The Soulkeepers by G.P Ching

When fifteen-year-old Jacob Lau is pulled from the crumpled remains of his mother's car, no one can explain why he was driving or why the police can't find his mother's body. Made a ward of his uncle and thousands of miles from home, a beautiful and mysterious neighbor, Dr. Abigail Silva, offers to use her unique abilities to help him find his mom. In exchange, she requires Jacob to train as a Soulkeeper, a gifted warrior charged with protecting human souls. He agrees to her demands, desperate for any clue to the mystery of his mother's disappearance. But soon Jacob finds himself trapped in a web of half-truths, and questions Dr. Silva's motives for helping him.

I really enjoyed this book.

Jacob Lau has already lost his father and now it seems he may have lost his mother too. After being pulled from the crumpled remains of their car, with no explanation or idea where his mother is, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, whom he never knew existed, in Paris, Illinois. Now, stuck in this small town filled with bigotry toward his mixed race, he is just trying to get by and get back to Oahu to find his mother. With the help of his new girlfriend and best friend, Malini, and a slightly eccentric neighbor, Dr. Silva, he will find out more than he had bargained for.

Ching kept me interested in the story through the entire thing. I loved that, no matter what you had just learned, there was always another mystery to keep you hanging on. The characters were very interesting, especially Dr. Silva. The whole story was multidimensional. The writing was really good, it didn't feel like a debut novel.

There, of course, were things I didn't like. Some parts felt rushed. There would be big jumps in the plot that threw me off. I wanted to feel the closeness and the growth of Jacob and Malini's relationship. Also, there were some strong religious undertones. I had no idea about them before reading the book and they didn't come into play until about halfway through. For me, this wasn't overpowering for me. It fit in great with the story and wasn't too preachy, in my opinion. I could just read it, add it too the plot line and move on without feeling like I was being preached to.

It was a very good book. I will definitely be reading the rest in the series.

4 out of 5 stars

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The Misanthrope's Guide to Life (Go Away!) by Meghan Rowland and Chris Turner-Neal

Misanthrope, n.: 1.) One who hates mankind; a curmudgeon; a loner; 2.) The guy in your office who responded to your e-mail of baby photos with "D-. Passing, but not college material"; 3.) A Realist

Just the description alone made me want to read this book. I have my moments of, "I hate everything and everyone" so I really wanted to read this. And it was worth it, for the most part. There were parts that seemed to be taken right out of my brain at times. Others, I just thought were great ideas.

The book had me from the start. I laughed out loud several times. About half way through it, though, I got bored. It was almost like the authors ran out of things to talk about and just started randomly throwing stuff in, just so they could have a book. Also, if you get the e-book version, be prepared for a lot of punctuation errors. It drove me nuts, which is kind of ironic, actually.

The book has a lot of strong language, a ton of f-bombs, and can be pretty crude at times but it is funny. If you don't mind those things and you have those thoughts of, "I hate you all," I suggest reading it. It is fun and very fast. It is the perfect book to put on your coffee table or in your bathroom. You can read little snippets at a time, have a good laugh, then move on to other things.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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Skipped Parts by Tim Sandlin

Banished to the hinterlands of Wyoming, rebellious Lydia Callahan and her thirteen-year-old son Sam have no choice but to cope. But while Lydia drinks and talks to the moose head on the wall, Sam finds a friend in local girl Maurey Pierce.

This is a hard book for me to rate. I don't quite know how I feel about it.

Sam is a 13 year old boy who, along with his mother Lydia, is banished to GroVont, Wyoming by his grandfather because his mom messed up somehow. He doesn't fit in at school and is pretty miserable until he finds a friend in Maurey. Together they explore things beyond their maturity level and learn a big lesson the hard way.

It was hard to get into the book in the beginning. It was pretty slow but I thought it was well written so I kept on.   I had a really hard time remembering that Sam was only 13. The way the book is written and by Sam's "voice" you would think he was an adult or at the least late teens. I just couldn't find it believable that a 13 year old talked this way. Then there were times where he was so ignorant to a subject that you were reminded of his age.

I liked the characters, for the most part. They were developed well and interesting. Well, interesting doesn't really cover it, they were down right dysfunctional. There were a lot of really funny moments in the story, and I loved those parts. I love a story about funny, dysfunctional families. Lydia was my favorite. She was crass, vulgar and irresponsible. She made the story fun.

There were parts where I just got bored and I skimmed over them. The writing was good, though. There were parts that I didn't care about.

The part that disturbed me, and will disturb a lot of people, is the fact that these 13 year olds are having sex. I'm no prude, but I didn't enjoy reading such graphic descriptions of these kids exploring each other. If it were toned down a bit, I would have liked it a lot better. Then, it wouldn't have been the same book, though.

It made me sad when I really thought about it. In this day and age, 13 year old probably think very closely to this now. It's different from when I was 13, and that wasn't all that long ago!

In some of the reviews this book is compared to "Catcher in the Rye". This book cannot compare to "Catcher in the Rye" in any way, shape or form.

I just learned this is the first book of a trilogy. I won't be reading the rest of them.

The book was well written and brought out a lot of emotions. I just didn't like it as much as I wanted to.

2.5 out of 5 stars

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The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.

I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it either.

The History of Love is about 2 people. A man, Leo Gursky, who fell in love with a girl at age 10, wrote a book about her, then lost her. And a girl, Alma Singer, whose father gave her mother Gursky's book and who is named after the girl in that book.

I really liked this book in the beginning. Leo's part of the story is well written and pretty funny at times. You really get the cranky old man part of him from it. Alma's parts were scattered and choppy which was annoying at times but I think it worked well given she is a 14 year old girl, and sometimes, that is how their brains work. The further you get into the book, though, the more puzzling it gets. It seems Krauss wanted to make such a mystery with the story that she put so many twist and turns and she got lost. Toward the last third of the book she starts to insert diary entries from Alma's little brother, too, which just made it that much more confusing.

There were so many characters meaninglessly inserted into the plot, also. I don't get why half of them were there, they had no story to tell and no real point of being there.

I did love a few of the chapters that were shared from Gursky's book, The History of Love. Quite a few of them were so compelling and beautifully written, that I wished the rest of the book was just a retelling of it's namesake. I especially loved the chapter called, "Die Laughing".

There were some really good parts, where I laughed or smiled. But most of the time, I was just confused and wanted it to come to an end. After 240 pages, it did finally start coming to an end, but it was completely disappointing. Krauss wrapped up her confusing little novel into a pretty little bow and called it good. Why would you write such a complex story line just to quickly end it in such a trite way?

What dissapointed me more was that Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", which I read, reviewed and loved. Their writing styles are very similar but she just can't compare to him, in my opinion.

I am not sure if the good of the book outweighs the bad. I thought the book was just ok.

2 out of 5 stars

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Nine-Tenths by Meira Pentermann

Leonard Tramer’s time machine takes him nowhere near the past, but meddling with time destroys his future. When he steps out of the defective machine, he enters a totalitarian state which resembles East Germany more than the free world he left behind.



All it takes is nine-tenths of a second to make a mistake. Nine-tenths of a second can change the world. Leonard Tramer learns this lesson the hard way. He made a mistake when he was younger and has spent the last 30 years trying to figure out how to go back and fix it. With the best of intentions, he figures it out, but what happens when you change the past? You change the future too.

I have read a lot of books about dystopian societies. They can really be hit or miss. This one was a hit.
Not many of these type of books focus on families fighting their way through these oppressive worlds. Usually everyone is evil except that one person struggling to get free but not with this one. That's one thing I really enjoyed about this book. Leonard, his wife Alina and their daughter Natalia all band together to cross all barriers to get to a better place.

Pentermann really brought this 'alternate reality' to life. I was pulled in almost immediately. The characters were all well developed and the world they live in can truly be terrifying at times. At many points in the story I felt my stomach lurch with dread or anticipation with what was coming to the characters.

I loved how the story gradually unfolded. The changes were slowly unveiled to Leonard and to the reader, which made it that much more a page turner. It didn't focus mainly on the political aspect of the story either, like most do, it wraps you up in the characters and the story line. It was very well written and a great story.

What impressed me a lot was that the author self-published this book, yet it was well edited and free of mistakes. I did find one little mistake toward the end but I can let that slide since the rest of the book is just that good.

My one issue was that a big part of it was just a bit predictable to me. I had a very good idea of what went wrong and why it all changed and, for the most part, I was right.

I'd recommend reading it, though, if it strikes your fancy. It definitely breaks the mold a bit on the genre.
Very good read.

4 out of 5 stars

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My Sister's Voice by Mary Carter

A proudly deaf artist in Philadelphia, Lacey Gears is in a relationship with a wonderful man and rarely thinks about her childhood in a home for disabled orphans. That is, until Lacey receives a letter that begins, 'You have a sister. A twin to be exact'. Learning that her identical, hearing twin, Monica, experienced the normal childhood she was denied resurrects all of Lacey's grief, and she angrily sets out to find Monica and her parents. But the truth is far from simple. And for every one of Lacey's questions that's answered, others are raised, more baffling and profound. "My Sister's Voice" is a beautifully written novel about sisterhood, love, and the stories we cling to until real life comes crashing in.

"You have a sister. A twin to be exact." These words changed Lacey's life.

Lacey and Monica are identical twins. Lacey is deaf while Monica is not. They were separated by their parents at a very young age. Lacey was raised in a home for disabled children while Monica was raised by their parents. When they are 28 years old, Lacey receives an anonymous note in her mailbox and after that all the mysteries start to unravel. Who is this twin sister? Why did their parents keep her and not Lacey? Can they really get over the damage that was done years ago?

My Sister's Voice started off strong. I was pulled in immediately by the mystery of the situation. As the story went on and the characters were developed, though, my interest wavered. The characters weren't developed well. They all seemed very immature and unrealistic as did the story line. I couldn't believe that all of these people, and there were quite a few of them, would react the way they did to something so life changing.

There were times where issues were easily explained away. Something you would think would be very important to these characters lives and to the story would just be swept under the rug. While on the other hand there were unnecessary explanations and rants of things that were so minute that it took away from the story line.

The ending was a very big disappointment. We spend the entire book getting to the explanation of it all and the actual climax was incredibly anticlimactic. Lacey and Monica's lives are turned upside down by all these revelations and it was wrapped up in a perfect little package and ended abruptly. It felt like more of a rough draft, a very rough draft at that, than a published work of literature. I was disappointed.

I did find the aspects of deaf culture fascinating. I loved that they were explored, sometimes in great depth. It was very interesting to read about. Most people make a lot of assumptions about deaf people and this sheds a new light on them, their language and their culture.

Even with all those things it wasn't a terrible book. There were times where I really did enjoy it, especially once I got over the immaturity of the main characters.

2 out of 5 stars

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