Cursor's Fury

Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)

Jim Butcher, 2006

In the world of Alera, everyone has some form of furycrafting, which allows for abilities such as faster healing, longer endurance, better swordfighting, and other. Those with more powerful abilities can even being the elements to life, developing a small amount of control over one aspect of nature. Everyone comes into their crafting abilities by age 13 - everyone except Tavi, who has no crafting skills at all. Because of this, Tavi - who in this book is undercover in one of the fighting legions - has to find a way to keep his identity hidden while at the same time doing what needs to be done without the abilities that others possess. In another area of the realm, the First Lord's reign is threatened, a mysterious enemy's existence is questioned, and a war begins. 

Out of the three Codex Alera books I've read so far, this one was definitely my favorite. There was a ton of action in this one, one storyline featuring Tavi and the ever-likable Max, the second centering around most of the other characters, including Amara, Bernard, and a number of questionable allies. I also really liked the way that Tavi's character is developing and can't wait to see where his story goes. In addition, we're finally given information in this book on Tavi's parents and how the heck Fade fits in to this whole mess. 

A great addition to the series and I look forward to following these characters through the last three books.

This Time Together

This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection

Carol Burnett, 2010

Not so much a memoir and more a collection of stories and anecdotes, this book brings together stories about the life of Carol Burnett, both her attempts to break into show business and her life in the spotlight. 

(Side note: The audiobook is read by the actress, and is therefore highly recommended, if only for the Tarzan yell.)

I love Carol Burnett. I used to watch her comedy show in re-runs all the time when I was younger and I can rarely remember ever laughing as hard as I did when I watched her show.  So I was excited to find out about her more as a person as well as listening to stories about what life was like filming the show. 

I wasn't disappointed. I thought that Burnett was funny and she seemed honest in the stories she told. At times I found it a little amusing that whenever she would talk about actors or singers that she worked with they always ended up being long-time friends, but honestly, I think if I ever met her I'd want to be her best friend, too. I'm glad I picked this one up and was able to find out a little more about one of my favorite performers. Now I just want to sit in front of my computer and pull up re-runs and blooper reels of The Carol Burnett Show on YouTube....

UnWholly

UnWholly (Unwind Trilogy #2)

Neal Shusterman, 2012

In this world, first established in Unwind, abortion is illegal. However, parents can decide on retroactive abortion for teens. For troublesome teenagers or orphans in group homes, anyone from the ages of 13 to 17 can be 'unwound' - the teens are not killed, but are broken down into individual parts and transplanted into those who need their organs. This is called a 'divided state' and is supposed to be a good thing - you know, except for those who are selected to be unwound. After one of the Harvest Camps was destroyed by runaway unwinds in the last book, a new law was put into place that 17-year-olds could not be unwound and a number of runaways have set up a safe haven at an old airplane graveyard. But things are not all good. Connor, the leader of the Graveyard, is trying to keep everyone safe and alive while worrying that they could be raided at any minute. And a new character, Cam, emerges, who puts a whole new spin on what unwinding can create.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this book when it first started, because I thought that Unwind did a decent enough job with the story that a trilogy wasn't absolutely necessary, and I wasn't sure what this book had left to cover. Despite a somewhat slow beginning, however, this one ended up being, in my opinion, better than the first book. I loved the characters in this book - the old characters were better developed and the new characters were really interesting and/or I wanted to punch them in the face (because they were written to be evil bastards). I also loved the direction the plot took. Can't wait to see what happens in the next book.

Twisted

Twisted

Laurie Halse Anderson, 2007

This book was decent, although not great. I really like the way that Anderson writes teens and deals with tough teen issues. This book had some excellent characters and I found the plot generally very interesting. I just felt that the issue of the main character deciding what he was going to do was kind of a throw away and resolved far too quickly. It was actually a good book, but compared to Speak, one of Anderson's other books, it just falls kind of flat at the end. If I hadn't read that one first, though, I think I would have liked this one a lot more. Still worth a read, especially for teens. 

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Junot Diaz, 2001

I'm not sure about this book. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. It left me feeling disappointed, because I had heard such great things and ended up being underwhelmed with the book, but at the same time I didn't really dislike it either. I thought the book was very well-written and interesting, but ultimately the title is misleading, because only about a quarter of the book is about Oscar. The rest is about his sister or his mother as a young girl or his grandfather. All Oscar's family, sure, but having very little to do, if anything, with Oscar's story. 

The one thing that I really did dislike about the book, though, is that parts of it were written in Spanish. Sometimes dialogue, sometimes just a word or two, but it was in Spanish. It fit in with who the narrator was and made it sound like he was really speaking the story to you, which was almost kind of cool, but with a book that already made use of footnotes, why not translate the Spanish into English in a footnote? It makes no sense and alienated me as a reader. 

Overall a decent story in general, but more as a view of an extended Dominican family and not of one individual, as the title and summary indicate. Just not as great as I was lead to believe. 

A Red Herring Without Mustard

A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce #3)

Alan Bradley, 2011

Pretty enjoyable continuation of the series. There are times when Flavia really just annoys me - mostly when she's trying to get revenge on her sisters - but I like a mystery where I don't see the ending coming, and I didn't guess 'whodunnit' before they revealed it, so props there. Not perfect, but a definite fun read. 

Life's a Beach

Life's a Beach

Claire Cook, 2007

I don't often read this type of fluffy, chick-lit type of book, but it was a freebie a while back, so I figured why not? Not a bad read overall. I liked the main character. It made me laugh a few times. Nothing special, but a cute and easy read.