Llew's Reviews

This one was a retelling and remaking of Cinderella. I hate to admit it, but I missed the singing mice.

How thick am I that it took me three-fourths of the book to realize this was a retelling of Snow White? I mean if the title “Fairest” didn’t clue me in, there was really no hope.

Le sigh.

PS – Levine does a MUCH better job than Sir Maquire did, that’s for sure.

Design = Oooooh.
Content = Meh

The boy has already made fun of me for reading this book so rest assure that has already been done.

Yes, this is a children’s middle school level horror book about bogarts and witches. Yes, the witches wear pointy shoes.
Yes, I’ve searched Style Hive for some pointy shoes for myself. Yes, I’m tired and first mistyped “wear” as “where.”
Yes, as soon as I publish this entry I am going to curl into the fetal position and cry out of shame.
And, yes, this is a really good scary book for that age level which I would highly recommend if anyone of that age group ever listened to an adult who wasn’t menacingly wielding a ruler or a sharp object.

When I saw Mrs. Meyer’s name on the SIBA’s front page as one of the many authors who would be in attendance at the South Eastern Booksellers Assosciation’s trade show in Florida in September, I was shaking with glee. I decided that if I was not weighed down by an army of tote bags filled with freebies I had swiped from publisher booths, I just might swan dive down the waiting line to land (gracefully) on the autograph table in front of her. I wondered if she’d sign my neck. It would only be fitting.

Then, she informed me that SIBA’s website was WRONG, and she would not be there this year. The SADNESS.

Thus, the only way I could alleviate the pain was to read her latest offering, New Moon, which is a sequel to her first novel, Twilight. Ben asked me what my book was about and when I mumbled, “Vampires” he started laughing at me. His laughter got louder as I corrected myself with, “Actually, it’s about Werewolves AND Vampires.” We all need to diversify ourselves a little bit, yes?

These are clean yet spicy with action young adult novels written by a woman who attended the same university I did who I kind of sort of know from a message board we both visit. I would highly recommend them to the age group they’re intended for, and have been a little sad that I haven’t been able to handsell more at my shop. (Although they have been doing pretty well – just not as well as I’d like.)

This is another book on the local school’s reading list, but this time for a middle school. Being quite the sucker for young adult books, I thought this was well done all the way through.
Plus, it had lines like, (said to a girl who is moving from New York to Wisconsin) “There’s a lot of cheese where you’re going, Hope. I’m not sure how this affects people long-term…”

Several of weeks ago, John Green requested to be my friend on My Space. I was quite excited because I loved his, “Looking For Alaska.” I was even more excited when I looked at his profile and discovered that:

1. He is my age. There’s nothing worse than someone being successful and much younger than me. It just makes me hate those talented bastards.

2. He isn’t an uggo. I can’t have an author-crush who makes me want to gouge out my eyes now can I?

3. He has a new book coming out in October!

The next day at work I called to get an Advance Reader’s Copy which I had finished reading the same day I received it in the mail. At first, I was really worried that it wouldn’t compare to his first. It starts with a recent high school graduate who has just been dumped by his girlfriend of about a year. She was also the nineteenth girl named Katherine who he had dated, all who had ended things with him. To distract him from his nauseating pining his best friend, the standard hilarious overweight foreign kid, decides they should go on a roadtrip which eventually leads them to Gutshot, Tennessee.

Overall, it’s a highly amusing teen book and had me in stitches. It’s no great work of literature, nor is it as emotionally strong as “Looking For Alaska.” But it’s no disappointment as far as being a good light hearted young adult read either.

Cutest mouse EVER. Motorcycle Ralph can SUCK it.

I was just a few pages away from finishing “A Year Of Magical Thinking” when I decided that I would read another book instead so I wouldn’t start the year on such a sad literary note. Thus, I picked up “The Burn Journals” because nothing is more happy and more of a great foot to start a year out on than the detailing of a young man who tried to commit suicide by setting himself on fire.

The disconcerting thing about this book is that I related so much to the author. We were born in the same year, and so many of the events and people that seemed to bookmark his childhood were familiar. Also, I had the same unsettling way of solving my problems. No, I never decided to make myself a one woman bonfire, but I did set rather harsh consequences on typical juvenile actions. The only difference is that he kept escalating his personal punishments to his actions as they became more serious and likely to get him into even more trouble. Whereas I just realized that I had to make no more mistakes to stay alive so I didn’t really allow myself to screw up, be disobedient, or really even live normally until I managed a better way of coping with making mistakes.

Another note, I rather like the cover of the book that I have featured with this entry, but it was not the one of the edition I read. The one I read has cover art which looks as if it was drawn by someone who had received burns on their hands. *shudders*

Even though there’s one more book out in this series, I think this might be the last one I read. The first one was so clever and hilarious! But now it’s just so getting tired, but I wanted to give it one last try. Le sigh.