Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (RIP #5)

Book Summary (from the book)

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. Fiction is based on real black and white photographs. The death of grandfather Abe sends sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and explores abandoned bedrooms and hallways. The children may still live.

My Review

What? RIP #5? I know, I know, I had a lot of books that would fall into the challenge, so I’m tackling them. Soon is the Read-a-Thon and for then I have a little more variety. Also, the lab is taking a big toll on me, so I’m going for the easy enjoyable books. Don’t judge me.

Back to the book.  Jacob is a teenager growing up in Florida, nothing special in his life, except that he comes from a rich family (mom side) and someday will inherit part of the business. On the other side, his paternal grandfather is a WWII survivor that used to tell Jacob stories…stories that he no longer believes in. But then something horrible happens; his grandpa is brutally murder and Jacob is the one to find him, dying and his last words trigger a search for the past.

The book is beautiful, I mean physically. Not only the pictures in it give it an eerie vintage look, but also the way they separated the chapters. That said, I think the author could’ve integrated the pictures a little bit better, although to be hones I don’t know exactly how. What I mean is there was a transition missing from text to pictures, but since I’m not a writer I can’t pinpoint how exactly this transition should’ve been done.

The story was nice, not original but not to an extent that I couldn’t see some things coming. That said, I was not expecting the bad guy to be...I won’t tell you, that would be ruining it. But that caught me by surprise. 

Now, one thing I have to say I did not like was the love story in it. Don’t get me wrong. I like love stories...is just that this seems so weird to me! Once again I cannot tell you exactly why, but let’s just say that the object of affection of Jacob might have some issues, besides her peculiarity. 

I am looking forward to the second part of the story (expected to come out next year) because I think the whole setting will be even more interesting than just the Welsh isolated island. I do hope the new set of pictures is introduced in a smother way.

The Taker by Alma Katsu (RIP #4)

Book Summary (from the book)

True love can last an eternity…but immortality comes at a price

On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Main, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening. Until a mysterious woman arrives in his ER, escorted by police –Lanore McIlvrae is a murder suspect- and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her. As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever… At the turn of the nineteenth century, when St. Andrew was a Puritan settlement, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of the town’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever. But the price she pays is steep –an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate for eternity.

My Review

Let’s make something clear: this is NOT a vampire book. Why am I so adamant about this fact? Because I was actually expecting it to be yet another vampire story, only this time the girl was the one turned. But no, so bravo to Mrs Katsu on the originality.

Something I really enjoyed about this book is that you could take the supernatural part out of it, and it would still be a good story. The main character, Lanny is if not relatable (I find it hard to relate to an immortal who was “borne” in the early 1800s) is charming and is easy to understand where is she coming from, why she does whatever she does, and I like that. I did not like Jonathan, Lanny’s object of affection, but not because he is not a well constructed character, but because the way he behaves. Then again, I think his behaviour is due to an overindulgence that comes from being the only son and heir of the most powerful family in town. Not even Lanny will blame him, acknowlodging her own fault: 

So often we bring about our own downfall

Lanny and Jonathan build a friendship, where the girl would do anything for the boy, without going all Bella for Edward, if you know what I mean. No, she loves him, and in a way she tries to save him from himself several times. 

As it was mentioned in the summary the story starts with Lanny meeting Luke, a recently divorced man who also just lost his parents and has not a lot for himself in a forsaken town. When Lanny arrives to his life, she will tell him her story little by little, while he helps her in his own way.

Even though at first Luke doesn’t do much, other than listen and accompany Lanny, his character grew on me, and I was really happy with the way things ended for him (no spoilers, don’t worry). I guess he will have bigger role in the sequel, which I am quite eager to read. 

Adair, the other main character is a volatile person, he is used to getting whatever he wants, and has no problem using whatever he has in hand to get it and dominate everyone around him, he knows himself to be a devil:

Did you ever think that perhaps the only thing that keeps the devil in check is that he knows how despised he is? Even the devil longs for sympathy at times, but sympathy for the devil is fuel for the flame

The book ends with atonement for Lanny, in more ways than one, and there are a couple of twists that I was not expecting, again, kudos to the author. 

I really enjoyed the book, and since it gave me a little bit more than I expected I’m giving it a 5

Blog Anniversary!

A year ago I wrote my first review, and so I'm declaring today the official anniversary of my blog!

I wanted to do something special, but alas, I didn't have time :S. I planned on revealing the new image of my blog, but my friend, the one who is working on it had been swamped and so my new image is not ready. Fear not, it should be very soon.

I have a new review almost done to post, but today I have a dinner party, and so I'm writing to you guys in between times in the oven. Hopefully it will be good.

Thank you to everyone that visit my blog, it makes me very happy when I see the results of something that started as a hobby. 

Have a wonderful week-end!

The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice (RIP #3)

Book Summary (from Goodreads)

Vampire-hero, rockstar and seducer of millions, Lestat is an immortal extraordinaire...

But Lestat yearns to be reborn a mortal. Tormented to the depths of his vampire soul he wanders aimlessly across the globe, from Amsterdam to the Amazon jungle, until he meets the one being who can grant him his wish. He is the Body Thief, more sinister and evil than any daemon. But when Lestat surrenders his vampire body he discovers what he'd so long forgotten: the awkwardness and anguish of being human...

My Review

This is my third R.I.P. review.I had high hopes for this book. I really like Anne Rice and the 3 first installments of The Vampire Chronicles didn’t disappoint me, even with the awful adaptation to cinema for The Queen of the Damned. Sadly I was disappointed, and how. 

The premise was really good. Lestat, after his encounter with Akasha is now powerful beyond limits, and he is starting to get bored with his unstoppable, immortal existence. Then someone appears in his life, someone who is capable of switching bodies, and he proposes and exchange with Lestat.

I don’t think it counts as a spoiler if I tell you that Lestat accepts the deal…but it all went downhill for me after that. Whereas we could’ve explored more of Lestat being human, all I got was him complaining about being human, how disgusted he is with himself (poop? Yikes! Peeing? What is that?) how he doesn’t like it finally, how awful people smell now…see, this one was particularly confusing for me, because as a vampire, he was supposed to have heightened senses, hence he should’ve been able to smell humans more before, not when he became human. And I know it’s been centuries since he became a vampire, but surely you do not forget certain basic stuff about being human, particularly when you still leave amongst them and see how they “work”. 

All the interactions with the Thief where borderline predictable, from the type of person that he was to what he did to escape. And the conversations with David, although far more interesting than the ones with the Thief or Louis itself, where a little bit disconnected in my opinion.

One of the comments in the back of the book is that it was fast paced…I respectfully disagree. Not once was I eagerly turning pages.  I did skim over paragraphs a couple of time, more to my regret, but it was just so slow some times. 

I still want to read the rest of the Vampire Chronicles, but I sure hope that the next one picks up the pace

TSS: September, Challenges and Read-a-Thon

Hello to all. Yes it's been a while since I posted a Sunday Salon, but to be honest with you I couldn't make me just write out of the blue, every Sunday. Sometimes you have things to share, sometimes you don't, right? And today I do :)

First thing that happened is that I joined a challenge! The R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril is based on the premises of reading books from certain genres. Is short (2 months) and it seemed pretty relax to me, so I decided to try it out.

So far I've done 2 reviews for this challenge: The Ice Princess and Anna dressed in blood. I really enjoyed both books; although the minimum of books I have to review for this challenge is 4, I think I will do a bit more, catching up with a couple of them that I had waiting on my bookshelf

Speaking about that, it seems that we will be changing bookshelves soon, for something that goes better with our living room. I'm exited about that :)

And, I joined the Dewey Read-A-Thon! If you don't know what it is, let me sum it up for you. You read...read for 24 hours! Or at least try to. Mt boyfriend says I can make it (isn't he sweet) and is already in for support, also known as food. It will be on October the 13, so you are more than welcome to join me. By then I will also have my new reading chair, so it should be just perfect.

As you can see it was a big week. I'm also almost done with my personal challenge of 40 books this year, and I'm really happy about it, because this means that maybe, just maybe I will be able to read in average a book per week this year. This might not sound as much for some of you avid readers, but whit my schedule at the lab, I'm giving myself props for that.

That is all for today, have a nice week!

Anna dressed in blood by Blake Kendare (RIP #2)

Book Summary (from of the book)

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. 

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life

My Review

Well this one certainly went fast! I bought this book on my trip last week-end and I was quite eager to start it. Not only because it could make part of my R.I.P challenge, but also because I had read good reviews about this one.

I really liked this book, like White Cat and Red Glove it touches the supernatural, without falling into the amazingly vast compendium of books who go for the vampire-is-the-only-supernatural-being. Don’t get me wrong, I like vampire books, I do, but when that’s all you see…well it just gets boring. 

Back to the book. I really liked all the main characters, Cass, even though he is a little bit too much into this I –can-do-everything-on-my-own thing, finally let’s people in and his new “group” is as different as entertaining. Something I like to note is that Kendare presents teens that, yeah, they are teens, but they also know how to talk, how to interact properly with each other, a subject that Naiche mentioned in a recent post.

The other thing that I liked about this YA book, is that even though there is a little bit of romance behind (little, as subtle) there is a fairly healthy relationship (I mean as healthy as it can get with a ghost), not only between Cas and Anna, but also the way the Carmel and Thomas interact with each other and others.

I have to say, I did not see it coming, the way it ended, and this is good! Often with YA the end of the book is a bit predictable and even though this doesn’t mean that the book is bad, it means that you are not necessarily eager to finish it, because…well, you already know what’s coming. For this one however, there was a lot happening at the end, and when I finished I went immediately online to make sure that there is a second part (there is, but for now only hardcover).

I actually was expecting to be satisfied with the book, the premise was good, the reviews where good with some splashes of disappointing towards the end. But I was more than satisfied, it gave me some twists and turns where I wasn’t expecting it and I like that. Is different enough not to be too far fetch without falling into a cookie cutter!

The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg (RIP #1)

Book Summary (from the back of the book)

Returning to her hometown for her parents' funeral, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. A childhod friend's body is found in an icy bath, her wrists slashed -but was it really suicide?

Meanwhile, local detective Patrick Hedström is following his own suspicions about the case. It's only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past...

My review

This is my first R.I.P VII review, and I first I wasn't sure if it would qualify to the challenge. But...with the chills I got towards the end, I thought it should.

If you guys check my reviews, you will notice that I love Scandinavian Novel Noirs...they are just so...noir. I love The Hypnotist  and Sun Storm,  and, even though I didn't review it in this blog, I'm a fan of the Millenium Trilogy.

Part of it is because I dream of going to Sweden and hopefully doing my PostDoc there, but also because so far I have not been disappointed with this genre. At the same time all of this books had been quite different, at least in the way they build their suspense.

In this book, Alex a childhood friend of Erica (one of the main characters) is found dead, and this triggers a lot of revealing of deep secrets. The first chapters are opened by a couple of pages written in first person, but most of the book is written in third person, jumping from one character to the other, but all in the same mesh.

In the first pages you know it wasn't a suicide (well, you kind of knew from the summary, didn't you?), but no only for the medical examination, but because of how Alex is described

       Alex was fragile [...] An inner strength is required for someone to decide to take her own life. She didn't have that kind of strenght"

Harsh words, don't you agree? but trough the book you will realize that they are not necessarily true.

As I mentioned at first I wasn't sure this could qualify as a book for R.I.P, but as you dig deeper in Alex's life and the people around them you keep discovering more and more secrets, and every time you think you have the killer...well, you don't.

There was a couple of twists that I saw coming...but at the same time, I kept telling myself -"No Caro, you are just far fetching too much, that just doesn't add up"- And surprise...it did!

It was different, the tiny stories around the main one kept me wanting to know more about the side characters, and that's the main reason why I really want to read the sequel. Also, because it was well written. I never know how much is lost or gain in translation (I keep wondering the same thing about 1Q84 ) but since I don't speak fluent Swedish yet, we will stay with the premise that is very good writing/translation team.

So, did I like the book? YES! I did, I took it with me to New York recently, and I was actually sad about being so tired that I could not read one single page. If you like this genre, this is definitely one saga to follow.