Book Review

Total books for 2011 = 43! To be accurate, I did not read all of them. I listened to 10 of them while I was running (unabridged). In my mind, I read all of them, G does not agree. Oh well!
You can check out the past reviews for Winter, Spring, and Summer.

Fall - Sept 1st - Dec 31st.

Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - Typical Dan Brown book with Robert Langdon, but set in Washington DC. It was fun reading about the history of the city and symbolism. If you have read any of his other books, you know who the good guy and bad guy are and what the outcome will be, so not much mystery. It is a good read and if you like historical fiction, definitely check it out.

Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins - Have you seen the movie preview?? The books are much better!! The first book is good and gets you hooked. The second book is AMAZING! The third book is good, but sort of a let down. I was a little disappointed and sad that the adventure was over. I highly highly recommend this series!!

The Women in White by Wilkie Collins - This a very old book and was recommended to me by a friend since I loved The Thirteenth Tale and that book used Jane Eyre and The Women in White as references. I did listen to this book while running and it is quite long and drawn out. If you want to read classic literature, this is a great book, otherwise skip it.

Ape House by Sarah Gruen - Did you read Water for Elephants and love it? I did. This book is about apes living in a language learning lab that gets bombed and the apes are moved to New Mexico and exploited for 24hr real time web cam TV. Think Big Brother with horny apes! The writing is good and the story is a page turner. Definitely check it out!

Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire - 4th and final book in the Wicked series. I read all of the books and honestly couldn't tell you much about them. I got lost in all the characters, locations, and Oz history. I did love Wicked the musical, so I felt I needed to finish the series. This is by far the best book! The author spent the first few pages giving a brief history/summary of the past books and had multiple family trees. I referred back to the family trees a few times! Thank-you Gregory for including that! On a side note, you probably want to read the paper copy instead of the Kindle addition, easier to flip to the family trees.
Dorthy does make it back to Oz and the cowardly Lion is one of the main characters. If you are an Oz fan, definitely check out this book. It will make you happy and give you closure.

Paris Wife by Paula McLain - A historical fiction about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson. It was interesting to listen about Ernest's life and adventures in Europe during the 1920s. I recommend reading this book if you are intrigued by the “Lost Generation” (Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.)

Don't Blink by James Patterson - Patterson books are my guilty pleasure. I can read his books in a few days! This book starts a new series with Nick Daniels as the main character. If you like Patterson, don't miss this book. If you are new to Patterson, start with the Alex Cross books!

Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson - The latest Alex Cross installment. Another page turner, but the title is a little misleading. The bad guy isn't really after Alex, only angry at him because Alex claimed he was a criminal. Definitely recommend this book to Alex Cross fans!

The Calhoun Women - Suzanne and Megan by Nora Roberts - This was stories 4 and 5 of the Calhoun Women series. Each girl finds her mate and the history/mystery of The Towers is solved. If you need some easy beach reading, then this and the first book are wonderful!

Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith - I got this book on my kindle for $1 when Amazon was having a sale. The review made it sound wacky like Bridget Jones Diary. Hummm, not so much. Definitely wacky, weird, and strange. Skip this book!

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner - I really liked this book. Jennifer wrote this book a while ago, but didn't finish/publish it until recently. I was tired of her books because they all seem to have the same theme. The ugly, fat girl, who has a beautiful friend, who "has it all." The friend turns out to be depressed and the fat girl looses tons a weight and get pregnant by someone who doesn't really want to be a father. Same story, that was good the first time, but old the 2nd, 3rd..... times.
This book was about 4 different women each in different stages of their life, who through chance have their lives interwoven. It was a great book and I highly recommend it!