A Darkness Strange and Lovely by Susan Dennard

Ah book two of the series... Once again the cover of this book is lovely.

This book follows Eleanor after the drama of what happened that dark night. Her mother is in the mental institute refusing to believe that her brother is dead. Selling all the stuff in the house for money to pay her mom's doctor bills. Eleanor is just at her wits ends. One day she hears the Hell Hounds coming after her. Fearing for her life she flees to Paris to find her friends. Hoping Joseph, Jie and Daniel can help her somehow.
What frustrates me most about this book is the lack of communication between Eleanor and her friends. There's no talking about Oliver. They just hate him from the start. However Eleanor is never truly honest with her friends. It just drove me crazy. I realize that this adds to the conflicts in the book and helps with the drama. I just got so frustrated with Eleanor being so overly stubborn and selfish. Looking past that point the book was a easy read. It kept the story smooth and got there quickly. It left you with a what now type of ending which works because there is a third book. Not so much that I felt I had to read it right away.

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

The Unexpected Everything was a quick easy read. Some parts were  completely predictable. It didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the book. Andie is a typical type A-personality. I don’t blame her from how she has grown up being in the eye of country. Her dad is a senator whom could be vice president some day. With her dad gone all the time on the campaign trail and her mom gone due to ovarian cancer. She has made her family with her 3 best friends. I wish my friends and I had the kind of adventures and traditions that these girls do. From a scavenger hunt every year to meeting the very next day for waffles when one of them lose their virginity. Life changes very quick for andie when her dad is caught up in a scandal and has to step back from his career. The scandal effect andie's life. It causes her very important summer plans to fall through. So now she is left desperate trying to find something to fill in her summer for her application. It has to be perfect for college. She plans on being a doctor.  Finding a job as a dog walker as a last hope. What she wasn’t expecting was this job to change her life. To meeting Clark, being able to spend time with her friends, reconnecting with her dad. She learns the value of letting things just happen sometimes. 

This book is sweet and a nice reminder that you can't plan everything in life. 

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

This book is another one of my finds back in October. The library had a bunch of books on display and this along with its other sisters in the series were on display. The name caught my eye and I had to read what it was about. A victorian novel with zombies? Alright I will bite and check out all three books then.

We met Eleanor Fitts while she is trying to meet her brother at the train station but a Zombie attack happens. She manages to get into the office of the train station to protect herself from the zombies. When the attack is over she sees a note left to her by one of the zombies. Her brother is in trouble. Eleanor is a strong woman who feels like she doesn't belong. Her father is gone and her mother just wants to hurry and marry her off to someone who had money. Her one true friend is her brother. Knowing he is in trouble she turns to the Spirit Hunters. She knows that they are the only ones who can help her. The Spirit Hunters are a group of three people so different from each other but very loyal. Jie the bad ass chinese girl who dresses like a guy and says what she is thinking. Joseph the leader of the group whom is always well put together and a true gentleman . Then Daniel who is handsome as hell and has a sad past.

When Eleanor meets this group they don't seem to mind her quick wit or the fact she shows she has a brain. This book is full of mystery. It has a nice change to the zombie books that seem to be out lately. It was a nice quick read and kept me trying to figure out clues and what was going on.

Trust me I am lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer

This is another book I had marked on my Kindle to read list from the library. An added bonus for me to read it was the author lives in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. I am all about supporting local authors. Another thing that caught my eye is the cover art to this. I am a very visual person and if a book has a cover that catches my eye then I will look at it. 

Julep Dupree has learned the family business of being a con artist. All of which she had learned from her loving father. Thanks to his instance of her going to school where she can learn how to blend in with the rich, she is currently attending St. Agatha High School. Juelp has secrets. Lots of them from everyone. One is that her real name is not Juelp. Only her dad, her and her mom who left them when she was very little know her real name. Another secret is she has dreams of leaving the family business and making a real life for herself. This means going to St. Agatha and getting good grades to get into Yale. While getting to know Juelp and her style of talking and explaining things it reminded me of Veronica Mars. The same type narrative I experience from the show. Which help me enjoy this book. It reminded me of the show in other ways. From the friend who is great at techie stuff ( her best friend Sam) to the friends she makes along the way without realizing it. When Juelp realizes her day had been taken by someone she starts following the clues he left behind for her. She starts calling in favors from kids from school that she has helped before. This book is a quick read and enjoyable. The mystery is easy to figure out but there is a lot of action and some heart breaking parts. I enjoyed it enough to want to read more of the book series. 

I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl by Gretchen McNeil

 I was having one of those nights where I could not sleep. So I went out on the couch and tried to sleep there in hopes it would be more comfortable. Sleep however eluded me, so what do I do when this happens? I find a book to read of course! Okay sometimes I fall down the rabbit hole of Pinterest but not this time. I have this list of books I want to borrow from the Library on my kindle. The title totally caught my eye. So I added it to my list to read some time. Well the time had come my dear friends.

Beatrice is a math nut and has great plans of getting early acceptance into MIT. At school she is only known by the name Math girl. Luckily she has two great best friends whom she had bonded with the start of school back in their freshman year. There is Gabe who is gay and had a tendency to run his mouth at the worst times and there is Spencer. Spencer is a sweet guy who is a very talented artist being raised by his moms. Even though the three have been bullied all of high school Bea has high hopes for Senior year. Bea has a boyfriend to start off the new school year with. First she must introduce Jessie to Spencer and Gabe. A small spoiler is coming up so just a warning. Its nothing you won't figure out in the first 5 chapters yourself though. Once the three guys are introduced you can tell Spencer is unhappy. Then Gabe sings "I wish I had a girl like that." Let me tell you I started laughing out loud. If you don't know the song jessie's girl. Then go listen to it. This song is referenced a few times and I thought it was great.
When Gabe almost gets beat up at school Bea decides to use her brain and come up with a formula to reinvent her and the boys. It works well for the boys but not to well for her. When Jess dumps her for a manic pixie dream girl Beau uses the formula to turn into one herself. It works great. Maybe a little to well.
This book gave me a lot of laughs. I thought Bea constant math was going to drive me in crazy. With the constant putting things into percentages but it worked really well with her character. This book is about trying to change yourself for the wrong reason but realizing maybe change is a good and that you should be happy with yourself.

The Wicked Boy

Back in October I was at Powell's book store ( yes I am lucky enough to live near the different branches of Powell's books.) They had a display of books to read for the Halloween season. This lovely non fiction was on display and the cover totally caught my eye. After reading the back of the book I thought its sounded interesting. I took a picture of the book so I had it down somewhere that I wanted to check this out from the library.
    This story is about a boy named Robert who stabbed his mother in 1895. Robert and his brother Nattie spent 10 days gallivanting around before he was found out. Kate takes us the best she can into what is going on during this time with the country, the way everyone thinks at this time and if Robert did this in defense for his little brother as he claims or if he is a cold blooded killer. There were times I found this book a little dry and boring. I really appreciate things being explained to me but there were times I felt i was just getting a little to much information. She manages to find pictures of Robert and his home. Which I really enjoyed seeing. I did start to skip over the parts that I felt were to much information on things I didn't really care about. However all in all I found this book pretty enjoyable. If you like true crime book and the victorian era in London then this book you should enjoy.

The Bell Jar and my ramblings

I recently had my birthday in the past few weeks. So I made some goals for my self to accomplish by my next birthday. One of them is to read 13 classic novels by next birthday. So I started off with The Bell Jar. A book that has always been on my list to read. I just would get side track my YA books that I have either been waiting for months to read or just have caught my eye. I have to be in a certain mood to read certain books. I want it to fit with how I feel. The Bell Jar is a great book. I am not saying you should be sad and depressed to read this book. It's just something I need to get past and realized I shouldn't always keep my mood from keeping me reading certain books.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was a emotional read. We are taken in to the mind of Ester Greenwood. Ester is in New York were she has an internship for a month along with 11 other women. During this internship Ester realizes she is not stimulated at all over anything. She always had a goal in life and now that she had graduate college and was done there were no goals a head of her. Nothing in her life excites her and she just goes through the motions. We the reader start to follow Esters decent into a major depression. Sylvia takes us in to the mind and gives us the slight understanding of what it is like to be a manic depressive. Which is very hard for anyone to understand if they have never experience it them selves. What makes this book even more emotional is the fact this is loosely based on Syliva's life. She committed sucide after this book was published in the U.K. So the experience and emotion in the book are from some one who has been there in that dark void.

When I finished the book it really helped open my eyes more to depression. I know I get down and want to live in bed at times. However I have family and friends whom have suffered deep depression and I feel that this book helped me a little understand how they see life. It scared me a little but it open my eyes to another way to see and experience the world.

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