Teaser Tuesday (5): Living Dead in Dallas

From Living Dead in Dallas, page 109.

Bill left the room in a flash. Stan's face grew even whiter, and his eyes blazed. I looked anywhere but directly at him. I didn't want to be the sight filling his eyes while he digested the fact that someone had planted a bug in his audience chamber. He had indeed been  betrayed, just not in the fashion he'd expected.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read

* Open to a random page

* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Book Review: Living Dead in Dallas

Title: Living Dead in Dallas

Author: Charlaine Harris

Pages: 291

Format: Paperback

Genre:Paranormal Romance/Mystery

Star Rating: 2/5

Network: Shelfari | Goodreads | Librarything

Buy: Amazon

My Summary: Sookie Stackhouse is called to Dallas with "her" vampire (Bill Compton) to help to solve the mystery of a missing vampire who is part of a nest there. In the meantime, Sookie meets new supernatural beings and tries to solve the mystery of a murdered friend.

My Review: I liked it. But, as you can see, I gave it two stars -- less even than Dead Until Dark. Before I go on, let me assure you that I'm enjoying this series enough to finish it. It's compelling and Charlaine Harris creates good, and mostly very believable, characters. I like her style, and the more I read the Southern Vampire Mysteries, the less I like Twilight.

So why the low rating? After all, when you like a book, don't you rate it high? I guess most people do, but I'm trying to be honest both with myself (for re-reading purposes) and with my audience (so you can decide whether or not to read this book).

I found Living Dead in Dallas to be very confusing at times. There were entire pages that I had to read and re-read in order to understand what Harris was trying to say, and even then I finally accepted what happened next without fully grasping what had led up to it. The description and context was all over the place, and gave the impression of being poorly edited (probably because it's second in a series, and the fault may lie with an editor, not with Harris herself).

Moreover, this book included two mysteries, both of which were unsolvable from the point of view of the reader. While Sookie (and others) may have had enough information to solve the mystery in the context of the plot, there is no way that the reader could have, not having been given sufficient information in a timely manner. Personally I don't like that.

On the plus side, let me repeat that Harris' characterization is excellent, and makes up for the lack of good mystery writing. As I said, I will (happily) finish this series, consecutively. Hopefully Club Dead leaves a better impression.

Book Review: Dead Until Dark

Title: Dead Until Dark

Author: Charlaine Harris

Pages: 291

Format: Paperback

Genre:Paranormal Romance/Mystery

Star Rating: 3/5

Network: Shelfari | Goodreads | Librarything

Buy: Amazon

My Summary: Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in a small town in Louisiana -- a Town where nothing happens. Vampires have recently been made legal, and the story that is being fed to the people via the media is that vampirism is caused by a virus that makes vampires allergic to sunlight, silver and garlic.

Sookie wants to meet a vampire, but once she does meet one in the form of Bill (a Civil War era vampire), bad things begin to happen to people in her small town. Working class women keep winding up dead, and the prime suspects are people very close to Sookie -- and she fears she may be the next target.

My Review: I really liked this book, just as I knew that I would. A good friend has been hounding me to read it for a while, and I must say that I found the story delightfully fulfilling.

Dead Until Dark took me a little while to get into. I was worried at first that I would find it impossible to get through the novel, but it was right about that time that things picked up quickly.

I loved this book, so why am I only giving it three stars? I can hear readers wondering this question, and I want to be absolutely honest with you: The combination of paranormal + romance + mystery was a little bit too much. There were moments where the book was pure paranormal, or where it was paranormal romance. At other times it was all mystery. I couldn't quite settle into the groove I need to really enjoy a good cozy mystery, and the mystery distracted me from the romantic elements of the story (which were, I must say, very well done).

If you enjoyed Twilight you will almost definitely enjoy Dead Until Dark. If you didn't enjoy Twilight, I still recommend this novel. You'll see why once you've read it!

ETA: Julie, have you read this yet? If not, I think you'd like it!

Update: Giving Up

My husband pointed out to me yesterday that I hadn't posted in my blog in a while. Of course, it's not as though I haven't been feeling guilty about that and not keeping up with all of you guys during this time period, but he thinks I've been distracted.

He's wrong. I've been embarrassed.

I didn't want to have to admit to you all that I was struggling with The Host and that I frankly didn't want to finish it right now. I know that I will enjoy the book at some point in the future, but this just isn't the right time for me, especially considering that I've been dying to get into the Sookie Stackhouse books.

So I've switched. My reading is down, but I'm going to be posting regularly again. I'm sorry for having disappeared, and I'll be more active now! Thanks!

Chatter: The Twilight Discussion

Here it is, as promised: The Twilight Discussion. I know I've been saying for a while that I was going to do this, but I was hoping to have the maximum amount of discussion going here (instead of one or two people pitching in a half-attentive opinion on the books).

Yes. For real. I want to talk about this.

Twilight is controversial among readers. As with many books I've read and either loved or hated, there seems to be a running theme of "smart people don't read Twilight" or "People who don't read Twilight are just snobs." People make fun of Stephenie Meyer. They make fun of her fans. They make fun of people who make fun of her. I've seen some people get downright angry about Twilight.

For a long time, I hid the fact that I was a fan. I'm sensitive to ridicule, and I am an intelligent reader (generally).

Here's what I want to know: If you liked Twilight and the books that followed: why? What drew you in? Was it the story, or the characters? Was there anything that you didn't like about the Twilight series?

If you didn't like Twilight, why didn't you like it? Did you stop after the first book or read through the entire series?

For those who haven't read the novels, I ask this: If you hate Twilight (but haven't read it/them), what makes you hate the books if you haven't read them?

I'd love to have a good discussion/debate about this subject, since so many people seem to feel so strongly about these books.

As for me, I'm a fan. I'll weigh in more later!

ETA: I thought it might help for me to point out that if you click the post title you can get to the comments. I'm looking into why the comment link isn't displaying right now. Thanks!

Book Review: A Respectable Trade

Title: A Respectable Trade

Author: Philippa Gregory

Pages: 488

Format: Paperback

Genre: Historical Fiction

Star Rating: 4/5

Network: Shelfari | Goodreads | Librarything

Buy: Amazon

My Summary: Mehuru is a priest in the African nation of Yoruba who is captured by (black) African slavers and is sold to an English slave trader.

Frances is the niece of Lord Scott and is left orphaned and unmarried when her father dies. In desperation, she accepts the marriage proposal of a trader, Josiah Cole.

Circumstances bring Mehuru and Frances Cole together, for better or for worse. Philippa Gregory tells an amazing story of their relationship in this novel.

My Thoughts: I wept throughout the entire novel. When I say "wept" I'm not talking about the tears that often fall when I am touched by a story -- I'm talking about being moved so deeply by a book that I know that it will stay with me forever.

I've seen Amazing Grace and as much as the movie explored the depth of suffering on the slave ships, it didn't sink in fully until I had read about it, able to apply my own imagination to the story of Mehuru and his friends. And when Mehuru met Frances, it was all over for me.

This book would be very easy for me to spoil, and I want to be careful of what I say. I've been asked recently to give more detail in my reviews about what I enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) about a book -- specifically. In this book I have to say that what touched me the most was the relationships between the slaves, particularly Elizabeth (who's African name I don't know) and Mehuru. I also really liked the way that the author went out of her way to describe the way that black and white "saw" one another so differently from their own people, almost as though they were an entirely different species. As someone who is in her thirties in the 21st century, I find this so difficult to relate to, but it helped to bring me closer to real understanding of what it might have been like in the 18th century.

I enjoy Philippa Gregory and look forward to reading more from her!

Teaser Tuesday (4): The Host

From The Host by Stephenie Meyer, page 37:

"'And eat something, please. I don't want your stomach to give us away.' He grins, and his eyes crinkle up, fanning lines out of the corners. My heart gives one hard thump, and I know I will wait here if it takes him all night."

 I have to confess that I am not particularly enjoying this book so far.I thought that I would, especially after reading Juju's review of the book. She was spot on in saying that this book is entirely different than Twilight -- the problem that I'm facing is that so far I don't feel that it has any of the good qualities of the author's previous books, leaving me a bit befuddled and agitated by the wordiness.

I'm getting into it, but the process is slow. Regardless of how I'm feeling, I will definitely be finishing, hopefully on a better note than I started. I've read so many good reviews I'd hate to be the first negative, especially as a Twilight fan!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read

* Open to a random page

* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!