City Of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments Book Two)

City of Ashes Mortal Instruments Book Two by Cassandra Clare

Clary's mother is still in a magical coma. Luke her Shadowhunter/werewolf father by association is looking after her. Her bio dad, the evil Valentine is on the loose and looking to make a demonic army. Simon, her best friend is still crushing on her and is now in mortal peril by association. Jace and Clary have a twisted and fascinating connection that I can't get over.

I wasn't sure Book Two was going to live up to Book One. Many times book two (movie two) is a vehicle to get to book three, but in this case I think this book held its own. The relationships between Clary and Jace, and Clary and Simon are killing me. There are twists that I didn't see coming. And I still feel like the author has lots of surprises to come. I am wildly suspicious about one turn of events and spend much of my reading time looking for clues to prove my suspicions correct. As soon as I finished this book I picked up the next one. I don't think I want them to be over.

The biting humor is fantastic!

Rating 5 I may have liked this book even more than book one.

Rating PG 13 Demonic violence, sexuality, homosexuality, inference of incestuous relationships. This all sounds pretty severe when I put it down like that........but I don't think it's that terrible. On the other hand I have a high tolerance and tend to downplay things that other people (people with higher standards) get upset over.

The October Country

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

OCTOBER COUNTRY ...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain...

Oooh it just sounds so......October! I love October and this book just gave me a jump start on autumn. Bradbury's style of horror is so subtle that you don't get the full blow until the story wraps up.

This is a book of short stories. My favorites were.......The Jar, The Lake, The Scythe, and The Man Upstairs. Some of the other stories were just weird and Bradbury's style did take some getting used to. Probably because I have immersed myself in shallow teen reads lately.

Rating 3.5 Some great stories mixed with some less great. I have a hard time ending one story and entering right into another one. Maybe I should be putting the book down between stories.

Rating PG I don't think the stories were that horrifying.

Kingdom Come The Final Victory

Kingdom come The Final Victory by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

This is the final book in the 'Left Behind' series. Christ has returned to earth to reign and Satan is bound for a thousand years. Naturals (the people that lived through the return of Christ and those born after His coming) and glorified beings (the ones martyred or raptured) exist together. Apparently their only reason for existence is to worship. The naturals that were born after Christ's appearance have 100 years to become believers or they die on their hundredth birthday. There are many who do not worship Christ as their Savior. They begin an uprising to build the greatest army the world has ever seen in order to stand as the army of Satan when he is again loosed on the earth.

The concept was an interesting idea it just sort of fell flat for me. At times I skimmed when I was tired or disturbed by their interpretation of scripture. Basically everyone lived for a thousand years and then Satan was loosed. There was no battle. The earth was renewed. The end.

Rating 2.5 Meh.....it was okay. I'm glad I finished the series. The first book, 'Left Behind' was a book that I disagree with doctrinally but I did find entertaining enough. I give it a 4 for entertainment. I read all of the ones after that because I wanted to read the series, but I didn't enjoy them as much.

Rating G

The Dogs Of Babel

The Dogs Of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

Linguistics professor Paul Iverson returns home one day to find his wife Lexy has died by falling from their apple tree. Their dog Lorelei was the only witness to the tragic accident.

Paul decides he must know what happened to Lexy. He takes leave from his teaching position and tries to teach Lorelei to speak, in hopes that she can then tell him what happened.

The story rotates through chapters of coming to know Lexy through Paul's memories and Paul's desperate attempts at dog linguistics. The idea is fresh and interesting. The story wrenched my heart. Lexy was quirky and off balanced. Paul, normally black and white, deviates in order to do what he can for the love that has overtaken his life and then disappeared.

Rating 4 Sweet and sad

Rating PG13 language and nongraphic sex

City of Bones The Mortal Instruments Book One

The City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Fifteen year old Clary takes her best friend Simon to an all ages club in New York City. That is the night she finds out she can see demons, downworlders, and demon slayers.
It's no coincidence that Clary is able to see the slaying of a demon that night. She can also see a group of teenage demon slayers. Within days Clary finds out that these people have more to do with her life than any of the ordinary things she was part of before. Clary's mother Jocelyn is attacked and kidnapped in their brownstone home. Jace, one of the demon slayers finds Clary just as she is being attacked by and killing a Ravener.
Jace and Clary form an immediate and intense bond. Simon and Jace both have feelings for Clary. These feelings and the fact that Clary's mother may have been a shadowhunter before Clary's birth, have Clary's life doing a 180 that ends in a twisted sick manner.
The City of Bones is dark and super funny. One thing that is always missing from Twilight (the funny!!!). The teens are sharp and witty. The love and danger intense. I am excited to pick up City of Ashes (the next book in The Mortal Instruments series.)
Rating 5
Rating PG to PG13 some language and sexual tension, homosexuality

Skinned

Skinned by Robin Wasserman

Lia Kahn lives in the not so distant future. After the wars and natural disasters, only the poor live in cities. Only the poor have babies that are not genetic masterpieces.
Lia's father has high credit. She does not live in a city. She is rich and popular. Whatever Lia does or likes is the next hot thing.
Lia takes her sister's place in the family car with the destination coordinates already places in the GPS. Cars are rarely 'driven' by a live driver. In an out of the ordinary, bizarre fluke, Lia is in a car wreck. Her body badly burned and limbs ultimately lost, her family chooses to turn her into a 'mech'. Her brain is scanned and put into a mechanical body, made to look and feel as close to human as possible. Lia has to learn to speak and move all over again. Once she has control of her new body, Lia is taken home.
Even though Lia feels like Lia most of society sees her as a non-living machine. Lia tries to find her place in a world she didn't choose to become a part of. Befriended by Auden, a boy that she would never have been friends with before the accident, Lia tries to find out if she still belongs with the humans or if only the mechs understand her now.
The friendship between human boy and mech leads to disaster and Lia is faced with the fact that she is indestructible and this could prove dangerous to any humans she is around.

A fun futuristic book with a great look at the expanding bounds of technology. There were times when the relationships didn't seem deeply investigated enough. I also felt like the book ended in a sigh instead of a bang.

Rating 4
Rating R Excessive use of profanity. Sexual content but not sexually graphic. Teen sex. Lesbianism.

The Templars

The Templars The Secret History Revealed by Barbara Frale

In recent years the mystique surrounding the templars has become popular thanks to author Dan Brown. The Templars is not another fictitious book. Frale is well educated in templar, papacy and crusade history. She works in the Vatican archives. Frale was able to use old and forgotten documents to put together this insightful book.

She explains how and why the templars were formed, to whom they answered, how long they supposedly lasted, their secret rituals, and how they finally came to an end.

The book read like a text book. The information was good and considering this was non fiction it did get dry. I had a hard time following the people and the time. She jumped around on the timeline because her layout was more topic based. Also at times I felt like a needed a diagram to figure out where the people belonged. I am not entirely familiar with far reaching Catholic history so I spent some time confused over what seemed like quick change of papacy and other leaders.

By the time I reached around pg. 150 I was able to keep it all straight but I think that is because the book stayed to mostly one time period and there were fewer historical players.

Rating 3 for the information but I would have to rate it lower for the confusion.

Rating PG Rituals include homosexuality and hazing.