Abducted by Fade

After I finished Wake by Lisa McMann I could not wait to listen to the rest of the series. I didn't waist any time jumping right into the sequel Fade. But I promise you that there are no spoilers here. So if you haven't read the first book yet, don't worry, you are free to read on...

In the first book we meet Janie and Cabel. Cabel is a dreamy bad boy with lots of secrets and demons. And Janie is very special girl with a very special gift. I loved that when we met Janie she knew she had the gift to be inside the dreams of others but she didn't know what power and strength could come with it. She hadn't realized its full potential in her life. A lot of YA books that involve MC's with special gifts, we usually meet them when they have just been given the gift. Like how in The Name of the Star Rory didn't always have the ability to see ghosts. Or how Percy Jackson was only just learning that Greek myths were no myths at all. But that's not how it is with Janie.

In Wake we were given a glimpse into this very isolated life Janie has been living since she realized her gift when she was eight years old. It was sad to hear about how she had always had this ability and had never been given the opportunity to even reach out to her own mother for an explanation or direction. That is why Wake spends most of the book developing the relationships in Janie's life and allowing her to meet Cabel, someone she can finally share her secret with. In that book Janie barely even begins to realize how she could use her gift to solve mysteries.

And that, my friends, is exactly where Fade picks up.

In Fade, Janie learns that a teacher at Fieldridge High is molesting some of the students. A couple of anonymous drunk phone calls have come through to a special hotline that the police are taking very seriously. Now, Janie must sift through the dreams of her peers to try and gain some clues. And as Janie gets further involved in the case, she also learns that her gift may come with very serious consequences.

I loved the whole mystery aspect of this book, although it did start to creep me out. Not only does Janie use her gift to suggests certain teachers as suspects, but once she suspects them she uses herself as bate to see how they will react to her. I was kind of shocked that those parts came so easily to Janie, but I also felt that it displayed that there really is hidden strength inside of her.

As far as all of the consequences go...

Well, okay, I really can't get into it. I have very very strong feelings about them and there is absolutely no way that I can write about them without including spoilers.

I have checked out the audio version of Gone (the last book) from my local library and I will be starting it on Wednesday. Part of me can't wait to finish the series, but another part of me is scared about the how it is all going to tie together. But as far as Fade goes, I loved it. Certain parts were hard for me because I loved these characters so much. Looking back, I think the parts that I struggled with were when Cabel and Janie were having their most human, realistic, moments. In every relationship, and with every gift, there are going to be good sides and dark sides. But I really don't want dark sides for them! I want them to have everything! They deserve everything! They shouldn't have to have consequences! They have paid enough with the cards that life has dealt them, I promise you!

I'm going to give Fade by Lisa McMann an abduction rating of...

Abducted by Readathon Recovery!

Normally on Sunday mornings I participate in a meme by my friend Kate called Sundays In Bed With where we write about what books we are spending our Sundays in bed with! However, yesterday was the readathon and somehow, even though all I did was read all day, my apartment got trashed! So now I need to clean and go back and respond to everyone who left me encouragement on my blog yesterday for readathon! So I am spending my Sunday with...

How I Met Your Mother Season 4!

Now, as far as Readathon goes...

I finished 3 books yesterday and read a total of 250 pages and went to the first meet up for my new book club!

So, yesterday I finished ...

and I participated in 3 of the readathon mini challenges! 

I hope everyone had a great readathon and I can't wait until October! 

Have a great weekend!

Abducted by Readathon hours 9-12

Okay I finally finished The Jane Austen Book Club!

Tonight I am going to the very first meet up for a book club that my friend Shavonne has put together. She said that she wanted our first book to be a book about a book club. So I recommended The Jane Austen Book Club because I loved the movie version so much. Unfortunately, having never read the book, I had no idea it was so......difficult? boring? mundane?

Anyway, this time yesterday I had only managed to read a couple of pages...literally. Then last night I read the first 100 pages and I managed to read the rest of the 250 pages today during readathon.

I wish I hadn't saved it for today because I would have liked to jump around to some other books whenever this one became tiresome, but I had to push through it! I just had to!

During the last few hours I also managed to finish Fade by Lisa McMann! It wasn't quite what I expected but still very good! I can't wait to get the last book in the series and find out how it all ends!

Now we are coming to the end of hour 12 and while I am getting ready to go to book club I am listening to the audio version of Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen. It is about 8 hours long and I had already listened to an hour of it prior to today. I don't intend to finish this one but it should make for a good listen while I'm getting ready.

I'm hoping book club doesn't last too long, but since it is our first meet up, I'm really not sure how long it will go. But I'll be back reading as soon as I can! Good luck to everyone else and Happy Reading!

Abducted by Readathon hours 5-8

In the last four hours I read more from Jane Austen Book Club, about 40 pages. It isn't going so well because it is a lot different from the movie. In the movie I love the character of Grigg played by Hugh Dancy, but in the book his chapter was so boring!






Also, during these four hours I left my apartment to get some lunch, and pick up a bottle of wine for book club tonight. Then I came home to participate in the hour 8 mini challenge hosted by Midnightbookgirl! But don't worry, the whole time I was listening to disc 4 of Fade!

Midnight Book Girl's challenge is all about staging a display inspired by a book.

I couldn't come up with one based on the books I'm reading because I haven't finished them yet so I don't really know what they are about. Then when I was glancing up at my bookshelf I spotted Why We Broke Up and decided to go for it!

So here is what I came up with...

I'll try to make it a little bigger but it might get blurry...

Okay, so here is what all that is...

First of all, I placed the book Why We Broke Up down in front. It is a about a girl who has just broken up with her boyfriend and is giving him the box containing all the stuff she saved from their relationship as a form of closure. In the book the box is blue, says "Fragile" on it, and includes a quote "You either have the feeling or you don't" in the upper left hand corner. So, I grabbed a shoe box and drew on it with a blue permanent marker. That was fun! 

The book itself is sitting on top of an umbrella and has the Sopranos cook book to its right. In WWBU they have a cook book inspired by tinsel town, the Sopranos was the closest thing I had. 

Then you will see a disposable camera, a note (mine is one my friend Christi wrote to me back in high school, yes I actually did save a lot of the notes we used to pass back and forth), and a stack of postcards (the one on top is for Richmond Virginia as a shout out to my Virginia friends)!

In WWBU the boy plays basketball and the girl has a banner for his team and a ticket from one of his games. Since I don't have anything for the Hellman Highschool Beavers I used memorabilia for my favorite sports team which is the Boston Red Sox. So their banner is in the back of the picture and my ticket to the first ever Texas Rangers vs Boston Red Sox game I got to go to is on top of the Sopranos cookbook. 

And last but not least, in WWBU they go to the movies and the girl saves the tickets from two of the movies they went to see together so I included my ticket from when I went to see Fever Pitch (which is all about the Red Sox) and it is leaning up against the blue box! 

Wow! I can't believe I came up with all of that in 1 hour!!! 

I hope you are impressed Kate!

Abducted by Readathon Challenges

Okay I'm going to add in a post about two of the challenges real quick before I get back to reading!

I'm a little late on this one, I loved the ones Kim and Steph put up on their blogs (although I have no idea what they are) and so I just had to do one just for fun! Mine is going to be pretty obvious though, at least to one of my readers for sure, and it is a book I hope to at least start today!

And for my book sentence challenge...

Heroes fallen into the wild paper towns

For this challenge I used the Heroes graphic novel I will be reading today

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

and Paper Towns by John Green

Happy reading!

Abducted by Readathon hours 1-4

What's up fellow Readathoners!?!

In my first hour of readathon I walked my dog, made breakfast and listened to the third disc for the audio version of Fade by Lisa McMann!




For breakfast I tried to make pancakes...

But I ran out of Bisquick mix and so they were a little runny



However they were still delicious! So I had them with my Gevalia coffee in my Coldplay coffee mug...

After breakfast I finished listening to part of Fade while playing Mahjong on my computer to relax.

Then I put on actual Coldplay and got back to reading.

I read about 20 pages of The Jane Austen Book Club which isn't necessarily a hard read but it just wasn't as fast as I like my books to be on Readathon day! I've seen the movie version and so far the characters in the book just aren't as likable as the ones in the movie. 

Then I read all of The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide which is the first book in the series by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.

The book was cute and really fast paced, it had pretty short pages and lots of pictures so it made for a very quick read!

Coldplay is still keeping me company, but now it is time for a bathroom break and a quick snack. I'm thinking Bagel Bites!

Abducted by April Readathon Kick Off

I am so excited that Readathon has finally started!

I wanted to write a quick post for the kick off so that if anyone stops by my blog you will know that yes I am awake and I am off and running! 

I'm going to be posting every 4 hours about my progress but I will be tweeting repeatedly throughout the day. 

You can follow me on Twitter at Bittner29

Good luck everybody!

Abducted by Dewey's Readathon 4.21.12

Dewey's Readathon is this Saturday and I am getting really excited! 

Here is my current TBR pile...

From the top we have...

Fade by Lisa McMann

Dangerous Love by Francine Pascal 

The Spiderwick Chronicles 1 & 2 by Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black

Prey by Lurlene McDaniel

Dancing In My Nuddy Pants by Louise Rennison

Girl, 15, Charming but Insane by Sue Limb

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

White Cat by Holly Black

AND Heroes Graphic Novel Volume 1

To tell you the truth I have no idea what I am going to read come Saturday! I do know that overall my main goal is to read 500 pages! I don't care how I get there. I could end up only reading 3 of those novels or I could end up reading 50 pages from each, I'm leaving it wide open! 

The only other things I have done to prepare for Saturday is that I did go grocery shopping so I have plenty of junk food on hand and of course an abundance of coffee and Dr Pepper! And I cleaned my entire apartment so that on Saturday I wont be driven crazy by sitting on my butt all day when there is cleaning to be done. 

I do have book club that night, but not until 7:30 pm. As long as I get my 500 pages in then I'll be good to go!

And the copy of Fade by Lisa McMann that I have is the audio version so I'll be able to listen to it while I'm getting ready and driving around. 

I can't wait to see what crazy challenges my friends are hosting and I can't wait to meet some new bloggers! I'm going to have to start working on a cheer!

So...how are you preparing for your readathon???

Abducted by Wake

I recently checked out the audio versions of Wake and Fade, the first and second books in a series by Lisa McMann. From the minute I put the first disc of Wake on in my car I was completely sucked in. I loved it from the very beginning! I loved Janie! I loved Cabel! I loved it all! And I can't wait to finish the entire series! 

The hardest thing for an author to accomplish and for a reader to review is the tone of the novel or the voice of the character. It is incredibly difficult to explain why one thing rubs you one way and something else is completely different. For example, in my review on Monday for 13 Little Blue Envelopes, I commented that one of the things I struggled with in the book was that I didn't really care much for the characters. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them either, they were just...fine. I don't know why I didn't care about Ginny (the main character in 13 LBE), and I don't know why I instantly loved Janie (the main character in Wake)! But I did!

From the minute the book started I knew I was going to like Janie, and luckily she proved to be a very strong and determined heroine. Janie has the unique ability to be sucked into other peoples dreams, however like many YA leading ladies, she also suffers from having non-involved parents (although I do have a theory about Janie's mom that I am interested in seeing if it comes to play in the future two novels), a slightly self-involved best friend (who does have some charming moments), and of course boy trouble! 

But don't worry! There is no love triangle here! Janie gets involved with a boy named Cabel, who I also loved instantly! Again, I don't know why, I just did! He was sweet, and protective. He has a very dark past, and he has been through a lot, but I really believe that he cares for Janie and they are really good for each other. And what can I say, I always root for the outsider to get the girl! When Cabel stood up Janie for their first "date" I was literally yelling at him through my car stereo! "Cabel, how could you!?!" Almost, exactly one year ago, Tevya  over at Reading Lark posted about Mr. Cabel Strumheller on her blog and included this image for him. Now, I don't know who that is, but he is the perfect Cabel! Good pick Tevya!

As far as the series goes, I think Wake was the perfect introduction. Like I mentioned earlier, Janie has the ability to get inside other people's dreams. However, when we meet her she really has no control over her gift. She doesn't understand it or how she could possibly use it to her advantage. All she has done so far is set up her life with all possible precautions to minimize the affects of her ability. But then, she meets Cabel, and for the first time in her life she lets someone in. After that, a whole new world is opened up in front of her. Although I am extremely excited to see where the rest of this series is going to go, I do feel like this first novel could stand all on its own. 

Overall, was the book perfect? No. Were some of the plot twists a little out there? Yeah, a little. Did I mind? Heck No!!! I was so into Janie and Cabel that the butterflies in my stomach was doing cartwheels, I didn't care what they did! Other people may not care for Janie and Cabel as much as I did (their loss) but I do think the book is still worth the read!

I'm giving Wake by Lisa McMann an abduction rating of...

Abducted by 13 Little Blue Envelopes

13 Little Blue Envelopes is a charming novel by Maureen Johnson, about a seventeen year old girl named Ginny. Her favorite aunt has passed away and has left behind a collection of...well, you probably guessed it...13 little blue envelopes. Each envelope contains a letter with instructions for Ginny to follow, and each of the instructions propels her on an elaborate adventure that takes her all across Europe.

At first, the fact that Ginny was traveling all across Europe following the whim of her crazy aunt, was a tough pill for me to swallow. I have seen the movie Taken and there is no way in hell that I would ever let my teenage daughter travel around Europe with no definite plan in place!!! NO. WAY. IN. HELL!!!

In the first letter, Peg (Ginny's aunt) explains that Ginny must travel to Europe without her laptop or cell phone! She can't take guide books or money or reservations for places to stay. She isn't allowed to call home at all during the trip! The most she is allowed to do is write hand written letters! Which, I will give you, is far more romantic then electronic communication, but they take a hell of a lot longer to cross that big freaking ocean! So, again I say, if I were ever a parent, there is no way I would allow this!

One of the first places that Ginny has to go when she arrives in London (her first destination) is the home of this man named Richard, who turns out to be a friend of Peg's. When Ginny gets there, Richard is almost on his way out the door to go to work. The letter had told Ginny, that in case no one answered the door immediately, she was to stay there and continue knocking until someone finally did answered. What if she had missed him? What if he had already left for work? She would have been left sitting on his doorstep for hours!!!

I should also warn you that I am not much of an adventure seeker. I do want to travel, desperately. I want to see Italy and Ireland and Greece! Shoot, right now I would settle for Boston or Washington DC! But I am a planner! I would read up on all those places like crazy! I would plan my trip with a travel agency and make sure that I had hotels reserved and tours of the Vatican lined up. I would never be the person to just show up unannounced and trust that it would all work out!

So, again, like I said, it took me a while to get passed the absurdity of this trip Ginny was taking, but when I did there really was a moving story underneath it all.

Peg passed away from a brain tumor, and even though she was very close to Ginny, in the years leading up to her passing she had pulled away from her family. Peg reaches out to Ginny through this trip and uses her letters to help explain who she really was to Ginny. To bond herself to Ginny and to open up Ginny's world.

That was the part of the story that I was able to connect to.

My grandfather died in 2007 and I still miss him deeply. He loved to travel. He was in the Air Force so he already traveled a lot, but he also traveled on his own for pleasure. My grandfather was born here, in Oklahoma, but both of his parents were born in Germany and that was one of his favorite places in the world. In May of 1986 he took a trip to Germany and at each of the restaurants that he visited he kept a coaster and wrote on it what he had ordered. I got to keep them when we cleaned out his office and I have always thought it would be amazing to go to Germany and go to one of those restaurants and order the same meal that he had.

Of course, as soon as I was able to make that connection to the book, Maureen Johnson had me! By the end of the novel she almost had me in tears...almost!

I didn't particularly love the characters. Except for Richard, I did love Richard! Keith, the main love interest, was fine. He was likable and all, but not all together that charming. I did agree with him on his observations of aunt Peg being a little crazy. And as much as I did think that aunt Peg was crazy and slightly selfish, I also desperately want to be her someday! I can't wait until my little sister starts popping out some babies so that I can be the crazy aunt for my nephews and nieces! 

The main character, Ginny, was nice and agreeable, and I guess I liked her. I cared about what happened for her and I wanted to make sure she got home safely. But for some reason or another, I didn't instantly attach to her. Now that it is over, I do care enough to want to read the sequel, but I think that is mostly because my friend Kate told me that she likes it better then the first one. So I am willing to give it a shot. 

I am going to give 13 Little Blue Envelopes an abduction rating of...

However, I also want to say that this is only my second Maureen Johnson book to read, but so far I love that she writes about girls who are independent, strong, and self-sufficient. It is nice that she promotes those qualities in young girls.

Abducted by Sundays in bed with...4.15.12

I SURVIVED!!! I'M ALIVE!!! 

I live in the town of Norman, OK and this weekend we have been having some pretty severe weather. I have lived in Norman all my life and although we have had many many many tornado warnings through out the years, Norman has never been actually struck by a tornado. Moore is a town just ten miles north of us and they are like a magnet for storms. The joke has always been that tornadoes come to Moore but as soon as they hit Norman city limits they disintegrate. 

Well, on Friday, while I was at work in Moore, a tornado did come through my neighborhood in Norman uprooting trees and damaging homes. My apartment was untouched but the homes just one block north of me were hit. 

That picture is of the intersection of Lindsey and 24th Street!!! My apartment is on the very next street!!! I just can't believe it! I have never seen Norman look like this! I'm almost 30 and nothing like this has ever happened to Norman before...at least not in my life time! 

Last night, the weather was predicted to be even worse then the Friday storms, but the metro area was extremely lucky and the severe weather headed north and all we had were thunderstorms. 

Even though I am profoundly grateful to be able to say that we here in the metro survived, my heart also goes out to all those living in the town of Woodward and there surrounding neighborhoods. The tornadoes that did develop in the storms last night destroyed Woodward and also traveled through Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those that were affected. 

Putting those scary storms aside...

I'm now home safe and sound and spending my Sunday in bed with...

I'm listening to this one on my laptop so here is that picture...

I usually like to save my audio books for closer to bed time, but I just realized that I don't have any finished books that I can write a review on for my post tomorrow! So, since I only have about two and a half hours left on this one, I thought I might finish it up quick so that I can have a fresh review ready to go. 

So far I am leaning towards a three for this one, but you never know, the ending could change everything!

The "Sundays in bed with..." meme was started by my friend Kate, and the big question is...

What are you spending Sunday and bed with?

Abducted by Wither

I decided to finally listen to the audio version of Wither by Lauren DeStefano because my friend Andrea at The Overstuffed Bookcase is co-hosting the Catch Wither Fever event with her friend Jessie from The Daily Bookmark.  Jessie and Andrea put a lot of work into this event, and even though Wither was not a good fit for me personally, I know a lot of other bloggers have read and loved this series. You can click on this link HERE and it will take you to a post that shares links for several other reviews for the books.

I have this thing where when I read a book, in order for me to enjoy it I have to be able to connect to the characters in the story. Now, on one hand, that is a good quality to have. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a novel that rely's more on the character development then the action that takes place. So, someone like me who likes character driven stories will enjoy it, while those readers that desire more action may find it boring.

However, this also means that when it comes to novels like Wither, that rely more on the concepts within and the actions of the world the author is creating, and less on the actual characters, for me it was extremely hard to enjoy. If I can't connect to the characters in a story then the struggles they go through mean nothing to me. And, unfortunately, that was the main problem I had with Wither.

The story follows the main character named Rhine after she has been kidnapped and forced into a polygamous marriage. I felt bad for all that Rhine went through, but I felt like at times she acted like she was above her two sister wives. I appreciated the responsibility she felt for her fellow sister wives, but in the beginning she made a couple of comments about how she was nothing like them, and that just didn't sit well with me.

A lot of comments have been made about people not liking the whole idea behind the polygamous relationships in the book. For me, it wasn't that I had any moral objection to the polygamous marriages or that I felt the book was promoting that life style or anything like that. But in this day and age we read so many books that involve love triangles and we are trained to pick a side and usually root for one relationship over another. It was impossible for me to root for Lindon (the husband), seeing on how whenever he wasn't by Rhine's side he was off trying to impregnate two other girls (one of whom was 13)!

And I also couldn't root for Lindon because I never felt comfortable with him. Rhine often refers to him as her "captor", and that is how I always saw him. Whenever she did start to develop "feelings" for him, I felt like it was more that she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Also, I felt that Lindon was a rather weak character. We are told in the book that he only took on the additional wives because his first wife (and first love, Rose) asked him to. We are told that he also believes his wives volunteered to become wives because that is what he has always been taught. We are told that he is also afraid of the water, simply because his father told him it made him sick when he was a kid. Yes, Lindon was ignorant to the truth of what was going on around him, but I got the impression that he wanted it that way. It kind of seemed to me that he was perfectly content to be lead around like a puppet because I didn't seem him challenge or question anything.

A lot of people may say that the reason he acted like a puppet was because he was being controlled by his evil father, but I never got the impression that his father was really that evil. Sometimes he may stand a little to close for comfort, sure, but that was the only problem I had with him. Now, there were references to him dissecting bodies in the basement, but through out the whole book he is known for being obsessed with finding a cure. How else was that going to happen if he wasn't doing something?

That was another thing...the book keeps saying that the reason men take on additional wives is to have a lot of babies and the reason they have to have a lot of babies is to try to find a cure for why everyone is dying so young...but how is that supposed to happen exactly? I don't understand how having a lot of babies will eventually result in a cure. What were they looking for? What were they hoping for? And I understand that Rhine may have belonged to the group that believed they should let nature take its coarse and quit fighting for a cure, so she may not have agreed with the work that Lindon's father was doing, but that still didn't explain why she seemed so shocked by it all.

I also felt that for a novel that had such a creative concept, the world itself that was created in the story lacked imagination. I loved that they got to swim in a pool with hologram fish and sharks and sunken ships, but some of the other technology in the story seemed halted. For example there is one scene where Rhine has to where contacts, but they were described to be exactly like the contacts we use today. Now, given how much eye-wear has changed in the last hundred years, why wouldn't it have changed even more for a story that takes place centuries in the future. And the characters made multiple references to books and movies from our time, but if the story takes place centuries in the future, wouldn't they have other books to make references of? I mean, John Green just released a book with an entirely fictional author and multiple fictional books for his characters to make references to. I would have appreciated it more if the author had chosen to create fictional work to reference instead of continually bringing up books from this century because it made it harder for me to believe that this story was supposed to take place so far in the future. There was another thing I didn't like, about the hurricanes and how much hot chocolate was consumed in this story, but I feel that if I mention it now I'll just come off sounding petty, so I'll leave it alone.

Because I couldn't attach to any of the characters, and was bothered by some of the technical aspects of the story I'm afraid I will have to give this one an abduction rating of...

I really didn't like it, but as I said at the beginning, a lot of other readers have loved it so if you have any doubts about my review feel free to check out theirs and check out the event hosted by Andrea and Jessie by clicking HERE

Abducted by The Boyfriend List

The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart is the first novel in the series that follows a high schooler named Ruby Oliver. In the time span of just a few weeks Ruby's entire life has been turned upside down! Best friends have become enemies, boyfriends become exes, the boy next door she barely ever spoke becomes...just maybe, a little bit more, and she is finally starting to see the truth within her parents relationship. Needles to say, as hard as Ruby tries to process all of these changes, her body isn't keeping up causing her to suffer from multiple panic attacks. Our story picks up as Ruby is starting to see a therapist to help her with her anxiety and stress.

I, for one, appreciated the way Ruby's panic attacks were dealt with. The way she described her panic attacks was realistic enough for me, but also the events that caused them and the moments in which they happened felt very natural and genuine. And to be honest, Ruby's friends were all such whiny crazy teenage bi*#hes that just listening to this audio book was about to cause me to have anxiety attacks!

Ruby grew up with this close group of girlfriends, but when the story begins we learn that all of them have turned their backs on Ruby. This is the part where writing this review is a little tricky! I don't want to give away exactly what happened, it all gets explained in due time, so all I really want to say is...all of those girls were crazy! Ruby did nothing wrong! Kim was a freaking floozy! And Jackson was a dirtbag!!!

Okay, now I am going to move on to the things I can talk about freely...

Two of the tools that Lockhart uses in this book are lists and definitions. Ruby makes a few lists in the book, along with the obvious boyfriend list, and at first they felt a little random and strange (part of that may have been because it was the audio version and having lists read to you is always kind of strange) but then when I got to a part of the book where I noticed a lack of lists, I missed them!

Now with the definitions, that was another story! At first it seemed like Lockhart was mostly defining words, which was fine, but sometimes she would define really obvious words and so that kind of made it feel like she was talking down to her reader in assuming that the readers wouldn't know certain words. In the second half of the book the definitions were more for cultural references or fads, and that bothered me only because it made me feel old! I mean when I'm reading a book where the main character has to define movies like "Nightmare on Elm Street" or songs like "Dream On" by Aerosmith...yeah well that is going to make me feel old real fast!!!

In all I thought the writing was great. I really liked Ruby and I hope that she becomes better friends with Megan and Nora. Those girls were nice. As far as a love interest, I'm undecided. I can see the story going a bunch of different ways. I would say that I am interested in a lot of the characters enough to look up some spoilers online, but I just don't think I can sit through reading the entire series. Those 240 pages were way to close to the actual high school experience for me!

I would give The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart an abduction rating of...

Abducted by Sundays in bed with.......4.8.12

This is a picture of my copy of Cinder looking all neglected and forlorn on the side of my couch because I will not be spending my Sunday in bed with it.

I really want to make it to the early morning mass today and I have to take a walk and want to do it when it is still slightly cool outside, plus it is Easter and I will be spending the evening with the family.

All of that leads to a day spent without my books, but I wish I was in bed with Cinder because I actually am enjoying it even though I went into it very reluctantly.

Apparently, I also wish I was spending my Sunday morning in bed with...

because I totally had a dream about it last night! I had a dream that a friend of mine sent me her copy and I was doing everything I could to read it as fast as possible!

What are you spending this Easter Sunday in bed with?

Abducted by Why We Broke Up

The one thought that resonated most with me upon finishing Why We Broke Up was: Well, that wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be...

But upon further reflection I realized that I really had no idea what the book was supposed to be about when I bought it! When I went to Austin, back in January, with my friends, Tracy and Andrea, Tracy was the one who picked up the signed copy and said that she had heard it was good. The back of the book was filled with blurbs by fellow authors about there first loves, and of course, being the huge David Levithan fan that I am, his blurb jumped out at me...

"The boy I loved didn't know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn't know if any of us existed." 

I bought the book because the signed copy had an autograph that included the drawing of a pen, which I thought made it special...

It wasn't until I got home that I realized the author, Daniel Handler, was the author of Lemony Snicket.

With all of that information, when I finally picked up Why We Broke Up and started to read it, I thought it was going to be a magically story about first love. Something along the lines of The Princess Bride or Tuck Everlasting...I guess the negativity of the title was lost on me. 

So for those of you, like me, who may not really know the story behind this book with it's amazing artwork let me give it to you in a nutshell:

We follow our main character, Min, on a morning where she is seeking closure from her ex-boyfriend, Ed. In order to obtain this closure she plans to take the box that contains all of the items she has collected during their relationship and is going to discard it on Ed's doorstep. Along the way she writes a letter to Ed reminiscing on each of the items and explaining how all of it lead to their inevitable breakup. 

Approaching the story in this manor can be very tricky for a book. Similar to movies like The Break Up (which is only okay) or 500 Days of Summer (which is awesome), Daniel Handler had to make us believe that Ed and Min were in love at one time, but then also see how they could break up in the end. My only complaint on that part of the story is that I wish Min and Ed had more time together. We basically find out from the very beginning that the relationship only lasted a couple of months. So much time was spent on establishing that these two people really did love each other, in spite of all their differences, that I felt the transition from the peak of their relationship to rock bottom was rather rushed. But I guess, in life, it isn't uncommon for two people in a relationship to go from madly in love to hating each other's guts at the drop of a hat. My favorite line was on page 31 when Min writes...

"I gave you an adventure, Ed, right in front of you but you never saw it until I showed you, and that's why we broke up." 

The writing is actually extremely clever and honest to real life. Min's thoughts in her letter are as scattered as any girl filled with rage towards an ex would be. It took a while to get used to it, but I really enjoyed it after a while. One of her lasts rants, where she goes on about how she isn't different or special, almost made me cry only because I felt so strongly for her in that moment. Min could be pretentious at times, but in all I really liked her and rooted for her. And in a way, I kind of rooted for Ed too. He was like the popular tough guy jock you would find in a John Hughes movie who wants so desperately to change but only ends up sabotaging himself. 

The art work is amazing! It is simplistic, but very detailed and colorful. I looked forward to finding what was going to be on the next page each time the chapter changed. I haven't read any reviews for this book, so I am not sure how the author worked with the artist, Maira Kalman, or which came first; the art or the writing. But it all flows together perfectly. 

There were a few other small things I didn't like about some of the characters, but as a whole I enjoyed the story. I am interested to hear what some of my friends think of it as well, but I'm not sure that I would immediately think of it as something to recommend to people.

I would give it an abduction rating of...