My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a very moving book. It tells of a child who has leukemia and the parents have another child so they can harvest stuff from her body to save their first daughter.The second daughter then decides to take her parents to court to stop the medical precedures. I found this compelling reading and could see both sides of the story.

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The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I got this as a freebie in PDF format for my Sony Reader on www.goodreads.com. Its a strange story indeed about a man waking up and finding himself transformed into a bug and how his family try to adapt. This is Kafka's most famous short story although I have to admit to not knowing about him.

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Synopsis
In Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman by trade, awakens one morning to find his body has mutated into that of a repulsive bug. Outwardly a monstrous insect, only his thought processes remain human.

As his family grow accustomed to supporting themselves without his once essential income, Gregor’s suffering becomes ever more pronounced. He witnesses the corruption of their former dependence on him. Obliged to work to keep themselves and admit lodgers to their home, the Samsa family generates a disgust and a contempt for the creature that has supported them for so long, imprisoning Gregor in the stasis of an unused box room. His sister, Grete, to whom he was once so close, now wants to be rid of him, his father’s new industry leaves him no time to remember the transformed son he used to terrorise, and his loving mother now neglects him.

Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks

Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I absolutely loved this book and couldnt put it down. There was lots of twists and turns and the characters are so rich. Weeks is an astonishing writer and I hope he writes lots more books.

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Synopsis
A new queen has usurped the throne and is leading Cenaria into disaster. The country has become a broken realm with a threadbare army, little food, and no hope. Kylar Stern plans to reinstate his closest friend Logan as King, but can he really get away with murder? In the north, the Godking's death has thrown Khalidor into civil war. To gain the upper hand, one faction attempts to raise the goddess Khali herself. But they are playing with volatile powers, and trigger conflict on a vast scale. Seven armies will converge to save - or destroy - an entire continent. Kylar has finally learnt the bitter cost of immortality, and is faced with a task only he can complete. To save his friends, and perhaps his enemies, he must assassinate a goddess. Failure will doom the south. Success will cost him everything he's ever loved.

Shadows Edge by Brent weeks

Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend to any fans of Fantasy.

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Synopsis
Kylar has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces an impossible choice. He could give up the way of shadows forever, and find peace with his young family. Or Kylar could succumb to his flair for destruction, the years of training, to save his friend and his country - and lose all he holds precious.

Trouble in Spades by Heather Webber

Trouble in Spades by Heather Webber


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I enjoyed reading this. It was a quick read. The main character (Nina) is a strong woman and I like reading about her home problems intermingled with her detective abilities. Makes for good entertaining reading.

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Synopsis.

Landscaping is Nina Quinn’s business, but trouble seems to be her middle name. Saddled with a recently expelled, faithless local cop husband, a teenaged terror of a stepson, and the yappiest, most unhousebreakable Chihuahua in captivity, Nina needs a respite--and the backyard makeover she’s undertaking for her sister Maria and Nate, Maria’s fiancé, may do the trick. But, of course, Nate vanishes mysteriously, and Nina’s gardening magic inadvertently turns up a corpse. And with a thief on the prowl who’s preying on the neighborhood elderly, a suspicious Pandora’s Box of a package arriving on her doorstep, and yet another body inconveniently turning up, Nina’s going to have to dig into her community’s dirtiest little secrets to regain her peace and sanity--if she can manage to stay alive long enough to enjoy it.

A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks

A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's been a few years since I read the Landover novels and hadnt realised he had released this one.
I found it really easy to get back into the series and enjoyed the book very much. Terry Brooks has an easy writing style and the words flow effortlessly on the pages.

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Synopsis curtesy of Amazon.co.uk

Princess Mistaya Holiday hasn't been fitting in too well at Carrington Women's Preparatory. People don't seem to appreciate her using her magic to settle matters in the human world. So when she summons a dragon to teach a lesson to the snotty school bully, she finds herself suspended. But Mistaya couldn't care less - she wants nothing more than to continue her studies under Questor the court magician and Abernathy the court scribe. However, her father Ben Holiday, the King of Landover, has rather different plans in mind for her. He thinks he'll teach her about perseverance and compromise by sending her to renovate Libiris, the long-abandoned royal library. How horribly dull. But before long, Mistaya will long for the boredom of cataloguing an unfeasible number of derelict books - for deep within the library there lies a secret so dangerous that it threatens the future of Landover itself ...

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't enjoy this as much as Pride and Prejudice. I found at times that I got a bit confused with what was going on and what character was being talked about in the book by other characters. But apart from that, it was an enjoyable read.

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Amazon.com Review

Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting on Edward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly," she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister:

Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!

Soon however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal: Mr. Willoughby, a new neighbor. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behavior begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her; meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. How each of the sisters reacts to their romantic misfortunes, and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired; a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure. --Alix Wilber