Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Benedick and Beatrice have always despised each other. Every time they meet insults fly and tempers flame, while their friends listen with worry. However, as a challenge some of their friends decide to do a little matchmaking, and see if they can bring an end to this "merry war." But a pair of innocent lovers, Hero and Claudio, get caught in the tangle of lies, tricks and disguises, giving a villain a chance to split them.

An excellent and amusing comedy! The swift bickering and not-so-subtle insults are well-done, not heavy-handed. It is a very approachable Shakespeare story, and there is less slang then many, so it is a good intro for someone interested in reading Shakespeare. It is also quite short, the play itself is less than a hundred pages.

I also recommend the movie version with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, it captures the feel of the story nearly perfectly.

5 Stars
 
Emme

The Sword of Shibito: Vol. 1 by

A groups of travelers are attacked and brought to a strange castle whose master is trying to resurrect his son, Shibito. When he finally succeeds his son has no knowledge of his past life, so he appoints one of the travelers, an pharmacist with few skills outside of his job, to keep an eye on him until he regains it.

When Shibito leaves the castle, can a mere pharmacist keep him from from indulging in mindless violence and help him discover his past?

This book is the first of the series, and the first half is terribly boring. It just throws new characters at the reader with little introduction or plot. The second half however shows real promise and the start of an interesting story. The characters seem like they could be quite interesting and the plot (while rather derivative of Frankenstein in this book) has a lot of potential.

The artwork in this manga is wildly inconsistent; some is truly beautiful and some parts look like rough sketches. I was really bothered by this. If you can create nice artwork, why settle for poor work? The fight scenes were kind of crowded and there was a sense of excessive dramatics during them.

3 Stars
 
Emme

A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker

Every morning, very early, Emmett gets up and lights a fire. He makes coffee and uses this quiet morning ritual as a time to think about everything and anything. His family, people he has met, past events, future hopes, his pets, work; all of these are things that he thinks about and the subject of this book.

For a book with almost no plot this is remarkably engrossing! I spent most of a day on a camping trip being "anti-social" and reading in the tent because I couldn't seem to put it down for long. The characters feel so real and the chance to delve into this person's mind was fascinating. Reading this celebration and embracement of the ordinary and less than ordinary parts of life makes you realize just how special these little things can be!

5 Stars

 
Emme

The Giver by Lois Lowry

I think this is a really good book that gets more exciting. It starts in a community without weather, color, or landforms. It is about a boy named Jonas who gets training from The Giver when he turns 12. It starts to seem more like our world in the future, which is totally new to Jonas.

5 Stars

David

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

This book was the same over and over again, every time Bella looked at his face and it got boring after a while. I see how teens love it but for a 10 year old I wouldn't recommend it.

2 Stars

 
The-o

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

This is a very good book. All my friends think its just a love story, it is but there is a lot of action to go along with it. I cant wait to read the next book.

4 Stars

The-o

Theodore Boone Kid Lawyer by John Grisham

This is the best book i have ever read, it has no boring parts. The only problem is that there is a little love story witch i thought the story didnt need. This is an amazing book which keeps you on your toes.

5 Stars

The-o

Redwall: The Sable Quean by Brian Jacques

I love the Redwall books but this one was a big let down. The story moved too slowly and there is not a lot of action. I highly recomend the other Redwall books.

1 Star

The-o

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

This is an amazing book. It is a story where you can easily feel what the characters are thinking, feeling and more. This is a must read. I was so blown away by the writing of the story and the use of language is great.

The-o

Dream a Little Dream by Piers Anthony & Julie Brady

Nola has always had vivid dreams and an active imagination, the escape provided by them is the only thing that have kept her from taking her own life as a way out of her abusive relationship. What she doesn't know is that she is a Creator, one of a handful of humans whose dreams and imaginings actually exist in another universe. But that world is under attack, and with only a couple Creators willing to believe in the thing their mind comes up with, the people of this other world must find a way to contact Nola and enlist her help to repair their universe.

This book has been sitting in my "to be read" stack for over a year and I finally got around to reading it. I can't believe it took me so long! It was a wonderful read. The characters were very real and the creation and manipulation of one world through the dreams of another, although not original, is extremely well- executed. I kept making myself slow down and stretch the book out because I didn't want to leave the two fascinating worlds.

As a semi-lucid dreamer (I admit to sometimes losing control or simply letting it go because I want to see what happens) I found the idea of writing a book based on a series of controlled dreams very interesting.

5 Stars
 
Emme

A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan

Kirby is an incredible dancer. Brendon can play music without having been taught. Nancy can do tricks with her mind: knowing what is going to happen and knowing what someone is thinking or doing. All of these powerful skills were left to the children by their grandmother, but can they handle them or will they only harm themselves and others?

I first read this book when I was a kid, and still enjoy it now. The characters can be a touch cliche but are interesting none the less. The writing and the plot are a bit simple but enjoyable

4 Stars

 

Emme

Revenge of the Rose by Nicole Galland

Jouglet is many things; spy, minstrel, advisor, manipulator and friend. This clever person's latest plan? To bring a poor knight and his sister up in the world. One will be done by convincing King Konrad to take the young knight under his wing, the other by a perfect marriage. But will Jouglet be able to keep from being caught in webs of complicated plots that fill the court?

I am very critical while I read books. I constantly edit, change and adjust. I enjoy finding clearer ways to say things, better word choices and making minor plot and character changes. It is a rare book that I become so enthralled by that I can put aside these busy mental exercises, and become absorbed in the story and writing. This was one.

The writing is smooth and well-paced; the plot (while convoluted and complicated) was not hard to follow. The characters felt real and solid, they also felt well-suited to the time the story is set in (fictional 1200's.)

My main complaint is that the plot has an occasional tendency to feel rushed. There were also some supporting characters I would have liked to see more of.

5 Stars

Emme

Vampire Plagues: London, 1850 by Sebastian Rook

When a ship comes in to port it is an opportunity for the local street urchins to steal something from the ship or its disoriented passengers. But the ship that sails into London is different than any that young Jack has seen. No crew disembarks; only one man and a lot of bats. Jack creeps on and finds a starved stowaway who tells him of a trip to the Americas that found something horrible, and now this evil has come to England. The two boys will have to find a way to stop it on their own, because no-one would believe their tale that vampires have come to London.

I bought this for a few cents expecting it to be truly horrible. It actually wasn't. It was thoroughly mediocre and the writing is childishly simplistic and dull, but the plot was actually somewhat interesting. There was a lot of vampiric lore involved and many traditional vampiric weaknesses and strengths. It was a mildly interesting way to spend a bit of time.

2 Stars

Emme

Star Trek: Voyager: Violations by Susan Wright

In a classic Star Trek scenario, a group of alien pirates (although they are more like Privateers, as they have a governmental OK to do so) disable Voyager and steal the main processor. The crew of Voyager must creatively and carefully use the back up systems to navigate their way to an alien station. Then they must attempt to keep the ship running while starting to hunt down the location of their processor through both legal and non-legal channels.

If this sounds completely familiar, you are right! "Concerning Flight" a season 4 episode, was almost the exact same plot, however that episode was done two years after this book was published.

This book is packed with technobabble (and biobabble ;-) ), which I know some people can't stand. However, if you can't keep your ODN (Optical Data Network) conduits and EPSs (Electro-Plasma Systems) straight you will not comprehend a good bit of this book. This narrows it's audience down to a small, and quite OCD, portion of Trekdom. I personally loved it! I liked that the book didn't gloss over (as the episode did) the fact that it was the heart of the ship that was removed, and that the crew was struggling to keep everything from failing. I liked the fact that the ship's bio-neural circuitry was not ignored or treated as it was merely the same as pure tech.

The characterizations were very well done, although both Kim and Paris were spotty at the start. One thing that quite confused me was that the Doctor was always referred to as Zimmerman. Pre-production and in a few scripts, that was the name was planned for the character, and for one episode of the show he considers, but rejects, giving himself that name. As this was one of the very first Voyager novels, I assume it was written when that was the planned name, and the change somehow slipped through Pocket Book's quality control.

The writing was very good, and I highly enjoyed reading this. I highly recommend it to die-hard Trekkies, but would warn those who have only casually watched that this may not be the best place to start.

5 Stars

Emme