The Blurb:
I was going to get out of the modeling business for good.

But now I’m having trouble sticking with my decision. After all, if it wasn’t for modeling, I might still be the invisible wallflower. Hot guys like Paulo wouldn’t be interested in me. And I’d never have seen Brazil or Spain-and now France! On the other hand…

I also wouldn’t have to choose between my best friend from home and my agent’s shrill demands. Or anguish over my body the way only runway models do. Not to mention all this trouble I’m getting into for speaking out in the press about eating disorders.

Maybe the life of an international model isn’t for me. But if I quit for good, I might always wonder…What if?

My review:

I actually enjoyed this better than book one because the arc was very similar, but this book tackled issues in a different way that I appreciated and had more developed side characters. I think it helped that the issues approached in this book were body image and weight, which is something all girls feel pressure about, whereas most girls aren’t models who deal with the pressures of fame, money, and nervous breakdowns due to the depression of maintaining a stressful career as a teenager. Plus, in book one, all the issues Violet had seemed so avoidable with one key word. Moderation. In this book, the issues go beyond Violet’s personal, and frequently bad decisions to factors outside of her control. Violet gains five pounds, is told to lose it, complains publicly on her blog, suffers consequences from her blog going public, and unexpectedly lands an ad campaign with a place trying to improve their PR by caring about body image…yet they still want her to lose five pounds. Disturbed by the hypocrisy of it all, Violet is torn between furthering her career and selling out.

In book one, Violet’s all or nothing approach kind of bothered me, but this book helped me see that’s her character. Moderation isn’t in her vocabulary. She either jumps head first into the darkest depths of the dark side of modeling, or quits completely. She either starves herself, or eats a half gallon of ice cream a day. She falls in love the exact same way. Violet doesn’t do half measures. I think that was easier to see this round because this book did have models who could live the lifestyle with professionalism and grace without completely losing themselves. The career isn’t evil, the other girls aren’t bad or lost. It’s just not a good path for someone as impressionable and sometimes immature as the protagonist and that’s okay. Flawed characters are more interesting. As an adult that sometimes struggles to get by, it was pretty frustrating watching Violet get handed opportunity after opportunity and seems hell bent on destroying them all. But that’s an age thing. The romances in this were frustrating, but again, this isn’t for my age group. One thing I really liked is this book focused a lot less on the whole “but I never thought I was pretty” thing.

There’s this trend in YA books to have obviously beautiful girls think they’re plain. And frankly, it’s annoying. I’m not talking about books with plain girls who discover the beauty of their own bodies, or find a guy who sees them as beautiful, or discover the friends they’re jealous of are jealous of how they look. That’s actually kind of realistic. Everyone is much prettier than they think they are and the message that we are our worst critics is an important one. But there’s a line and a lot of books cross it. Sorry, but if you’re pretty enough to be able to literally get recruited into modeling off the street, or be able to quit and have your agent bend over backwards to bring you back, or have multiple guys fall for you, or have a room of photographers go completely still and breathless when you walk out on stage, you’re more than average and refusing to accept that or acknowledge that actually makes girls feel worse about themselves because if she thinks she’s ugly, what the heck does that make actual average people? By this book, Violet’s mostly accepted she looks good, not in a vain way, but in a healthy one. Even though she crash dieted and got embarrassed when her agent kept making comments about her weight, I was never under the impression Violet thought those five pounds made a difference in herself or the way she looked. It was just something she had to lose to keep her job.

This book improves upon the first one. Worth a read if you enjoyed book one at all.

The Blurb:

Gwyneth Shepherd’s sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth, who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era!

Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would lie about her birth date to ward off suspicion about her ability, brush up on her history, and work with Gideon–the time traveler from a similarly gifted family that passes the gene through its male line, and whose presence becomes, in time, less insufferable and more essential. Together, Gwyneth and Gideon journey through time to discover who, in the 18th century and in contemporary London, they can trust.

The Review:

I loved Ruby Red. I thought the concept was interesting, the way they time traveled was very neat, the twist at the end had me itching for the next book, and Gwyneth was awesome. The only thing I didn’t like was her confusion about the love interest. Literally the first time she sees him, she’s watching future her kiss him. So when he flirts with her and makes out with her, the “does he like me or doesn’t he” argument just seems a bit silly. Her confusion makes more sense after something that happened midway through book two, but until then, it just made her seem dense. But other then that, loved the first book. Get the first book, read it, it’s great.

The rest of the series kind of fell flat for me. Gwynneth started book one as such a feisty, strong character. I really don’t get why she would stand for the way she was treated in the rest of the series. People were outright rude to her and they kept needing her to do stuff for them. Say no. Make demands. Don’t just stare at the ground and grit your teeth.

Side characters I was really hoping would become more developed stayed very flat and one dimensional. I do have to say I loved her grandfather and the gargoyle, but Charlotte could have been a fascinating character. Ditto for Lucy and Paul. Gwynneth did things that made no sense with an alarming frequency (after your first experience, why would you continue to drink enough at parties in the past that you have been hit over the head with the importance and danger of? Why?). The time travel concept that was set up so well in book one was never really explained much more in depth. The rules got fuzzy, and a revelation at the (very) end made me really curious how that would impact future bloodlines. I didn’t know where all the prophecies and such *came* and they literally met the man who started it all. The thing with James at the end drove me nuts. Time is complicated. Time travelers of all people need to get that.

I think the books are worth a read because the parts that are good are SO good, but I actually think it would have been better if it wasn’t a trilogy, and instead was a longer stand alone book. The story wasn’t about the sapphire or the emerald, it was about the ruby. Her arc from start to finish and I think it may have been streamlined in a more compelling way in one arc instead of broken up because in three books there was some repetition, characters that didn’t need to exist, scenes that could have been cut. I think the story is strong and would have packed a much more powerful punch as a stand alone. I know several of you guys have read the series, what do you think?

8 weeks to become a hero
You’re Runner 5, a vital member of one of the last outposts of humanity at Abel Township. Over the course of an eight week, 25 workout training programme, you’re trained to help collect supplies and protect the town from the encroaching zombie apocalypse.

Okay, so this isn’t a book, but it is a story! So I’m going to review it anyway. I’m a huge fan of the original Zombie, run! app, in fact, I helped fund it on kickstarter (best ten bucks I ever spent) so look for my name in the credits. I did couch to 5k about two years ago and had been running 30 minutes a couple times a week on a regular basis when….

student teaching happened.

Then my daughter was out of school for the summer.

And life.

And stuff.

So when I went running again, I knew I would pretty much be starting over, hence me buying this app. I wanted something new and motivating, using the same 5k app would have just made me sad. Plus I wanted more story! So I’m breaking this review down into three parts: The Story, The Workout, and The Tech.

The story: In terms of plot, it’s not as good as the main app. This is really more of a character development exercise than actual plot. There’s some intrigue. Someone is stealing supplies from your base and Sam is searching for his dead girlfriend’s lost sister, but mostly you’re meeting people and learning about them. Still worth it? Yes. Character development is fantastic. And if you’ve used the original app, heartbreaking when you realize who one of the characters is. The mini-plots get resolution and overall you’ll feel like a hero when you finish the training. This is a different experience than reading a book or even listening to the audio book because it requires more imagination. You’re runner five. Therefore your character doesn’t really develop and you have to picture the zombies chasing you. Not hard in a creepy park with zombie noises filling your ears. The only thing I wished they’d changed was that toward the final weeks they started going into story mode during the walking/stretching parts and doing nothing during the running parts. I got the app to distract me from the running bit not the nice breaks. But that won’t be an issue once you graduate to the main app.

The workout: I was really impressed with the set up. It was different from any other couch to 5k program I’d ever looked at before and way more effective than the last one I did. My time improved a ton. I’ve included the weekly summary at the bottom. The trick is to run the full time of the free form runs because they’re what gets longer, not the walk/run drills like in the traditional C25K program. I loved the built in stretch breaks and exercises. I think they helped a ton.

The tech: Mostly the tech worked great. Sometimes it would get stuck and I’d be in walk mode a minute or two longer so the run would get cut into by a minute or two when the audio caught up. Gosh darn. Glad it never happened the other way around though because I would have gotten angry. Sometimes the music didn’t start, but that was rare. Otherwise it worked perfect. Great program and would absolutely buy again

Week 1:
10 minute walk
1 minute walk/15 second run x 10
10 minute free form run

Week 2:
10 minute walk
30 second run, 5 heel lifts, 1.5 minute run x 5
10 minute free form run

Week 3:
5 minute walk
5 minute free form run
1 minute run, 1 minute walk, 20 knee lifts x 5
8 minute run
2 minute stretch break
8 minute free form run

Week 4
5 minute walk
5 minute run
10 knee lifts, 1 minute slow walk, 1 minute fast walk x 5
1 minute walk, 30 second run x 5
15 minute free form run

Week 5
5 minute walk
5 minute run
30 second walk, 1 minute run, 6 heel lifts x 8
10 minute free form run
5 minute stretch break
10 minute free form run

Week 6
10 minute walk
10 minute run
10 half squats, 30 seconds stretching x 3
5 minute fast walk, 7 minute free form run x 2
2 minute stretch break
7 minute free form run

Week 7

10 minute fast walk
5 minute free form run
1 minute running, 15 seconds skipping x 5
5 minute free form run
3 minutes stretch break, 5 minute run x 2

Week 8:

Day 1:
5 minute walk
5 minute run
4 minutes stretching
20 minute run
5 minute stretching
5 minute run
3 minutes stretching
5 minute run

Day 2:
5 minute walk
10 minute free form run
3 minute stretch
10 minute free form run, 5 minute walk x 2
5 minute run

Day 3:
5k

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.

The Blurb: First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire – and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

My thoughts:

If any family members have ever just…wanted to buy me something (hint, hint husband, there is a holiday coming up), you could gift this entire series to my kindle and I’ll jump up and down squealing like the little girl. I love this book. It’s such a fun world, such a fun character, and such a fun plot. Did I mention this book was fun? I’ve been looking for another writer like this for a long time. I’ll probably go read everything she ever wrote now. :D.

In all honesty, I can’t adequately summarize everything I liked about this book and I don’t have anything to nitpick. It was just a fun and unique concept and if you liked the Clockwork Angel/Prince/Princess series by Cassandra Clair (which please remember, I really enjoyed) this will blow you away. All the fun of the world, far less of the angst. You won’t be crying your heart out over sick and dying characters (which I love to do, but sometimes, I just want to read something FUN), but you’ll laugh a lot more.

Seriously, go read this book.