2012 was a year of books for me!  I read more than I have in years.  I completed 3 challenges: Dystopia Challenge, Once Upon a Time, and R.I.P.

In 2013 I'm hoping to read almost as many books as I did last year (I know I won't be able to read as many since I'm no longer nursing my youngest).  I'm also going to participate in more challenges and will hopefully update my blog more.

So here we go:

Challenges in which I participated:
Dystopia Challenge (finished 5 of 5)
Once Upon A Time VI (finished 5 of 5)
R.I.P. VII (finished 4 of 4)

My favorites in the order I read them:
The Sandalwood Tree  by: Elle Newmark
When You Reach Me  by: Rebecca Stead
Cinder  by: Marissa Meyer
The Snow Child  by: Eowyn Ivey
11/22/63  by: Stephen King
Neverwhere  by: Neil Gaiman
Sister  by: Rosamund Lupton
The Duggars: 20 and Counting  by: Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar
The Lies of Locke Lamora  by: Scott Lynch
The Language of Flowers  by: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Winter Sea  by: Susanna Kearsley
The Time Keeper  by: Mitch Albom
The Midwife of Hope River  by: Patricia Harmon
Shades of Grey  by: Jasper Fforde

Most recommended:
The Language of Flowers  by: Vanessa Diffenbaugh

# of books I read in 2012:
75
Up from 39 in 2011, 30 in 2010, 28 in 2009, & 48 in 2008
Down from 81 in 2007

Least favorite:
The Red Tree  by: Caitlin R. Kiernan (Horror, Fantasy)

Repeated authors:
Kelley Armstrong (2) (Women of the Underworld series)
Veronica Roth (2) (Divergent series)
Amanda Hocking (4) (Trylle series, Watersong series)
Rebecca Stead (2)
Neil Gaiman (2)
James Dashner (3) (Maze Runner series)
Chris Bohjalian (2)
Rosamund Lupton (2)
E.L. James (3) (Fifty Shades series)
Scott Lynch (2) (Gentleman Bastard series)
Caitlin R. Kiernan (2)
Patricia Harmon (2)

Shades of Grey
By: Jasper Fforde

Series: Shades of Grey

Published: 2009

# of pages: 390

Quote: “'Unless the hole is MEANT to be square,' I said with a sudden erudition that surprised me, 'in which case, all the round pegs are the ones that are wrong, and if the ROUND hole is one that is not meant to be square, then the square ones will, no, hang on--'

'Shame,' said the historian, 'and you were doing so well.'” -pg 210

Official description: Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.
Eddie's world wasn't always like this. There's evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.
Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey Nightseer from the dark, unlit side of the village. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.
Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Nextbut want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.

My opinion: Loved it!  It took me awhile to get into the world.  There were a few times in the first several chapters I thought it was a little stupid and wondered if I would like the book.  What I didn't know when I started is that this is a humorous book.  Not to say that the main point of the book is humor, or that there aren't many serious lessons and issues in the book, but it is all masked in humor and you can't take the details too seriously.

Yes, a world where people can only see certain shades of color and where they've created a caste system based on color is silly.  It's silly that there is a society that make up laws for every silly little thing.  So don't get bogged down by some of the ridiculousness.  It's a touching, thought provoking book with some really funny moments, not just silly ones.

The next book in the series is being published in 2013, just in time!!


Why I gave this book 5/5 stars: Great writing, great characters, subtle humor, unique story line and setting, very thought provoking.

Other reviews:
Chrisbookarama

Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.

A few months ago I started a blog about home schooling my preschooler.  I just did a post on children's Christmas books the other day.

The Postmistress
By: Sarah Blake

Published: 2010

# of pages: 336

Official description: In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts. Iris knows more about the townspeople than she will ever say, and believes her job is to deliver secrets. Yet one day she does the unthinkable: slips a letter into her pocket, reads it, and doesn't deliver it. 
Meanwhile, Frankie Bard broadcasts from overseas with Edward R. Murrow. Her dispatches beg listeners to pay heed as the Nazis bomb London nightly. Most of the townspeople of Franklin think the war can't touch them. But both Iris and Frankie know better...
The Postmistress is a tale of two worlds-one shattered by violence, the other willfully naïve-and of two women whose job is to deliver the news, yet who find themselves unable to do so. Through their eyes, and the eyes of everyday people caught in history's tide, it examines how stories are told, and how the fact of war is borne even through everyday life.

My opinion:  Meh.  The separate characters' stories (Iris, Harry, Emma, Will, Frankie) didn't mesh well at all.  I read review that described it as sort of meandering and then petering out.  That's exactly how this novel is.  I understand that one of the points of the book is not knowing what happens outside the story...what happens on the edges.  Of course, the author claims she is writing this book to describe the edges of WWII, but I wondered if that's one reason she tapers off at the end without fully finishing or allowing the reader to understand all of the characters' thoughts.

I also don't really understand the significance of "The Postmistress."  And the intro really sucks, it makes it sound like the book is about something it's not about at all.


Why I gave this book 3/5 stars:  Not very well written, but it could be worse.  The middle part with the scenes of Jewish refugees traveling is very interesting.  The characters are hard to relate to and the entire book seemed pointless.


Other reviews:
S. Krishna's Books
Bookfoolery and Babble

Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.

The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir
By: Patricia Harman

Published: 2008

# of pages: 289

Quote:  "The couple had made the baby by accident and given him away on purpose, a gift to a family that couldn't conceive. . . . I've never forgotten their courage."  -pg. 60

Official description:Heather is pale and thin, seventeen and pregnant with twins when Patricia Harman begins to care for her. Over the course of the next five seasons Patsy will see Heather through the loss of both babies and their father. She will also care for her longtime patient Nila, pregnant for the eighth time and trying to make a new life without her abusive husband. And Patsy will try to find some comfort to offer Holly, whose teenage daughter struggles with bulimia. She will help Rebba learn to find pleasure in her body and help Kaz transition into a new body. She will do noisy battle with the IRS in the very few moments she has to spare, and wage her own private battle with uterine cancer.
Patricia Harman, a nurse-midwife, manages a women's health clinic with her husband, Tom, an ob-gyn, in West Virginia-a practice where patients open their hearts, where they find care and sometimes refuge. Patsy's memoir juxtaposes the tales of these women with her own story of keeping a small medical practice solvent and coping with personal challenges. Her patients range from Appalachian mothers who haven't had the opportunity to attend secondary school to Ph.D.'s on cell phones. They come to Patsy's small, windowless exam room and sit covered only by blue cotton gowns, and their infinitely varied stories are in equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting. The nurse-midwife tells of their lives over the course of a year and a quarter, a time when her outwardly successful practice is in deep financial trouble, when she is coping with malpractice threats, confronting her own serious medical problems, and fearing that her thirty-year marriage may be on the verge of collapse. In the words of Jacqueline Mitchard, this memoir, "utterly true and lyrical as any novel . . . should be a little classic."

My opinion:  After reading The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman, I was eager to read The Blue Cotton Gown, one of her non-fiction memoirs.  I was eager to read more birth stories since she had put variations of real birth stories in her novel.  I wasn't disappointed in the birth stories in The Blue Cotton Gown, but I do wish there had been more of them.  Harman follows several of her patients over the course of a year.  They aren't all pregnant and they have many different physical and emotional problems.  I was impressed by how Harman cared about each of them, even when she didn't want to.  I wish my midwives spent as much time with me and cared about my personal life so much that they would recognize me later.

The only thing I didn't like was her attention to her and her husband's financial situation.  It started feeling like a big pity party after awhile.  Sorry, but it was hard to feel bad for them when they have a vacation home on a lake in addition to their everyday house!!

There is a small amount of bad language.  Sexual descriptions.  Discussion of rape/molestation.  Miscarriages.  Graphic descriptions of the female anatomy and birth.  If this doesn't bother you I definitely recommend!


Why I gave this book 4/5 stars:  Harman has an interesting life and I enjoyed reading each of her stories.  However, I didn't enjoy reading about her sex life or such a large amount about her financial situation.

Other reviews:
Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.

The Light Between Oceans
By:  M.L. Stedman

Published:  2012

# of pages:  343

Quote:  "Isabel was squeezing the girl to her, sobbing at the touch of her, the legs fitting snugly around her waist and the head slotting automatically into the space beneath her chin, like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle."  -p. 273

Official description:

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 
Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them. 
M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss. 
The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

My opinion:  "Deeply moving" describes this book perfectly.  I don't even know where to begin.  I don't even know how much I liked this book.  But I can say that I related to it.  I felt what the characters were feeling.  I made friends with Isabel, I was on her side.  I smiled, I cried.

Isabel goes through 2 miscarriages and a stillbirth.  Her first miscarriage occurred on May 31.  2 days after my own miscarriage.  She feels shame for not being able to carry a baby.  How I relate to that...

Years later she finally becomes a mother who can hold a baby in her arms.  But fate is against her, a ticking time bomb, it's a matter of time before it all explodes around her.

I was on Isabel's side, but really, there is definitely no right or wrong side in this story.  It's just like life.  It's not fair.  Someone is going to be hurt, no one deserves it.  I was just rooting for Isabel because she experienced something I've experienced and I understood when she felt betrayed and angry.  At the end, Isabel does have a choice, which is more than many people would receive her in situation.  She doesn't choose the way I would have chosen.  I wanted to scream at her.  I was crying so much at the end of this book, but I respect the ending even if I wasn't happy with it.

I do recommend this book to all adults, but with the warning that it will be a hard read for those who have experienced miscarriage and infant loss.  It will pull at the heartstrings of all mothers and make us all so thankful for our beautiful children.


Why I gave this book 4/5 stars:  Beautifully written, characters with depth, a hard read, one that made me cry and wasn't completely satisfying at the end.


Other reviews:
Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.

The Graveyard Book
By: Neil Gaiman

Challenge:  R.I.P. VII

Published:  2008

# of pages:  320

Quote:
"There were three of them there, then, and Amabella was introducing Bod and he was shaking hands and saying, 'Charmed, I am sure,' because he could greet people politely over nine hundred years of changing manners."

"Really, he thought, if you couldn't trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust?"

Official description: After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family . . . 
Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

My opinion:  It was weird going to the children's section of the library to find this book.  I know that children's literature includes kids in middle school, but it just seems weird that this is in the same genre as picture books.

When it comes to ages, I would let my 5th grader and older read this book.  It starts out with the murder of a boy's family, which is pretty disturbing.  My heart ached thinking of the toddler boy wandering off on his own, even though it meant he was saved. I couldn't help but think of my own little boys wandering out of the house at night.

The book isn't all scary and intense though.  Most of it is pretty lighthearted, actually.  Bod is able to interact with all sorts of "people" from all sorts of time periods.  He learns to speak to adults and learn the truth about historic events from first hand sources.  I love how he was raised by everyone in a safe community, even if they were all ghosts.

The end of the book is definitely bittersweet.  Bod has so many adventures and meets so many people throughout the different chapters of the book.  The novel is a little disjointed at times, since some chapters almost seem like individual stories in themselves, but most of it ties together at the end.

I recommend this to children, young adults, and adults.  It isn't scary, but the beginning is a little and there are intense parts.  It is supernatural, but it isn't over the top or really serious.


Why I gave this book 4/5 stars:  Very unique story; interesting and likable characters; good "growing up" story about a boy who makes mistakes, but learns from them.

Other reviews:
Literary Musings
things mean a lot
Bold. Blue. Adventure.
Bookfoolery and Babble
You Can Never Have Too Many Books

Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.

It's that time of year again!  I've been looking forward to R.I.P. for months, but as always, was late signing up.

The event officially starts September 1st and runs through October 31st.

Here's what it's all about:



I'll be participating in Peril the First and reading 4 books this year.

1.  Jamaica Inn  by: Daphne du Maurier
2.  The Red Tree  by: Caitlin Kiernan
3.  The Graveyard Book  by: Neil Gaiman
4.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle  by: Shirley Jackson


Are you participating as well?  I'd love to hear what you're reading and/or watching!


Previous R.I.P. challenges:
VI
IV

The Winter Sea
By: Susanna Kearsley
Published: 2008
# of pages: 527

Official description:  It is 2008 and Carrie McClelland can't hit the right note for her next novel, but an unplanned detour in Scotland, and a stop at the castle that inspired Count Dracula, sets her on a different path; a path that took her back in time exactly 300 years, to that same castle, and to a rebellion doomed to failure. Alternating between the contemporary setting and the past, The Winter Sea takes us at every turn into little known worlds; historical footnotes writ large, a history of Scotland and the Jacobite rebellion of 1708 and the possibility of genetic memory. Historical fiction at its best and Susanna Kearsley at hers, The Winter Sea evokes the writing of Thomas Raddall, Daphne Du Maurier, and Mary Stewart.

My opinion:  Wow! I didn't think I'd like this book much when I started it, but I ended up loving it. It's 2 books in one, and I love the way the author wove them together. I especially enjoyed the character of Sophia and the historical story line.  The time period of the historical story was neat.  I haven't read many books set in historic Scotland and although I've heard things about the Stewarts and the Union, I didn't know much, so this book was very educational for me.

Why I gave this book 5/5 stars: Well written, enjoyable characters, "what happens next?", I want to go to Scotland and see Slains Castle!

Other reviews:
Bookfoolery and Babble

Have you reviewed this? Let me know and I'd be happy to post yours as well.