Feature and Follow Friday! #2

This is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. :)

Q: What is your preferred reading format? Hardcover, eBooks, paperback etc?

Honestly for the longest time I was anti-ereader. I just couldn't see myself ever loving reading a screen because I love the smell of books and visually seeing how much progress I was making. While I still prefer reading paperbacks, I finally caved and bought a ereader earlier this year and I love it! I never purchase books unless I know I will love them and reread them. Anything else, I either borrowed from someone or from the library. With the ereader, however, I could literally own hundreds of books and it would only take up as much room as the ereader itself. My husband rolled his eyes when I was gushing about how many books I could own. Can you tell he isn't a reader? LOL.

REVIEW: Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan

TITLE: Knife of Dreams

AUTHOR: Robert Jordan

GENRE: Fantasy

SERIES: Wheel of Time # 11

WHERE I GOT IT: Own it

READ FROM: January 28^th to June 18^th 2013

BOOK BLURB: (taken from Goodreads) The Wheel of Time turns, and Robert Jordan gives us the eleventh volume of his extraordinary masterwork of fantasy.
The dead are walking, men die impossible deaths, and it seems as though reality itself has become unstable: All are signs of the imminence of Tarmon Gai'don, the Last Battle, when Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, must confront the Dark One as humanity's only hope. But Rand dares not fight until he possesses all the surviving seals on the Dark One's prison and has dealt with the Seanchan, who threaten to overrun all nations this side of the Aryth Ocean and increasingly seem too entrenched to be fought off. But his attempt to make a truce with the Seanchan is shadowed by treachery that may cost him everything. Whatever the price, though, he must have that truce. And he faces other dangers. There are those among the Forsaken who will go to any length to see him dead--and the Black Ajah is at his side....
Unbeknownst to Rand, Perrin has made his own truce with the Seanchan. It is a deal made with the Dark One, in his eyes, but he will do whatever is needed to rescue his wife, Faile, and destroy the Shaido who captured her. Among the Shaido, Faile works to free herself while hiding a secret that might give her her freedom or cause her destruction. And at a town called Malden, the Two Rivers longbow will be matched against Shaido spears.
Fleeing Ebou Dar through Seanchan-controlled Altara with the kidnapped Daughter of the Nine Moons, Mat attempts to court the woman to whom he is half-married, knowing that she will complete that ceremony eventually. But Tuon coolly leads him on a merry chase as he learns that even a gift can have deep significance among the Seanchan Blood and what he thinks he knows of women is not enough to save him. For reasons of her own, which she will not reveal until a time of her choosing, she has pledged not to escape, but Mat still sweats whenever there are Seanchan soldiers near. Then he learns that Tuon herself is in deadly danger from those very soldiers. To get her to safety, he must do what he hates worse than work....
 
In Caemlyn, Elayne fights to gain the Lion Throne while trying to avert what seems a certain civil war should she win the crown....
 
In the White Tower, Egwene struggles to undermine the sisters loyal to Elaida from within....
 
The winds of time have become a storm, and things that everyone believes are fixed in place forever are changing before their eyes. Even the White Tower itself is no longer a place of safety. Now Rand, Perrin and Mat, Egwene and Elayne, Nynaeve and Lan, and even Loial, must ride those storm winds, or the Dark One will triumph.

MY THOUGHTS: WOW! This one took me quite awhile to get through! I mean I LOOOOOVE the world and the characters but damn taking numerous books to resolve a few things really made the book drag on and on for me. It probably also didn't help that a week or so after I first started reading it back in January, my oldest daughter (who is 2) pulled out my book mark and it took me a month or so before I felt like picking it back up and finding where I had left off. Robert Jordan has so many characters that it is hard to keep track of them all, especially when they don't appear in the books regularly so I tend to forget who they are and what they were doing. At some point I just started blending all the Aes Sedai that I didn't recognize anymore into one lump, figuring that in any rereads I could maybe try to keep them straight then. At this point I just want to get through the series to find out what happens when the last battle finally arrives.

I still don't really like Elayne and by the end of the book my feelings of dislike intensified. I mean how stupid can she be! Near the end she made a few stupid choices that made me want to reach into the book and throttle her! Thanks Elayne for not only putting yourself in danger but those around you at the same time for NO reason at all. Others could have taken care of it without you at the forefront.

My favourite characters still are Egwene and Nynaeve. I found that any time I came across a part of the book that dealt with them I couldn't put the book down. Unfortunately they were not that many parts that dealt with them. Perrin used to also be a favourite but after a few books of him still trying to locate and get his wife back his story line just got boring to me, plus his wife is another character I can't really stand either. Mat's path was also interesting as well in the beginning but it basically has started to drag on too. Rand is semi interesting but he has changed so much from the first book that I don't necessarily like him as much as I did before. However, I can cut Rand some slack since he does really have a lot on his shoulders. I wouldn't want to be in his position.

At least near the end of the book things have started to slowly come together. A few things happened that shocked me. I know that at least in the next three books I will get some answers. Hopefully I will read through them faster then this one. Although looking ahead to book 12 I see that it is actually 300 pages longer then this one. I look forward to seeing how Brandon Sanderson finishes the series and am also sad to realize that for the most part this book was the last one that Robert Jordan fully completed himself. I still can't believe it has been six years since Robert Jordan passed away. May he rest in peace.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Feature and Follow Friday!

So this is my first blog hop! Hopefully I do everything correctly. :) 

 Q: Create a line of poetry with your book spines (take a picture)! 

This is such a neat idea! I wish I could go through all my books and make a poem but they are all unfortunately packed in boxes in the basement. This sort of reminds me of those magnetic poetry pieces you can get (which I also have somewhere to). My favorite poem however has always been "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. I remember one of the first times I heard it was on an episode of the cartoon Beetlejuice and fell in love with it.

What I'm reading Wednesday

Or should I say what I've been watching. This this last week I've barely picked a  book because I have been devouring every single episode of Ugly Betty. By the time I reached the end of the first season I was hooked and just like a good book it's so hard to stop reading/watching until you are done. This show pretty much has become one of my favourite shows of all time (up there with Seinfeld and Freaks and Geeks).

I loved all the characters, especially Marc and Amanda, and loved how you could see each of them grow as people throughout the four seasons. The only downfall of watching the show so quickly is that now that I have watched all the episodes  I feel the loss of them.

I like how the last episode tied up all the story arcs for each of the characters and I like how the writers waited until the last few episodes to really show Daniel consider that maybe his feelings for Betty are more then just platonic. I never considered them getting together until those last few episodes. I can see myself watching this show again sometime soon.

Betty's progression of character and her accomplishments made me really stop and examine my own life. She was so fearless in chasing after her dream even though it seemed like it was somewhat out of reach at the start of the show. Everyone laughed at her when she first arrived at Mode, but she never gave up and proved her worth in the end. Who knows maybe someday I will finally have that novel that has been floating around in my head published.

I am still reading A Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan. I decided to forgo starting any other book at the moment or I will never get through it. I was happy to finally reach a point in the book about Egwene and her battle for the White Tower which made the pages go by quicker. Unfortunately I am now reading about Mat's and the reading pace has slowed down again. At least I am more then 3/4ths of the way through the book now.

Hopefully I will have more time to read now that I won't be glued to my TV screen, that is unless I find another show to be obsessed with.  :)

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I thought I would start a weekly post to update everyone on what I am currently reading and what I have in the wings to read. I am really bad for starting and reading more then one book at a time. I basically read what I am in the mood for at the time.

Right now I am still slogging through Book #11 of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I know slogging sounds harsh. I really love the story he has created it's just taking soooo long to get to the end. I started rereading the beginning of this series last January! As in 2012 January! This story is huge with so many characters that it is really hard to remember everyone and what is happening if you put it down and then come back to it. I made it through 7 books straight without reading anything else before I needed to take a WoT break. What I said before happened but thanks to things such as the Wheel of Time wiki anytime I forgot who someone was I just look it up. I only decided to reread the series from the beginning again because it had been a while since I read any of the books and because I knew that the last book was finally going to be out this year. I was pretty much bang on that it would take me a year to get to the last few books.

So that brings me to Knife of Dreams! I am now about 75% through it and then only have 3 more books to go before I find out what happens to everyone. Right now the book is starting to drag again and I am in no mood to read big walls of text so I might take a break from it and read one of the three books I just got in the mail yesterday. Figuring out what to purchase is always hard for me because I want to buy books that I know I will love and ones that I will reread. Everything else I read I either borrow from someone or borrow from the library.

The first one is Margaret George's The autobiography of Henry VIII. I have wanted to get this book for a long time. It is a behemoth of a book though over 900 pages. I read her book The Memoirs of Cleopatra in 2010 which I absolutely loved! Two of my favorite time periods are of the Ancient Egyptians and anything to do with the medieval era. I'm not quite sure where my love for either came from but I can't get enough of either of them.

What really sold me on getting Henry VIII was the fact that it seems to be written in letter or diary form. It sounded interesting and Henry VIII is well known, I just don't know his full history.

 I also purchased Ken Follett's, The Pillars of the Earth and it's sequel, World Without End. I am looking forward to reading both of them as well. I first became interested in those books when watching the World Without End  miniseries on TV. At some point I saw that it was based on a book and naturally I had to add it to my TBR list.

I've also been asked to review a book called The Pavement Gardener by Nyla Naseer. I will be starting that very soon. It sounds to be a very interesting read!

That's all for me this week. :)

REVIEW: The Night Shift by Brian Goldman

TITLE: The Night Shift

AUTHOR: Brian Goldman

GENRE: non-fiction

WHERE I GOT IT: library borrow

DATE READ: May 10 to May 28, 2013

ABOUT BLURB: Dr. Brian Goldman shares his experiences while working the night shift in busy Mount Sinai hospital in downtown Toronto.

MY THOUGHTS: This is another one of those books that I put on hold at the library on a whim because it looked interesting. I didn't realize that after it became available to check out from said library, I would have already have been rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night by my husband. This left me very nervous to even read the book because I was afraid of reading anything that resembled what happened to me and at the time I had NO idea why it happened. (My heart went into atrial fibrillation for the second time in 5 years and it is not to common for a young healthy person to experience that!) Of course my curiosity got the better of me and I slowly started reading it anyways. There were a few parts where I almost stopped because it was talking about a patient with heart problems. I was convinced that regardless of my age there was something wrong with my heart and reading anything to do with people in the ER with heart problems really made my anxiety fly sky high.

I however, still kept reading and found it rather interesting. I knew of course that life in the ER is nothing like the TV shows but I never realized just how hectic it could be. I did find it frustrating at times though because Dr. Goldman would start talking about one patient then leave you hanging while he told stories about similar or related topics before going back to the original story at the end of the chapter.

FINAL THOUGHTS:  Although Dr. Goldman does talk in some medical terms and about certain medications that I have never heard of, he does give a good impression of what working in a ER is like. I know it's something I could never do and I commend anyone that does. I guess I can understand now sometimes when nurses or doctors come across as indifferent. It's probably either work fatigue or their only defence against getting too emotionally involved with each patience situation. I would imagine working the long hours in an ER, would be emotionally draining after awhile.

(Also in case anyone is wondering after all the tests I have had done, my heart is totally healthy and they found nothing wrong with me. The specialist determined because of what I was doing both times it happened (chugging cold water and trying to get some burbs out) that I am one of the lucky few that people in this world that could experience atrial fibrillation due to either food, liquid, or gas disturbing my esophagus. Lucky me :(. )

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

REVIEW: The Death Cure by James Dashner

The Death Cure

TITLE: The Death Cure

AUTHOR: James Dashner

GENRE: YA, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic,

SERIES: Book #3 of the Maze Runner Trilogy

WHERE I GOT IT: Borrowed from the library

READ FROM: March 03 to 05, 2013

note: I try my hardest to give a spoiler free reviews but sometimes when talking about a book it is hard to keep it that way. When that is the case I like to warn readers that my review will give things away. This review might have some things that could spoil parts of the story for you. So read with caution.

BLURB: They cracked the secret of the maze and crossed the scorch. Now WICKED has one more task for them and that is to finish the blueprint for the cure. Just one thing, Thomas knows that he can't trust them to tell the truth.

WHAT I HATED: I was SO disappointed with this book. I loved the first one and thought the second one was okay but I had really high hopes for this one. I was totally disappointed. I started skimming parts near the end because I just wanted it to be done!

I felt that parts of the book really seemed to drag. This was probably due to the fact that once they made it to their next destination something happened that stalled them for awhile. Then once they finally started moving to the next point they were stalled again. I just wanted them to get to the end point so I could get some answers. It's almost like in a suspense movie. The person is running away and getting so close to the safe spot, that your sitting on the edge of your seat biting your nails hoping they make it but knowing there is the possibility that the won't. .

I was really hoping that Thomas would get his memory back. As bad as it sounds I was practically cheering when WICKED was going to force him to go through with the procedure because I wanted some concrete answers. On the other hand I can understand why Thomas wouldn't want to remember anything but since he was one of the most mysterious characters I felt like he should have anyways. But once it seemed like that wasn't going to happen I expected maybe learning something from Teresa but she was barely even in the book! 

CHARACTERS: I feel that Teresa and Thomas had so much potential to make the story really interesting considering we get snippets of how they were involved with WICKED from a young age, how they could communicate mentally with each other and how they had a big part in the development of the maze. I really wish that Dashner would have chosen to let us in on a bit more. The whole thing is shrouded in so much mystery that we are left to make up our own minds and to be honest I really don't like that. There is just to much left unanswered for my liking.

While I was interested in Teresa, I really hated Brenda. The only point I saw for her being there was to make Thomas continually debate about who he should be with. It got annoying after awhile. Sometimes love triangles can be interesting, this one definitely was not. Plus was she a WICKED spawn or was she really on Thomas's side and in love with him? It doesn't seem like it could be both since Wicked really doesn't seem to be “good”?

ANOTHER THING I HATED:  I also was so disappointed with the letter Newt gave Thomas to read at the right “moment”. I was willing Thomas to read that note at least a half a dozen times and when he finally did I had to reread to make sure I read it right. I was thinking it was going to be something profound, something moving, something that made me think. Instead it was 'if your my friend, kill me when I get past the gone”. WHAT!?!?! Why couldn't he have just pulled Thomas aside to ask him that and make him promise then? I mean come on Newt! You can't tell him he will “know” when the time to read it is and when he doesn't, get all mad at him because he let you down! Seriously. If it was that important to you that he kill you right after you go crazy you should have taken him aside and made sure he understood! Not leave it up to a letter you wrote! I get maybe that would have been a hard conversation but still at least he would have known your wishes. Considering the world that they are living in there are a million possibilities why Thomas wouldn't read the note at the 'right time'! I felt sooo cheated that there was all this suspense leading up to reading that note and that was all we got.

PLOT: I really did believe that WICKED was close to a cure. I really, really, really did. Even though the explanation on how they were going to reach that really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So I was hopeful when Thomas went back.

Then rat man said this: “Thomas we need your brain” I knew at that point (and was slightly disappointed because the story was totally going in a direction I didn't expect) that rat man, and quite possible all of WICKED were all way past the gone and had been for a really long time. UGH!

Then Teresa DIES! WHAT? But to be honest, while it shocked me I found I really didn't care. She was barely in the books anyways so I was not attached to her at all. I was sort of appalled that Thomas basically was like 'meh that sucks.' 

WHAT I LIKED: I actually found that their style of swearing/slang humorous for some reason. “Those Cranks are way past the Gone.” I have a feeling I might be saying 'what the clunk' a lot or thinking people are being real 'slintheads' for awhile.

THE ENDING: While there was an ending of sorts, I was left with so many more questions. Like what was the extent of Thomas and Teresa's part in building the trials? Why were they able to communicate telepathically to each other? How did they learn that? Why can't everyone do that? Who is Chancellor Paige? Why didn't we learn about her sooner? How did they think this research was going to help them find a cure? Why did they find everything so necessary? Why didn't WICKED hire more munies to oversee their research? How did WICKED think it was going to solve the flare infection? Why didn't WICKED send immunes to this magical start over place before they discovered failure!? Was WICKED really good? Sigh, I could go on.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I have to give Dashner a high five for being very creative in this trilogy. He did create an interesting world, even if he left us with a million more questions then we started with. I guess I will have to use my imagination as to what happened to the ones that were sent to start over, even though I don't want to. I just really wish that I wasn't given such a free rein to come up with my own conclusions. I may have ranted a lot with this book but it really did make me think a lot about the story.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE TRILOGY: As a whole I really loved this series, I think maybe to go on as far as to say, one of my favourites even though I didn't like book 2 and 3 nearly as much as the 1^st one.   I'm actually pretty excited to see that the first one is being made into a movie. Should be interesting to see when it comes out. 

My final thoughts on the trilogy is this: is WICKED really good? I can't really decide. I think their quest to find a cure was a good thing but I think they way they went about it was bad. Who knows maybe they were already starting to go past the Gone when they decided the trials were the only way to go. I guess we will never know. Your thoughts?

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars