Book Review: Steven George & The Dragon by Nathan Everett

Format: eBook, 178 pages
Publisher: NWE Signatures, LLC; 2011
Source: Free review copy provided by the author
My rating: 3/5

After putting this book down, I coudn’t write the review immediately as I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Now, just over a week later, I’m still unsure. I think that I’m a little disappointed because, whilst I did read the book until the end and I found it to be OK, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the author’s most recent book, The Gutenberg Rubric, which I read last year (my review can be found here). It’s a shame because I really wanted to like it, which I think is why I’m feeling conflicted. The concept is good, but somehow it just doesn’t work as well as it should do.

The book is a YA fantasy novel and tells the story of Steven George who was pronounced at birth to be a dragonslayer. The book opens on the day that he is finally called to his cause and he sets off on the road to find the dragon, in order to slay it and protect his village. After speaking to the village hunter, wise woman, shaman and his mother (who gives him an interestingly-shaped hat) to gain advice, Steven sets out on his way. The problem is, he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for as he’s never seen a dragon and so he has some mishaps along the way when he meets other people and, initially from a distance, believes them to be the dragon.

The book is more of a collection of short stories that are tied together along the main theme rather than a traditional novel. Steven’s village use stories as currency – they trade one interesting story for another – and so when he’s travelling he exchanges his own stories for stories that will help him on his way. His stories are fabricated tales of how he came to obtain his interesting hat. The structure is remniscent of fairy tales, where each has some sort of moral and as Steven travels further he learns more and we see him change from being very naive to being at least a little street-wise. The problem with the structure being similar to fairytales is that, although this book is marketed at a YA audience, it could seem to be a little lower than their average reading level.

I thought the stories were quaint and, although fun, they were a little predictable. Although I love short stories, I found this book to be a little disjointed and it was easy to forget where I was within Steven’s journey. It was a slower read than I was expecting too – I’m not really sure why. I read the eBook, but the paperback has 178 pages and it took me 6 days to read. I think that the fact that the stories were disjointed and were not really about Steven meant that I couldn’t get to know him as a character and I found this quite difficult because, regardless of whether I like or dislike a character in a book, I at least like to feel that I know them.

Overall, I found this to be an ok read. If you’re looking for something that’s a bit of fun in between other reads then this may be your thing. I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to this author though – if you’ve never read his work then I would recommend that you pick up a copy of The Gutenberg Rubric instead, as it’s far better.

 

Book Review: Sleeping Kings by John Prentice

Sleeping Kings was a pleasant surprise for me. When I received the email pitch from the author, I wasn’t sure if it would be for me, but I decided to give it a go and I’m glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a fantasy, adventure thriller aimed at a YA audience but I believe it can be enjoyed by anyone. It follows Nik, a teenage tomboy who ends up moving to the French Pyranees with her father when her mother decides to emigrate to America with her new boyfriend, whom Nik cannot stand. Whilst out on a mountain with school one day, she ends up meeting an ancient king who tells her that he needs her help to protect a secret that dates back 700 years from a group that are conspiring to uncover the secret and destroy the world. Pretty tough to take when you woke up in the morning thinking you’d just have a normal day at school, right? Nik enlists the help of her schoolmate and new friend, Daan, who knows the mountains and the countryside around them like the back of his hand and together they take on some pretty nasty people…

I liked this book because it combines fast paced adventure with historical information about the Cathar movement. I enjoy learning whilst I’m reading but some authors are unable to pull this off, making it boring to read despite their best efforts. This is certainly not the case with this book and I think that it will appeal to children, teens and adults alike. The characters of Nik and Daan are easy to relate to – Nik is an online-gaming addict who has a difficult relationship with her father and Daan is a friendly, caring boy who really cares about the environment around him (another great message delivered through this book without it feeling forced) and who loves an adventure.

My one issue with the book was the short chapters that were interspersed with the main chapters, telling a kind of side story about a place called ‘Somewhere Else’. For me, they added nothing to the book and became more of an annoyance than anything else.

This is book one of a series and I think I will probably read the next book at some point. I would definitely recommend this to people looking for a fun read that is a little different to the books that seem to be dominating the market at the moment.

Format: eBook, 310 pages
Publisher: Mountain Air Press, September 2011
Source: Free review copy provided by the author

My rating: 4/5

Applicable challenges: Off The Shelf 2012

 

Book Review: Matched by Ally Condie

In a word: Awesome!

Favourite Character: Cassia

Favourite Quote: “Our time together feels like a storm, like wild wind and rain, like something too big to handle but too powerful to escape. It blows around me and tangles my hair, leaves water on my face, makes me know that I am alive, alive, alive. There are moments of calm and pause as there are in every storm, and moments when our words fork lightning, at least for  each other”

I’m reading this because… I couldn’t put it off any longer. Not that I was intentionally putting it off, I just hadn’t gotten around to reading it. I’ve seen so many great reviews for it though, that when I found myself wondering what to read next on New Year’s Day, this came into my head almost straight away.

The Basics: Cassia lives in a society where important decisions are already made. She doesn’t have to worry about finding the man of her dreams – the officials will do that for her. On her 17th Birthday she attends her Match Banquet – the ceremony where she will meet her future husband and be bound to him forever. What she doesn’t bargain for is that she’s matched to her lifelong best friend Xander. After sleeping on it, she’s gotten used to this idea, but then she’s given her microchip that has all of the information she needs to know on it. The problem is that when she puts the microchip into the her port screen, it’s not Xander’s face that appears… it’s that of another boy she knows – Ky. The shock of seeing his face makes Cassia start to question Society’s decision and she starts longing for a life she can’t have...

I can see why people love it. The story just sucked me in and I devoured it in two sittings. I really liked Cassia and I cared about her right from the off. I think that the connection with her really pulled me through the book, because I was interested in the decisions she made and the ways in which those decisions affected her life – especially as this was in a society where decisions are often made for the inhabitants.

Dystopia is one of my favourite genres. I love the comparisons to our society and I like to speculate whether the society in the book is actually that fair removed from our own or is that far outside of the realm of possibility. I also like to wonder at the different aspects of the society and whether or not they would be beneficial to our own. Dystopic societies are generally spawned from an over-exaggerated attempt to create a Utopia and so there are usually at least a couple of elements that would be great to have as part of a society. In the case of this book, I do love that they have managed to pretty much eradicate diseases. As someone whose family has been touched a number of times by cancer and other diseases, this really appeals to me. Would I want to have a set date to die though? I’m not sure. I can see the benefits, but I don’t know if I’d ever be ready! I also kind of like the idea of being sorted into the job that suits your skills, although it would take away ambition and dreams. Still, it would be nice to just automatically fall into a job that you’re good at!

The relationships in the book fascinated me. I wanted to hate Cassia when she was falling in love with Ky, but I just couldn’t. I wanted to hate Ky, as I really liked Xander, but I couldn’t do that either. Damn these nice people!! Surely in love triangles someone is supposed to be the bad guy?! The thing is, with this particular triangle, it’s really hard to resist sympathising with both Cassia and Ky. As much as I liked Xander, I could see how it must have been hard for Cassia to come to terms with being matched with her best friend – even though at first glance it would seem like the perfect match, it must have been hard for her to consider him as anything but a friend.

The writing was good, better than many YA books I’ve read. The pace was steady, with some faster parts and some slower, but it flowed well. The construction of the Society was creative and thought-provoking and the relationships were believable. I can’t wait to read the second book!

My rating: 5 Stars

Applicable Challenges:
Off The Shelf 2012

Info for this edition:
Paperback, 366 pages
UK Publisher: Penguin, June 2011
Source: I purchased this book

 

In which I look at my review process

I’ve been thinking about my reviews, how I write them and just the review process in general. In 2011 my blog was review heavy and part of my blogging resolutions was to change that and to write more eclectic posts that weren’t all book related. I would also like to try some different review formats this year. Aside from one change mid-way through last year, my review posts have been pretty much the same format all along the line and I would like to have a play around with how I review. I appreciate though, that not everyone will like every format and so I’d really love some feedback as I go.

Also, I got somewhat behind with reviews in 2011 and so this year as well as posting reviews on books as I finish them, I’ll be interspersing some reviews from the latter 6 months of last year that I didn’t get around to posting. I may also throw in some older reviews just for the hell of it. Who knows. Basically what I’m saying is that I’m not going to have a set routine. I’m hoping it’ll encourage me to post more. I will though, somewhere in the review, mention when I read the book so that its easy to tell which books are current reads and which are older.

Please let me know what you think!

 

My first walk of 2012!

So one of my personal goals for this year was to do more walking. It was actually one of my goals last year but it didn’t happen. Last year I decided that I wanted to join a walking group, so I went out and bought all of the gear (and spent a fortune in the process) and decided to go on a couple of smaller walks with a friend and her husband first before I went ahead and joined a group. I went on one walk. That was it. My friend couldn’t go again due to her husband sustaining an injury and so I used this as an excuse to not go again. I could have just decided to join the group, but I let my fear of the unknown beat me. I consider myself to be pretty outgoing, but when I don’t know people I can, initially, find it difficult to integrate and my confidence is much lower. Anyway, I decided that this was ridiculous, not only had I spent a lot of money on the walking gear, I was losing out on something I wanted to do by letting this unease get the better of me. I decided that I wasn’t going to let it beat me anymore and yesterday I went for my first walk with the group!

It was a 6.6 mile walk around an area called Mobberley, which is a lovely village south of Manchester. It wasn’t very hilly so it was perfect to start with and I had a great time. The route took us from the train station, through many fields, to a very nice pub for a break. After the break we went through more fields, across the railway line twice and then through more fields back to the train station. It was a big group so we were pretty slow and in total we were out for around 4 and a half hours. The group were lovely and, surprise surprise, I found myself wondering why I’d put it off for so long. There was even a little excitement when, queuing up to get over one of the styles, we realised that we were not alone in the field and that four highland cattle were heading in our direction… 3 of which had horns, albeit small ones. Needless to say we got over the style pretty quickly, although by the time they made it over to us there were still around 10 people left in the field! Luckily they didn’t charge (despite one of the team having a red coat!!) and we all made it across safely. We couldn’t help but laugh afterwards, but it was a little scary at the time!! There was also LOTS of mud. I was assured by one of the group that in the 3 years she’d been walking she’d never encountered that much mud in a single walk before! Talk about a baptism of fire!

Despite cattle, lots of mud and a little rain, I had a great time and can’t wait for the next walk! There wasn’t much to see (as I said, it was mostly just fields) but here are a few pictures!

My new friend! He quite happily posed for a photo!

The lovely pub where we stopped for our break

Check out how muddy my boots and trousers were by the end!

 

Challenges!

Just a quick update to say I have now signed up for the challenges I mentioned in my previous post and I’ve created pages for each one, which you can find by going to the tab 2012 Challenges at the top of the page! I’m looking forward to getting stuck in!

 

All aboard the resolutions bandwagon!!

So, I figured I may aswell join in with everyone else and post my resolutions for this year. Last year my resolutions were more about my life in general and so this year I’d like to be more reading/blogging specific as, after all, that’s what you guys are more interested in!! I’m going to call them goals though. I don’t know why, but I just like the word goals more than I like the word resolutions!! So without further delay…

Blogging Goals:

• I was actually pretty shocked when I got my sparkly yearly report from the ‘WordPress Monkeys’, as it said that I’d posted 141 times in the last year. I thought I’d done far less than that and I know that I want to post more this year. In the last couple of months I’ve really neglected the blog and so I’m going to aim for 3 posts a week as a minimum. I really don’t want it to become a chore and I figure 3 posts is completely do-able and if I post more then that’s great.
• I’d like to be more involved in the blogging community so that means more posting on other blogs (I do read, I just don’t comment as often as I should), more memes and, if I can, participating in both of the Dewey’s Readathon days. I will also be trying to be more active on Twitter and in my Goodreads groups..
• I’d like to do more eclectic posts rather than just book reviews. At this moment I have no idea what these will be, but I’d like to not only post about books but to post about other things that interest me.
• I want to get through my review copies. I took on more than I could cope with last year and they really fell by the wayside (sorry to those authors that are awaiting reviews, you will get them I promise!!) and I feel guilty about this. So I am not accepting any more until I’ve read every last one of them.

Reading Goals:

 

The main challenge this year is how many books I will actually read. I log all of my reads over on Goodreads and this year I’ve challenged myself to read 100 books. I managed 75 in 2011 so it’s a big increase, however I only managed 50 in 2010 so it’s onwards and upwards!!

I’ve also decided to take part in some challenges this year, as I’ve found in the past that they spur me on through my, inevitable, reading slumps. These are the ones I’ve decided on so far, but I may sign up for more as the year goes on. I’ll be setting up seperate pages on the blog for each challenge, but in the meantime you can click on the images to be taken to the site hosting each challenge.

The 12 in ’12 reading challenge is hosted by Ann and Michael at Books on The Nightstand. They produce a weekly podcast (which happens to be my favourite podcast!!) and last year they ran a challenge to read 11 more books in 2011 than in 2010. After the success of that challenge, they are running the 12 in ’12 challenge, but rather than specifying that it has to be 12 extra books, as this may not be do-able for everyone, they’re allowing you to choose how you would like to interpret this. For example, I have decided to go with the following:

• 12 Non Fiction titles that are not biography/memoir (as I already read these)
• 12 new releases that are not self published ARCs. More specifically I want to read one new release a month.
• 12 classics.

The 2012 Audiobook Challenge is hosted by Teresa over at Teresa’s Reading Corner. 2011 was the year I really discovered how great audiobooks are. I had previously tried to get into them, but my library doesn’t have the best selection and so I ended up borrowing a chick-lit one and I found that my concentration wandered. Last year I downloaded a free audiobook as an introduction to Audible and I’m so glad I did!! Anyway, this challenge allows you to choose your level of participation, so I’m going to go for:

• Going Steady – Listen to 12 Audio Books

Off The Shelf 2012 is hosted over at Bookish Ardour. Last year I wanted to read more books that I actually owned rather than buying more. It didn’t really happen that way. This year, I’ve decided to sign up to the Off The Shelf challenge to try to achieve my goal. The only rule is that for a book to count, it has to have been obtained prior to 1st January 2012! Again, you can choose your level of participation. After some deliberation, I have decided to go for:

• On A Roll – Choose 50 books to read

I was going to go for the next level up, which is 75, however I think that I would be setting my sights a little too high. I want a challenge, but I also want it to be something that I can actually achieve.

My final challenge is hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads and it’s called What’s In A Name. I decided to do this one as a bit of fun because rather than being a challenge that you can just fit into your normal reading, it’s one that you actually have to think about which books you can fit into each part of the challenge. The categories are as follows:

• A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title
• A book with something you’d see in the sky in the title
• A book with a creepy crawly in the title
• A book with a type of house in the title
• A book with something you’d carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title
• A book with a something you’d find on a calendar in the title

So I guess that’s plenty of challenges to start with, but if you know of any challenges that you think would be great fun, please let me know!! My online book group also does a challenge that is similar to the What’s In A Name Challenge, but that has lots of different challenges and a points system, so it’s a little complicated to post on the blog.

Finally it comes to my Personal Goals:

I don’t have many of these this year, as generally I just want to be happy and so my goal is to do whatever I need to in order to acheive this. That said, I do have three things that I would like to focus on (I like threes!)

• I want to lose weight. I’m going to Mexico in June and I really don’t want to be overweight in my bikini! This means eating less and…
• More exercise. I got the Zumba fitness game and Just Dance 3 for Christmas so I’ll be playing on those and I would like to try to get myself to an actual Zumba class as I’ve heard they’re a lot of fun. More exercise ties into my next resolution, which is:
• More walking. I really enjoy walking and I want to do more of it this year. I’ve been making the excuse that I don’t have anyone to go with me and that I don’t want to go on my own, but I’ve found some local groups that have members around my age and so I’m going to ‘bite the bullet’ and go for it!!

 

Happy New Year 2012!!

Well, another year gone by far too quickly. 2011, for me, was quite definitely better than 2010 and so I have big hopes for 2012. I haven’t completely decided on my New Year’s resolutions yet, so I’m going to do a post tomorrow once I’ve figured them out. I thought I’d do a round up on last year’s resolutions today; some I managed, some I didn’t…

1. Eat less and exercise more – therefore losing weight. Didn’t do so well with this one… I am exercising more as I now regularly go to a yoga class, but I could be doing more and I’m certainly not eating less. I haven’t lost any weight either. I think this may be one of those resolutions that perpetually crops up on my list each year!!

2. Write in my diary/journal more regularly. This didn’t happen either. Oh well.

3. Start a Blog. Done!!

4. Read more of my own books and buy less new ones. Nope, I’ve definitely ended the year with more books than I started the year. Oh well… again!

5. Be more active on Goodreads and in the Blogging community in general. I’ve not been very good at this, I haven’t been anywhere near as active as I wanted to be. Life has gotten in the way far too much and the blog has definitely been neglected as a result.

6. Do more – spend more time doing things I enjoy that get me out of the house. I’ve definitely done more this year, so I can put a big tick against this!

7. Be medication free by the end of the year. I am so so pleased to be able to say that I have hit this goal!! I’ve been medication free for 2 months and, whilst it hasn’t been easy, I’m definitely in a much better place.

So 3 out of 7 isn’t exactly great, however I think the most important ones have been completed and there’s definitely time to work on the others. One of the resolutions that I didn’t put on here was to learn to play guitar and I finally started getting lessons in September and so far it’s going well. So I guess you could say I hit 4 out of 8 and I figure 50% isn’t too bad given that most years I don’t stick to any of my resolutions!!!

How did you fare with your resolutions?

 

Taking a break…

 

Book Review – Treasure Me by Christine Nolfi

Format: e-book, approx 415 pages
Publisher: self published, 2011
Source: Review copy provided by the author
My rating: 4 stars

Birdie didn’t really have the best start in life – dragged around from town to town by her mother, she doesn’t really have anywhere to call home. It isn’t really surprising that she has followed in her mother’s footsteps and lives life on the road, getting by by stealing whatever she can. When she finds out that there is a family heirloom supposedly hidden in Liberty, Ohio, she sees her way out of the life she’s fallen into. She heads to Liberty to search for the heirloom, along the way meeting Hugh, a reporter, with whom she ends up sharing a flat. The story follows her search and her relationship with Hugh, who ends up sticking around for much longer than he anticipated…

The main thing I loved about this book was its pacing. It’s not a short book, at 415 pages, but it didn’t feel long at all. There weren’t any slow parts and I wanted to read the book at any chance I got. The plot is well written, with interesting twists and a nice balance between description and dialogue. The characters were believeable, although at times I did find Hugh to be a little one-dimensional. Nolfi more than made up for that with her characterisation of Birdie, though. Despite the fact that she’s a criminal, she’s actually pretty loveable. Her ‘heart is in the right place’ as they say. She does actually want to make a go of her life and live ‘normally’, but things just never seem to work out that way.

I enjoyed watching Birdie and Hugh’s relationship develop, even though it was frustrating at times. I guess the tension makes it more believeable – no relationship is smooth sailing. Her interactions with others in the town were interesting and amusing at times too. Despite only being in town to find the heirloom, and despite trying to convince herself that she hates the locals, Birdie actually begins to care about people more than she’ll admit. It’s nice to see her begin to build the life she wanted but wasn’t sure how to achieve.

So if you’re looking for a mystery novel with a little added romance, fun characters and an engaging plot, then I’d recommend this! I read the e-book, but the paperback is out on Amazon today – go grab yourself a copy!