of the year I fell way behind due to work. In fact, I am still not done with all my reviews yet...  25 to go! I guess I read faster than I blog...
   
   
   
   
4. Let's see if I can stick to doing BTT every week!
   
   Another BIG FAILED! I think I did just once (the New Year resolution about setting up 2011 goals!) I guess I sometimes forget to read BTT every Thursday, and I don't always blog on Thursday ( prefer blogging on Friday night and over the weekend, when I don't have to worry about getting up early the next day).
   
   
   
   
5. Keep recommending books to others and encourage non-readers to discover the magic of books!
   
   YES! I definitely did. When it comes to fiction, I usually recommend according to the reader's taste. The book I specifically recommended at least 4 times this year though, was My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor - another blogger's brother suffered a stroke, a co-worker's mother suffered a stroke, a husband of a friend of someone else I kinda know suffered a stroke, and my sister-in-law who  works with people who may have had brain injury in the past so I thought this may help her communicate with them... I actually read this back in 2009, but it comes in handy (unfortunately....)
   
   
   
   
6. As much as I love my local library, I should at least read 10 of my own books... there are 170+ waiting...
   
   Well, it again depends on how you look at it... If you only count the books I bought myself, then it's only ONE BOOK. However, I did read another 18 books that I didn't borrow from the library, but I received them this year as part of a book tour or ARC reviews...
   
   
   
   
7. Give audio books a try, while trying to exercise (bought an elliptical and have hardly used it... because I'd rather use the time to read instead... and I can't read it and use it at the same time. Perhaps audio books will help lower the opportunity cost)
   
   FAILED! I borrowed them, but didn't end up listening to them as I'd hoped... which also meant I didn't use my elliptical either. Oops.
   
   
   
   
8. Read 5 books with husband - he prefers audio books and I prefer reading. So to spend more quality time together, maybe we'll pick a book and I'll read to him instead. We did one book together last year and it seemed to work quite well. Since English is not my first language, he can correct my pronunciation too. Kill multiple birds with one stone :)
   
   We completed 2 books together (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua and Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff) and we had started another 3 but didn't finish yet as I needed to return them to the library (Steve Jobs, Unbroken, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.)
   
   
   
   
9. Read 5 books I won't normally choose. Even if I can't finish, at least give it a try.
   
   I'd say yes - I tried historical fiction, historical non-fiction, chick lit, magical realism, literary fiction, women's fiction... Most of my fiction books were rated between 2 to 3.5 Stars though, I think mostly because I was reading out of my comfort zone. Some ended up being very good, but most were just so-so for me. I am glad I gave it a try this year so find out what I really like, and don't like.
   
   
   
   
10. Just enjoy reading... it shouldn't be a chore
    
    I'd say yes - I abandoned 15 books in 2011!! You can see what they are at the bottom of this post.