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Brief synopsis (no spoilers) Vin relies on her fighting skills, and a little extra "luck" to survive in the thief's world. Then comes Kelsier, a master thief and planner, showing her that what she calls luck is really much more. Kelsier and his crew plan to use a variety of special powers to free an entire population of slaves, including themselves, from tyranny. But, as always, there's far more to the story. Category Science Fiction or Fantasy Why I chose this book Rated highly on the library site My personal opinion (the review) Definitely the best story I've read in the past year. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series. Special abilities, fighting, romance, social justice - this has it all. And not a single bad word or uncomfortable situation. Warnings Language: None Violence: frequent, some mildly graphic "Adult" situations: None Death: Some, and of major characters Movie rating equivalent PG-13 Protagon

Summary:  Origin stories of Thor, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and X-Men. Attention Span/reading level:  Ages 6-10 (ish), 20-30 pages of reading, most pages are  relatively  short.  Good uses for book in teaching:  Back stories of some popular super heroes Favorite part:  Learning part of the stories I didn't know Least favorite part:  None.  W arnings/negative feedback?:  Lots of fighting/violence, a few immodestly dressed characters.   Review: After watching most of the Marvel movies, I was left with lots of questions, particularly about how the heroes got to be "the heroes." Though these books were quite  simplistic , they told me (for the most part) the back stories I was looking for. I especially learned new things about Thor and The X-Men. For example, I didn't know that Thor had been sent to earth to be a doctor or that the X-Men portrayed in the movies were the second round of X-Men that Xavier had found. Overall, these were back story

Concept: " A visual journey to the world's most unusual libraries." Author : Alex Johnson, a journalist and consultant . Both parents were librarians.  Monologue score  (1-10) (how entertaining): 8 - Overall I found this book quite interesting. I loved seeing all the ways that people were working to bring books into the community and how many were trying to create a sense of community through books. The pictures did a great job of helping to visualize how these libraries are being used.  Difficulty level: 3- Not very hard. Each of the seven sections (Libraries on the Move, Animal Libraries,Tiny Libraries, Big Libraries, Home Libraries, Mobile Libraries, and Not Libraries) starts with a short introduction and then gives a picture (or three) of the library described.  What I Learned/Review:  I really found this to be an enlightening and uplifting book. Having been a librarian and having a love for books in general it warms my heart to see all the ways that people hav

At the beginning of 2015 I worked at a local library. Several of my coworkers signed up to do the Goodreads.com year long reading challenge and they convinced me to to do it too. I wanted to stretch myself so I set my goal at 100 books. I then set the parameter that to count for the challenge the books needed to be over 100 actual reading pages (so no picture books, though I certainly read plenty of those too.) At 11:15 pm on New Year's Eve I finished my last book. Here is a quick review of all the books I read in 2015. Audio Books: I really want my daughter to have a love of reading. I also think that listening to someone other than me read to her is a good thing. Audio books have introduced her to new words and concepts that we don't come across in the usual picture books we get from the library. Plus, it's a great way to inspire her imagination when she is "trapped" in the car. This year we listened to a LOT of audio books, mainly of two series American Gi

Brief synopsis (no spoilers) The novel is really a series of nested novellas. You read half of one story, then it jumps forward in time and you read half of a new story. Not like Inception, where you have the same people having dreams within dreams, though. Whole new people, new stories, new epochs. Category Fiction Why I chose this book Rated highly on the library website My personal opinion (the review) The way the stories were tied together, and the diversity of writing styles and sheer imagination displayed make this novel and author very impressive. However, it's oppressively long, the language is bad, and the depravity is rampant. Don't waste your time. It felt like the author wanted to write 6 novels, but ran out of ideas with each one, so he stopped at the novella size. Then he split the spine of each book and sandwiched them. And to make it seem like they were tied together, he rearranged some names and concepts, with references spanning stories. That fe

Brief synopsis (no spoilers) Mia woke up and recovered from the car accident, and moved right into the life she wanted with her cello. But Adam was not part of that plan. He becomes a rock star, but isn't happy with that life. Category Fiction Why I chose this book Next in series My personal opinion (the review) This was a good sequel, and really ties up a bunch of loose ends. But I cannot recommend it, because of the language. Adam's a hard core rock star, so the language is probably true to life. But I don't like it. Excellent story; potty mouth. Warnings Language:  several "F words", other lesser words Violence: none "Adult" situations:  one event, but no detail, just "cut to the next morning" Death: none Movie rating equivalent R, for language and adult scenes Protagonist description Adam is brooding and angry for much of the story Point of view of story First, from perspective of Adam Book length Medium-short

Brief synopsis (no spoilers) Lena lives in Portland, Maine. It's small, safe, fenced-in. The government has worked for years to eradicate love. They operate on young people, killing the portion of the brain that holds love, and it's all very successful. Crime is non-existent, waste and excess are under control, and even dreaming is curtailed. Lena is within months of having her operation, and couldn't be happier. But that's not how any good story ends, is it? Category YA Fiction, Dystopian Why I chose this book Recommended on library site My personal opinion (the review) I can't call it my favorite book of the year, but it's definitely up there. Great story, solid plot line. Sad ending, but post-apocalyptic tales can only end one way. But, I can't recommend it, for the language and the adult references. Warnings Language:  Lena drops two f-bombs, about a third of the way into the book Violence:  fairly common, but not gory "Adult"