Serial Posting

So, it's been a while, and there have been a lot of books that have been finished. I'm pretty consistent about reviewing them on Goodreads, but I haven't posted them here. Until now. Now I'm going to serial post all of those reviews here so that my blog starts to look back to normal.

Also coming today are pages with the reviews in alphabetical order by book title and by author last name. These posts will take some time, but in the end, everything will be up to date.

The Maze Runner

This book was a little weird, but it quickly sucked me in, even being an audiobook.

Thomas wakes up in a box - an elevator - and has no memories other than his name. He enters the Glade, in the middle of a giant maze, and has no idea why he's there or what's happening.

What do they have to do? Solve the maze. Sounds simple. Except it's not. The boys have been there for two years, running in the maze everyday, and the maze remained unsolved.

It's a dystopia where you spend almost the entire book not really knowing what happened on Earth that resulted in the creation of the maze.

The end of the book explains what happened, why they'e in the maze, and leaves you with a desire to know what happens next.

Mr. Maybe

This was a fluffy little book. Libby is looking for her Mr. Right. She has a list of what she wants in a dream man - rich, great sex, someone that she finds attractive, someone who wants to get married.

Unfortunately, she can't seem to find all of those properties in one man. One the one hand, she has Nick. Great in bed and attractive, but broke and not ready for commitment. Libby falls for him so hard that she get almost frustrated. She hates his friends, she hates that he has no money, but she wants to be with him.

He dumps her.

She's heartbroken until she meets Ed. He's stinking rich and wants to get married. Unfortunately he has an unattractive mustache, he's ridiculously boring, and terrible in bed.

She ends up having to make a choice between the fairy tale life as a rich man's wife and being happy and in love no matter what the bank account balance is.

Just a fluffy read after some rather deep reads that I've had lately.

Dark Magick

I hate when I find my fears for fictional characters are true.

Morgan's life is not getting any better. She's convinced that she's killed someone. Cal is being rather, well, borderline abusive. I spent so long wanting to yell at her that he can't be trusted. I could not have told you why (although, now I can), but I did not trust Cal anymore.

Morgan is definitely powerful, but her life in turmoil and not knowing really who she can trust to help her figure out her power has made everything rather volatile.

I hope that she's going to be ok in the next book. I have been more worried about Morgan as a character than I can remember being in any other novel/series.

Eragon

I always feel at home with epic fantasies. Eragon, book one of the Inheritance Cycle, makes me feel like I'm returning to that genre which I can generally lose myself in.

Eragon is just a poor country boy until a mysterious blue stone comes into his life. Everything changes after that, especially when that mysterious blue stone hatches to reveal a beautiful dragon. Now, Eragon and his dragon Saphira have to run from the little village in the middle of nowhere to save both of their lives.

He is kind of thrust into an adventure that he never expected, with risks he never knew existed. Everyting in his life changes because Saphira chose to hatch for him, making him the first of a new generation of Dragon Riders.

It is an intriguing novel and I hope that the rest of the series is just as fascinating.

Insurgent

Tris is my spirit animal.

Granted, she's definitely a little broken, especially after the events that happened in the end of Divergent. She had to shoot a friend - that couldn't have been easy.

Now she has Four - Tobias - and her life is crazy. Dauntless is separated, only a handful of Abnegation are left, and Eriudite are trying to completely mind control everyone. The factions are severely broken at this point.

But there's also a secret that the Abnegation leaders knew that the leader of Eriudite is trying to hide.

This was definitely an enthralling book, but I did want to smack different characters for different reasons throughout the course of the book. Four in particular got on my nerves with some insecurity things that he went through. Tris frequently for being utterly reckless.

But overall, I was impressed with how Tris evolved over the course of this book.

New Year, New Start

Welcome to 2016! We're one week in and I've already finished a book. What a start to the year! I'm excited to enjoy some great books this year. I don't know what I'll read yet, but I hope that by the end of the year I can look back on everything that I read in 2016 and have more good reads than bad ones.

That being said, it's 2016 and I'm looking to direct this blog into a bit of a new direction. I'll still have book reviews, but I'm also planning to throw some personal challenges out there each month. I don't expect anyone else to join me in my personal challenges, but I'd like to present them for myself so that I can reach my yearly goal.

What is my yearly goal? Well, this year I plan to read 60 books. I'm really hoping that I'll read more than that, but considering I only read 45 books in 2015, I figured I'd set a conservative goal for myself.

I'll definitely read one new release each month, so as to keep up with what's being released into the world this year.

So, here's to a great new year and a new focus on my books.

First Book of the Year - Blood Witch

So, as I said in my last post, I have already finished my first book this year. That honor for 2016 goes to Blood Witch, the third book in the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan.

I must say, I am enjoying this series. Morgan, the main character is a typical teenage girl until Cal comes into her life, introducing her to Wicca and magic. By Blood Witch, she's tapped into her power as a blood witch, and her life is kind of in turmoil.

She's found out she's adopted, that her birth parents were murdered by being burned in a locked barn, and there's a new player in town who has made her instincts go a little crazy.

By the end of the book, I'm having some serious issues with certain characters. One in particular is raising some major red flags and I'm wondering if this particular character is who they say they are. I'm honestly worried about Morgan and what might be happening in her future. I hope that she can straighten herself out with regards to this and a few other relationships in her life because I'm worried it will be her downfall.

I have to stop getting so emotionally attached to fictional characters. Morgan doesn't exist, but I worry about her as if she were related to me. Must be a bookworm thing.

The Children of Men

I don't think I enjoyed this as much as I wanted to simply because it was an audiobook and I found the narrator to be kind of dull. That being said, I liked the dystopian nature of the story, and it makes you think what would happen if everyone in the world did suddenly become infertile. How would you react if you learned you couldn't have a child?

The way that Theo has to go through this time is interesting, but I didn't really enjoy his story until the second half of the book. The first half is more Theo meeting with a radical group that doesn't like the way the government is being run and wants to change it all. While this group has a point, it's five people coming up against the government and there really wasn't much that could be done.

Maybe I'll read this book again at some later point and actually read it as opposed to listening to it as an audiobook.

The Coven

This series is rather interesting. I just have this fascination with Wicca, and this series is just completely reigniting that interest.

Poor Morgan though. She discovers, suddenly at 16 years old, that she was adopted. Not only that, but she's a blood witch (which is kind of how she discovers that she's adopted). She lost her best friend because a guy they both liked chose Morgan instead. She just has a lot of ups and downs, and there is a lot for her to learn regarding her abilities as a witch.

I hated that it ended on a cliffhanger the way that it did, but it has definitely kept me interested so that I can't wait until I get the chance to enjoy the next book in the series.

Dandelion Wine

I don't think I've fully figured out how I feel about this book. I think it's some sort of coming to age story, but I'm not entirely sure. I do understand the title, since Doug and Tom's grandfather makes dandelion wine in the summer and the boys are able to point to a bottle and remember what happened on that day in the summer.

It was an ok book, but I didn't love it. I just couldn't get into it the way I really wanted to. I think it also bothered me a little that the story kept going off to other characters for their stories, but I really wanted to know more about Doug and Tom.

All in all, I didn't hate it, I just don't know that it's a book I'd come back to.

Dream Home

This series remains a pleasant ride. Even with this book having less of a mystery "whodunnit" storyline, it was a rollercoaster.

Sara and family move to a small town in New York so Sara can be the chief of pediatrics at the tiny hospital that is there. But her new coworkers are dreaming about her and basically despise her coming in and "taking over".

Not only that, but someone in the town is dreaming about a coming winter storm but nobody else in the town believes it will happen.

The book is slow to start, but it has an exciting conclusion.

I hope to continue to enjoy this series.

Book of Shadows

I have to admit, at the beginning of this book I was feeling rather ambivalent. The writing style seemed a little amateur compared to what I normally like. But I soon managed to completely overlook that in my enjoyment of the actual story.

It was an engaging story and I became increasingly interested in Morgan's journey from normal teenager to someone special as she learns about the wonders of Wicca. The ending was a tease that left me wanting more, so I look forward to getting into the next book in this series.

Anne of Green Gables

This book was extremely enjoyable. But poor Anne. She has some serious ups and downs in the five years that this book covers.

First off, she's an orphan. She ends up with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert by sheer accident. They had requested a boy, but ended up with Anne. They talked about sending her back, but decided to keep her.

School has its good times and bad. Being friends occasionally creates strife. Even the end of the book has both happy and not so happy moments.

But I felt like I could really identify with Anne on some level. The book is really about her growing up into a young woman from a girl. Growing up isn't easy - it all has ups and downs. And I found that the young woman that Anne becomes over the course of this book is one that I hope my own girls can aspire to be. Selfless, polite, while still remaining relatively independent.

Dream Reunion

I have continued to thoroughly enjoy this series. Although, this book did leave me a little sad because Sara didn't get quite the resolution that she really wanted.

She dreams that one of her friends from college is planning to burn down his business, but she can't figure out who or what she can do to stop it from happening. I think she struggled a lot with her conscience in this book, both because of who she discovers the dreams are from and because of what she has to do to "help" him with his problem.

There were also a few interesting dreams about what Sara's life could have been like if she had chosen different paths. Those were definitely amusing.

Rebranding

So it's been a while. How have you guys been doing? Life kind of got away from me, although the reading didn't stop. The reading continued, but my posts here ceased. Now I want to get back to that.

But, in this comes a new decision with regards to this blog. I still want to write reviews of the books that I've read, but I also just want to write basic posts about my love of books and how this love affects my everyday life.

So, because of that, I will be slightly changing the purpose of this blog. The name remains the same, because it is who I am.

The reviews remain. That part won't change because that's what this blog started as. But now there will also be posts about books to film that I've watched, memories about reading, posts about my kids (my oldest is just learning how to read and that's so exciting) and books/reading with them. Starting January, I'm also hoping to start personal challenges at the beginning of each month to help me reach my reading goal better every year.

For now, keep an eye out for some new posts this week, including some musings over what kind of challenges I want to attempt for my yearly goals. I'm hoping that this blog can better fit my personal desires of writing, while focusing on my passion for books.

Waking Dream

These books continue to thrill me. Sara Alderson and her powerful, mysterious dreams keep me coming back for more each time.

This book has more than just Sara's family dreaming. There is a new, threatening dreamer. This is a threat not only to Sara and her family but to Brian's career.

I spent most of the book pondering with Sara about who this mysterious threat was. Not only did I not expect the ending, but the new abilities that Sara discovered with the dreams were completely fascinating.

I hope that this series continues to be as intriguing and exciting as the first five have been.

Dream Family

Well, that made me feel all the feels. I spent a lot of this book tearing up. Plus, anger and outrage. Sara gets arrested for something she didn't do. Being in jail for 24 hours breaks her, and I can't blame her for completely shutting down. But reading how Sara  has to fix the part of her that broke was hard.

I have really gotten attached to all these characters.

Dream Child

This series is really addictive. Sara gets more interesting with each book. Not only that, but now her daughter Lizzie is having these same dreams about things that they have to fix, so everyone has to work together just to solve the mystery about the scary man in the big black car.

I'm interested in what happens in the next book, because it sounds really dramatic. Plus, it feeds my addiction for the books in this series.

Dream Doctor

The second book of this series wasn't as amazing as the first, but it was still enjoyable. I think because the dreams were all over the place and the characters were sort of struggling to fill new roles (or we were introduced to new characters altogether).

I'm still enjoying the characters, Sara in particular. She's witty and strong, while struggling through something that most people wouldn't even come close to understanding. I just hope that this series can keep up its track record and I can enjoy these characters for a little longer.