Book 10 - House of Dark Shadows

This is the last book on January 2011 list, I made it!!

I love love this one. It's the first book of six in Dreamhouse Kings series, all six books have been published and I'm surprised I don't know about the books before. I heard it's for young adults, but hei, a good read is a good read, don't you think so?

The story opened immediately when an evil presence kidnapped a family member. Whatever it was, it wasn't human. Thirty years later, the King family moved in when the patriarch accepted a job as the principle of the only secondary school in the area and found the grand but abandoned Queen Anne/Victorian house in the edge of the forest.

From the moment they checked the house, the oldest son, Xander (from Alexander; the King family had been naming their children after old Kings and Queens for generations, hence the children's name: Alexander, David, and Victoria) noticed something was not quite right with the house. But the lure of having his own room, and even the possibilities that the house might offer some kind of adventure, however sinister it might be, made him and the younger, thriller seeker brother David, wanted to live in it. And what adventures they are: fighting gladiator in ancient Rome and a close call of being leopards' lunch in the middle of tropical jungle.

Until the entity took their mother away.

While it is certainly not a Harry Potter book, it's still a very fun book to read and I'm glad I stumbled on this one.

Book 9 - The Potluck Club

This is the second Christian book I read after Fools Rush In and I love this one. It is the first book of the series, and it's about the lives of six women who met for a monthly prayer meeting.

To be honest, at first I dreaded reading it after my first experience with Christian fiction. I was afraid that this book would also paint a too glossy, perfect world that only fictional christians lived in; Like the Stepford Wives universe, only worse, everyone in it is a believer who's on the same page as to their faith in God. It's a sweet world I suppose, but too sweet it's almost sickening.

But this book did not try to picture a world in which faith in God warrant a problem-free life. The women in this book club certainly did not live in a fairy tale universe: There were secrets, cheating husband, elopement, racial issues, death, terminal illness. I'm not saying that I'm happy if I read about misery and suffering experienced by Christians just so that God can come and save the day. I merely think that well, this is closer to the reality that I know real people experienced, and it is interesting to read about how they struggled with their faith and even anger in God. I've certainly been there now and then.

Despite calling myself a Christian, I know it's a continuous struggle to let God into my life. Despite believing he is God, it's not that simple to involve him in the decisions I made. Naturally, I wanted to be in full control of my life, even when most of the times I barely knew what I was doing. That at some points in my life (notice plural), I can't help but being sarcastic to him, to the idea of him, to be angry and confused and reluctant and impatient with him. Even after having first hand experiences of his grace, and personal accounts of the comfort of sweet surrender to him.

I guess I'm still his work in progress.

By the end of this book, there are still a lot of loose ends; none of the stories are completed, and they are to be continued to book 2, Trouble's Brewing. I haven't read it, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

Book 8 - A Taste of Magic

This book is fun to read; in short, it can be summed up as the famous old saying, "Be Careful What You Wished For"

Things were not looking good for Elizabeth at the beginning of the story. It was a couple of days before her thirty-fifth birthday, she had been divorced for a year, the business she co-owned, a bakery called A Taste of Magic, was not doing well, and to add insult to injury, she had inadvertently accepted a job to bake a wedding cake for his ex husband and his former-mistress-turn-wife.

As an icing on the cake gone bad, she learned that her replacement was pregnant, while during ten years of her marriage to him, her husband had refused to start a family with her.

So despite her loving family and supportive friends, no one could blame her when she wished her ex-husband a temporary impotency during his honeymoon while she, ever the professional, baked him the cake. I would not have blinked an eye if she had done something much worse, but she did mention that she would not want to go to jail. Sensible girl.

Of course, she then learned that she had inherited magical ability from her maternal grandmother, and that her wish had come true.

So, she went on a baking spree to put her new-found abilities to good use for her friends, family, and herself. At least, she thought so, until she realized that casting spell was a bit trickier and her granted wishes had unpredictable consequences.

I would give 3 out of 5 rating for this one, simply because I like the character. She's unpretentious and honest, but not without flaws. The book also gave sufficient introductions to characters that would be the hero/heroines for the next books in this series. However, having said that, it did not give a lasting impression. It's not that funny, it's not overly dramatic, it's not that serious. It's basically an okay book, quite enjoyable while you flipped the pages, but once you're done, or at least once I'm done, I'm done. It's that forgettable.

But on the bright side, this one cost $0.99 on kindle, so go ahead and get this one ...

February 2011

So after reading so many romance books this month (which is a great way to warm up the year, btw), I'm switching gear to a much more serious theme, Military books.

No worries, to balance things up, I listed equal amount of lighter read in between...

Here it goes...

• Craving God - Lysa TerKeurs
• Happily Ever After (Deep Haven Series # 1) - Susan May Warren
• Band of Brothers - Stephen Ambrose
• Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand
• Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes (Cancelled, can't get the book)
• Daughter of Joy - Kathleen Morgan
• Watcher in the Woods - Robert Liparulo

I hope I can follow it through...

Book 7 - Fools Rush In

This is the first Christian fiction book I've ever read. To be honest, I didn't even know there's such thing as Christian romance book before I stumbled on this one.

To sum up, I would definitely recommend this book for my daughter to read when she's past her Sweet Valley book series (are they still around, btw?).

The book is light, funny and ... surreal.

An Italian American girl recently took over her family's business of Wedding Organizer, and through a divine intervention, met a cowboy. A tall, handsome, sensitive, respectful, parents-loving, God-fearing, and almost physically perfect Cowboy.

Almost too good to be true? That's exactly the problem. I don't mind a little bit of preaching here and there about faith and God, I really don't. But it seems everything was just SO made up in this book. "The problems" that the heroine faced seem to be only in her head. Small problem were written here and there and made to seem like they're huge deal, i suppose so they fill up the pages, and there were times when I just want to tell her to snap out of it already! Also, there were too many coincidences that conveniently resulting in these "problems" resolving themselves. Which, we are to assume, it's the Divine intervention, aka God.

Like I said, had I been sixteen and reading this, I would like it very much. But I'm not sixteen, and as a near-thirty years old woman myself, I don't believe this is how the world seems to be for someone my age. If it did, then God must have a favorite child...

Book 6 - The Bite of Silence

................................................................

I was about to ask for a refund until I remembered that I got this book for free.

Where to begin?

Girl meets Boy. Boy is a Vampire. Boy used to be a Spartan General turned to vampire (cue to start gagging for the sheer cheesiness of the entire thing)

Girl flashed boobs. Sex followed. Author spent more time describing sex than actually telling story or developing plot line. And not good one at that. As a matter of fact, while I have always, always, love romance novel, this is the first time where I had no choice but to admit that I have just read a bad sex story. It's an insult to the art of erotic writing.

The first word that came to mind is: Riiiggghhttt, followed by: ewwwwwww. It made me cringe. It's so traumatizing that I'd never repeat the experience of reading her books again.

ewwwww

Book 5 - Aphrodite's Kiss

I like it.

It started of Harry Potter-ish, then seamlessly morphed to Buffy-like with a little bit of Harlequinesque spice here and there, enough to keep you wanting for more, not too much to turn it cheesy.

As a fan of Harry Potter book, an avid follower of True Blood, and an addict to romance novel, what more can I ask for?

Oh, and the heroine is a librarian, and she saves the guy. Brilliant.

ps: I've always wanted to be a librarian and I have no patience for a swooning, faint-prone girl waiting to be rescued.

Book 4 - Heidegger's Glasses

The story took place in Germany during WW II. Despite the real life characters depicted in the book, such as Martin Heidegger, Goebbels, and a brief mention of Mengele, the premise of the story was entirely fiction.

A group of polyglots had been picked out of certain death and secreted away to live in a compound. Their sole purpose was to answer letters to the dead. You see, when prisoners arrived in concentration camps, they were made to write letters to their relatives, saying that hei, the camp was not that bad, there were food and people were nice and they even asked the relatives to join them.

Of course afterwards most of them were sent to gas chambers immediately. This amounted to a huge numbers of letters from the dead, all of them unanswered. So, for record keeping and also for a very superstitious reasons, the Reich decided that these letters should be answered in whatever language they were originally written, like answer like, and hence the scribes, living in an underground compound with painted sky and stars and cobblestone street, protected, helped, and fed by their two guardian angels who happened to be SS officers.

I have no idea what to think of this book. Story wise, I supposed it's okay. I mean, if I can enjoy the story about a magical platform in London that would opened up and led to a secretive train station that would carry you to a wizardry school of Hogwarts, I suppose I should be able to accept a premise in which a commandent of a concentration camp let two prisoners walked away, in which not all SS Officers were bad, some of them were actually risking their lives to smuggle people to safety.

But I just can't.

A story about a German businessman who built an SS-sanctioned factory which actually was a sanctuary for the condemned was certainly too wild to be true, but that was exactly what Oskar Schindler did.

Being a Chinese descent who live in Indonesia, learning History in classroom about WW II in the Pacific, listening about the Rape of Nanking from my dad, a seemingly romanticized story about how a Japanese diplomat, in collaboration with a Dutch consul, saved several thousands Jews seemed implausible, until I read about Chiune Sugihara

I'm not so naive to think that the world operates in black and white. I knew there must be more people like Schindler and Sugihara. I would like to read more stories like theirs, for truly their bravery and humanity deserves to be recounted and told over and over again.

But not like the one written in this book.

I tried to put my thoughts in words, but this time I simply can't.

Maybe such sensitive, important, and horrific subject matters are better not to be imagined into fiction.

Book 3 - The Year She Fell

The Year She Fell by Alicia Rasley

I Love it. It's definitely going to my favorite book list for sure. If my favorite book in 2010 is One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, this book is the first in my candidate for favorite book in 2011. It's that book that any other books I'm yet to read this year would be compared to (I want to name it the best book I read in 2011, but it's still the first week of January. I'd like to think I'd found more awesome books and certainly don't want it to go downhill from here).

How do I start?

The characters are strong, well developed, with appropriate amount of layers and background stories to breathe distinct personalities to each of them. What amazed me is the eased with which the author, Alicia Rasley, assumed and explored the identity of each person, giving different first person's point of views and voices. If you tell me these characters are real people and Ms. Rasley simply recorded what they told her, I would have believed you.

And what a story it is! I certainly did NOT see it headed that way, and I love how Ms. Rasley guided me through the eyes and hearts of these different characters as the story unfolds.

Only one, well, two things that I wishes she had written more. The first one is the Matriarch's point of view. Although, I suppose that's the whole point, so that just as the characters felt, in the end, we felt as if we could never know the real Mrs. Wakefield. She's a strong, smart, and imposing public figure, she's a loyal wife, she's also a good mother who must chose the lesser of two evils at times and just like a lot of mothers out there, was misunderstood and reduced to just that: Mother.

I mean, once you have the title Mother, it seems that that one word sums up the whole person. People tends to forget that before a woman becomes a mother, she's also a child, a girl, a young woman, a wife (sometimes), and that these experiences and the people and situations she interact with, ingrained and shaped who she is when she becomes a mother. Once she is a mother, she remains, forever always, a person in her own right, and more importantly, a distinct individual, a human being. And you know what, human made mistakes.

She's a mother, NOT a saint!

Each character was given a chance to tell their stories, and therefore explained themselves and why they did what they did. But not Mrs. Wakefield. So, I'm really curious to know what her story is. Maybe Ms. Rasley should publish 2nd epilogue like Julia Quinn did, and give Mrs. Wakefield a chance to tell her stories, to tie the loose ends and what happened to her daughters afterwards.

**Spoiler Alert**

Did Ellen and Tom manage to rekindle their marriage? How did Sarah deal with the situation? Did the long distant relationship between Laura and Jackson work? and what about Theresa?

Yes, what about Theresa? Come on, it is just so obvious that something will happen between her and Mitch. Theresa is the most conflicted character (after Cathy, I suppose) in the book. It can't be easy for her to adjust to her new life outside the cloister, and Mitch is not without emotional baggage himself. While Ellen, Tom, Jackson, and Laura seemed to have dealt with their past demons or finally at the stage of their lives where they know who they are and felt comfortable with themselves in the book, the same can't be said about Theresa and Mitch, both I believe have just started the healing process.

Please Ms. Rasley, in the unlikely event that you read this, please write about Theresa and Mitch. I NEED to know more about them!!

Anyway, regardless of that, This Book is so good that despite having a free Kindle version of it, I'd buy the printed copy as well!

Book 2 - Millie's Fling

Millie's Fling by Jill Mansel

I like it. It is a chick lit book and doesn't pretend to be something else: it's light, funny, and entertaining.

I love the characters, and although Millie is the heroine, the supporting figures are also given a chance to shine. When they interact with Millie, they are not vague and hiding in the shadow, they have their distinct personalities and managed to be as engaging as Millie, sometimes even more so.

Am not happy about Lucas' portrayal. I mean, although he was just a supporting character, it seems that he's only used as an easy fix for most conflict in the book. **Spoiler Alert** He stumbled across Hugh and Millie and gave a not so subtle and yet "inspiring speech" to encourage Hugh to do the right thing. He offered Nat and Millie jobs and solved their employment problems, He "cured" Hester's obsession with him in a very selfless and almost degrading way for him, and he solved any potential romantic conflict between Nat and Hester by telling the truth to Nat. He even had an indirect influence on exposing Giles' cheating way, and he has a spot on intuition about Colin's preference!

It's like, Lucas is a reluctant hero disguised as a womanizing, self-centred man who's not given a chance to have his own story told. Maybe the author didn't mean it that way, maybe, while the focus was about Millie (it IS Millie's fling after all), the distractions was supposed to revolved around Hugh, Orla, Hester, and Nat.

Only for me, the distraction was Lucas. Or to be more exact, the injustice portrayal of Lucas' character. Give the guy a chance! He's not as bad if he does all those noble thing, if he does the right thing and not chose the easy way out (by refusing Hester's advance in the pool, by telling Nat the truth).

Then I remembered that it is a Chick lit. It's all about Millie's fling and not about a conflicted and elusive supporting figure in Lucas character.

Hm, I wonder if Jill Mansel would write a story with Lucas as the hero? I'd definitely buy that one!

Book 1 - Mossy Creek

Mossy Creek is a book written by Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Debra Dixon, and Virginia Ellis.

I'm a bit undecided about this one. I didn't expect much, I thought the book was about a compilation of stories from different mossy creekites' point of view. And I do enjoy reading about small town life in the USA, which, surprisingly, not much different than small town life here in Indonesia. Gossip, peer pressure and influence, etc.

Then, just as I expected the author would explore more on the mayor's relationship with the Lt. Col, or probably about the mayor's son and his wife, the story abruptly ended and moved on to different characters. Okay, that was surprising and not in a good way, but I thought I'd keep reading and while knowing other mossy creekites, I'd also catch up with the mayor's personal story. I didn't. I read a line or two about it, but it felt forced and lame excuse to remind me about the mayor.

I like the stories, don't get me wrong; laughed at the Foo Club's stealing the town sign, blinked a tear or two for Jayne Austin. I just wondered if the author was limited to only a set amount of pages and therefore didn't have enough space to develop the characters more. I personally think that it would be a better book if there are fewer characters and more pages for the remaining ones. I caught a glimpse of their lives but by the end of each character's stories, I don't know them any better, and therefore, their stories are easier to forget by the time I got to the last page.

The ending is annoying. Reading the book, I'd never thought that it's a mystery book until the last chapter. No, the last pages. And it doesn't seem ... fair. It's like you start with a John Grisham book only to end up with a Stephen King one, and not in a good way either, even if they are your favorite authors.

To be fair, I haven't read Reunion at Mossy Creek. Does anyone know if it would explore the original characters more, or would it just introduce yet more Mossy Creekites? Because so far, unfortunately, I don't know these Mossy Creekites characters well enough to care about what happened at the Reunion.