132 - I Am Number Four (Book Review)

I Am Number Four was another proof copy Waterstones sent me to review before official publication.

I knew before I read it that filming had already started for the book-to-movie, and the movie itself was already predicted to be one of the biggest hits - or at least the one of the most anticipated - of 2011. With this in mind I had high expectations before the book even came through my letter box. And I wasn't disappointed.

When you read as much as I do you tend to pick up on subtle differences between types of authors. For example, female authors tend to weight their books heavily with character detail and emotion while male authors load their books with history and back-story and concrete information. I Am Number Four was written by two men, and my biggest (and only) complaint would be that I was left hungry for more character development to sink my teeth in to.

Otherwise the book is fantastic.

Nine adolescent aliens and their guardians inhabit the earth having fled their home planet before it was destroyed. They have been in hiding, but they are being hunted. Slowly but surely the last of their species are being killed. This story follows one of the aliens, Number Four, and his guardian as they try to make Paradise, Ohio, their new home. Four - also known as John Smith - enrols in the local high school, and things seem to go downhill from there.

The book is riveting, packed with drama, mystery and plenty of romance and emotion, too. I might go so far as to say it is 'Twilight' for the guys and anyone else looking for a fantasy series of teens, danger and romance without the cliché mould of 'vampire & human'. Yes, series, as this is book one of six, or so I hear.

Will I reread it? Yes.
Will I recommend it? Yes.
Will I buy the rest of the series? Definitely.
Am I afraid that the movie will spoil the series' potential before it has a chance to break through? Unfortunately, yes.

Read it while you can still make up your own mind!

100 - Shade's Children (Book Review)

I borrowed this book off my sister about twenty months ago and the first night I started to read it I had a pretty bad nightmare involving the quite scary creatures in the book and a chase scene. Since then I've picked it up and put it down again so many times I almost gave up. The weird thing is, this book is very, very good. My sister reckons it took me so long to read it because on a subconscious level, because of that nightmare, I didn't want to. Believe me, on a conscious level I did.

This week the World Cup started and one of my new favourite things is watching a football match while reading a book. The book I had with me was Shade's Children. I was very, very determined to finish it before the end of the week. And I did.

And I wish I had read it sooner.

It's a fantastic book that I've already recommended to friends. Fans of Garth Nix's other work (most famously the Abhorsen trilogy) may already have picked this up. For those who haven't, or even those who didn't like his other stuff, give this a go.

The best way to describe it (with no spoilers) would be a young adult post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a tiny hint of romance... fighting big scary (believe me...) creatures to save what's left of humanity... which happens to be only children, because the apocalyptic event made all adults vanish.

If this sounds a little bit like Michael Grant's Gone, that's OK. It kind of does sound like it. But they two are very different stories. Read them both! Shade's Children is a beautiful little story (by 'little' I mean it's a stand-alone novel as opposed to the trilogies and series I usually go for) and despite the nightmare it's probably one of my favourites.

Garth Nix, I will be back...

072 - 100 Facts About Pandas (Book Review)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! HHAAAAAAA!!! HAHAHA HA haha... ahum....

T'is funny.

It's the kind of silly funny you have to have the mind for, but if you do, and you want to be in fits of giggles in just a few pages, give this book a try.

It has 100 'facts' that comedian David O'Doherty (yep, him that is currently on tour with Flight Of The Concords) and two others - Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern - came up with. It's hysterical. For example...

Fact #16

Such is the static electricity generated by the thick hair of the panda's coat, in remote parts of China, bears are sometimes brought in from the wild and used as defibrillators to shock heart attack victims back to life. These bears are known in Chinese as Miracle Voltage Bears.

Fact #38

Owing to a quirk of evolution, the panda has retained the same lung capacity as its mammal cousin the blue whale. Potentially, this allows the bears to hold their breath underwater for up to two hours. Unfortunately, evolution has also given the panda a phobia of fish, so they never get the chance to demonstrate this feat.

056 - Retribution

Recently I came across what I believe to be the best use of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn I have ever seen.

It was being used as a block/wedge to hold a sash window open. It wasn't even a hardback copy.

Meyer - 0, fans - 1

052 - FREE Books?!

My Weight Watchers class is held in the Dublin Central Mission Hall, which I had never heard of until I went there. In the Central Mission Hall (aside from the usual church-y and community type things) they sell second hand books for €1 each. If that wasn't good enough, I found a box of FREE books!!! I stole two. And I felt guilty about it, kinda, but the woman at reception wouldn't take any money for them. So I might have to buy more books.

One book I picked up was Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs. It's one of those wolf pack, hippy kinda fantasy novels. Not my usual type but I've always wondered what the hype was about.

The second book was Mister Monday by Garth Nix. My sister owns the entire series (seven books) already, but I didn't want to borrow another book of her, seeing as I still have one she let me borrow over a year ago. I figured if I like Mister Monday, whenever I get round to reading it, I'll easily eat my way through the other ones, so I wouldn't be holding onto them forever.

041 - Life Without Harry

I know, I'm a dork, but I've seen a Harry Potter movie on terrestrial TV at least once a week since Christmas, and even I'm getting a little bit tired of it. So it made me wonder what my life would be like if Harry never existed - if Rowling never got published.

I'd never have found some of my best friends, that's for sure. Megan and Cody, most importantly, and a handful of others I hold with high regard. I'd never have developed a passion for writing, either, because if it wasn't for the world of HP I would never have started writing at all. I'd probably not be reading as many books as I do, because it was Harry that got me back into reading in my early teens after ditching books when I outgrew The Babysitters Club and Goosebumps. If I hadn't read the Harry Potter books through secondary school it would have been a very dark place for me. They were my escape from a world where I was teased and laughed at often.

These are just the basic effects the books had on my own life. I know I'm not alone when I say that I would be in a different place right now if it wasn't for them. At best, I'd be a reclusive, socially awkward girl. At worst, well, lets not think about that.

People might laugh when I talk about how much Harry means to me, but I'm writing this on behalf of everyone else that literally grew up with Harry.

Seven books that spanned ten years. I was eleven when the first one was published, and twenty-one when the last was released. If you're old enough, think about your years between eleven and twenty-one, and tell me if you had one thing that always pulled you from your dark days, one thing that always cheered you up. One thing that was always stable, always constant and comforting for ten whole years; probably the worst ten solid years any person will go through when it comes to hormones, life changes and peers.

Imagine one singular thing that could do all that for so long. And then it ends.

When die hard Harry Potter fans - the ones that followed each book as it was released, not the ones that jumped on the bandwagon years later - say that when they finished the last book it felt like their best friend died, that's exactly how it felt. If you feel like laughing at that then go ahead, but you only laugh because you don't understand it. And I feel sorry for you, that you didn't get to feel so much for something as simple as a series of books.

So many hearts sank into mourning when people finished that last book. If nothing else, it's an amazing feat from one Joanne Rowling, right?

031 - Kisses For Lula (Book Review)

When I picked up this book I had a preconceived idea of what to expect: teen girl, over-the-top romance and drama with little else going on between the pages. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Right from the beginning I was giggling away to myself as the main character, Lula, developed with endearing humour and striking relatability. The delivery of the story was refreshing, engaging and not what I expected. It was so much better!

All of the characters feel real, from Lula’s slightly estranged family to all of the boys she encounters, but the book’s strongest point is by far the underlying sense of mystery and suspense that had me – a 24 year old wannabe writer – abandoning everything (including sleep) to read the book (which is supposedly intended for teenage girls...phfft...) to find out 'who done it'.

Any girl with a sense of adventure will love this book, whether 15 years old and never been kissed, just like Lula, or 25, 45 or 85 and looking for a fond reminder of how it feels to be a teenager that will have you sighing with nostalgia and a lightness in your heart.

This book is very funny, very warming and very girly, and will leave any reader with a smile on her face. I can’t wait for 'Lula Does The Hula'...

023 - I Am Legend (Book Review)

The book, not movie, so if you want to read it don't read this blog.

I've only ever seen the movie once, and as far as I recall it has Will Smith and his dog, the last two survivers in the world swarming with monsters that only come out at night. Then he has to kill his dog, and then he meets a woman... does the woman have a kid? I can't remember... anyway, if you've seen the movie you'll know how different the book is.

Robert Neville in the book is a blonde, blue-eyed white dude. The monsters are vampires, and some of them are intelligent, speaking beings. He's living by himself, killing the vamps, for about two years before a dog comes along. And he spends a few months trying to befriend the dog and then it dies. He never owned it. As for other people, well, he meets a woman but it turns out she's a vamp that's evolved, and in the end they kill him, because he was the scary monster that was killing their society.

It was a good story, but the delivery was terrible. 90% of the book was made up of him repeating himself, getting angry, and researching all the science behind how the vampires were created and evolved. Only the end was any good. You could read the last 4 chapters and get the best of the story.