Book: The Nice House On The Lake Deluxe Edition

 Book: The Nice House on the Lake

Author: James Tynion

Pages: 424

This is my 191st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Everyone who was invited to the house knows Walter - well, they know him a little, anyway.  Some met him in chidhood; some met him months ago.  And Walter's always been a little off.  But after the hardest year of their lives, nobody was going to turn down Walter's invitation to an astonishingly beautiful house in the woods, overlooking an enormous sylvan lake.  It's beautiful, it's opulent, it's private - so a week of putting up with Walter's weird little schemes and nicknames in exchange for the vacation of a lifetime?  Why not? All of them were at the moment in their lives when they could feel themselves pulling away from their other friends; wouldn't a chance to reconnect be nice?  The overriding anxieties of the 21st century gets a terrifying new face - and it might just be the face of the person you onc etrusted most.

This was a great graphic novel.  It is well written and a well laid out story.  It is an interesting concept for a post apocolytic world.  It does end on a cliff hanger, so I will have to be on the lookout for the next book in the series.  I read the delux edition which was 2 volumes in one.

Stars: 4

Book: Martyr!

 Book: Martyr!

Author: Kaveh Akbar

Pages: 352

This is my 190th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss.  His mother's plane was shot down over the skies of he Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest.  Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past - toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallergy that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

This book was weird.  I wanted to like it - it has been on my list a long time.  But I just could not follow what a lot of people like about this one.  It was disjointed and the "bombshell" of the book just made me mad.

Stars: 3

Book: This Little Life

 Book: A Little Life   

Author: Hanya Yanagihara

Pages: 832

This is my 189th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

This story follows 4 college classmates - broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition as they move to NY in search of fame and fortune.  While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepend over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brillian, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma.  A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the 21st century.

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did.  It did start out strong - with the 4 friends and learning about their lives and how they came to be friends.  And then it became a Jude central story and it got tediuous.  It started to feel like a very very long way to the end of this book where we finally got a wrap up of the 4 friends.  So much "I'm sorry" in this book that it drove me crazy.

Stars: 3 

Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl #7 - The Inevitable Ruin

 Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl  - The Inevitable Ruin

Author: Matt Dinniman

Pages: 880

This is my 188th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

The 9th floor.  Faction Wars.  Nine armies enter, led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy.  The winning team must capture and hold the castle at the very center of the battlefield.  Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, betrayal - it all makes for great fun and even great television.  But thanks to Carl, Donut, and Katia, this season is different.  For the first time ever, the crawlers have their own army.  The NPCs who are normally used as nothing but cannot fodder, have become fully self-aware and have formed an unprecedented team of their own.  And it's not just the crawlers who are at risk this Faction Wars.  Any combatant who dies on the battlefield stays in the ground.  For Donut and Katia, the stakes are even higher.  No matter who wins the war, only one of them will be allowed to leave this level.  If they all want to survive, they're going to need a little help from a veteran or two.  This is it.  This is what they've been fighting toward.  This is war.

Another terrific installment in the Dungeon Crawler world.  These books are just so fun.  Audiobooks continue to be my favorite way to consume these books.  Laugh out loud funny in so many places and well as clever writing, great story telling and world building.  There is one more book currently out and I am going to be so sad waiting for the next one!  These books are not to be missed.

Stars: 5 

Book: Lucifer's Hammer

 Book: Lucifer's Hammer

Author: Larry Niven

Pages: 640

This is my 187th read for the year

What Amazon says:

The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high.  Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam.  It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization.  But for the terrified men and women chance have saved, it was also the danw of a new struggle for survival - a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known.

This was an interesting book.  It was really long, and honestly - it didn't really merit that in my opionion.  It got a bit tedious after awhile and I had a hard time picking it back up to read.  But overall, an interesting story.

Stars: 3.5 

Book: The Summer Guest

 Book: The Summer Guest

Author: Justin Cronin

Pages: 369

This is my 186th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

On an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwrigth, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine.  He comes bearing 2 things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for 30 years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.  From the battle fields of Italy to the turbulence of the Vietnam era, to the private battlse of love and family, this story reveals the full history of this final pilgrimage and its meaning for 4 people: Jordan Patterson, the haunted youg man who will guide Harry on his last voyage out; the camp's owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader ho has spent a lifetime "trying to learn what it means to be brave", Joe's wife, Lucy, the woman Harry has loved for 3 decades; and Joe and Lucy's daughter Kate - the spirited you woman who holds the key to the last unopened door to the past.  As their stories unfold, secrets are revealed, courage is tested, and the bonds of love are strengthened.  And always center stage is the place itself - a magical, forgotten corner of New England where the longings of the human heart are mirrored in the wild beauty of the landscape.

Stars: 4 

Book: Before and After

 Book: Before and After

Author: Andrew Shanahan

Pages: 245

This is my 186th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Ben Stone is terrified.  He's terrified because he weights 601 pounds and needs hisright leg amputated.  He's terrified because a crane will shortly life him from his 4th floor flat and lower him 44 feet to an ambulance waiting below.  He's terrified because he hasn't been outside in 9 years and he doesn't know who will look after his dog.  He needn't worry though, becasue the world is about to end.

Couldn't get into it.

Stars: 2

Book: Atmosphere

 Book: Atmosphere

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Pages: 368

This is my 185th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember.  Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances.  That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle program.  Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.  Selected from a pool of thousands of applicatns in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston's Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, ho are kind and easy going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engeinner, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.  As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first fights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined.  In this new light, Joan begins to question everyting she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.  Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.  

This book was okay.  I liked it overall, but honestly wish it would have focused more on the astronauts, and getting into space.  This was almost all love story and family story.  Which is fine, but that is not why I picked it up.  Not enough about women astronauts, and the general mission to make this worth reading in my opinion.

Stars: 3

Book: Diavola

 Book: Diavola

Author: Jennifer Thorne

Pages: 304

This is my 184th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Anna has 2 rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.  It isn't easy when she's the only one in the family who doesn't quite fit in.  Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he's practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone - including her blandly docile husband and 2 kids - falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question.  Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.  The gorgous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails - the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark violetn past of the villa itself.

Could not get into this book.  Hated all the characters.

Stars: 2

Book: The Last Song of Penelope

 Book: The Last Song of Penelope

Author: Claire North

Pages: 416

This is my 183rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Many years ago, Odysseus sailed to war and never returned.  For 20 years his wife Penelope and the women of Ithaca have guarded the isle against suitors and rival kings.  But peace cannot be kept forever, and the balance of power is about to break.  A beggar has arrived at the Palace.  Salt-crusted and ocean-battered, he is scorned by the suitors - but Penelope recongises in hi something terrible: her husband, Odysseus, returned at last.  Yet this Odysseus is no hero.  By returning to the island is disguise, he is not merely plotting his revenge against the suitors - vengeance that will spark a civil war - but he's testing the loyalty of his queen.  Has she been faithful to him all these years?  And how much blood is Odyssus willing to shed to be sure?  The song of Penelope is ending, and the song of Odysseus must ring through Ithaca's halls. But first, Penelop must use all her cunning to win a war for the fate of the island and keep her familyalive, whatever the cost.

This is the last book in the Song of Penelope series, and it did not disappoint.  I am so excited to see the upcoming Odyssey movie to see all of this played out.  While these books are told from the women's point of view, I am anxious to see a lot of these great characters on the screen.   This book was well written, and the women powerful througout.  I am glad I found this series.

Stars: 4.5

Book: Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow

 Book: Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow    

Author: Tom King

Pages: 216

This is my 182nd read for the year

What Amazon Says: 

Kara Zor-El has seen some epic adventures over the years, but she now finds her life without meaning or purpose.  Here she is, a young woman who saw her planet destroyed and was sent to Earth to protet a baby cousin who ended up not needing her.  What was it all for?  Wherever she goes, people only see her through the lens of Superman's fame.  Just when Supergirl things she's had enough, everything changes.  An Alien girl seeks her out for a vicious mission.  Her world has been destroyed, and the bad guys responsible are still out there.  She wants revenge, and if Supergirl doesn't help her, she'll do it herself, whever the cost.  Now a Kryptonian, a dog, and an angry, heartbroken child head out into space on a journey that will shake them to their very core.

This was a pretty good graphic novel.  My husband bought it for me because it is what the recent Supergirl movie was based on.  I did see the movie first, and it short of follows it, but the book has a lot more detail (of course).

Stars: 4 

Book: The Masterpiece

 Book: The Masterpiece

Author: Fiona Davis

Pages: 384

This is my 181st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

For most New Yorkers, Grand Central Terminal is a crown jewel, a masterpiece of design.  But for Clara Darden and Virginia Clay, it represents something quite different.  For Clara, the terminal is the stepping stone to her future.  It is 1928, and Clara is teaching at the lauded Grand Central Scool of Art.  Though not even the prestige of the school can override the public's disdain for a "woman artist", fiery Clara is single-minded in her quest to achieve every creative success - even while juggling the affections of 2 very different men.  But she and her boheian friends have no idea that they'll soon be blindsided by the looing Great Depression - and that even poverty and hunger will do little to prepare Clara for the greater tragedy yet to come.  By 1974, the terminal has declined almost as sharply as Virginia Clay's life.  Dilapidated and dnagerous, Grand Central is at the center of a fierce lawsuit: Is the once-grand building a landmark to be preserved, or a cancer to be demolished?  For Virginia, it is simply her last resport.  Recently divorced, she has just accepted a job in the information booth in order to support herself and her college-age daughter, Ruby.  But when Virginia stumbles upon an abandoned art school within the terminal and discovers a striking watercolor, her eyes are opened to the elegances beneath the decay.  She embarks on a quest to find the artist of the unsigned masterpiece - an impassioned chase the draws Virginia not only into the battle to save Grand Central but deep into the mystery of Clara Darden, the famed 1920s illustrato who disappeared from history in 1931.

This was a really good book.  I do like Fiona Davis' historical fiction books.  I enjoyed both timelines in the book - and loved when they finally came together.  Good character development and like how she weaved in the truth of Grand Central station with her fictitious characters.  

Stars: 4.5

Book: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

 Book: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

Author: Hank Green

Pages: 480

This is my 180th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant.  While the robots were on Earth, they caused confusion and destriction with only their presence.  Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl's parth, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalance of conspiracy theories.  Months later, April's friends are trying to find their footing in a post-Carl world.  Andy has picked up April's mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online; Maya ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string o fmysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda is contemplating defying her friend's advice and pursuing a new scientific operation - one tha tmight have repercusions beyond anyone's comprehension.  Just as it is starting ot seem like the gang may never learn the real story behind the events that changed their lives forever, a series of clues arrive - kysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers - all of which seems to suggest that April could be very much alive.  In the midst of the search for the truth and the search for April is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality. This is a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions about the way we live, our freedoms, our future, and how we handle the unknown.

Not as good as the first book, but still glad I read it.

Stars: 3

Book: Marathon Man

 Book: Marathon Man

Author: Bill Rogers

Pages: 336

This is my 179th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Within a span of 2 hours and 9 minutes, Bill Rogers went from obscurity to legend, from Bill Rodgers to "Boston Billy".  In doing so, he instantly became the people's champ and the poster boy for the soulful 1970s distance runner.  Having won the Boston Marathon and NY Marathon 4 times each, he remains the only marathoner to have appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice.  Winning the Holy Grail of marathons in an unthinkable record time changed Bill's life forever.  But his dramatic breakthough in Boston also changed the lives of countless others, instilling in other American runners the belief that they could follow in his footsteps, and inspiring thousands of regular people to lace up thier shoes and chase down their own dreams.  In the year before Rodger's victory at the 1975 Boston Marathon, 20,000 people had completed a marathon in the US.  By 2009, participants reached nearly half a million.  32 years later Bill Rodgers still possess the same warm, endearing, and whimsical spirit that turned him into one of America's most beloved athletes.

Not well written, but interesting story.

Stars: 3