Audio: The Cabinet Of Wonders

I have found something to fill the void left by the ending of Harry Potter!! I picked up the audio version of The Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkoski recently at Half-Price Books because I was out of things to listen to in the car and thought, "Hmmm, sounds kinda interesting."

Petra Kronos has a simple happy life. but it's never been ordinary. She has a tin spider...who likes to hide in her snarled hair. Her best friend can trap lightning inside a glass sphere. Petra also has a father in faraway Prague who is able to move metal with his mind...Petra's life is forever changed when, one day, her father returns home - blind. The prince has stolen his eyes, enchanted them, and wears them. But why?
Petra doesn't know, but she know this: she will go to Prague, sneak into Salamander castle, and steal her father's eyes back.

This book is supposedly written for children but (and maybe this is because it was being read to me) I didn't feel like it was a "children's novel." What I mean is that I think adults would enjoy this book too (as many of them did with Harry Potter). I'm not sure if the author meant to write a book for children or she was simply writing a book that, when finished, was so easily aimed at children. This is her debut novel (unfortunately the next book isn't out yet, booooo) so I'm not sure if she is solely an author of children's fiction. What I do know is that I loved this book. I have picked up a few other "children's novels" in the past and felt the author was talking down to the audience, as if he didn't expect children to understand him. This is not the case in this book. The language is not above a child's head but it is also not "talking down." I think that is a hard thing to do for most people. It was only 7 hours of audio (unabridged) so I'm sure the book is a fairly quick read. Pick it up and read it soon! The next book in the series, The Kronos Chronicles, will be out in August.

Home Story: Reviews for fun?

When I started this blog it was because I just loved books so much that I wanted to share that with as many people as possible. I've always been the kind of person that would try to get all her friends to read the book I just finished "because it was just amazing, and let me tell you why!" With a blog I could talk as much as I wanted about these books and if people got bored they could just stop reading. I could continue to say what I wanted and never know the difference. Every one's happy! The more I got into this blogging thing, the more I realized there were people everywhere that felt the way I do about books. There are a million book blogs on the web! (of course this is not an official number, just one of Tonya's meaningless statistics). As I read these blogs I became interested in how some of these people got Advance Review Copies of books. This sounded wonderful and I wanted in on it. Well, now I am. I have received a few ARCs and have a couple more on the way but after those I'm done. I'm not saying it hasn't been wonderful to get all these free books (and some of them before their actual release date) but it feels more like work than fun. Reading should be fun. This is how I want to feel about books:But this is how I have been feeling lately:

It reminds me a little of when I was in school. I read all the time in school. I spent more time in class reading than I did listening to what the teachers were saying. The problem was, I wasn't reading anything related to what the class was about. I never read required reading in school if I could get away with it. For the most part, those books sucked but even the ones that didn't for some reason I just couldn't read. What's the problem? I have a personality disorder. If something feels like work I don't want to do it. If it's fun I'll do it all day long. Being required to read something I wouldn't otherwise read on my own, just not fun. I remember in 8th grade (I think that's the right grade) we had a chance to read both Tom Sawyer and Homecoming. I'm sure they're both wonderful books but for some reason I have never finished either one. I read half of each. It was enough to pass. I know, weird. Looking back I probably would have really liked Homecoming. From what I remember of it, the story was wonderful and heartbreaking. I may go to the Library and see if I can find it...

Ok to the point! What does all this mean? It doesn't mean I won't be reviewing books anymore. I love doing this too much. It simply means I am only going to read books I want to read or am signed up in challenges to read (because those are fun too). I means that I get no more free books (BOOOOOO) but I will have time to read the 6 books I have sitting on my shelf looking at me right now. It means I may have a chance to finish the Twilight series and annoy Stephanie Meyer's fans some more!

The Friday 56: 4/17/09

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

This week's is from The Dispossessed by Ursula k. Le Guin. Out of context it is...interesting.

Down in Southeast, after he had got used to the steady physical labor, and had stopped wasting his brain on code messages and his semen on wet dreams, he had begun to have some ideas. Now he was free to work these ideas out, to see if there was anything in them.

Audio: The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais

YAYYYYY!!!!! A book that I have nothing bad to say something about! From the back of the box:

Los Angeles, 3:58 a.m.: Elvis Cole receives the phone call he's been waiting for since childhood. Responding to a gunshot, the LAPD has found an injured man in an alleyway. He has told the officer on the scene that he is looking for his son, Elvis Cole. Minutes later, the man is shot dead.

Haunted throughout his life by a lack of knowledge about his father, Elvis turns to the one person who can help him navigate the minefield of his past - his longtime partner and confidant, Joe Pike. Together with hard-edged LAPD detective, Carol Starkey, they launch a feverish search for the dead man's identity - even as Elvis struggles between wanting to believe he's found his father at last, and allowing his suspicions hold him back. With each long buried clue they unearth, a frightening picture begins to emerge about who the dead man might have been, and the terrible secret he's been guarding.

If I had to come up with a "problem" to talk about with this book, it would be to say that it's a little predictable but only because the story in the prologue seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the book. When I stopped to ask why, I figured out the mystery of the book.

What I loved most about this book was that Crais was able to give a unique voice to each character. It probably has something to do with James Daniels (the reader on the audio book) but I think Daniels was able to read each character this way because of the material Crais gave to work with. At one point in the story, Carol Starkey makes a phone call to Elvis Cole. I won't tell you what was said because that will give away an important part of the story, but I was impressed with how Crais wrote Starkey's lines in her own unique voice while still writing from Cole's point of view. The exchange was also a perfect example of the miscommunication between a man and a woman that showed both sides. I thought to myself, "How can this man know how to write a woman so well?"

Speaking of unique voices, I must also mention that Daniels is fairly talented at voices. I loved the different voices he used to each character, especially Joe Pike. He sounded like a cross between Kris Kristofferson and Clint Eastwood.

Like I said, I predicted the end of the book but this did not stop me from enjoying the book any. I highly recommend this book.