The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for January, 2010

Musing Monday is brought to you by Just One More Page.

I haven’t participated in these in a while. There were a couple that I didn’t have answers to, then I just kind of took a break. Now I’m getting used to my schedule and will be back to bloggy business soon.

Today’s question: When is it inappropriate to read in front of others? Is it ever appropriate?

I take a book with me everywhere I go and whenever I get a chance, I read. I read at the hospital, getting my oil changed, during lunch break, you get the picture. I think it’s common sense when it is appropriate to and not to read. You obviously shouldn’t read in a meeting or if you should be paying attention to something or someone.

I think a better topic would be, when it is and is not appropriate to talk to someone who is reading. I was at the bookstore a few months back, minding my own business and the guy beside me kept talking to me while I was reading. I kept trying to end the conversation by putting my nose back in my book, but he kept trying to talk. Mahhh I JUST WANT TO READ!

This week I got a couple of new books and got rid of a handful.

Library: I love to read books before I see the movie. So when we saw a preview for this, I had to get my hands on the book. It came in Tuesday and I couldn’t get to the library to get it, so I had a friend pick it up and she read it. I now am starting on it and am ecstatic. I can’t wait to talk to my pal about it when I’m done and for our double date to see the movie. I’m not going to do a synopsis for this book. It’s been all over the place!

Won from Librarything:

The Place: An Indian visa and passport office in an unnamed US city.

The Cast: A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is falling apart. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A grad student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

These 9 people end up trapped together after an earthquake and their stories unfold as each of them share “one amazing thing” from each of their lives.

What did you get?

Also this weekend, I did a little cleaning off of the bookshelf. We are getting ready to have a book sale at church. I found 5 or 6 books to take, but choosing them was really hard. There were a few that I knew I could part with like The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and Michael Phelps autobiography. There were also a couple of religion themed books I got for high school graduation that were shoe ins. But from there, I wasn’t sure. There were probably another half dozen books I thought about adding to the pile, but I wasn’t really sure what was “suitable” for the book sale. It’s really hard to read an adult book these days and sex not be involved in the book. Is that inappropriate for a book sale at church? I know I can take these books to the library or sell them back to a few book stores, but I wanted to do something nice for the church. And I honestly thought I would be able to offer more, until I reached the sex question. What do you think?

Release: February 2, 2010

Webber’s Website and Blog

I got this book from Goodreads.com and Librarything.com. I held a giveaway for one copy and it went to Yan at Books By Their Cover. When I signed up for the book, I thought it sounded cute: Lucy Valentine comes from a line of matchmakers and she takes over the business, but her powers are taken. Great right? OMG! IT WAS AWESOME!

Lucy Valentine isn’t like the rest of her family, well not really. As mentioned before, she comes from a family of famous matchmakers. Lucy, however, was zapped by an electrical surge and lost the ability to read auras (they match my color coding them). She didn’t lose it all, she can now find things that are lost by holding/shaking someones hand.

When Lucy’s dad is caught thong up on a beach with someone other than his wife, he takes some time off putting Lucy in charge. While skeptical, she wants to make the family proud.

She ends up looking for a little boy, a long lost love and a murder. The problem with all of these things are, Lucy has to do them without sharing her “psychic” ability. Or so she thinks. Once it is all out in the open, her life actually becomes easier… except for solving the murder. That’s never easy.

Let me tell you. If you have ever read the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, go out and buy this the day it comes out! I absolutely fell in love with LucyD and was so excited to see that there is another book in this series coming out in August and another one in the works. Yippee!!

There are so many things about this book that I like. I liked Lucy from the start because she has all she could ever want in her trust fund, but decided to go her own way and earn her own money.

This book also has some great characters like the crazy Grandma Dovie, her driver Raphael, her 3-legged cat and one-eyed hamster and of course the sexy PI Sean.

There are a lot of things that reminded me of the Stephanie Plum books in this, with a little twist of the mind, known as Lucy’s “gift”, if you will. And if you’ve ever read my reviews on the Plum books, you already know, I’m addicted.

The only thing about this book that normally takes bookmarks away from my grading is that I figured out the really big twist before it came out. There were a couple of times I questioned it, but I did a fist pump when it came out and I was right. I’ve been reading too many of these books

This is a very fast-paced, fun read. It took me just a couple of sittings to finish it. I didn’t even have time to get on here and change my page number on my reading tracker!

I am going to give Truly, Madly 4 bookmarks. I know I didn’t have any complaints about it, but I’m giving the rest of the books room to blow me away in the future!

Release: December 10, 2007

Follow Marie Phillips on Twitter

I won this book from Tea Time with Marce. I saw a review she did on it and thought it sounded really cute. I like mythology, but have never really dove into it until now.

The Greek gods of Olympus are alive and well today. They are plugging along in London, making sure the world goes round. But a small payback by Aphrodite is going to turn their world upside down. She has her son, Eros, put a spell on Apollo to have him fall in love with the first woman he sees. That’s where Alice comes into the picture. She’s a very quiet woman and after sneaking into the taping of Apollo’s TV psychic show, she gets fired from cleaning the studio.

After a little more God pull, Alice lands on the doorstep of the gods, who just so happen to need a cleaner. This is when it gets messy. Apollo loves her, she doesn’t love him back and when she doesn’t reciprocate, he sticks Zeus on her and she’s killed. When Alice’s “flame” Neil tries to get to the bottom of her tragic death, the sun goes out and the world in in jeopardy. Neil must become a hero not only to save the world, but also save his love.

This book has highs and lows for me. I loved the story line itself. I thought it was very creative and loved the new “careers” of the gods and goddesses. And I know you really can’t leave some out, but there are SO MANY that a lot of the time I was lost at who everyone was. I had to make myself a little chart in my phone and when I came across a name, I cross-checked it.

While I am interested in mythology, I have never really spent a lot of time reading about it. One thing that surprised me in this book, but as I research I find it’s nothing new, was all of the incest. Aphrodite has sex with most of the men in the house, including her nephew. Hera is the wife and sister of Zeus. I guess you really couldn’t do a lot of mingling with the “mortals” back in the day, but for some reason this shocked me. It wasn’t what I expected. I really like that Phillips did so much research (or just knew about) the gods/goddesses. I didn’t know about each one of their special talents, but they were all in the book. I didn’t have to spend time looking them up.

I thought Phillips did a great job of moving the gods/goddesses into the 21st Century. Aphrodite is a phone sex operator, Artemis is a dog walker, Dionysus is a bar owner, Apollo is an unsuccessful TV psychic. All of their jobs are along the same lines with their past, with a little kick for today.

I thought this book was cute. There were a few parts that seemed a little slow for me to get through, like pretty much every time Athena spoke (LOL) but I enjoyed it overall, I didn’t love it. But I will definitely spend a little more time researching the gods/goddesses.  I give Gods Behaving Badly  3 bookmarks.

There are a few different covers for this book. The one above is the one I have. Here are the other 2 though:

Release: December 7, 2009

I met the author of this book on Twitter (@readbartharper). He is from Spencer, WV and this is his third book. One of his book was science fiction, the other was short stories and this one, as you can tell by the cover is his Pet Peeves.

This book covers everything from thongs to road rage to diapers. There were some I agreed with (movie prices and public pools), some I didn’t agree with (cheerleading not being a sport) and some I couldn’t relate with (kidney stones and all of the ones about raising children).

I like this book because it was light and fun and I caught myself shaking my head A LOT! I am the queen of pet peeves so it was nice to read someone else’s. I read this book in one day in a couple of sittings. It was nice to go through something fun after reading about a domestic violence lawsuit in my last book.

I can always count on Bart to lift my spirits and make me feel slightly uncomfortable lol. Bart is a great writer who puts in the jokes and makes reading fun. Plus, he puts his family in the middle of most of his stories. I imagine his kids love it and his wife hates it.

If you’d like a copy of this book, check out Bart’s website.

It’s hard to give this kind of book a rating. There were some I liked, some I didn’t. But it made me laugh, and I’ll leave it at that  

Oh, and I almost forgot (GASP), thanks to Bart for giving me a shoutout in this book! When you pick this up, make sure to check out the back of the second page