Review: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I read this book for the Something About Me challenge. I've had the feeling for years that perhaps I'm the only person in the entire world that hasn't read this book! It's my friend Emily's favorite book in the world, so I took this opportunity to read it.

I really liked it. Normally, science fiction isn't my thing, but in the past few years I've been finding more and more SF titles that are great. This is one of them. Of course you have to suspend your own reality, but the characters are so great (and human) that you can really let yourself travel into the future and see the sights.

Even if you think you don't like SF, you'll like this one.

Review: I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak

This is my last "official" book for the Something About Me Challenge. I'm done! However, I'm quickly moving on to my "I hope I have time to read these" list.

Loved this book. Loved it. It only took me two days to read, because I just couldn't put it down. Authors like Markus Zusak amaze me. What happens with so many authors that I like is that after a few books I never read them again because, well, read one and you've read them all. I mean, I swear, pick up a John Grisham or a James Patterson and you can just substitute names and places and "voila!" you've got a new book! (Sorry Grisham and Patterson fans).

Not so with Markus Zusak. If you read The Book Thief and loved it, prepare for the same engaging, can't-put-it-down style, but a completely different book. Totally different premise, totally different setting, timeline, etc. There's not a thing about this book that reminded me of his other, except how much I loved it.

Now you're reading about a 19 year old card-playing cabdriver who's a bit of a loser. All of a sudden, he starts getting messages delivered to him on playing cards and you're off on a great adventure. Read this, read The Book Thief, and then you'll probably do what I'm going to do, which is scour the library and book stores for his other ones.

Review: The Eyre Affair

I know, I know, I'm really behind on reviewing the books I've read. You'll have to forgive me until I take my big test this week. Then I should have some extra brain power for other things!

I read this one for the Something About Me challenge I'm hosting. I really wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I did finish it, although it took me absolutely forever. It's about a female literary detective of sorts that pursues literary mysteries. A person who loves books should love this book!

I didn't love it, though. It has a pretty distinct science-fiction type flavor, with a bizarre world that is unrecognizable. Part of my dislike was that I felt like this imaginary world wasn't described well enough. The book is supposed to be set in 1985, but it's not like the 1985 I lived through. So what happened? How did the world get in such a state? I guess it's really not necessary to describe - you just have to let go and accept that this is a totally different world and just get into it. But I just couldn't. I liked the characters well enough, and I wanted to read to the end and make sure the bad guy got taken care of. But I just couldn't suspend my "reality" enough to fall into this crazy book world.

It probably has something to do with all the stuff that's going on in my life right now. I have little patience for reading anyway, and then this book was a little too much imaginary work. So if you have this on your list, don't give up. You might have a totally different experience. I might even try the second in the series at some point when my life isn't so crazy, who knows?

I only have one more to go from my original list of 6!