Lexi Smart wakes up in the hospital one day to discover she’s lost all memory of the last 3 years of her life. All she remembers is being the frumpy, unappreciated girl everyone calls “Snaggletooth” due to her uneven teeth and untailored wardrobe. But the Lexi that wakes up in the hospital is completely different — she’s toned and sleek with designer clothes, she’s now the director of her department at work, and she’s married to a hunky millionaire and lives in a massive penthouse overlooking London. Yep, apparently, all that can happen in 3 years! As Lexi tries to recover her memories of the last 3 years, she starts to learn about the person she’s become. Nope, no suprises with this plot line. The Lexi of 3 years ago was a much nicer, more joyful person than the Lexi who wakes up looking perfect and living the rich life.

I can’t say this was a good novel. It was predictable and the story won’t be memorable down the road (good thing I have this blog). It wasn’t as fun as Kinsella’s “Shopaholic” series (which, in my opinion started losing the fun factor after the second book, anyway), though there are some funny bits here and there to keep you rooting for Lexi along the way. I also think the ending was decent enough, which is good since I hate finishing books and being disappointed with the turn of events at the end. But overall, not something I’d recommend unless you’re looking for a quick and fluffy read with an uncomplicated story that won’t require any thinking. (more…)

Time.com released its list of the 50 best websites of 2008, which is how I came across this great site called LookyBook which allows you to view children’s picture books from cover to cover online. I used to read a lot of picture books and review them on this site when I worked at a public library, but since I left there for my current job, I haven’t looked at too many other than a few flips through whatever’s on the book table at Costco from time to time, which is a shame because I love picture books (the stories, the colors, the illustrations) and find they can easily make me go from grumpy to happy in just a few minutes.

Now that I’m just a few weeks away from the birth of my own first baby, I’ve been thinking more about picture books, so I was happy to find this site today. I found a few books I remembered reading and loving when I came across them at the library, and it was nice to see them again online. It’s certainly a good reference source for those people trying to remember what a picture book was about. It’s also a great way to preview a book before you buy it from Chapters or Amazon, etc. Librarians, teachers, and people who work with children could spend hours going through these books looking for the next story time read.

Personally, I’m not sure how authors and illustrators might feel about having their entire works on display on the site (I wonder about legal issues, etc.), but I assume that books don’t appear on the site without permission from the appropriate people. I suspect it could be a reason for why the site currently only has 300 books online (though they are “growing daily”). However, don’t let that number stop you from browsing — there are a lot of excellent books in that number.

Twelve year old Veronica (Ronnie) Swan is babysitting her two younger sisters and playing hide and go seek. As Ronnie hides in the shed by their house, she starts to think that her sisters are unusually quiet and taking a long time finding her. Pushing open the shed door, she faces a gruesome sight — her sisters lay in a pool of blood on the ground with their necks slashed, while a man, covered in the girls’ blood, stands nearby, spinning madly and talking to himself.

The man, Scott Early, is later diagnosed with untreated schizophrenia. He is found guilty of the murders of Ronnie’s sisters, but declared mentally insane at the time. Instead of being sent to prison, he is sent to a psychiatric hospital for 3 years of treatment and is then released to live freely with his wife and new baby girl. Ronnie and her family, however, must live in their own prisons of guilt and grief as they mourn the loss of the two little girls.

Ronnie grows up quickly in the aftermath of her sisters’ murders. She takes care of her grieving mother and her new baby brother, born just weeks after the murders. She takes care of the house and what’s left of her family while her parents fall apart. Her mother takes to her bed and sleeps as much as possible, while her father leaves them to walk aimlessly night after night in the woods behind their house. After a few years of living in a fog, both of Ronnie’s parents finally come around and make a decision — they decide they will visit Scott Early in the hospital and give him their forgiveness so that they can move forward with their lives.

Ronnie can not understand her parents. To her, forgiving the man that murdered her sisters is like telling him they accept his apology and the deaths. For Ronnie’s parents, forgiving is an act of faith, brought on by months of prayer and the belief that judgment is reserved for God, not them. But Ronnie can not forgive Scott Early. Instead, she decides she will bring some judgment on him herself, and makes a plan to deliver him some of the pain he has caused her family.

Throughout the novel, Ronnie is described as an exceptionally smart young woman. Home-schooled with excellent grades, she graduates from high school early and plans to become a doctor one day. However, for such a smart person, she sure makes some poorly thought-out plans. I suppose that years of grief and thoughts of revenge can cause a person to not think clearly, but then again, she does have years to think things through and plan her revenge. Her plan, once put into action, isn’t very smart, and it certainly isn’t carried out well. I sort of expected more repercussions for her actions, but instead the result has very little consequence to herself. In fact, the ending of the novel turns out to be a little too gratifying. And I suppose after years of pain and sorrow, Ronnie deserves a little happiness in the end, but something just doesn’t feel right about it. Perhaps it has to do with how easily her life goes on, and how well things turn out for her, and how willing everyone around her is to let her off the hook for what she does.

I’d say this is a good book despite the ending. It is well-written, and the pages fly by with an interesting plot to carry it forward. Religion is a major factor in this novel, and I did expect more preaching and religious discussion, but there is surprisingly little apart from some setting up in the beginning and then the overly sweet ending that I found a little hard to believe. Overall, a good read with some interesting themes. (more…)

Ambrose Zephyr has been told by his doctor that he has one month left to live. Ambrose has always loved letters and the alphabet, and so he makes a list, from A to Z, of places to go or things to see or do in the month he has left. He and his wife, Zappora “Zipper” Ashkenazi, then leave everything behind and travel from destination to destination to complete Ambrose’s list.

This was a well-written book, but it’s fairly depressing. Ambrose and Zipper have no one but each other (no kids, no relatives) which makes Ambrose’s imminent death all the more tragic as his wife will be left alone. I think that’s what got to me the most about this book. The sad realization for Zipper that the love of her life for so many years is dying and she will be alone to grieve him. It’s even more tragic that the death isn’t sudden, so they can prepare themselves for it, but it also won’t be far away, so there’s just not enough time left. I was just wiped out by the end, and this was a short novel, so I was surprised by how much of an emotional wallop it packed.

I didn’t know this was a sequel to Gould’s previous novel, Jumper, which I haven’t read, but I have seen the recent movie adaptation (which, according to my husband is pretty much nothing like the book). I can’t say that I particularly liked the movie (poor casting being the main reason), but I did like the idea of Jumper, so my husband thought I might like this book and borrowed it from the library for me. And he was right! It is a book I like! Yay! I was skeptical at first because we don’t tend to read the same sorts of books, so I’d say he made a pretty good choice. It’s like he knows me or something ;)

Davy Rice is the world’s only known jumper, or a teleport, as he calls himself. He’s able to teleport himself anywhere in the world he’s been to before in the blink of an eye. Pretty useful trick, don’t you think? Well, the National Security Agency certainly thinks so, and for the last 10 years, Davy has been working with them on various missions, doing such things as rescuing kidnap victims and foiling hijack attempts, to transporting goods to people living in hard to reach places. Davy likes to use his abilities for good; however, there are some very powerful and rich people who have other plans for Davy’s ability, and they know that this good-willed person isn’t about to help them with their sorts of plans (read: terrorism, freeing political enemies, transporting drugs, etc.). But Davy’s ability is too good to resist, so they devise a way to kidnap Davy and keep him contained so that he can’t jump while they (like Pavlov and his experiments) condition him to automatically jump where they want him to and perform what they demand him to under penalty of death if he doesn’t comply. Doesn’t really sound like something you could do to a person with Davy’s ability and strong personality, but Gould plots his story in such a way that it’s all believable and plausible. That’s probably what I appreciate the most about this book — that Gould doesn’t try to pull one over on the reader; he works to gain your acceptance and craft a story that’s believable (for a Sci Fi novel). The bad guys are successful in abducting Davy, and despite Davy’s best efforts, they’re also successful in forcing him to do as they want (it can get a little gruesome at times, but it’s necessary for believability).

Davy’s kidnapping leaves Davy’s wife (Millie) and the NSA scrambling to find him. The chapters in this book alternate, switching between Davy’s perspective to Millie’s, and the plot unfolds as Davy tries to figure out a way to escape, while Millie tries to figure out how to save him. As the story progresses, Millie learns something new about herself (I won’t spoil it for you here), that becomes very valuable in the rescue process, and before you know it, she becomes the true hero of the book. She’s strong, both in her determination and intellect, and it’s nice to see such an empowered female character.
I enjoyed this book. I liked the plot (fast-paced and engrossing), the characterization, and the writing. I’m going to have to read Jumper now.