Sunday, September 7, 2008

Novel Chats - Part ?

Nightwalker by Jocelynn Drake

If ever there was a BCC that did the worst possible job in describing the book within, the BCC on this book would be it. I almost didn't buy this book and I would have been missing out. Thank goodness for other online review sites though, because I went ahead and bought it and fell in love. There are several reasons I'm not doing a full post on this one, 1) the books been out a while and everyone seems to have already read and reviewed it because 2) the book has hit the lists and doesn't actually need my little bitty help in getting word out. I did want to chat it though, because I really enjoyed Drake's style. Her writing had a very poetic quality to it, that under most circumstances would bore me to death or have me rolling my eyes, but in this instance captured my imagination. Drake used beautiful prose to build a very convincing world with real characters I can't wait to read more about. This one gets a very solid A.

fringe benefits by Valerie Frankel

I was a bit slow in picking this book up, as it is Book 4 in a series I had never heard of. However, once I did pick it up, I really enjoyed it. I found it easy to follow the story line and grasp relationships. Since fringe is YA, I tend to look at these a bit different, and as far as my would I pass this on to the young women I know to read test, the answer is, probably, once they hit a certain age. While Adora Benet was a nice change from some of the superficial teen queen of some YA novels out there, she still spoke way too freely about sex with her boyfriend, and hey, I'm not dumb, I know this happens, but as a mother of young children I shudder to think about it. Other than that, I adored this strong willed young character and enjoyed watching the world through her eyes as she spent a summer separate from her friends and faced some very life altering situations. I give this one a very solid B.

Cutting Loose by Susan Andersen

I've been a fan of Andersen for some time. I love the way she can take a storyline that's been done over and over again, and make it seem new again. I love how her characters seem so real and how she's always been able to draw me into their lives and seriously care about them. But Cutting Loose just really fell short for me. It's only been a few weeks since I read the book, and I can't really remember much about it except for my great disappointment in the heroine. In fact, I remember thinking that the wrong name was put on the cover of the book, so disappointed in CL was I. All of the reasons I have come to enjoy Andersen were absent in the writing of this tale, and I found myself disliking just about every character in it. I know that I will not like every book a favorite author pens, but more times than not I can find something redeeming in the pages, but this was a not time. I can only hope that the next book of the Sisterhood Diaries is back to the Andersen I've grown to love. This one gets a D.

Don't forget my contest right now, just look for the link over in the sidebar for details.

Take Care

3 comments:

Brandy said...

I wish you'd talked a bit more about the first book! *G* I haven't read it and now have to go look it up. *g*
Thanks for the book chat!

Ladytink_534 said...

I've seen a two of these on other blogs lately.

Kristie (J) said...

Susan Andersen has long been an autobuy for me too. I've heard a number of places that this isn't one of her better ones :-(
I have this one on the TBR pile but maybe I'll have to move it down.