[Review] Max Brooks: World War Z

Happy Halloween! I'm stuck here in Germany, where Halloween consists of private or commercial parties only, so we kind of lose out on the fun you all have in the US. I think it's a pity, but maybe one day I can have late October/early November off to be in the States for a real Halloween, decorations, trick or treating and all! And the only pumpkin-carving I remember was with my Grandpa - my Dad's stepdad - but he died pretty 8 years ago. Since then, I haven't carved a single pumpkin.



For the occasion, I'm bringing you a review of a much-loved book, one a dear friend recommended - and for that recommendation alone I love him So, no more talking - on to the short review:







[science-fiction/horror?!?]



You can buy it here:

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (paperback)

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Amazon eBook)



Summary:

(back cover)

We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror first hand Word War Z is the only record of the plague years.



My thoughts:
Oh wow! I read this book quite a bit ago, but whenever I think about it, I'm still astonished at how awesome World War Z is. I have a thing for zombies, but this novel - ahem, documentary blows me away. It's just the right story for Halloween and you can even finish it off with some The Walking Dead, if you recorded it.



Throughout the book, we jump back and forth between a number of characters and view the zombie apocalypse through their eyes - from the very first cases until the zombie problem is seemingly under control. It is easy to switch back and forth as the characters are so different from each other. We meet scientists, soldiers and normal people all over the world who will tell us their side of the story. This alone takes some work and Max Brooks really succeeded.



If you are up for a good zombie story for Halloween, this should work very well, and it is not as blood-thirsty as The Walking Dead




Rating:
5/5

FTC: bought with my own money

Dewey's Readathon - Big Update Post

So, since I am both helping out & reading, I figured I'd stick to one big update post.

At 7:55pm my time (I started at 2pm), I finished my first book: 204 Rosewood Lane by Debbie Macomber.

After grabbing something for dinner, I decided to pick up Heist Society by Ally Carter at around 8:15pm.

It's almost 11pm & I'm about a third into Heist Society and I hate the Babelfish-style translations in the book!

It's 1:05am and I just finished Heist Society. It was an awesome book, but I've been up for 19 hours now, so I should take a nap... Back in a bit!

I woke up at 10:15am, for which I feel really bad, but on the other hand, I know the next week will be stressful and I will miss some sleep then as well, so I shouldn't feel all that guilty. Anyway, I'll take my book downstairs with me while I get some green tea. Which one that will be? I don't know yet!

Haven't read a single page. So much for that! LOL But hey, I was helping out, so...

Dewey's Read-A-Thon

ETA: Dang, I was all preoccupied when I signed up and forgot to change the link on the sign up for the April 2012 read-a-thon. The post for that is the current one is the latest post, just click on the header to get there. Sorry!! This is kinda late-ish, but I am trying to not only help out with the prize committee at Dewey's Read-A-Thon, while also reading a bit for the read-a-thon myself (which kinda counts double as here in Germany, there's a semi-regular We Heart Books weekend reading gettogether on Twitter, so if you see #whb anywhere - that's it!).



First up, let me show you my preparations...

The book buying spree - so not necessary, considering the 400 books I already had on Mt. TBR, but what do you do when Amazon has a 3 English books for 15€ promotion?

This was the stack that awaited me when I arrived at my parents - enough to feel really, really bad for our mailmen and mailwomen!

And when I was unboxing - this is what I found:

I love it when Amazon packages have some fun advertising printed on them.

And this is what was in them:

Bill Willingham: Fables #14 - Witches
Bill Willingham: Fables #13 - The Great Fables Crossover
Mike Carey: Unwritten #1 - Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity
Charles Burns: Black Hole
Max Brooks: The Zombie Survival Guide - Recorded Attacks
Max Brooks: The Zombie Survival Guide
Max Brooks: World War Z (this is a second copy which is up for grabs as one of the readathon prizes)
Art Spiegelman: In The Shadow of No Towers
Dave Eggers: Zeitoun
Guy Deutscher: Through The Language Glass - Why The World Looks Different in Other Languages
Tabitha Suzuma: Forbidden
Bill Willingham: Fables #15 - Rose Red
Rachel Vincent: Stray
Rachel Vincent: Rogue
Aimee Bender: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
DVD: Leap Year (not for the readathon, obviously!)
Rachel Vincent: Pride
Christine Johnson: Claire de Lune
David Nicholls: One Day
DVD: In Plain SIght Season 1
DVD: Letters to Juliet
DVD: House M.D. Season 6

And my snacks:

The Crunchy Bits are pretty much chocolate covered cornflakes & the Corny are granola bars with dark chocolate.

And those are muffins I made myself this morning. I figured nothing's better than yummy homemade muffins. They're with chocolate chips!

And to sum things up, here's a quick intro:
1) I'm reading at my parents' house in the Odenwald, in Germany.
2) Three random facts about me would be: I love to back. I'm always messy when I work. And my cat sleeps in my bed because he's a great foot warmer.
3) I don't have a fixed stack for the readathon, so I'll just name all 416 books on Mt TBR if that's okay with you.
4) My goal for this readathon is pretty much to stay up and help out with whatever I can - and get some reading in as well.
5) My advice for first-timers would be to pick short books and have some graphic novels in the stack as well - trust me, you'll appreciate it. And also, you might want to move every now and then, because otherwise, you'll get really tired after a while.

Busy week

I have not disappeared, I was simply busy cramming so that I had all the books read for the beginning of the new semester (it's today!) and then I was commuting to work (usually, it takes me half an hour, but I didn't spend last week at home, so it was an hour and a half). And on the weekend, I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is always fun and a must as far as I'm concerned. On the bright side, I got a lot of reading in, so you will soon read my thoughts about Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Elise Allen's Populazzi, and a few more books.

[Review] Kathleen Dienne: Her Kind Of Hero

romantic suspense

You can buy it here:
Her Kind of Hero (Amazon eBook)

Summary:
Vanessa's first husband died early and left her widowed at a young age. Now she feels she has mourned his death long enough. Her old friend Derek has been around all along, helping her wherever he could, and she knows he has feelings for her. Derek had feelings for her all along and doesn't want to be friends with benefits. It takes a while for them to solve their problems, but who is watching them and sending Vanessa threatening messages?

My thoughts:
Friends gone lovers with suspense? That doesn't really sound like a new one, but I still enjoyed this novel. Vanessa was first married to the love of her life. The night she met her late husband, she also met Derek. The two men were friends and Derek fell for Vanessa that night, but he was too shy to let her know, so his friend snatched her away and all he could do was stay and be her friend or leave. He decided to stay and when Vanessa's husband died, he helped her with everything. This tightened their bond and when Vanessa feels ready to date again, she figures dating Derek might be a good idea because he is attracted to her and they've known for years already. While I did not like her assumption that she could just date Derek and maybe be friends with benefits, I realize that losing a beloved person is a hard thing to go through - and when you start dating again, taking things easy might help.
I could also see Derek's feelings. He did not want to resolve to being just a friend with benefits to Vanessa. He has been in love with her for years now and for him it is all or nothing. Who wouldn't understand that. But Derek also has a secret, one Vanessa has yet to find out. This keeps the tension going between them, but it was resolved in quite a nice way.
The suspense part of the novel was drawn out and at first did not seem threatening at all, it slowly escalated, however, and gave Her Kind of Hero a very nice, hero-y touch.
Oh yeah, and the cover? Does not work so well in my eyes.

Rating:
4/5

FTC: This eGalley was provided to my via Netgalley

[Currently Reading] Populazzi and The Last Lecture

Just a quick heads up for you:
I am currently reading Populazzi by Elise Allen

This is a YA novel set in a high school. The main character is a junior, who is new at her school and tries to climb the social ladder. That's all, I'm not giving away more. I will, however, tell you that I read over half of the book already today and will most likely finish it soon.

I am also reading a much sadder book, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

This is such a sad book! Randy Pausch was a university professor, husband and the father of two young kids. When he was diagnosed with cancer and told the he only had a few months to live, he wrote this book and did a "last lecture" on the same topics.

[Review] Nella Larsen: Quicksand

classic (Harlem Renaissance)

You can buy it here:
Quicksand (Dover Books on Literature & Drama) (Amazon paperback)
Quicksand By Nella Larsen (Amazon paperback)
Quicksand (Amazon eBook)

Summary:
Helga Crane is a young woman, the daughter of a Scandinavian woman and an African American man. As the novel begins, she works as a teacher at an all black school, but she is highly dissatisfied. We follow her through her life with all its ups and downs and on her way through the world.

My thoughts:
I despise Helga Crane. Maybe it was the re-reading I had to do for a paper, but after a while I got really tired with Helga's indecisiveness. She up and runs from one place to the next, hoping everything will be absolutely perfect there. At first she appears content, but after a while she decides that this life is not what she wants and leaves again, for another place and another life. This seems to be a recurring theme in the novel. Nonetheless, Quicksand is a wonderful (if incomplete) portrayal of the life of African Americans and people of mixed heritage between the 1920s and 1940s. It catches the flair of the time and of the life in Harlem in those days wonderfully.

Rating:
2/5

FTC: I bought this

[Review] Anna Leigh Keaton and Madison Layle: Falke's Peak

paranormal romance

You can buy it here:
Falke's Peak (Amazon eBook)

Summary:
Dakota is a stressed out ad-exec who planned a vacation with her two best friends, but when one of her friends breaks her arm and the other invites her fiancé, she's the third wheel. In desperate need to get away from the happy couple, she spontaneously books a wilderness excursion with Catamount Outfitters. She is surprised to see a whole bunch of handsome brothers, experienced in the mountains. Eldest brother Axel agrees to trek with Dakota and his twin, Gunnar, travels along with them in cougar form for protection.

My thoughts:
Shapeshifters! I don't have to repeat how much I love shapeshifter novels, and this one was definitely amusing because we had a big family of shapeshifters with awesome family dynamics. Dakota is a go-getter, always doing something and for her, relaxing and doing nothing didn't come easy, especially when she and the brothers found themselves in a rather difficult situation. She had to trust them and their family to take care of things, but she did really well. There were a few more difficult situations for her and I think the authors handled them all very well. And the brothers, oh well, what can I say? They were all astonishing! I'm still smitten

Rating: 4/5

FTC: I received this as an eGalley through Netgalley

[Review] Jennifer Greene: Ain't Misbehaving

romance

You can buy it here:
Ain't Misbehaving (Amazon eBook)

Summary:
Ain't Misbehaving is the story of Mitch, who has been fighting a severe illness for 13 years and thus missed out on his teenage years, and Kay, a sex ed teacher. Being ill throughout highschool, Mitch never dated or had girlfriends and thus also missed out on everything that came with it, but he now has a clean bill of health. When he mets Kay and discovers that she is a sex ed teacher, he is afraid she may have expectations that by far exeed his knowledge and thus he is reluctant about getting ino a relationship with her.

My thoughts:
This was actually more than the fluffy read I expected. At first sight, Kay and Mitch appear to be absolute opposites, but looking closer not everything is as it seems. The set up with Mitch having been sick for so long and not telling Kay about it at first was quite interesting, as it left not only Kay guessing, but also the reader. It took quite a while until his illness was confirmed, even though there were hints here and there. What bothered me a bit was that even when his not telling her about it caused problems, Mitch would not open up to Kay about it. That particular part of the plot seemed rather fabricated to me. However, the characters were wonderful and all in all very likeable and I enjoyed reading this novel, so the fabricated problem(s) did not weigh in too heavily.

Rating:
4/5

FTC: I received this as an eGalley through Netgalley

An apology and something personal

I have not been around at all lately and I am really sorry about this. However, I kinda overdid it all and eventually had to pay for it. With work and university (even during breaks, the work doesn't get much less with all the papers to write), I was already busy enough - in fact, I was more than that, and I ended up not being able to concentrate on anything anymore. The last months have been hell and I couldn't even get my papers done with a clear head and in a way that I would say they're at least okay.

It was a difficult decision, but I blocked out the blog and everything. I still read, but I mostly tried to get myself back together and find a way to make everything work for me again. By now, I have a pretty good plan on what I want to do here and how I want to do it. I can't have this blog YA only or genre specific. I love to read a broad variety of genres and my blog will reflect this. Also, I may not be able to blog every other day or have any proper schedule, but I will try to start up my IMM posts again starting the upcoming weekend and from then on out, I will let you know what I read and I will review it when I'm done, but I might also let you in on my DVD watching. I don't have a TV at my place and I live in Germany, so I might let you in on how far behind we actually are (you're in for a surprise and a shock if you're in the US!).

For the next couple days I will try to review a few old books I got from Netgalley. I really enjoyed those, but as I read them on my phone (an Android), it was a rather slow process.