Rare Phenomenon

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8423493 by
My Rating: 5/5 Stars

I can’t decide if I like THE HUNGER GAMES better than CATCHING FIRE or vice versa. For the movie industry, it’s rare when a sequel lives up to the hype of the original. But fortunately for readers, this is a lot more common in the book industry. Even still, it’s a rare phenomenon to have two different stories and two excellent books. Sure, the same characters are back, and sure, this is all part of the trilogy that Suzanne Collins had envisioned. But to tell two different stories takes a rare talent with a firm grasp on her genre and a firm direction for the story.

THE HUNGER GAMES certainly has more action inside the arena, and we only catch nuggets of information about the history of the games, along with the history of Panem. CATCHING FIRE fills in some of those missing details, and it has more action outside of the arena. A nice contrast, and if you enjoyed the first one, you certainly need to pick up the second one. Once again, Katniss Everdeen shines in all of her independent glory, but she’s a year older and a year wiser, and she manages to show the reader fine glimpses of her compassion as well. While we may not know everything about the secondary characters, since we’re only seeing Panem through her eyes, we don’t have to. And once again the suspense builds to a rip-roaring crescendo.

If you like dystopian fiction, and you enjoyed the characters and the storyline of the first read, then you’d better race to the bookstore to pick up Book Two.

Sucked Into The Kiddie Pool

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7723926 by
My Rating: 5/5 Stars

While the party may have ended, the band has packed up their instruments and is boarding their bus back to Panem, the streamers have been torn down by the kiddos, and everything that could have been said about THE HUNGER GAMES has probably already been said, I still feel the need to review it. Why? Because I’ve never been very good at marching in step with the rest of the crowd. Plus, as I write this, THE HUNGER GAMES occupies #9 of the Amazon Kindle eBooks Bestseller List for only the 840th day.

So how did Suzanne Collins create this international party with a rabid group of followers? By writing a damn good novel, and despite catering to the YA crowd, she held nothing back with the violence, as she dropped it across the blood spattered pages. As for her main character Katniss Everdeen, she is the real hero of this story, and she’s the glue that holds this entire novel together. Without being inside of her head every second of this novel, the entire structure on which it is built would fall apart. You can claim that this should have been written in third person, and that it would have added suspense, as well as rounded out the other characters. But it would have changed the focus of the novel entirely, and it would have lacked immediacy. In order for first person to work successfully, a novel needs a strong, well-defined main character. Check and check.

She does a great job with world-building, and I was sucked right into the kiddie pool with the surroundings, circumstances, characters, districts, and everything else that she so expertly articulated. So what if the love triangle is overdone? Without it, the story would have lacked heart. Besides, if you really want to talk plot, there are only seven basic plots, according to Cristopher Booker. Sure, this number ends up being a bit arbitrary, but it’s not like authors have an unlimited number of plots to choose from. So what it really boils down to is execution. Over and over again this book proves its point with Katniss, the quick flip of the pages (or push of the button for us Kindle users), the action scenes, how far we get into Katniss’s head, and the world-building. If you haven’t already hopped on THE HUNGER GAMES phenomenon, you better board the bus now, or you’re liable to miss out on the after-party.

See-Monkeys And Sparkle Pants

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17345947 by
My Rating: 4/5 Stars

In my younger days, when I had more sass in my head than I had sense, I managed to hit a few boys, and I got walloped a few times in return. Momma always said my mouth wandered off more than it stayed home, and my jaw got more exercise than a coon hound on a huntin’ expedition. I had more than a little trouble stopping words that were better off swallowed, and I had my defiant face all practiced and rarin’ to go faster than my granddad’s John Deere tractor.

I was fixin’ to visit my momma in Nashville, where I had bigger dreams than those country music singers on the radio, and I was at my wits end and back again, with an incoherent thought that was stretched further than the truth. I had a case of the red rage somethin’ mighty fierce, and I stomped my foot so hard I thought a floorboard or two was about to give way. I hated Jimmy ’cause he was the turd of the century, and I was on a one-way ticket to the reform school faster than one of them drag racers.

So, yes, for the better part of two days, you could say I had an out-of-body experience. I was ready to pack my shit and move to North Carolina or Virginia, watch NASCAR and SEC football, chip 6 of my teeth, have tea on Sundays with biscuits and visit the Baptist church, fill my mouth full of sweet tea (the only kind of tea there is despite my wife’s protestations to the contrary), conduct a PowerPoint presentation on the proper use of Southern words, raise the Confederate flag, pray for Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, shove a shotgun in the back of my pickup truck and tear off toward the nearest access road, and I felt like screaming Prissy Pants in my best nine year old voice.

I need to look up See-Monkeys and Sparkle Pants (whatever the heck they are) to go along with my new Barbie House; I will be pursuing my new profession (curb girl at the drive-in); I plan on going out half-cocked and I’ll be double sure; and I plan on incorporating skitterjittery, pinkie-swore, crap on a cracker, extra-smart, skeeters, bless her heart, h-e-double-hockey-sticks, squallin’, caterwaulin’, dumber than a box of rocks, truth be told, lick of sense, shitbird, hollered, and stinky dog doo into my vocabulary.

I often like to whistle past graveyards, or at funerals, weddings (including my own), receptions, bat mitzvahs, airports, waiting for the bus, or at bats that are about to buzz the top of my head. So I enjoyed this book something mighty fierce. And I feel as though I should send this novel to all my Massachusetts’ friends and family as a Christmas present, so they can brush up on the proper way of conversatin’.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Having Faith

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It’s amazing to me how much of my life requires faith—and I’m not even talking about the religious kind—but faith to apply for jobs that I sometimes feel like I have no business applying for; faith to try new books and new opportunities and meet new people, knowing some will work out and some will not; faith to write books knowing that I will fail many more times than I succeed and that others, in many cases, won’t view my work with nearly as much enthusiasm as I do; faith to write reviews and send them out onto the Internet and into the blogosphere in the off chance that someone might find my reviews helpful, or even slightly meaningful, or possibly if I’m really lucky, enlightening; faith to continue to trudge ahead when I face one brick wall after another, where one bad day seems to roll into the next and before I know it I’ve faced a week of bad days; faith to trudge on when the odds are stacked against me, and when it feels like the entire world is looking in the other direction.

What I’ve learned is having that much faith is a truly rare gift, and that even if I’m filled with that much faith, or confidence, that I still have my doubts, those moments where it feels like it will all go to hell, but it won’t really matter because no one is paying attention anyway, and I can make whatever mistakes I need to make, and that ends up being another great gift: the opportunity to fail miserably without the whole world watching. Just when it seems like I’m at my lowest point, and there’s no way I can move up from the bottom of the glass, I realize that people really do care, that they are paying attention, and maybe I can’t measure it, or quantify it, or even extrapolate it and place it on a graph, but it’s there just the same. And while encouragement from others is a great and wonderful and beautiful thing, the best strength comes from within.

Potholes And Minefields

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6679174 by
My Rating: 4/5 Stars

Like Caitlin, my emotions are all out of whack. If I’m not careful, I may even resort to sucking my thumb, screaming at random times and intervals, rolling around on the grass, flopping on my bed, or sticking my feet up in the air and playing dead. It’s really hard to say what I might do, and if I tried to pin it down, my response would be filled with conjecture, and I prefer to deal in facts.

The fact is I hated this novel. Hated it with a passion, because it discussed abuse, and I prefer to look at the world through rose-colored glasses and deal in unicorns and rainbows and Popsicle sticks and ice cream sandwiches. But this is one world that is filled with a vast emptiness that extends for miles and miles.

When I go to sleep, I dream of Junior Mints and Butterfingers and Milk Duds. I certainly do not wake up screaming in the night, or cover myself in cold sweats and silently stare out of open windows with my mouth offered up in the open position. I certainly don’t have a negative view of the world.

So, yeah, it was hard for me to understand someone that might. Not just hard, it was nearly impossible, as I struggled with it throughout the course of this novel. DREAMLAND was a virtual world for me, and it was filled with potholes and minefields and .44 Magnums pointed in my direction. The gun didn’t go off thankfully, but it was darn close, and it was pretty damn big.

Rogerson pinpointed everything I hate about this world. No, hate is probably too strong a word. But extreme dislike might not be far off the mark. He might even qualify as a beautiful bastard, I don’t know. And, frankly, Caitlin put up with way too much of his shit, and she needed to develop a few more thoughts for herself. Not maybe, this is a definitive requirement.

Otherwise, this was a beautifully written novel with fully developed characters and passionate prose and a flowing storyline that kept me on my toes. Had I liked either of the main characters, I might have even rated this novel higher.

Torrid Pace

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18888694 by
My Rating: 4/5 Stars

The torrid pace produced eyestrain and finger cramps, as I flipped pages on my Kindle as fast as I could. I literally raced ahead as if I were a RUNNER, which I am on most days. And I might have forgotten who I was for about four hours or so. Or possibly longer. There’s no real way to tell. But my Kindle was juiced up and ready to go, and the story was filled with enough keyholes that I needed a better master than the one currently in my possession. I slipped and slid, and I might have even broken my neck were I not sitting down, as the story took off faster than a Viper on the open road.

Sam Dryden showed more heart from the word go than I expected from a former Delta Forces member, and he sure as shit didn’t mind hopping back in the game after an extended cooling off period. But maybe he’d never left the battlefield, or maybe all he needed was an excuse to strap a submachine gun to his chest and place himself in the line of fire. Or it might have just been the right cause at the right time. There’s always the chance a Jedi mind trick was shoved in his direction, but that’s all hearsay.

Rachel showed plenty of poise and heart and even a bit of warm liquid goo. She was the alpha without a true omega, and she might have needed saving. Or then again, she might not. But I liked her from the beginning, even if I didn’t always understand her motivation. Like the story itself, she kept me on my toes, as I danced around the landmines that seemed to await me every fifty feet or so.

While the ending may have fit the story perfectly, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. But it worked, just like all the rest of it. Now if I can bring my adrenaline rush back down to a more normal speed, I might save myself and my heart from further complications.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Heart Palpitations

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My Rating: 4/5 Stars

The start of this novel might have caused me several heart palpitations, with characters that seemed to move backwards instead of forwards, and an unlikeable cast of misfits and miscreants. Had I developed a bit more sense, I might have shoved the entire story aside and moved on with my life. But curiosity kept me flipping pages like I was flipping shirts into a suitcase ready to take the next bus out of town. Instead of ending up at the train station, I stopped about halfway there, and turned my butt back around.

The beauty of HEARTBEAT took a bit longer to arrive than I otherwise would have liked, but I did find it, and there was a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, guarding the pot of gold with a heart monitor and electric shock treatments. He might have had a grin on his face, or it might have been a smirk, but either way it was present and accounted for, along with his scrubs, and his slightly cynical outlook on life.

Emma might have taken the fast-track to her seventeen years, with the pedal to the floor and her arm sticking out the window, while Dan, the diligent stepdad, offered up a smile and a nod in her direction. The direction of her life was headed on the downward slope, sinking faster than a person in the middle of cardiac arrest without a single doctor in sight. Caleb might have been the bad boy who had an extra dose of wicked in his lifestyle dysfunction with a hard heart and an ability to sink cars.

But this is one story that made me want to cheer, even if I had to accomplish said task from a sitting position. And my fortunes do feel just a bit brighter after having finished this novel. This was one quick read that left me blinking ever so slightly in surprise as the events unfolded right before my eyes.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Stella Got Her Groove Back

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7488669 by
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

I must say Stella got her groove back in a resounding way with a slip of the tongue here, or a quick play on words there, or a face-to-face when the situation warranted itself. She doesn’t back down from anyone, including sheriffs or ne’er do wells, and she sometimes finds herself in precarious situations, but that’s all part of her endearing charm. She’s full of life, spunk, and possibly salt and pepper with a side of cinnamon. And she has the scars to prove her torrid marks on society, and a slew of bad men standing ready to watch her fall.

Stella Hardesty may not look like much upon first glance, but she has a revenge streak something fierce, and she sees her cases all the way to the end, with a mean side of revenge, even if it means she might dangle from the occasional precipice. I’d say that’s more than part of her appeal, and she has an additional side of charm.

With a cast of characters ready to excel on the big stage, including the blonde miscreant with possibly an extra hint of cellulite, the sidekick that doesn’t mind dipping her nipple in the nerd gene pool, and the sheriff who has acquired a few skeletons in his own closet, most of which may have been put there of his own volition, there’s a bit of fun for everyone.

The mystery, though, managed to leave me in dire financial straits, as I wanted a little more bang for my hard-earned buck. This was all about the characters instead of a hard-boiled plot for the ages and times. Not that I minded all that much, but the ending felt a bit forced upon me like a leering side of smashed peas shoved down my gullet, when I would have much preferred a side of sweet candied yams staring up at me with pleading eyes. And not that I mind guessing the ending before it has arrived, but it appeared ready for center stage rather than just a sidelong glance in my side mirror. In that regard, it reminded me of a Lamborghini tooling around in the middle of Arkansas or Mississippi.

This was a solid effort by a solid voice in the hard-boiled mystery genre, but I’d set my expectations a bit higher.

Cringed On Multiple Occasions

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15748618 by
My Rating: 1/5 Stars

While I can’t guarantee I will honor all fan requests, I was certainly intrigued and rather humbled with my second piece of reviewing fan mail, and the first one with a request for a specific novel which sits in my TBR queue. In this case, a fan wanted to know my thoughts on BEAUTIFUL DISASTER. Like the great quarterbacks, I rather enjoy pretending when I sit down to write a review that I’ve never written one before, that no one actually reads this crap, and that I’m only entertaining myself (most of the time) and my wife (some of the time). Selective amnesia helps me stay sane, and it prevents the writing well from turning as bone dry as Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So why did I choose to honor said request? To sum up (and I’m paraphrasing), I was called a genius and one brilliant sonofabitch. With that kind of support, it was hard to say no, even though I now feel as though I have this tremendous responsibility to write even better and more appropriate reviews in the future (so we’re back to that wonderful selective amnesia), and now we’ll move forward with this review.

I’d say the best way for me to sum up this novel is I don’t understand the hype. No, it goes deeper and extends further than that. I actually cringed on multiple occasions while reading said novel, and I might have started viewing “Trav” as a four-letter word much worse than the usual conglomeration of four-letter words, and I started using epithets left and right that shall go otherwise unnamed for fear of constant reprisal. I probably would have tossed my Kindle through the nearest open window if I hadn’t learned how to control my emotions, and still there were probably one or two close calls. And it was a good thing I had learned this basic function because neither Travis nor Abby had, and multiple therapy sessions, a straightjacket, and a room filled with padded walls still wouldn’t have solved their problems.

Even a chipmunk who had consumed one too many acorns could see where the storyline was headed. The billboard was neon red and flashing from about three miles away. The predictable romantic roadblocks and turns ensued with neither individual offering up much in the way of intelligence or even reasonable competence. *BEGIN SPOILER* Instead of the happily ever after ending, a more fitting finale would have been for the romantic partners to get hit by a Mack truck, followed by a bullet train, and then whacked by the propeller of the nearest helicopter. *END SPOILER*

The dialogue made me want to pass out a thesaurus instead of cotton candy, while the prose was peppered with exclamation points, cringe-inducing language, a wishy-washy in need of a backbone heroine, and way too many people to hate within the confines of one novel.

Sure, I made it all the way to the end, but that was due more to my perseverance and thoughts of writing a review to expunge my feelings than it was to a favorable plot, charming characters, and winning prose.

Side note – I didn’t know about all the hoopla surrounding this author and novel until more recently. I must have stuck my head in a cave for more than a few days. Had I known about it, it wouldn’t have changed my decision to read BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, nor would it have changed my opinion of said novel. But it’s hard not to be disappointed in my author brethren for the immediate and scathing backlash about a reader’s opinion. Last I checked this wasn’t North Korea, and everyone is still entitled to his or her opinion, but maybe my few days in a cave was much longer than I realized. Either way, I’ll continue to support my fellow Goodreads reviewers the only way I know how…with my writing.

Soap Opera Monday

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My Rating: 4/5 Stars

Claudia Silver may be in her twenties, but she hasn’t left her teen years firmly behind. She has about as much sense as a love-struck fifteen-year-old left on the subway overnight and who might be prone to hallucinations on more than a few occasions. But I loved her anyway. That’s fucked up, right? Yeah, I thought so, too.

But like all teenage fantasies it wasn’t a perfect match, nor was it even a near perfect one. In fact, I abhorred her and loved her in nearly equal parts. There were occasions where I wanted to give her a hug, and there were plenty of occasions where I wanted to slap my forehead, scream, and run in the opposite direction. By the end, I might have had a nice semi-permanent red spot along with a decent amount of brain damage, and possibly finished my cardio for the entire month of March.

So what gives? I might have reached a new level of softness around my middle, or I might have just discovered a hidden gem in the midst of a woodpile before the entire stack of debris was doused in kerosene and set ablaze. I’m still processing and evaluating all the inputs, but I’ll go with the hidden gem option for two hundred Alex.

I was more than a little entertained, even if I wasn’t exactly rescued. CLAUDIA SILVER TO THE RESCUE reminded me of a soap opera, so it wasn’t all that surprising when this little tidbit was actually discussed in a bit of depth in the novel, and it reminded me on more than one occasion of how lucky I am with my family and my relationships and my job situation, because I really don’t endeavor to find out how much worse it could get for myself, but I have no problem reading about somebody else’s problems over the course of 259 pages or so.