This was a pretty good story overall. I found myself a few times getting annoyed because it was the 1100s and women weren’t treated well, so the business with Ellie was maddening. Other than that, it was a good story. I really liked how Hosana brought together one Muslim boy and one Christian and showed them that they weren’t so different after all.
This was a great story.
Oddly, I found myself identifying more with the “villian” in the story than the “good guys.”
Peter Houghton is a high school junior who has had it with being bullied and goes to school one day and shoots ten of his classmates and a teacher. The story explores how it happened, what led up to the shooting and the reactions of the town.
What’s interesting to me is that no lessons were learned: despite the shooting and the deaths, those same children still bullied other children. Well, if you can call 17 year olds “children.” But a guy who was *shot* began bullying the very first day they were all back in school. It boggles the mind.
Of course bullying does not excuse the shooting but no one seemed to care about what was going on in that school and nothign was done to effect any real change.
Not shocking, that.
This book was odd in that there were things that were referenced as if they’d happened in antoher book but I’ve read all of them and there was nothing. So, that was weird.
In any event, Sookie’s cousin Hadley dies and Sookie is her heir. Hadley, as it turns out was a vampire. Sookie goes to my favorite city, New Orleans, to clear up Hadley’s “estate” and gets herself into way more trouble.
Quinn is in this book again as well and I really like him. He seems like a good match for Sookie as long as he isn’t up to no good, which you can never tell about characters in these books. Who knew Bill was?
See, today I stayed home from work for various reasons. I read a lot. I didn’t even go to my dad’s because I just didn’t feel like it.
On to the book.
In this one, Sookie’s brother winds up a were-panther. Once again someone is trying to kill her and Sookie has two new men interested in her. For a girl who was a virgin until she met Bill, she has a lot of men around these days.
I *really* love Sookie Stackhouse.
Eric is cursed by a witch and can’t remember who he is. Sookie finds him and takes him in. She also has a lovely relationship with him because Eric doesn’t remember to be a jerk. As always, there is a lot going on and Sookie winds up killing someone, which freaks her out. The witches have an agenda and Sookie, of course, is right in the middle of it.
This book was silly. It was written entirely in emails, IMs and the odd journal entry or two. Complete fluff. Yet … entertaining. I think it’s fun and vaguely voyeuristic.
The follow up to Bloodsucking Fiends. While BF was a better story, this book was just as funny. I can’t even give you examples, since I’m not at home writing this, but it’s very funny. As is all Christopher Moore, thus far.
Okay, so how to describe this book.
Tally Youngblood is an Ugly. Her friend Peris is now a Pretty and in 3 months, Tally will become a Pretty as well.
In Tally’s society, people go through a few stages: the Littlies, who are the very small children who still live with their parents; the Uglies, who are young people (I think ages 8-16) who live at school and are “ugly”; the Pretties (more later): the new Pretties, the Middle Pretties and (I think) the Later Pretties.
Tally is lonely after Peris goes off to become a Pretty and she meets, Shay, another Ugly whose birthday is the same as hers, so will become a Pretty on the same day. Shay doesn’t really *want* to become a Pretty and she runs away. She leaves Tally instruction on how to join her if she decides to do so.
Tally doesn’t want to run away – she has been looking forward to being a Pretty. The day comes for her to have the surgery that will make her a Pretty but when she gets to the hospital, she’s told that she can not have the surgery unless she finds out where her friend Shay has gone, goes there herself and sets off a tracking device that will allow “The Specials” to track them.
Once Tally arrives here, she doesn’t want to betray them. She finds that she likes the people she’s met, “the Smokies.” She also learns something else: that the surgery to make a person a Pretty also includes brain surgery to make a person agreeable. There are doctors who think they can reverse the surgery but they need a volunteer. Tally is that volunteer. She allows herself to be taken back to be made a Pretty and that is where the book ends. There is a sequel, “The Pretties” but I don’t know if I’ll read it.
This book is similar to The Giver by Lois Lowry and other dystopian books. It’s an interesting read, but I don’t really care about the characters enough to read the second book.
I’m not really a Danielle Steel fan but this book had *promise.* Here’s the storyline: a WASPy woman marries a WASPy man and has three children - a son and twin daughters. They subsequently divorce. WASPy woman marries Jewish man and converts. WASPy man is horrified since he’s a ” blue blood” and lives his life by “the Social Register.” The woman and her new husband have another child.
The daughters of the woman and first husband receive an invitation to “come out” at a fancy party. One of the daughters is pretty thrilled about it, the other has no interest. Father threatens all kinds of mayhem if BOTH daughters don’t do it, so they ultimately do. 2nd husband is against it as he is the child of Holocaust survivors and thinks that this is a racist, exclusionary event and no one should do it.
See? There is plenty of opportunity for a great story but it doesn’t happen. The story is light and fluffy and “feel good.” The oldest son comes out as well, which isn’t that great a surprise given the storyline and the foreshadowing in the book.
I haven’t read a Danielle Steel book since I was in high school so I’d forgotten how light they are. There wasn’t the time in a book this short to really delve into this topic but it could have been a great story.
Tough Cookie - So, let’s see … Goldy does a PBS cooking show and winds up in big, fat trouble as always.
Sticks & Scones. Okay, this was probably the best, thus far.
Double Shot
