Blurb from the first book: EMMA WATTS IS GONE.
Emerson Watts didn’t even want to go to the new SoHo Stark Megastore grand opening. But someone needed to look out for her sister, Frida, whose crush, British heartthrob Gabriel Luna, would be singing and signing autographs there along with the newly appointed Face of Stark, teen supermodel sensation Nikki Howard.
How was Em to know that disaster would strike, changing her and life as she’d known it forever? One bizarre accident later, and Em Watts, always the tomboy, never the party princess, is no longer herself. Literally.
Now getting her best friend, Christopher, to notice that she’s actually a girl is the least of Em’s problems.
But what Em’s pretty sure she’ll never be able to accept might just turn out to be the one thing that’s going to make her dream come true
NIKKI HOWARD IS HERE TO STAY.

My Thoughts: I found this series to be surprisingly good. The concept was great, the characters flawed in great ways, and the moral questions raised by this story were really interesting. This was like the most macabre version of Freaky Friday ever and I loved it. Cabot handles a character going through an impossible to imagine situation in a way that felt natural, realistic, and funny. The premise goes from funny to sad to downright creepy in a Dollhouse way by book three and the progression was very well done. I can’t go into much with this book series without giving anything away, but you should absolutely read it.

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets–an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

My Thoughts: It took me a minute to get into this book, but in a good way. Like the plot was simmering in my head just waiting to boil over. Once it did, I couldn’t put it down. The twists and turns in the plot were fascinating, every single character was amazing and the descriptions were a thing of beauty and oh my gosh the symbolism! The motifs! Last week I reviewed the Orchid House and while that book had an excellent duel storyline going, this is how to do duel story lines right. The way the two tales intertwined was nothing short of amazing. And despite all the heavy coincidence that had to happen to make this plot occur, I never for a second doubted the events in the book. Seriously, given the insanely heavy coincidences that had to happen to make the plot possible, that’s saying a lot about the author. I have nothing to add because there’s nothing more to add. Read the book. It’s incredible.

As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park, the great house where her grandfather tended exotic orchids. Years later, while struggling with overwhelming grief over the death of her husband and young child, she returns to the tranquility of the estate. There she reunites with Kit Crawford, heir to the estate and her possible salvation.
When they discover an old diary, Julia seeks out her grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park. Their search takes them back to the 1930s when a former heir to Wharton Park married his young society bride on the eve of World War II. When the two lovers are cruelly separated, the impact will be felt on generations to come.

Lucinda Riley skillfully sweeps her readers between the magical world of Wharton Park and Thailand during World War II with irresistible and atmospheric storytelling. Filled with twists and turns, passions and lies, and ultimately redemption, The Orchid House is a romantic, poignant novel that became an instant bestseller in the UK and Germany.

I literally just finished the last page of this book, making this the freshest book review I’ve ever written. The book was interesting, had a lot of historical goodness going for it, and had a plot that wove such a complex tapestry that no summary could do it justice.

But it did have some problems. I love stories that have parallel stories going from the past to the present, so the two stories weren’t the problem. The problem was the person telling the story could not have possibly known the details she gave. The book was third person limited, yet the story in the past was being told to the protagonist orally. See the problem? I don’t mind that the story wasn’t told as dialogue, but the only person we should have been able to see internal thoughts from is Elsie. Elsie could not, no matter how well described the events may have been to her, have known what was happening in Olivia’s head, Harry’s head, or Bill’s head. The only person whose innermost thoughts she could know are her own. And she was the tiniest player in the back story so oddly we were only third person limited in her head twice in the whole book. As a writer and as an English teacher I just couldn’t get over the framing of the story. It’s a nitpick and it’s my issue but it kept pulling me right out of the story.

However, both of the stories featured complex, wounded characters and the author did a fantastic job managing a large diverse cast of characters all of whom had entirely different motivations and all managed to sound completely different. Every character was fully developed and they were all interesting. Even the two characters I absolutely loathed (I was supposed to, that’s not a knock on the author) had complex reasons for doing the things I hated and were three dimensional.

The descriptions were gorgeous, but they needed to be integrated into the dialogue more because the story had a lot of floating head syndrome where the characters just spoke to one another for a page or more with no details to ground you into where they were or what they were doing. But then there would be amazing paragraphs of description that were so well done that I got a crystal clear picture only to move on to the next scene with dialogue that was groundless. Seriously though, gorgeous imagery. Loved it.

The plot was intense and kept me reading though it did spin out of control a bit near the end with an event that I kind of hated with a fiery passion. But what came after that event was interesting and wrapped everything up in almost a nice neat bow. There were some mysteries left unsolved, which is good, stories that wrap absolutely everything up feel artificial.

Overall a decent read if you can ignore the nitpicks.

The blurb: A wallflower in the spotlight can do one of two things: wilt, or blossom…

Violet Greenfield’s life changes forever when a lady in giant Chanel shades tells her she could be IT, the next Kate Moss-but taller, and without the PR problems. That’s how Violet winds up with a business card in the front pocket of her jeans on her first day as a senior in high school. Angela Blythe from Tryst Models in New York City wants to put Violet on a plane and whisk her into the world of high-heeled boots and oversized sunglasses. Tall, skinny Violet, who’s been P-L-A-I-N practically forever.

And guess what? She’s going.

The review: This is not my typical read, but I’m having to do some research about models for my next book, and I’m curious what other authors do with the same information. Descriptions can be tricky. This book reminded me a lot of The Devil Wears Prada, for a younger audience. I had a difficult time relating to some of the side characters (everyone’s reactions to news they didn’t like tended to be polite silence, which seemed odd) and there were a lot of times I didn’t get Violet’s logic. I had an issue with the ending (I had an issue with the ending of DWP too) because

(SPOILER) it seemed to imply that a person couldn’t exist in that world without being corrupted and the only way around that was to get out of it. I could respect it if that was the answer for that character, if it was simply that she didn’t have the strength of will to exist in that world without becoming someone she didn’t want to be….except then she went back? And to be fair, there was one model in the story who didn’t seem to go completely off the rails, but she vanished midway through.

That just doesn’t seem to be a realistic portrayal. There are women in the modeling industry, strong, successful women with a secure sense of self, and it’s a shame this book didn’t take the opportunity to focus on one of them or to show Violet become one of them. But maybe all of that will change in the next book

The dialogue worked well, I was always very grounded in my setting, and overall the story was well written. If you like books about models, this one is worth a look. If you’ve read any other great books about models, please recommend them to me. I need to do some more reading.

The Blurb:
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of . . . well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

My thoughts:

This is not my typical read, so I’m going to refrain from going very in depth with this review because I don’t know enough about economics or the type of research that went into this book to make a recommendation on that level. As a read though, it was entertaining, sometimes funny, and above all else, interesting. Definitely a different way of looking at things. As a parent, I’m not sure I always liked or agreed with the points that were made because the arguments he made seemed difficult to quantify if only because it relied on data and numbers when there is so much more to being a well-adjusted, successful human being than that.

All the same, I’d give this one a read. Interesting points were made and the bit about the KKK was hysterical (not a sentence I ever thought I would write.)

The Blurb: When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.

Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and Kate’s genetic ability to time-travel makes her the only one who can stop him. Risking everything, she travels to the Chicago World’s Fair to try to prevent the killing and the chain of events that follows.

Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost, however—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does she have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?

My review: I found this book on amazon or .99 cents and was impressed by how good it was. I can’t summarize much of it because I don’t want to give anything away. The plot unfolds kind of like Orphan Black, it’s much more fun to watch/read with no clue what you’re going into. I can say the world building was excellent, the plot thoroughly thought through, and the moral dilemmas that came up about whether or not people should or shouldn’t exist and which timeline was correct were very interesting. I loved the main character. The only thing I didn’t care for was the insta-love (at least every character involved was likable) and there’s a bit of info dumping followed by demonstration which could have been cut since we’re immediately shown what we were just told. But neither was done over the top, so neither bothered me much. And the info dumping was realistic. When you’re getting taught how to do something new, you get told how to do it a lot and then you get to try it. So it’s hard to get that balance quite right.

This was a great book, reminded me a lot of Ruby Red. You should read it.