Historical time travel

From Goodreads.com

Title: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Author: Connie Willis
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub-genre: historical
Pages:  434
Published: 1997
Publisher: Bantam Books
ISBN:  0553099957
Reader's Annotation: Will they get back to the time to save a Cathedral?
Summary: Ned has to travel back in time to figure out what happened to the Bishops Bird stump and help it back to the present (2058)
My Evaluation: Oh my word... This book was ridiculous... the mystery was okay but there was so much random fluff that was not necessary. As well as there were so many things that took forever to explain, for example the bird stump actually was. It wasn't explained until over half-way through the book which was really dumb. It was just way way to long that didn't need to be.
Rating: 2.4 out of 5

When Cake decorators go horrible wrong

from goodreads.com

Title: Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong
Author: Jen Yates
Genre: Popular Non-Fiction
Sub-genre: Humor
Pages:  191
Published: 2009
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN:  0740785370
Reader's Annotation: In the city within a city, what happens when a crime is committed?
Summary: The first book by Jen Yates who runs a blog about fantastic mess-ups of cake decorators. This book gives examples of many different concepts such as Cupcake Cakes (which are a no-no)
My Evaluation: Jen Yates has a fantastical sense of her audience and her writing style is just awesome. This book is full of amazingly bad cakes and a couple good ones for good measure. She tells the story of how her blog came to be and her overall wit is second to none. If you've never read Jen's blog then you're missing out on great fun! Her books are the same way
Rating:  5 out of 5

Is it or isn't it there?

photo of cover from Goodreads.com

Title: The City & The City
Author: China Miéville
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub-genre: Urban, mystery, crim
Pages:  312
Published: 2009
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN:  978-0-345-49751-2
Reader's Annotation: In the city within a city, what happens when a crime is committed?
Summary: A murdered women is found in the town of Beszel, which shares streets with Ul Qoma. Inspector Tyador Borlú must find out who murdered her and why. When he starts to dig things change and his life as well as the lives of those he meets is put in danger.
My Evaluation: holy son of a mother... This book was messed up. The plot, of a murdered women was excellent but the story surround it was not. There were not only grammatically issues within the book but WAY too much swearing. Not only that, there were things that were not explained and you as the reader just had to guess at what they were. For example, if the detective was in Beszel, he had to "unseen" everything that was across the street in Ul Qoma. It just made no sense. Plus it was hard to follow with names and words that were extremely hard to pronounce. Plus the book never really tells you who did what.. I mean it does but it doesn't. The author left a lot of holes and things unexplained. Plus there were these odd jumps in the conversation that didn't fit..
Rating: 3.3 out of 5

A Family Secret

Title: Sarah's Key
 Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Genre: Historical
Sub-genre: Historical Fiction
Pages:  294
Published: 2007
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 9780312370848
Reader's Annotation: A family's secret could change Julia's life forever
Summary: In researching for an upcoming article, Julia Jarmond is looking into the Vel' d'Hiv round-up that happened in Paris in July of 1942. Her story of her research and discovery of a family secret intertwines with that of Sarah, a 10 year old Jewish girl in the summer of 1942
My Evaluation: (SPOILERS AHEAD) I adore this book so much. This is now the second time I've read it and it still makes me cry! I'm very attached this book because of my background in genocidal studies/history and the fact that it intrigues me that de Rosnay draws you in with both stories. The first time I read it, I kind of hated the switching back and forth of the chapters but the second time it didn't phase me. I know why de Rosnay did it and it works so well for this book.  The optimist in me, kind of wishes (still after the second reading) that Julia would have found Sarah alive in the end, but I get why de Rosnay played it out the way she did.
Rating: 5 out of  5
Read-a-likes: Here are a couple read-a-likes for this book that I adored:
The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff
 Push Not the River by James Conroyd Martin
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

Garden love

My copy

Title: Jennifer's Garden
Author: Dianne Venetta
Genre: Romance
Pages:  412
Published: 2011
Publisher: Self-Published
ISBN: 9780983246428
Reader's Annotation: A well designed garden can change a person's life
Summary: Dr. Jennifer Hamilton is cardiologist in Coral Gables Florida and engaged to a successful art gallery manager. She's planning her wedding sooner rather than later because her mother is slowly dying.  Due to a Hamilton tradition, she is getting married in her backyard. However, it is a mess, so on the recommendation of a friend, she hires Jackson Montgomery. Suddenly things start to make her question her decisions.
My Evaluation: Very very typical romance. It's very predictable. I really should stop reading romance novels because they make me very annoyed at times. While Venetta has a very enjoyable writing style, there were parts of the book, where characters would talk about things and they didn't make any sense because there was no back story. Or she would introduce characters without any explanation of who they were. One thing that majorly annoyed me was both the main character and her best friend would talk about Tony, especially early in the book but it took over halfway through the book to explain the whole "Tony" situation and in the end it was no big deal. From the way it was talked about in the beginning of the book, I was expecting that he raped or something more dramatic than being caught by her father. It was just so random and didn't require all the build up. There were very enjoyable parts of this book, however. The main one was the way Venetta writes descriptions, especially of her characters looks or the garden that Jackson is building for Jennifer. I could actually picture the garden.
Rating: 3 out 5
My copy is autographed!

When the toys come alive

Image from Goodreads.com

Title: Toys
Author: James Patterson
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub-genre: Suspense, apocalyptic, future worlds
Pages: Audiobook: 6 hrs and 40 minutes, read by Matt Bomer
Published: 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 0316097365
Reader's Annotation: What would you if everything you've ever known turned out to be a lie?
Summary: Hays Baker is an "Elite" and works for "The Agency" in the year 2061  Called to a murder scene that puzzles him to no end, he takes off after one of the bad guys. After catching him on the roof, they wrestle and fall off the building, ten stories. This fall isn't the only fall Hays would take in the next few hours and days. Briefly waking up in the hospital and heading into surgery, his life is about to be completely turned upside down and possible lose everything he's ever known
My Evaluation: I've had this audiobook for some time and I started it a while back but didn't have the time to finish it. Normally, Sci-Fi isn't my thing but I figured I'd give this book a shot because well let's face it, Matt Bomer is dreamy :) His voice makes this book all the more better. The action was fast (some of the shortest chapters I've ever heard for an audiobook) and kept me in suspense! I think that's what it more pleasurable is that it was a suspense novel taking place in the future. The only downside to this book, was listening to the audiobook, there was music at certain parts and it was rather annoying. I do find it interesting that Patterson set the book in 2061, which really isn't that far off (49 years). And yet for the stuff that happens in this book to happen, there would have to be MAJOR advances in everything. I guess that's why they call it sci-fi. I've only read one other James Patterson book, a ChicLit book, The Christmas Wedding, so this was a huge switch... I'm not quite sure I like his writing style from either book since they're completely different. I might pick up a different book of his to see.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Trainwreck of Robert Hellenga

 Image courtesy of goodreads.com

Title: Snakewoman of Little Egypt
Author: Robert Hellenga
Genre: Fiction
Sub-genre: Domestic/Relationship Fiction
Pages: 370
Published: 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978-1-60819-3226
Reader's Annotation: A damaged women meets a wounded professor to discover their relationship.
Summary: This book is the story of Willa Fern "Sunny" Conchrane and Jackson Jones. Sunny is a women from a snake-handling church in the Little Egypt, who, at the beginning of the book is in prison for shooting her husband after he made her stick her hand into a box of poisonous snakes. She is being released from prison as her sentence is up, under the supervision of Jackson Jones, an anthropologist. He was a friend of Sunny's uncle Warren , who was also Jackson's estate caretaker. The book follow these two through their relationship. Sunny becomes a student at a fictitious university and through the book, Sunny and Jackson grow in their relationship and then unravel as Jackson begins to study Sunny's former church in Little Egypt.
My Evaluation: This book, for me, was like a car wreck. It's horrible, horrendous, and messy, but you just can't look away. The book was horribly written to the extent it made it really hard to follow in some places. Hellenga wrote the book in that the chapter(or chapters) switched back and forth between Sunny and Jackson. There were also several plot holes and the story line run like a jagged line that seemed unending. I should have known better in that I've read Sixteen Pleasures (Hellenga's probably more famous book) and couldn't even finish it, it was written so poorly (in my mind). I would never recommend this book to anybody.
Rating:1 out of 5