The Kari AnnAlysis

Happy Teaser Tuesday friends and foes! In the world of booky blogs, today is a HUGE day because it’s the release of Mockingjay. I, however, haven’t started on this series. I ordered them all in hardback, the first two won’t be here until Friday, Mockingjay, still no date yet! Bah. Anywho, back to what I’m reading as we speak, The Starlet by Mary McNamara.

I am going to warn you that I am going to use a curse word in this tease, but it’s my favorite quote of the book, so close the eyes of your kids.

Pg21: “Jesus Christ,” Gabriel said, looking for a moment as if he would drop her where he stood. “What is Mercy fucking Talbot doing in your car? And why did you bring her here? God almighty, Jules, you were only gone for five hours! Where did you find her?”

Although I am over halfway through this book, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It’s got death and drugs and superstars, but it’s just Mehh so far.

Tully and Kate are the epitome of a BFF. The girls meet when they are in their early teens. Tully has major family problems. She doesn’t know her dad, her mom, Cloud, is a typical 70′s woman, addicted to drugs and freedom. All Tully wants is someone to love her, other than her grandmother. She may be in luck when she meets her new neighbor, golden girl, Kate.

Kate is a straight A student, never breaks the rules and just wants to be popular. So she also has something to gain from a relationship with a beautiful, new girl at school.

Firefly Lane takes us from the 70s when the girls meet at the bus stop, through their lives and the turn of the century. As friends, Tully and Kate go through many ups and downs. Tully has the passion to be a network while Kate just wants to raise a family.

I have read a lot of great books lately, but this one is definitely going into my Top 5 of all time. There are so many things that I loved about this, I don’t even know where to start.

One thing I love about this book is following what happened in real life during these times. Being a news girl, big stories always stay with you, along with big people. There were mentions of the 70s stereotypes, Kenny G, Bill Gates, JZ Knight, Virgin Records, Jane Pauley… do you get my drift? While this book is entirely fiction, you remember these stories. Well, I don’t really remember them because I wasn’t born, but I remember hearing about them They helped keep it real for me.

That’s another thing I loved about this book. It was very real. I am a huge fan of fiction that pushes reality, but this book was so real, I felt like I really knew these people. When you meet someone in a book that is a teenager, and stay with them through their 40′s, that’s longer than I have known my friends. You know their secrets, you know everything that is happening in their lives and you feel for them. And they deal with real issues from popularity in school to getting your dream job to raising a family, all things you can relate to .

I felt like I could relate to Kate and Tully on many levels. Of course, I felt an attachment for Tully through her love of journalism. However, she has a little more perseverance than I do in my little pinkie. When I want something, I try my best to get it, but she is hardcore to getting what she wants. Maybe it’s just that our passions lie in different parts of the business. She wanted to be a network anchor, I want to have nothing to do with being on camera. I also see how her job makes it hard for her to be in a relationship. It is very easy to get caught up in a job like this. And the more you are available, the further you will go. If you can up and go at any time, and you are good at your job, you are golden. But as Tully finds out, what is it worth giving up?

Pg49: “Of course I need you. Is Tennessee a top 49 market?”

Ahhh the life of a journalist, putting the job before love, which Tully did a number of times.

As much as Tully pushed to further her career, Katie worked hard for a family. I am not at that point in my life yet, still waiting a couple years before kids, but I still feel like I can relate to Katie’s wanting a family and wanting to stay home with them. Everyone wants to be the best mom they can be, but I’m not sure if I could stay home and not have a side career. That’s where writing comes in. Tully covered my journalism passion and Katie covered my writing passion. Katie tried writing a time or two and never got anywhere with it. One thing I got from this book is to write while I can.

One of my favorite quotes from the books is this:

Pg 183: “Of course you can fall in love. You just have to let yourself. They don’t call it falling for nothing.”

I had mixed feelings for both women. Things that I wished they both would’ve done and said, and not done and not said. I felt bad at them for different times throughout their lives, normally more for Katie than Tully. I can’t believe I had so many feelings for just one book, that wasn’t even a series. 

This book reminded me of one of my favorite movies of all time, Beaches. There was the good girl and the wild child. They come together and are split apart, but their friendship lasts through everything. I should watch that movie soon, once I get my tears back.

I want to warn readers who plan on reading this book to carry some tissues around with you. I wasn’t warned and when it came to the last night I was reading it, I was a hot mess. There were a couple of times throughout the story, where I shed a tear or two, but let me tell you, it got so bad that Michael told me to quit reading it because a book shouldn’t make me that sad!

There honestly wasn’t anything in this book that I didn’t love. I hope that one day, I can write an amazing story like this. I give Firefly Lane 5 bookmarks.

ISBN: 9780312537074
Published: February 5, 2008
Buy from Amazon
Kari borrowed this book from a family member

These questions were originally posted by Literary Lollipop. Find a book blogger who doesn’t love talking about books and talking about themselves. I dare you. I fall into the category of loving both of those, so here goes. I have split these questions into three parts that will be posted for the next three Sundays.

1. Favourite childhood book: I have two for this category. There are two books that developed my love for reading. Charlotte’s Web and Tuck Everlasting.

2. What are you reading right now? The Starlet

3. What books do you have on request at the library? I am really bad about not spending enough time at my local library. It opens after I’ve left for work and closes before I get home. Earlier this year I did put one on request and thought I would start spending more time at the library, but it became available on a Tuesday. I wouldn’t have been able to get it until Saturday. Luckily a friend and I both wanted to read it, so she went and picked it up. I just don’t think it’s fair for all of the other readers that I have it on hold for a week.

4. Bad book habit: Having too many on my TBR. I have two shelves, two rows to a shelf of TBR. Yikes!

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library? Read #3

6. Do you have an e-reader? Not yet. Ask me in a couple of weeks and my answer will be different. I am getting a Nook for my birthday which is at the beginning of September! Woo!

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? For years, I only read one at time. Recently though, there have been times where I am reading two. Depending on when the books I have on NetGalley are being released, I’ll read one online and a regular book.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? Absolutely. I feel like last year, there were A LOT of books that I read that I hated. Now I am more picky and know what I like so the books I read, I want to read and love. I still read about the same amount of time a day and my favorite place to read is still my bed.

9.Least favourite book you read this year: The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham

10. Favourite book I’ve read this year: I have read A LOT of great books this year. But since I’m still on a Firefly Lane high, I would probably say that is my favorite for now.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? I would say maybe a book a month. I like to keep my options open when receiving books from publishers and authors.

12. What is your reading comfort zone? Fiction, YA, Chick Lit and Murder Mystery.

13. Can you read on the bus? I don’t ever ride a bus, but I get extremely car sick, so I doubt it.

14. Favourite place to read: My bed, my deck during the fall and spring.

15. What’s your policy on book lending? I will gladly lend out books, but don’t necessarily lend unless someone asks for something. I am stingy and afraid they are not going to come back in the shape I lend them.

16. Do you dogear your books? Absolutely not! That is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves.

17. Do you write notes in the margins of your books? No. I write them in the notes app on my iPhone.

18. Do you break/crack the spine of your books? I try not to, but sometimes it just happens.

Through the past almost two years of blogging, I can’t believe the world that has opened up to me. I started out with a small blog on my Myspace page that was sparked by my love for Jane Eyre.  I decided I wanted more, tried Blogger and WordPress and ended up with my own domain, which I love! I feel so powerful

Through all of my research to find out what people wrote about, what I liked to read and what blogs I liked, I have found so much. I wanted to share some of my favorite booking websites with you guys, so you can get your feet wet, if you already don’t stop by them.

1. Goodreads.com: I have been on Goodreads for a while now. It was one of the first bookish websites, other than blogs, that I found. I copy all of my reviews to Goodreads and compulsively check the giveaway pages. After months, I am still absolutely in love with this site. On a daily basis, I log in to see what new books have been posted. Now the enter vs. win rate isn’t very high. I have won three books from Goodreads, but it still keeps me coming back. I also love that on the site, there is a trivia. You can do general trivia, or only questions for the books you have read. As my library grows, so does my trivia number. I opt to only do trivia for books I have read, so I tend to run out from time to time. I try to add a few questions, although recently I keep forgetting, just to keep the trivia pool filled.

2. Librarything.com: Librarything is known for its book giveaways. They have two ways to sign up for books. The first is through the Early Reviewers Giveaway which is open for a month. There is also a Member Giveaway. I tend to find more books through the Early Reviewers Giveaway. These are primarily new books that are getting ready to be published. The Member Giveaway has nearly any book anyone wants to give away. Now, my ratio here isn’t wonderful either, but better than on Goodreads. I have won 5 books from these programs.

The next two websites are sites that I have just come across the past couple of months and I love, love, love them!

3. BookMooch.com: I had always heard about this website and about Paperback Swap. I never wanted to get rid of books, so I never went to them. That all changed a couple of months ago when I realized I had two book shelves filled with books and no where else to put them. And that’s just in my bedroom. So, I went through my books, kept the ones I loved, and posted the ones I was so-so about. I can not believe how fast some of them have gone. If you’ve never been on the site, you post a book that you are willing to send someone and you get a point. For every point you get, you can Mooch (request) a book from anyone else on the website willing to send to you. The only price you pay is shipping for the people who request from you. So I may not really be clearing out my shelves, because I am replenishing them with other books, but it’s giving me a chance to try new ones and try ones that I am not 100% sure about because I know I can post it and get a new one in return. I have received 7 books from this program and am waiting on 4 others!

4. NetGalley.com : If I had to choose right now, I would say that this is probably my favorite booking website. NetGalley has a list of hundreds of books that you can read for free and review. The one fallback for some people will be that all of these books are read online. There is a program you can download to your computer and read right from there. I don’t mind doing this, because I know it is saving me shelf space. The awesome thing about this site is if you have a Kindle or a Nook, you can have the books sent there. I am getting a Nook in the next month (yay for birthday presents), so I am looking forward to being able to read on there instead of toting my laptop with me everywhere. Now my laptop is just a little Netbook, so it’s not a huge hassle, but it’s still something else I have to bring with me on a daily basis when I am reading a book from there. So far, I have read and reviewed 7 books on NetGalley and I have 14 still to go. And out of the books I have to read, one was published last month, the rest are anywhere from the end of August until mid-November so I have plenty of time to get through them. If you don’t mind reading on your computer, or have some form of e-reader, I HIGHLY suggest this site.

5. Crazy Book Tours : I never really thought I would take part in Book Tours. They just seemed like a lot of work… well, it seemed stressful to have to read a book within a given time period, review it and make sure you get it mailed out. I am normally extremely organized, but when events that happened within the last week, including an awesome family weekend and a horrible day in bed with a virus come around, you can’t always be on top of things. But I ran into this website, posted from Jen on twitter and found some books that I thought looked really good. I have only read one book for this tour, but have signed up for a few. I just got another one in the mail and my 14 day clock starts. After taking part in one, I think I might expand my horizons. This site hosts adult fiction, non fiction and memoir books. My #6 will be for those of you interested in YA tours.

6. Around the World Tours : This site is held together by Princess Bookie. I have run across it a number of times, but never signed up. As stated before, a timeline of when things have to be done scared the crap out of me. Now that I know I can take part in this and get some awesome new books, I am going to sign up for more. I have not signed up for many on Around the World Tours, but as soon as this post is saved, that’s my next goal. One of my goals for the year was to read 25 books from the YA genre. I finished that last month, but I still want to stick with that genre, while I’m still in my early 20′s and allowed

I hope that you guys will check out and enjoy some of these websites! Are there any that you like that I missed? If so, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll definitely check them out. I’m always up for new bookish websites and fun!

Lexi Carmichael is a computer geek to the max. She has no boyfriend and no real social life. That changes when a friend mails her a document that has people from all over the world knocking down Lexi’s door trying to get it. She calls in reinforcements in the form of her computer geek friends and realizes she is the last piece to the puzzle in a fertilization program gone horribly wrong.

After a few days of pondering, I am still just mehh about this book. I am in love with the plot and some of the characters. I love books that sit back and make me think “How did anyone ever come up with this?”. But there was also a lot of computer nerdy talk in the book, along with fertility talk that is way over my head. I had to go back and read a lot of pages, and skimmed a few just because I knew that even if I did read it, it still wouldn’t make sense.

One of the things I love most about books and movies is figuring out how the title plays into it. You normally hear the phrase in the book or movie or are able to connect it together after you are done. I didn’t really understood how the title matched until I was finished. It works very well with the book.

I give No One Lives Twice 3 bookmarks.

ISBN:  9781426890499
Published: August 16, 2010
Buy from Amazon for Kindle
Kari got this book from NetGalley.