The Kari AnnAlysis

I’ve never done a monthly wrap-up post, but it’s a new year, might as well try new things. Kind of like my last post on Cover Wars.

Books Read:
Dead to the World
The Life O’Reilly
Pet Peeves
Gods Behaving Badly
Truly, Madly
The Lovely Bones
Dead as a Doornail
Tainted
To read the reviews for these books, click here.

Pages Read: 2393

Bookmarks Given:
1. 0 Books
2. 2 Books
3. 2 Books
4. 2 Books
5. 1 Books
*There was one book I didn’t give a rating to because it was short stories.

Favorite Book: Tainted
Least Favorite Book: Dead as a Doornail

Giveaways:
I gave away Truly, Madly and had quite a few entries. The Duty of Love didn’t fare so well. No entries, but if you are interested, let me know. If I don’t hear anything by the weekend, I’ll give it to my church for the church book sale.

Goals for February:
1. Get some reading done for my 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge
2. Finish up the books I have from publishers/borrowed/contests and read the ones I’ve bought
3. Read 9 books. That may be a stretch. I didn’t realize I read so many in January, but it’s a goal

Looking Forward to in February:
Starting the Private series and finishing the Sookie Stackhouse series.

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:

I have learned I either get a handful of books in a week or I get zilch. This week was a good week.

Contest:

I won this book over at Tea Time with Marce. I am sooo excited to read it! It sounds so cute and Marce said it was REALLY funny.

The twelve Greek gods of Olympus are alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London town house — and none too happy about it. For Artemis (goddess of hunting, professional dog walker), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty, telephone sex operator), and Apollo (god of the sun, TV psychic), there’s no way out — until a meek housecleaner, Alice, and her would-be boyfriend, Neil, turn their world upside down.

When what begins as a minor squabble between Aphrodite and Apollo escalates into an epic battle of wills, Alice and Neil must fear not only for their own lives but for the survival of humankind. Nothing less than a true act of heroism is needed — but can these two ordinary people replicate the feats of the mythical heroes and save the world?

Review:

I got the book Assembling Georgia from the Kelley and Hall Companyfor review.

Georgia Dunn, an underachieving Minneapolis chicken factory worker, is jolted out of her rut when engine parts inexplicably begin arriving in her mail. Faced with a flood of packages from an unknown sender with unfathomable motives, she must choose between her safe, tedious existence and a world of immediacy, of vulnerability and wide-open senses. But she learns that the joys and risks are not hers alone when she collides head-on with her past.

 Bought:

Well, it’s only December 6th and I’m already on my 3rd holiday book. I had only bought 5 in the first place, so I decided to go out and get another one, plus I had $5 in Borders Bucks

Snow on the roofs and wreaths on the doors and chains on the tires… isn’t Christmas in New England wonderful? But Charlotte Prescott is too busy taking in super-sexy reporter Sam Landry to notice the nip in the air. Make that the nip in the air alternating with the scorching heat that rises whenever she and Sam are alone together. Charlotte would be happy to forget the supernatural third wheel who seems to be staying for the season in the quaint old house she inherited. It is real. Someone’s slurping down all the good eggnog. And someone is drawing Charlie and Sam together under the mistletoe — not to mention everywhere else. Happy holidays!

As mom and I were Christmas shopping this weekend, I decided I’d go ahead and cash out my gift card I got as a wedding present. A couple of years ago, Michael got me one of the Private books by Kate Brian, but we didn’t realize it was in the middle of the series until I already read it. So today, I decided that would be my next series and splurged. Confessions is the book I have.