The Kari AnnAlysis

I tried to look for a picture to go along with this post, a little cartoon with germies that signified the stomach bug. But I only got a few pictures in and they started making me nauseous. So, no pictures. It’s better for us all.

I honestly can’t tell you the last time I have had the stomach bug. I tend to be more of the sinus type of girl, and have gotten pretty good (if I say so myself) at detecting them and nipping them in the bud before they are fully involved (thanks to Extra Strength Mucinex).

This past weekend, my husband and I, and all of my dad’s side of the family went to a birthday party for my cousin’s little boy. He turned one, his brother helped him open presents, we played with lots of babies, it was great birth control.

Sunday went by just fine…until 4:45 Monday morning. That’s when I woke up with an upset stomach. A few minutes later, my husband tells me he also was not feeling so hot. We both took the day off. I spent the day in bed, he spent the day on the couch. I can’t watch TV when I’m sick, it makes it worse.

Monday afternoon, I found out we weren’t the only ones who got the bug. 10 others got sick from the time we left the party until Monday.

Tuesday, I woke up, feeling a little better, got a shower, tried to eat some toast and just couldn’t kick it. I had to stay home another day, so did my husband. But we weren’t the only ones. The sick total was then up to 16, including my poor little brother, who is a diabetic and immediately taken to the emergency room when sick, to keep his blood sugar in order.

Tuesday was better. I only stayed in bed half the day, was able to eat a couple of pieces of toast and a couple of bowls of soup and get down some Gatorade, a major improvement from the day before.

Today, I got up, after a night of restless sleep. My bed is normally a place of rest and comfort. I don’t have a TV in my room. When I go to bed, it’s to go to bed. I will read or knit, but it’s my sanctuary, my wind down time. But after two days in bed, it was the last place I wanted to be. But I got a few short hours and was feeling better, so I am back at work today.

But the sick toll keeps on climbing. I called my dad this morning, my morning commute ritual, and he is the latest one to catch the bug, upping the number to 20, I believe. Oy vey!

My mom says that when she took my brother to the hospital, a worker there was saying that they had to shut down an entire wing because this thing kept spreading like wildfire.

What a mess! Good news though, I have my appetite back and am munching on crackers to keep my energy up, my pal at work is getting me a Gatorade before she comes in, and the awesome winter boots I ordered were at work waiting for me when I got in. Now the question remains, are we going to have winter this year so I can wear them?

Have you been hit by the stomach bug this year?? Other than sleeping it off, what’s your remedy??

I think this is the most consistent I have been with this weekly meme since I started blogging a few years back. The good thing about this is that I am getting some awesome new books. The bad part, I need more time to read all these awesome new books. Oh but I am not complaining!

On My Bookshelf is a slight variation of In My Mailbox by Kristi at The Story Siren, a weekly meme to show off the good books you got the previous week, whether from the library, bought, borrowed, won from a giveaway, downloaded…you know the drill!

This week, I had my eye on a book I’ve been seeing all over Twitter and blogs and HAD to get my hands on it. Thanks to a gift card by one of my husband’s friends, I am considering it a late Christmas gift.

Yes friends, I got Cinder this week and I am PUMPED!!! But, as you can see, that’s not all I got, I also got a new notebook. It’s a canvas material and has an elastic band to keep it closed and a marker inside to let you know where you left off. I get one of these a year to keep track of the books I’ve read, days I’ve written and which agents I have sent letters to. A new notebook always gives me inspiration to do more work so I can fill it up and not waste my pages.

In case you have been living under a book rock, here is the description of Cinder from Goodreads.com:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Did you get any goodies this week???

From Goodreads:
Interior designer Deva Dunne’s latest project comes to a screeching halt when blood on the carpet leads her to the body of her client, an exotic dancer with a mysterious past. But the murdered woman is not the only resident of the posh beachfront condominium with secrets, and investigating officer Lieutenant Victor Rossi considers them all suspects.

Though wary of working in the killer’s midst, Deva continues decorating the unit for the new owner. When she stumbles upon clues that might help crack the case, she can’t resist doing a little digging of her own, despite Rossi’s orders to quit meddling. Now, she’s juggling the investigation, her career and sexy neighbor Simon Yaeger, who seems interested in more than her etchings.

Deva can’t help but be flattered by all the male attention—that is, until she realizes the killer has designs on her, too…

There are many things that determine how I judge a book including characters, emotion, writing, overall design, creativity within the novel…those all make up pieces of my book blogging puzzle.

From the beginning of this book, I fell in love with several characters. Deva is mourning the death of her husband and moved to Florida to get as far away from her previous life as possible. She has a knack for design and uses it to help her forget. Don’t we all do that from time to time? Get so into our work or a hobby that it helps us cope with hard feelings? But there are several characters in Deva’s life that help her feel a breath of fresh air. Although she is not there long, Treasure is a ray of trasnvestite hope, along with her former lover. Then there are multiple men in this book who are swoon-worthy, from the soon-to-be divorced upstairs neighbor to the Hawaiin shirt wearing investigator.

The mystery in this book kept me turning the pages. I also have a hunch at some point as to who the killer is in books like these, but most of the time, the real suspect is merely a glimmer that doesn’t last long. That happened here. I thought I knew, then clues turned me in a different direction, but the I was back to where I started. The motive for the murder is what held me up. Definitely not what I thought it was going to be. Dang motives, tripping up my detective game.

This book was filled with emotion. The pain that Deva has for the loss of her husband is heart breaking. Any married woman, or any woman in love can relate with how they would feel in this scenario. What would I do in this situation? Where would I go? Would I be able to work? Although this book was a murder mystery, with drama and suspense, it also was thought provoking. And there were also the nuggets of funny, that showed hope and brought out a part of Deva you hoped she wouldn’t lose in all her sadness.

Good news, I felt like I grew close to Deva and want to see her grow and move forward, and also want to see which of her many suitors she chooses as her next love interest, and I think I’m going to have the chance to do that. On Jean Harrington’s website, it says this is the first in a series. Woo!

I give Designed for Death 4 bookmarks.

ISBN: 9781426892967
Released: January , 2012
Author Website
Kari got this book from NetGalley

Happy Friday! I hope you had a great week! One lucky person is about to have a better one!

And that lucky person that wins the giveaway ofBad Moon is …..
 

SABRINA MALLARD

Check your email Sabrina! I have sent you a message to get your address and the book will be on its way soon!

From Goodreads.com:
After the shocking revelations made in the Private prequel, The Book of Spells, Noelle and Reed know they are descendants of the original Billings Girls and their legacy includes a mysterious coven of witches. But it’s nothing compared to what happens next.

One by one, Billings Girls go missing from campus.

The entire community bands together to find the lost girls, hoping they are still alive. Reed can’t believe tragedy has struck Easton again, and she begins to wonder if the Billings Girls are cursed. But when the first body shows up containing a message just for her, she fears her friends are worse than cursed: they’re doomed.

The penultimate book in the suspenseful Private series!

I actually read this book a couple of months ago when I was in a kick about cleaning off my bookshelf. I forgot that I read the book and didn’t notice until I saw it on my shelf the other day that I did, in fact, read it and I hadn’t posted a review.

I also thought this was the last book in the series and didn’t know until I was looking at the summary that there was one more. I was kind of content with this being  the last book. I don’t know if I am growing out of it or if I just have a stale taste in my mouth where the series has gone. I will read the final book, because I want to give the series another shot, but at one time I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next book and now, I’m ready to move on. When the series started getting witchy, I started losing interest. At one time it was so believable and I could imagine myself on Easton’s campus, along with the Billing’s Girls. But now I feel like an outsider.

Based on the summary of this book, I was hoping the whole spell portion may be over. Yes, the word “cursed” is used, but from the summary, I was excited. I thought Brian was getting back to the basics. I was wrong. Spells are still involved in this book and some of the girls start taking this whole witch thing seriously. I think it could have definitely held it’s own without it.

If you haven’t gotten this far in the series, I don’t want to discourage you from finishing it and I plan to get my hands on the final book in the series and round it out, with high hopes that it ends on a high note.

I do commend Brian for coming up with 14 different story lines for the books to follow. I think it’s awesome that you can develop your characters and add and subtract characters and make readers still want to stick around. I just wish she would have stayed with the believable plots that made me fall in love.

With that said, I give Ominous 2 bookmarks and have my fingers crossed that I can connect with the final book in the series and end the series loving it as much as I did when I first started. Since the new Billings House will be built, maybe my hopes will be answered. End it where it all began.

ISBN:
Released:
Author Website
Kari bought this book