So…Diwali is in November and its a festival which is best celebrated with friends and family. So We’re off to Mumbai tomorrow and will be back on 12th Nov. I would have scheduled posts but I don’t want to. Let my blog take a break too. I will just schedule one post on 10th November which has to do with Green books Campaign. I hope you are taking part too.
See you soon.
Title: Sugar Daddy
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Genre: Contemporary Woman’s Fiction
Source: Library
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press; First Edition edition (March 6, 2007)
Rating: 4 out of 5
My Thoughts:
I avoided this book for some time now because it’s contemporary Woman’s fiction and all the other Lisa Kleypas books I’ve read have been historical romances. I loved them and I didn’t want to be disappointment even a little as Kleypas is my favorite romance author. But I shouldn’t have worried. I loved Sugar Daddy although I wish the name of the book was different.
Liberty Jones moves to a small town, Welcome in Texas, with her mother and her mothers new boyfriend. They move in a trailer park where she makes new friends including one particular guy called Hardy. Liberty is 14 and Hardy is 17 at that time. They are attracted to each other right from the beginning. But Hardy has big dreams, he wants to escape the dreary life of the small town and he doesn’t want anyone to hold him down, least of all a serious girlfriend. So off he goes but Liberty is unable to forget him, she tries to match every guy she meets with Hardy and all of them fall short.
Meanwhile, Liberty’s mom, who has had her fair share of boyfriends gives birth to a baby girl, Corrington. Liberty ends up taking care of her most of the time. In a way she is more of a mother to her than a sister. Later in her life she meets Churchill, a rich old man, whom she develops a friendship with and eventually gets involved with his eldest son Gage. And then Hardy comes back in her life. There is a lot more to the basic story but I won’t tell you all even though it’s there at the back of the book. Suffice to say it’s all good.
The first half of the book is like a Young Adult novel, a very good one at that. Kleypas explores the mother daughter relationship, the struggles of a mother trying to raise a daughter alone and a daughter who accepts responsibilities way beyond her age. Liberty makes a wonderful heroine, sweet, charming, intelligent, hardworking, at times too perfect but I loved her anyway. Hardy and Gage are excellent heroes, the kind that are in romances. I loved Hardy more because he is the one we come to know first.
Although this is woman’s fiction, Lisa Kleypas has been a romance author for so long that I guess she could not help but include a few cliché’s of the romance genre in Sugar Daddy. But I’m not complaining, I love romances so it only made me happy. Sugar Daddy gave me immense satisfaction, one that comes with loving the book more than you expected.
Title: Buried Alive
Author: Roy Hallums
Genre: Non-fiction (memoir)
Source: Review Copy
Set in: Iraq
Rating: 4 out of 5
My Thoughts:
Roy was a 56 year old retired Naval commander working for a food supply contractor in Baghdad’s high-end Mansour district. In 2004, Roy was kidnapped by gunmen who stormed his Office. 3 Iraqi’s and a Filipino Robert was kidnapped along with him. After shuffling Roy and Robert to a few places, they finally kept them in an underground cell in a house in the middle of nowhere.
For 311 days Roy along with Robert survived hellish conditions while being blindfolded and handcuffed most of the time. Buried Alive is the story of their survival and hope against all odds.I admire Roy for his courage and his ability to stay sane in the most trying circumstances.
Buried Alive is not just a hostage drama. We also get a glimpse into how kidnapping became a business to make money, to bargain or simply to spread terror in foreign countries. The most surprising information was how many Iraqis are kidnapped for extortion. We hear about people from various nationalities being kidnapped and the various foreign government efforts to negotiate, what we don’t hear often is how these kidnappers take hostage their own countrymen to get money.
The book also gives us a glimpse into Roy’s family and how they dealt with his kidnapping. Also, it was interesting to see how the FBI controlled every aspect of information sent/ given about the kidnapping. When I started this book my progress was a little slow but after 50 pages, I just breezed through it. Buried Alive is also a good look behind all those kidnapping and killing videos we’ve see on the news. Horrifying but true. Recommended.
That's Elephant skull
Title: The Ruins
Author: Scott Smith
Narrator: Patrick Wilson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Unabridged edition (July 18, 2006)
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery/ Horror Fiction
Listening time: 14 hours approx
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
My Thoughts:
I borrowed this book from the library after reading a review by Amy. Since I wanted to try out audio books for a long time and since this was a huge book, I thought audio book was the best way to approach it.
The Ruins is a story of a group of friends, Jeff, Eric, Stacy and Amy, who are on a holiday in Mexico. They become friends with the German’s and decide to follow Mathias in search of his brother who has gone off into the jungle with an archeologist. His brother left a map of the archeological dig and they think it would be an adventure to look for him. What they didn’t anticipate was the trouble they would be and the hell hole they would be stuck in.
It’s difficult to tell you much without giving the plot away but it suffices to say that I was disappointed with the “horror” element and the overall plot, if there was any. The Ruins is more of how different characters behave in the time of crisis than having a concrete story. The first 2 hours of the book I was hooked, I was scared and couldn’t wait to find out what lied at the base of the horror. Needless to say it was not what I expected. If any book could be described as ‘excruciatingly detailed’, it would be this. I mean really. We know what all the characters were thinking at all times, about their present, their future and their past as well. At times, they also went tangent and remembered things form their childhood as if all the thinking that was already going on wasn’t enough. As Amy said it’s a survival drama but I wished there were at least a few twists and turns to keep me interested.
The Ruins was scary and fun at the beginning but then it started getting boring, monotonous and repetitive. There is only so much repetition you can take without a story to take it forward. The human drama was worth reading but then again only up-to a certain point.
I wish I had loved this more, but I guess this book just wasn’t for me.
The Narrator: Patrick Wilson: Oh he was good. I loved his voice, I found it soothing and even. The only time I didn’t like it was when he read the female dialogues, he read them in an exaggerated female tone which was quite funny. Other than that I don’t have any complains.
Would physical book change my opinion? Probably. I might have abandoned the book halfway through or just skimmed it. But since it was an audio book which I listened to while doing housework or traveling it didn’t really cut into my reading time. So in this case, the audio book actually worked for me.
Melody had 2 copies of this book and the awesome friend and person she is, she sent me one. We both loved Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols so we thought doing a joint review on this book would be fun. I hope you enjoy reading our join review as much as we had fun doing it.
Title: Forget You
Author: Jennifer Echols (blog)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
About the book: There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four-year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. With her life about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon.
But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people—suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.
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Here are my questions and Melody’s answers. (all without spoilers of course)
1. What are your first impressions of the book?
Intense, conflicts and lots of drama! When I first seen this book, I didn’t know that this is a story based on Officer Cody Fox’s brother, Doug. (For those who are not familiar with Officer Cody Fox, he first appeared on Jennifer Echol’s book titled Going Too Far, and I loved that book!)
That aside, I’ve to say there are several issues covered in this book besides the love dilemma… things like parental issue (Both Zoey and Doug have that issue with their fathers), infidelity and sex (not in graphic terms, mind you, but you’d be able to understand why this topic was raised towards the end of the story).
I mentioned that this book was intense; with lots of conflicts and drama, and that is always good thing because it keeps us intrigued and wanting to find out more. However, I’ve to confess that I was a little confused (and not to mention unconvinced) over Zoey’s condition when she claimed she has no memory what happened the night before the car crash. She wasn’t drunk, and she didn’t appear terribly hurt or shell-shocked to me either. You can say I was left confused like her; at some point I’ve to re-read a few paragraphs to make sure that I didn’t miss anything (maybe this is part of the plot, but if this is the case, then I’m disappointed to say it doesn’t work for me).
2. There are a couple of steamy scenes in this book. This was probably one of the very few YA books having such scenes. Did those scenes surprise you?
A little (especially on one particular scene but I’m not going to disclose it, haha), but I think it was good to have the author wrote about those scenes with a message behind it: practice safe sex.
3. Did you like Zoey as a character?
Hmm… what shall I say? After some thoughts I was left with one word to describe my feelings towards her: confused. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great character but at times, she seemed like having two different personalities to me – strong and independent, and feeling insecure and whiny the next. But what most puzzled me is, why did she have a relationship with Brandon despite knowing that he is only a friend and a player too?
4. What do you think were the strong points of this book (if any)? The characters, the story or the writing?
Definitely the characters. Zoey and Doug apparently have a lot of issues to deal with, and it was great to find out about their feelings toward each other as the story slowly unfolds. Secondary characters like Keke and Lila (twins and are Zoey’s good friends) are a great fun to read and they definitely add some amusement to the story.
5. Which one did you like more? Forget You or Going Too Far?
Going Too Far, without a doubt (Read Melody’s Review). I enjoyed reading Forget You, but I felt there is something lacking on the plots. And as I already mentioned before, Zoey’s condition left me feeling perplexed, and sometimes she confused me with her decisions. Doug definitely makes a better character as compared to Zoey, but then again I couldn’t understand his feelings and his attitude towards Zoey. Why did he act as if he didn’t care about her despite what he felt towards her is completely the opposite? Forget You is not a bad read, but overall I wasn’t satisfied with the story as I felt there were more questions than answers to it. Going Too Far, on the other hand, has better characterizations and more complexity (plot wise) to the story. Also, the attraction between Officer Cody Fox and Meg McPherson is more clear-cut (to be fair, this attributes to the fact that there is no other guy involved in between Cody and Meg, unlike Doug and Zoey).
Nevertheless, I love Jennifer Echol’s books and I look forward to reading her future releases.
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Read my answers to Melody’s questions here (will add the link when I get it)
Mysore Palace
Church
Title: Beyond the Comfort Zone
Author: James M Turner
Source: Review Copy
Genre: Non-fiction (Memoir)
Paperback: 354 pages
Publisher: Cliffs Edge Books (December 9, 2009)
Rating: 4.25 out of 5
My Thoughts:
This book was not exactly what I was expecting when I read the premise. Not in a bad way though. The premise is about how one of UK’s premier musicians finds himself in the Golden Triangle working to infiltrate the trade of Human Trafficking. And that’s exactly what it was. But having read about books on human Trafficking before, obviously my mind jumped to conclusions. So in a way Beyond The Comfort Zone was refreshing.
Jim, as the author is referred in the book, was born in Northwich in 1961. He describes how he went from an unknown saxophone player to one who played for famous bands like Bros and Take That, But after years of playing and after opening his own production company, he decided he wanted a change, to go on adventures he had read about on NatGeo magazines. The first 50 pages or so describes his life before and during his music career. Although I had never heard of this musician or even the bands Bros and Take That (I don’t listen to Western music a lot), I was never bored. It was an entertaining tale.
In 2002, he finds himself in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I would have loved to know why he decided on this particular place and what was he really planning to do there. But seems like that was exactly what he was planning, to NOT do anything, probably just experience a new place. He meets many people along the way, foreigners as well as the local people. Franco was one of those guys.
Franco and Jim, armed with a hidden video camera just for the sake of fun and possibly coming away with something explosive, go to a Burmese village along the Thailand-Burma (Myanmar) Border. They find themselves wanting to capture something of importance, something that would capture the child prostitution that is so ripe in Thailand and that particular region. They come away with some footage which turns out to be very rare and before they know they are pulled into something much larger than they had anticipated.
Beyond The Comfort Zone was thrilling and entertaining. It was also sad because it was real. It made me angry and sad for the hundreds of children who are trafficked for prostitution every year. The author describes daily life in Thailand, not necessary from a locals point of view but not from a tourists viewpoint either. At times I did not want to read about Franco’s and his antics but they too offer a different view of Thailand. This book does not really dwell deep into the human trafficking issue, it is mostly the authors experiences and the adventures he had along the way. The last hundred pages or so had me holding my breath waiting to know what happened. This being a memoir only adds more to that feeling. All I can say is don’t judge this book by its cover. Recommended to those who like memoirs and those who like their memoirs to read like a novel.
Seems like a long time since I have done one of those.
I have been reading a lot since I still don’t have a job. It’s the first time in 4 years that I am home doing nothing. Not even 4 years, in fact for the first time in my life considering I joined my first job immediately after my Post Grad exams. It’s definitely not a good feeling.
We are going to India in November for 10 days to celebrate Diwali with family, husband’s as well as mine. It should be fun.
My parents and younger sister are coming to Singapore in December for a trip and we’re planning on places to visit and things to do. I can’t wait.
I finished my first audio book. I will tell you all about it later.
As you all know readathon is near and although I wanted to participate I can’t. My husband is going to Jordan on 12th and I want to spend these couple of days with him. I will pop in to comment and cheer unofficially though if I get the chance. All the best to those who are taking part. Have fun!!!
Our lease for the house is ending in November and we spent a lot of time looking for a house. Prices have gone up so much since the last year that we were afraid we would not find a descent house in our budget. But we did find one at the last moment and I cannot wait to shift in after we come back from our Diwali holiday.
Oh and we watched quite a few movies. I loved Dabangg. Such an awesome movie. Although I don’t like Salman I think he did a great job in this movie. We also saw Wall Street. I kind of slept for 20 mins or so. Don’t blame me, the movie was sooo boring. I want to watch that animation movie featuring Owls, sorry can’t recall the name. I will drag my husband to it.
My husband gifted me a new camera, Cannon G11, for my Birthday (5th Oct). I love taking photographs and I love my new camera. It’s awesome.
Title: The Long Way Home (The Homelanders Book Two)
Author: Andrew Klavan
Genre: YA thriller
Hardcover: 352 pages
Source: Review Copy
Rating: 4 out of 5
My Thoughts:
I’ve had this book for some time now but what kept me from reading it was that it was the second book in the Homelanders Series. So I did what I usually do when faced with this dilemma. I read the spoilers reviews of the first book on Amazon after checking if the library had the first book. I was very happy to know that not many people were satisfied with the first book since it left a lot of questions unanswered. It seemed like the first book was kind of a build up.
So I jumped into the second book and was hooked right from page 1. In the first book ‘The Last thing I Remember’, a high school student Charlie West went to bed as an ordinary guy and woke up to find out that the police as well as the bad guys are after him. A year has passed by and Charlie doesn’t remember any of it.
********spoilers for those who haven’t read the first book**********
I didn’t really know how much he found out about himself in the first book but it didn’t matter because I didn’t feel like I missed a lot. I think it was because the author covered the gaps successfully. When this book opens Charlie is surrounded by the bad guys, supposedly the terrorists who want to destroy America by recruiting Americans who are against the country. After escaping from them and then later the police, Charlie goes to his town Spring Field to find out the truth. That is where we learn about his friends, his school and his teachers and what could have gone wrong. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire book which was also a very fast read.
********end of spoilers**********
What I didn’t understand was the terrorists role in all this. They were always in the background and the reasons were not really enough for me to believe that they were a danger to Charlie. Charlie was too good a kid which could actually work well since this is a YA novel. Charlie could be a good role model. Also there are absolutely no bad words. Even though it’s an adventure involving terrorists and a murder, it is a very clean book. At times I found the language very simple and forced. It could be because this is the first YA series that the author has written. But he is the recipient of 2 Edgar awards, so what do I know.
Anyway, recommended for YA lovers and those who love adventure and mysteries.
