Caroline by Sarah Miller is about the Ingalls family and their move from Wisconsin to Kansas and their time in Kansas during the late 1800s. This book is told from Caroline’s point of view. She is the mother of two girls, Mary who is 5 and Laura who is 3. She is pregnant with a third during her trip to Kansas and has Carrie while in Kansas on the prairie. This book is closer to the actual historical account than the Little House on the Prairie books. In this book, the only characters that appear besides the Ingalls family is Mr. Edwards.
This book is historical fiction that gives a very clear picture of what pioneer life was like. It is slow moving but has lots of emotional scenes. I think women would definitely enjoy it more than men. I thought it was nice revisiting the Ingalls family again and learning more about Carolyn.
(Karen’s review, 3 stars)
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In Deep Freeze by John Sandford, a local woman has been found dead, frozen in a block of ice! The town is small and everybody knows everybody's business. Virgil, a detective, is familiar with this town and is back again to try to find the killer.
Teaser from page 9: "Come on, Gina, get up"--but the fact was, Gina Hemming was deader than the aforesaid deer, looking up at him with half-open blank gray eyes.
I thought this book was just okay. The story line was good enough; however, some parts of the book dragged. The ending was a bit anti-climactic.
(Gerard's review, 4 stars)
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In Scythe by Neal Shusterman, there is no war, no disease, and nobody goes hungry in the world. The only problem is overpopulation! That is where being a scythe comes into play. You fix that problem. Citra and Rowan are both picked to try to be a scythe, but do not want any part of it! However, to decline is not in their best interest.
This book was way better than I thought it would be. Citra and Rowan are both really good. The story flows well and the twists and turns are well done to say the least! Do not miss this one--it's a must read! I look forward to book 2.
(Gerard's review 10/30/17, 5++ stars)
Teaser from page 29: But a perfect world needs no improvement. Like most everything else we do, education, from grade school through the highest of universities, is just a way to keep us busy.
We both also liked Unwind by this author too and also recommend that one.
(Karen's review, 5 stars: LOVED THIS BOOK! SO GLAD I READ IT!) Scythe by Neal Shusterman is about a utopia future where humanity has overcome disease, aging, crime, and natural death. Government has been replaced with the Thunderhead that makes sure everyone in the world has what they need. It watches everything that happens and stores people's memories. (Anyway, guess we'll find out more about the Thunderhead in book two.) People can still get hurt, but what normally would kill someone like falling 12 stories from a window now makes them "deadish." They can be taken to a revival center where they get good as new in just 2-3 days and get delicious ice cream when they wake up. Since there is a problem of overpopulation, a special group called Scythes do the service of "gleaning" people on a random basis. Gleaning is just a nice word for legalized killing. The Scythdom have their own set of laws they must follow. When Citra and Rowan are chosen by Scythe Faraday to become his apprentices on the road to becoming a scythe, both reluctantly accept for different reasons. Scythes have power not only to take life, but also to grant immunity from being gleaned to people and Scythe's families have immunity as long as the Scythe lives. I was very intrigued by this book. It is well written and very thought provoking with several twists tossed in that really shocked me! I loved this book so much, I think I will actually re-read it just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Citra and Rowan come from very different backgrounds but are both smart, moral and find themselves in difficult situations. I also liked all the humor, some of which made me actually laugh out loud, and really cool things in this book like being able to "turn the corner" and go back to being any age you want, having years named after animals, and having healing nanites so wounds can heal themselves. I highly recommend this to older teens or adults who like thought provoking books about the future. This is one of my top 2 favorites of the year, the other being Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst.
SPOILER ALERT - STOP HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ THIS BOOK. IF YOU HAVE, I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE QUESTIONS:
(1) Exactly how did Scythe Faraday fake his own death and how did Scythe Curie know about it?
(2) Why did Citra's fingers turn really cold when Scythe Faraday let her try on his ring, but when Scythe Goddard gave his ring to Rowan to take over giving immunity to the loved ones of those they gleaned, nothing happened. Nor did anything happen when Rowan put it on after decapitating Scythe Goddard (which I really liked by the way). I thought it was funny he put it in the dirty water bowl at the monastery.
(3) I thought the ending was fantastic and was so happy it didn't end with a cliffhanger as to which one was chosen or stop before knowing if the winner gleaned the loser. What did you think about the ending?
The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun is about a small-town journalist named Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats, Koko and YumYum. He takes a little vacation to his beach house in Mooseville and visits with the townspeople. Some strange things happen that Koko senses. Supposedly, Koko has extra sensory perception. Some in the town believe UFOs visit and Qwill is not buying it but Koko always watches the sky.
This book really poked along for me and I was not impressed by any of it. I like cats so that is why I picked it up; however, the cats had a very small part in the book. None of the characters made me care about them much and were not well developed at all. I thought most of the book was very boring and kept waiting for it to get better but it never did! The only people I would recommend this too would be anyone who needs help getting to sleep or who is on a beach vacation and wants to read a book about someone else on a beach vacation. This author wrote many books, but I don’t think I’ll be reading any of them. (Karen's review, 2 stars)
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In The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian, Annalee goes missing and her family fears the worst. Where is she? Lianna, her oldest daughter, starts to take an interest in the detective looking into this. Will he find the answers she is looking for?
Teaser from page 19: The thing I kept coming back to was how pedestrian my mother's last night really was. There were no warnings, no ominous asides, nothing that could be construed by even the most rabid conspiracy theorists as foreshadowing.
This is a short book, just a little over 250 pages. The story line is pretty good. Part of the book dragged for me and a little more action would have been welcomed. It did have a surprise ending!
(Gerard's review, 4 stars)
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