5-30-09 Greywalker by Kat Richardson – Fiction

3 – It starts a little slow, even if the first thing is a severe beating, and has an unusual rhythm to it but Greywalker is a pretty good book.  there’s an interesting cast of characters including ghosts, witches, and vampires and a good storyline.  Harper dies while waiting for paramedics and is brought back by their efforts.  But she comes back different able to see the Grey, a parallel world that sits just on the other side of perception.  she learns that true witches and vampires do exist as well as ghosts.  As a PI she sees all kinds of things and now those things have gotten weirder and more dangerous.  I’ll be checking out the next book in this series.

5-24-09 The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde – Fiction

5 – Fforde brings his typical weirdness to the second book in the Nursery Crime series and continues to twist your favorite nursery rhymes and fairy tales in the most amusing ways.  Jack Spratt, Mary Mary, and Ashley are investigating the disappearance of Goldilocks, now a reporter, and have to deal with an escaped Gingerbread Man as well.  As we all know, the Gingerbread Man is a psychopathic killer and he keeps popping up and endangering the team at every turn.  Fforde also includes entries from The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition at the beginning of every chapter.  Funny, so don’t read it where you’ll be embarrassed when people stare at you for laughing out loud to yourself.

5-20-09 Fool by Christopher Moore – Fiction

3 – A strange retelling of King Lear from the fool’s point of view, Fool also incorporates characters from other Shakespeare plays.  Full of sex, violence, obscenities (correct for the time period of course), and comedy just as a Christopher Moore book should be.  I read King Lear when I was very young so I really don’t remember much of the story other than the basics: King Lear has three daughters who turn on him.  This almost made me want to read it again to see how the original story goes but Moore discourages this in the afterword because he admits he so altered the story and borrowed from so many other plays and that the original is going to be boring anyway after this version.  A good read for Moore fans but not one I’d recommend for a newbie.

5-15-09 Memoirs of A Geisha by Arthur Golden – Fiction

5 – I loved the movie so I figured I’d try the book and expected something dry. The book surprised me because it was so engaging from the beginning. A beautifully crafted story, informing and intriguing as Chiyo travels from a rural fishing village to Gion and works to become a geisha, this novel has pretty much everything: love, intrigue, betrayal, history. Golden does a wonderful job of informing the reader about the culture and traditions of the time period (before, during, and after WWII) in Japan. An absorbing read.

5-09-09 White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison – Fiction

5 – Rachel’s reputation for dealing with demons is now biting her in the ass in the newest Rachel Morgan book.  she and Ivy are still trying to find Kisten’s killer and Rachel is trying to recover her memories of that night.  Plus, there’s a banshee running loose in Cincy.  This is a great addition to the series and deals not only with the usual trouble but also picie mortality, vampire souls, and Rachel’s crappy love life.

5-6-09 The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison – Fiction

4 – Well, Rachel is still in deep with pretty much everyone, as usual, and now Trent wants an elven sample that can only be found in the ever after.  So Rachel and her crew have to figure out how to get her over and back without her being captured by a demon or killing herself.  Not one of my favorite Rachel Morgan books but still a fun ride.

5-2-09 The Host by Stephenie Meyer - Fiction

5 - I've figured out why I love Meyer's books so much. She focuses on the humanity of her characters regardless of the species. She did it in the Twilight series and she does it again here. The Host is a story of alien invasion a la the Body Snatchers. Souls, a parasitic species, are inserted into human hosts. The human inside usually just disappears and the soul lives on in the body with the humans memories for guidance. But Wanderer is inserted into Melanie Stryder who is too stubborn and willful to just fade away. So begins this incredible story that really does explore what it means to be human and what it means to love. I do look forward to enjoying many more Stephenie Meyer books.

4-30-09 Duma Key by Stephen King - Fiction

5 - This is the Stephen King I know and love. It's a long book (six days!) and absorbing just like his older stuff. A man has a disfiguring accident. His life is now completely different. His wife leaves him during his convalescence. So he decides to start again by moving from Minnesota to Duma Key, Florida. And then the weirdness really begins. Normal people, normal world, then everything kind of starts to slide sideways, little by little, building up to the climax. This style is why I fell in love with King originally. I can't express how pleased I was with this book. Thanks Patrick for loaning me this and telling me that it was really good!