YA Reading - A Little Less Girl

Goodread synopsis
Everything has always come easy to Jake West. But when Amy, the girl obsessed with him, commits suicide, the entire town of Raynesville is quick to blame Jake. Now Amy's cousin, Dani, has moved into town. And suddenly Jake has an obsession of his own. Dani Spencer has always dreamed of a home and normal life. When her beloved cousin and grandmother die, her wild, impetuous mother inherits their house in Raynesville. With Amy's diary in hand, Dani intends on finding out what happened to her cousin. And there's an obvious place to start... Jake West, the guy who broke Amy's heart.


My review (also available on goodreads)
A Little Less Girl by Tess Oliver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another quick and fun eBargain find.

Tess Oliver took us back to high school in this book. The beginning of a new school year, a town recovering from tragedy and now a new hot girl in town to rip open healing wounds. Tess Oliver's depiction of high school interaction read authentically. The cast of characters was small, but each played a pertinent part and played it well.

I fell in love with the two main characters - Dani and Jake. Dani's character was thoroughly likable - an intelligent girl, strong in mind and spirit, despite the hard knocks in life she suffered. Dani's move to Raynesville was the beginning of a new life for her - the end of a nomadic, chaotic expeirence with her mother, finding a place with her peers and developing a relationship with someone who cared about her just for her. I liked Dani because she served as a great role model for girls. Dani found a way to be caring and unbiased in her view of life. She was a thinker, with just enough spontaneity to be fun. Because of her mother's irresponsibility, Dani developed a maturity beyond her years and it was with this maturity that she set out to determine what truly happened to her cousin Amy. Jake, our male main was also great. A smart, handsome guy who was the town's golden child, yet not full of himself. Through the eyes of Amy and Dani, we find that Jake is also a caring character who took the time to spend notice the "invisibles" in his world. After the death of Amy, Jake found himself squirming under the heavy gaze of the town - the same gaze that had followed him adoringly all his life, was suddenly scrutinizing and judging. Jake was almost too good to be true, but not in a sickly sweet way.

I liked that Dani acknowledged very quickly in the story that she liked Jake and believed him innocent of Amy's death. Granted Amy helped Dani come to this realization, Dani was already walking the path of the thought from the moment she met Jake. I wish the dynamics between some of the characters was fleshed out a little more. For instance, the friction between Jake and his father seemed out of place and undeserved. Jake was as fresh as most teenagers often are, but he was also respectful of his parents. That example and some others felt contrived in the story.

The story telling was fast. It seemed that Dani found the answer she was looking for in like 4 weeks. I couldn't really get a sense of time passage, which left me a little disoriented, but did not the story negatively. For a cheap find ($0.99), this was a quick, simple and fun read. Brava Tess Oliver. Looking forward to reading more of your work.

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Adult Read Review - The Mill River Recluse

The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Mill River Recluse



The Mill River Recluse is the story of Mary McAllister, a quiet unassuming woman who struggled for most of her life to rise about the traumas of her life. Darcie Chan introduces us to Mary the night before she dies and then bounces back and forth between Mary at 16 and the events that occur after she dies, coloring in the details of Mary's life along the way in a story that spans time for the late 1930s to present day. There are a host of characters that fill out the story, from the wealthy McAllisters whom Mary joins by marriage to the present day inhabitants of Mill River who live in the sleepy town down hill from Mary's majestic home. Darcie tells us just enough of each character to serve as filler for her story, but not enough for me to form an enduring connection with them. The one exception was Father Michael O'Brien, Mary's friend and sole confidant for years. He is one of my favorite characters in the book. He was a priest wracked with the guilt of his own ongoing sin, but yet devoted his life to the service of one fragile soul and I fell in love with this character from the moment he first slipped. Other than him and perhaps as intended, Mary is my main connection to the story, and while she lived up to the challenge, I feel the other characters might have been a little gipped.

The overall theme of this story is redemption. Other reviews I have come across stated that the finale was overly positive and too saccharin sweet, however I felt inspired by Mary's battle and that of the other characters in the book. It was refreshing to read a story with a happy ending, especially when there had been so much pain. If you're seeking a simple read with a message of enduring and preservation, then consider this book.



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It's WWW Wednesday again!

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading. WWW Wednesdays is a fun way to share what you're reading. To play along, just answer the following 3 questions:

1. What are you currently reading?

2. What did you recently finish reading?

3. What do you think you'll read next? 

What are you currently reading?

I am still reading A Little Less Girl by Tess Oliver.  I'm only about five chapters in (GRR to life's interruptions), but I love Dani and Amy already.  I have 454 pages left to read and I can already feel me being swept off my feet. Today at work, I will ignore everyone in the lunch room and spend 40 minutes reading!

What did you recently finish reading?

I finished reading The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan and I have the review in draft mode (GRR to life's interruptions!). I am not shilling for Barnes and Nobles by any means, but I'm telling you, their eBook bargains bucket has been good to me.  If you have a nook e-reader and you have little scratch but a huge literary appetite, then sign up for those almost daily emails from B&N. It's totally worth it!  

What do you think you'll read next?

Dreams of Joy the sequel to Shanghai girls.

I'm always looking for the next best read, so please share what you're reading with me!

YA Review - A Million Suns

It was by sheer happenstance that I came across this exciting sequel to Across The Universe. I cannot stand cliff-hangers especially in books which take so long to write, print and produce. I strive to avoid reading works of art in motion. Had I known that this end of the story was yet to be printed, I would have avoided the series like a plague till the finale was firmly etched in ink.  At the conclusion of Beth Revis's first novel, I was pleased with my experience, ready to move on to something new when I came upon this book marked "to read" in a friend's feed. The whole series is a trilogy!  I was gobsmacked and angered all at once. I'm a greedy reader who needs to know all there is to know about a story immediately! How will I ever survive until 2013 when the finale is released? 

A Million Suns by Beth Revis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another fantasmic tale of love, learning and betrayal by Beth Revis.

My emotional roller-coaster and unreasonable love affair with the Amy and Elder, our two protagonists in Beth Revis' illustrious story is a testament to the fascinating tale that our author is taking us on. In this installment, we learn more about Orion and what he learned about the Godspeed during the twenty years he was hiding from Eldest. Amy and Elder learn about life aboard Godspeed before the Eldest System, the controlling force of Phydus and the mysterious plague. Amy remains an outsider on the ship, unable to meld into the fabric of her new home. She doesn't think like everyone else, doesn't look like everyone else, and is not content with the status quo like everyone else. As for Elder, he is learning truly - Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Life on the Godspeed is significantly impacted now by the three causes of discord. Regardless of his upbringing (by "nature" and nurture), Elder struggles to fill the fairly flawed and very large shoes of the ship's last leader.

In telling their tales, Amy and Elder reminded me that the two heros I am rooting for are still very much teenagers and are teenagers required to make very adult choices The older people in their lives are not much help to them and they have to trust each other more than ever. I enjoyed watching Elder come into his own and I wished there was similar growth in Amy. Amy held onto her petulant attitude a moment too long that shifted my allegiance away from her slightly.

While I enjoyed the mystery of unlocking the secrets of the Godspeed, I was not very surprised by the reveals. The surprises at the end of each corridor were ones I would expect from the story. The unravelling of the web of secrets was tense and engaging, definitely my favorite part of the book. I did not enjoy the rather rapid descent into anarchy of the inhabitants of the Godspeed. The escalation of events seemed rushed and inexplicable at times.

I am looking forward to the next chapter in the series. Beth Revis has woven Elder and Amy into the fabric of my consciousness. I am genuinely concerned about their future together and I am rooting for them. A great read and definitely worthy of purchase. 4 out of 5 stars!

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Keeping up with the basics

So in the last few weeks, my blog posting has slowed. Life has caught up to me, I have less time to dedicate to my online activities, work pressures, spouse time, kids stuff, house maintaining, blah blah blah.  The same old story that I'm sure everyone has heard before.

What I want to know is How do other successful bloggers manage? Because I know I am not the first, nor will I be the last blogger who has to deal with life in general. The first thing that comes to mind is to schedule my blogging, I know that most people schedule time in their day/week/month to get their blogging done and I plan to do the same. The head-scratcher is how much time to dedicate to blogging.  How much time should I allocate to posting, reading, reading other blogs, commenting and all the other activities that come with maintaining a good and active blog?

I've spent a lot of thinking time pondering this. The first thing I've asked myself, is well - how active do I really want to be?  I love my weekly WWW Wednesday update.  It helps me stay current on what I am reading and planning out what my next read will be.  I also love writing book reviews. I figured out how to write reviews on goodreads and auto publish them to my blog (work smarter, not harder folks!) which is great because I love being part of the literary community. However since my book reviews are dependent on my active reading time, and I really hate setting an amount of time to reading a book (a topic for another post), I am not always consistent with my reviews.  As a matter of fact, I am three reviews behind as I sit here and write. Perhaps before picking up a new book, I should write the review of the one I just completed? Hmm? or duh! whichever works.

The second thing I've asked myself is what does success look like for me? Right now, my blog would be successful if it is an active site that has regular followers and receives about 100 hits a week.  Small potatoes for some of you, but monumental activity for me!

Finally, what kind of posts will I publish? . For the blogs that I manage to read, I notice that the authors/writers have different features, post types and styles and generally have a nice variety. Well most do. So how can I emulate that without sounding insincere?

For all my bloggy friends out there - reviewers, writers or otherwise - how much time do you allocate to your blog activities and how much time do you think a new blogger should allocate to their blog to keep it fresh and successful?