Let's Try This Again

Seriously sorry for such a hiatus. This summer I played host to my thesis class, which meant one month shorter to research and write such a project as well as the fact that my grandfather is sick and so I had to take a three week break in the middle to deal with family drama. Yes, it made the production of my thesis a stressful and extremely time consuming endeavor. I now appreciate my father working on his dissertation with four children running around as well. The only difference, I had four children running around and no spouse to remove them from the house when the noise became too extreme. However, after all that stress and nearly 400 pages later, I had my Master's thesis complete and graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with my Masters in Library and Information Science. Now, if only I could get a job. . .

As a result of a stressful last two semesters, I have been a complete and utter failure in the upkeep of my reading log. However, I have seriously gotten down to business in the last couple of months. Largely  because I have found some seriously fun reading material in the form of some great E-Book material. Yes, some of it can also be in print, but many of these were originally published in E-format. Now me personally, I love the printed book. One, it doesn't get hot when I read it. Two, I don't have to charge it constantly in order to read all day. Three, a paper book has both the texture and the smell to go along with it. However, in our lovely digital age, digital books cannot be ignored. It is cheaper to publish via digital printing and I really think there are a lot of new authors out there who don't get the chance at paper but do in a digital format. The only major issue I have with digital books is that they really seem to not be edited as well as a print books. There are far more typographical errors in an digital book than in a print book although those are not exempt either. It is annoying but if the author has construct a story that pulls you in enough, I'm able to accept that these books are not edited as well and move on.

**For July and August I'm just going to put up a list of what was read and if you have any questions about any of them, just give me a shout.**

July 2012

**Note: Any E-book listed does not contain page numbers. Titles with * beside them are series that are not yet completed.**

*Warriors of Ankh; By: Samantha Young
1-Blood Will Tell
2-Blood Past
3-Shades of Blood

*Fire Spirits;  By: Samantha Young
1-Smokeless Fire
2-Scorched Skies
3-Borrowed Ember

The Tale of Lunarmorte; By: Samantha Young
1- Moon Spell
2-River Cast
3-Blood Solstice

Drip Drop Tear;  By: Samantha Young

*The Fade;  By: Samantha Young
1-Slumber

NOTE--Samantha Young has become a favorite of mine after reading these. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. Also, The Tale of Lunarmorte series, while technically being complete, looks like she may continue with a spin off type series.

The Watchers Trilogy;  By Karice Bolton
1-Awakening
2-Legions
3-Cataclysm

Total for the month of July: 14 titles


August 2012

*Midnight Fire;  By: Kaitlyn Davis
1-Ignite
2-Simmer

*Darkwoods Series;  By: J.A. Redmerski
1-Mayfair Moon
2- Kindred

Cloud Prophet Trilogy;  By: Megg Jensen
1-Anathema
2-Oubliette
3-Severed

The Initiate;  By: Megg Jensen

*The Swarm Trilogy;  By: Megg Jensen
1-Sleepers
2-Afterlife

*The Grey Wolf Series; By: Quinn Loftis
1-Prince of Wolves
2-Blood Rites
3-Just One Drop
4-Out of the Dark

*The Arelia LeRue Series; By: Kira Saito
1-Bound
2-Punished
3-Possessed

*Ancient Legends; By: Jayde Scott
1-The Job-From Hell
2-Beelzebub Girl
3-Voodoo Kiss
4-Dead and Beyond

Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy; By: E.L. James
1-Fifty Shades of Grey (528)
2-Fifty Shades Darker (544)
3-Fifty Shades Freed (592)

*Delirium Series; By: Lauren Oliver
1-Delirium (441)

*Otherworld Trilogy;  By: Jenna Elizabeth Johnson
1-Faelorehn
2-Domarehn

*The Arotas Trilogy; By: Amy Miles
1-Forbidden
2-Reckoning

*Fallen Angels Saga; By: E. Van Lowe
1-Boyfriend from Hell
2-Earth Angel

The Rippler Trilogy; By: Cidney Swanson
1-Rippler
2-Chameleon
3-Unfurl

Seasons of the Moon; By: S.M. Reine
1-Six Moon Summer
2-All Hallows' Moon
3-Long Night Moon
4-Gray Moon Rising

Total for the month of August: 38 titles

I have to say that I believe August is a personal record for me, one I'm actually hoping to meet or break in September but we shall see what life hands me. I have many opinions on each title, all you have to do is ask, but I will admit keeping up with my habit and discussing each book in detail would take alot away from the actual act of reading and I kind of need that more than anything else right now, so I'm going to ease back into the blogging thing in the hopes that this time it sticks.!! Happy Reading Everyone!

Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson

Carlson, J.P. Rex Riders. Monstrosities, 2011.

Grade Level: Actual reading level, 5-9 (see review)

This was a score from Library Thing's Early Reviewers, and therefore, I really wanted to like this book. Never have I been so discouraged with a book that I simply had to stop reading it. This was my first.

I love dinosaurs. I love a good cowboy story especially if you make it a good old fashion fantasy right along with it. But Rex Riders was a disappointment from the beginning. The story is very disjointed, the descriptions are wordy and still I can't get a good picture in my mind, and the author seems more intent on telling us all his knowledge of little trivia from the old west then telling a cohesive story. the storyline is so broken up, that I wouldn't let even 5-9th graders read it because they may be just as confused as I was, but the language usage is definitely for those grades, maybe even lower.

Zeke is a fifteen year old boy living with his Uncle Jesse on his ranch in Texas. Zeke is a boy who can't stay out of trouble and Uncle Jesse is about as stubborn and old fashioned in his ways as they come. When dinosaurs start popping up in their small town, things really start going haywire.

Seriously, it may sound interesting and maybe you will have more luck with the book than I did, afterall we all have different tastes (and after looking at some reviews on Goodreads, it does seem that some people enjoy the book), but me--woman who hasn't found a YA book she doesn't like or at least find some value in--says this is just a catastrophe of writing. The foreshadowing is as bland and obvious as it comes, and the entire storyline is so choppy that you can't get your hooks into anything. Even when Zeke meets a sweet, fiery girl, it hints at some sort of romance, but there is no more mention of it for over 50+ pages. Don't mention what you aren't going to keep at, if it's not mentioned within 50 pages of the first mention, you've lost your audience. Also, the story would have been much better without exposition on things like the importance of beef jerky in the old west.

Your Own, Sylvia a Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Your Own, Sylvia

Hemphill, Stephanie. Your Own, Sylvia: a Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

Grade Level: 10-12

Your Own, Sylvia is an intriguing weave of poetry and biography. The poetry itself was largely based on the form of some of Sylvia Plath’s poems, adding another dynamic to the story of Sylvia Plath’s life. However, the poems are Hemphill’s poems. The one major problem with the book is that if you do not know much about Sylvia Plath or are unfamiliar with her poems, some things can be truly lost in the reading. The book itself does, however, make you want to know more about the woman. The story of Sylvia Plath is not necessarily a happy one, and the outcome of a life that might have been saved by just one person taking more notice cannot be lost on readers of this particular book. This particular aspect of the book can help teenagers to perhaps question what they could do or not do to help one another. One does never know what that weird girl in the back of the classroom could do with her life, if only one person would smile at her. The sense that just one person could have perhaps saved the life of a troubled person is strong in Your Own, Sylvia.

To introduce this particular biography of Sylvia Plath, one would first have to introduce Sylvia Plath. What about her poetry can speak to you? It may even be of benefit to choose the poems in Hemphill’s book that are specifically mirroring certain Plath poems, reading them side by side to a class, to get a sense of both person and poetry. This type of book is highly conducive to teaching teens about poetry and specifically about Sylvia Plath poetry in a high school English class. Although Plath’s life ended in suicide, which can be a difficult topic in High School, the book isn’t about her death, but really about her real life—what in her life really drove her, and that allows another level of insight into the woman’s poetry.