2011 - Book 27 - Blameless

As I'm sure you have gathered, I've been doing a lot of reading lately. As soon as I finished Changeless, I dove directly into Blameless, the third in the Parasol Protectorate series.

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.
Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attached by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.
While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain to her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.

Again, great mind-candy kind of book. Not very challenging and yet very entertaining. Lots of steampunk visuals and hand-to-parasol combat. At the heart of this series is a love story and a girl's search for who she really is. There are two more in this series and I'm about to begin the fourth book....sadly, the fifth book will not be available until March of 2012, but I already have it on my wishlist!!

Oh, and now I'm hungry for pesto....

2011 Book 26 - Changeless

I just finished another trip to DC and while on the trip, I read Changeless, the second book in the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger. Here is a quick description of the book:

Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears - leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.
But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest in fashion, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can.
She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

This is a very fanciful series that I am completely addicted to. It is all very far-fetched and proper English. The characters are fun and the intrigue is well, intriguing. This series is a very fast read, which may also be why I am enjoying them as much as I am. I would give this book, and the series as a whole, the better part of two thumbs up. I would recommend them to only those people that I know who might have an interest in steampunk literature and who don't have a need to be overly challenged by their books.

2011 Book 25 - Mockingjay

I actually finished this book a couple of weeks ago on a bus trip to Houston and back with my mom. And, I know that I've been a really bad blogger, again, but to be honest, work just has me flumoxed and not really in the mood to write about anything. However, I will document my reading. Mockingjay, the final book the Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy was great. Oh wait, let me give you the bookjacket first:

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss’s family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.
It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans – except Katniss. The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss’s willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels Mockingjay – no matter what the personal cost.

As I was saying, this final book was really great, as were all of the books in this series. All three of these books were highly entertaining and really hard to put down. As stated at after I finished Catching Fire, I am now very much looking forward to how these are going to be portrayed on film. I also have a hard time looking at these books as 'young adult' as they are extremely violent. I give all of these books two thumbs up and a 'heck yeah, you should read them!' In fact, my niece, whose copies I was borrowing, has requested that they be returned as she wants to read them again.

2011 Book 24 - Catching Fire

Today I finished the second book in Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire. I know there was a long stretch between the first, The Hunger Games and this one being read, but I don't intend to have such a span between this and the third as I'm very excited to find out how things end. However, let me first give you the synopsis from the book jacket:

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District
12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothin is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

I give this book and the whole series thus far, two huge thumbs up. If I could shut off the rest of the world and just curl up with these books, I would in a heartbeat. I'm also very much looking forward to how the movies are going to turn out, as they are making a movie of this to come out in March 2012. I am curious, though, how they are actually going to do this movie and not make it Rated R based on the violence and cruelty that the books actuaully address.