The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for July, 2010

This week, I have not one, but two Teaser Tuesdays! I am reading two really good books right now and want to share a tease from both.

The first comes from Running Dark by Jamie Freveletti:

Pg1: ”

The second tease comes from Missing Mabel by Nancy Mehl.

Pg10: “My mother still couldn’t understand why I’d left college to go to beauty school and ended up working on “dead people’s hair, for crying out loud.” Mom is a successful neurosurgeon who is absolutely horrified by my career choice.”

I am loving both of these books right now! What are you reading?

It’s been 14 years since Zarah Mitchell’s heart was broken and in the blink of an eye, the love of her teenage life, Bobby Patterson, is in the same room with her again. Neither ever married, but both have a horribly wrong perspective on what really happened the summer they broke up. Now that they’re living in the same town, attending the same singles group at church, and having both of their grandparents yearning for grandchildren, fate may be working it’s magic. But when Bobby is investigating Zarah and the historic preservation society that she works for, their love will have to wait, again.

I read this book online, from NetGalley.

Where to start? This was absolutely one of my favorite love stories of all time. Both Zarah and Bobby had their hearts broken when they were young, they never healed and now they have a chance to rekindle it. It’s the kind of love story you only read about and see movies about, but Kaye Dacus made it believable for me. I am a romantic, and I’m sappy when it comes to love, but some stories I read are just too out there. This wasn’t one of them.

Dacus did a fabulous job of bringing out what’s important in life including religion, family, friends, love, values, morals. You name, it’s in this book. I cannot wait until more of the “Matchmakers” series comes out. I will definitely keep my eye out for them.

This was a very quick and fun read. It wasn’t necessarily easy. There was religion thrown in, which can be tough if you don’t know a lot about the Bible. There was also some technical stuff about the historical preservation society, that I had never even heard of and sounded like Blah, blah, blah when I read it. But, I read 250+ pages of this book on Sunday and couldn’t put it down!

I give Love Remains 5 bookmarks.

The book’s publish date is 8/01/10 – To order a copy, click here!

Kestrel, Don’t Call Me Susan, Murphy is a young witch in training. When her dad has a heart attack, she and her majix (her own form of magic) are shipped to her Aunt Ariel’s house. Kestrel has drama from the get-go in her new town. she won’t wear the new uniform, khaki’s and a white top. Instead she continues to wear her uniform, black, black, black.

Her goals while at Ariel’s, who is also a witch, are to start a coven and find a familiar. Little does she know that she not only will enhance her powers in her new life, she’ll also add to her coven and make some good friends 

From the beginning of the book, I really liked Kestrel, Susan, whatever you want to call her. She was funny, witty and stood up for what she believed in. I felt bad for her when she was uprooted and when she talked to her parents, it just wasn’t the family life I grew up with. Her parents learn to be loving, but it’s a near death experience. I found myself sad for Kestrel many times throughout the book.

I  thought the book was set up very creatively. As the title says, along with little stories on Kestrel’s life and how she got where she is now, it’s notes from her life, starting with witchdom (I think I just made that word up).

While I have read some YA books that I definitely wouldn’t wanting a teenage daughter of mine reading, this is one that I would feel comfortable with. I feel like although this girl believes in the craft, she has normal teen relationships. Not ones that end because you murder your friend. I know this happens, but I still try to think it doesn’t.

This was a cute book and I give it 4 bookmarks.

PS: You can check this book out on NetGalley.com.

Last year, I took part in a couple of challenges. This year, so far, I’ve only signed up for one. I wanted to get more into Young Adult books this year. I know there’s no age limit on what genre you read, but I figured since I’m still in my early 20′s, I have a few more years to feel not like a creeper reading about teens, so I’m going to read all I can get my hands on.

The challenge I took part in is the 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge at Home Girl’s Book Blog. There were four different levels in this challenge. You could sign up to read 12, 25, 50 or 75 books. I chose the 25 book challenge, not too sure if I could even get through it. And guess what? I have and it’s only July.

Here’s my list of books that I read:
1. Petty in Pink
2. LA Candy
3. Private
4. Invitation Only
5. Untouchable
6. Confessions
7. Inner Circle
8. Legacy
9. Ambition
10. Envy
11. The Naughty List
12. Rumors
13. Tangled
14. Revelation
 15. Paradise Lost
16. Suspicion
17. Beautiful Malice
18. Sloppy Firsts
19. Pretty Little Liars
20. Flawless
21. Perfect
22. Unbelievable
23. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
24. Infinite Days
25. The Crepe Makers’ Bond

If you want to check out my reviews, here is the link to my Challenges page, that lists all of the books, authors and has links to the reviews.

I seriously can’t believe I’ve already finished a challenge, 5 months early. I still have a few YA books on my shelf, including more in the Jessica Darling series, as well as the Private series. I have also found some awesome YA books to read this winter.

I do plan on doing one more challenge this year, that will be a Holiday Reading Challenge, and I am already dying for it.

Have you signed up for any challenges yet? How are you doing on them

8th grade is hard enough as it is. Harder classes, harder to fit in and even harder when it all falls apart in front of your eyes. Ariel, M and Nicki have been best friends forever but M’s mom is moving and taking M along. Now the girls have to think of a plan to keep M around. But be careful what you wish for, because after all the hard work is done, it may not be what you wanted. To deal with all the pain, heartache and drama, Ariel heads to the kitchen to sooth her soul.

I read this book online from NetGalley.com(my new favorite website). The Crepe Makers’ Bond will be released in October. To pre-order a copy, click here.

Anyone who has ever lived with a friend for more than a couple of weeks knows what Ariel is going through when M moves in. You love your best friend, but there are some people, you find, that you just can’t live with. And the sad thing about this is that it wears on your friendship, sometimes so much that it crumbles and you can’t get it back.

While I read a lot of reviews that say books are dated when they use real life shows and time frames, I love that I knew the shows these girls were talking about, The Sopranos for instance. I really liked that it is very believable that it is based on a true story. I actually had to look back after I finished the book to check for sure if it was based on the childhood of Julie Crabtree, but one of the first pages says it was made up. Wahh Wahh.

One of the things that I like best about this book is that every chapter begins/ends with a recipe. Snacks, desserts, dinner, you name it, Ariel has a recipe. The dish is mentioned in the chapter and you can expect a recipe before the next one. Some of the stuff sounded delicious too. I am going to have to write them all down before my subscription to the book runs out!

As much as I tried to put it to the side, I couldn’t help but to get mad at the characters. I know that I am a decade older than them, and at one time in my life, I had the same issues that I am sure I whined and cried about, but I found myself angry with them, being petty, telling them in my head to grow up. I guess I don’t have enough patience. That’s something I’ll need to work on before I have kids I guess!

This was a very cute, quick, YA read and I give it 4 bookmarks.