Book #49 week #38, Divergent by Veronica Roth

Now here is a book I was really looking forward to! Apparently there is a movie deal in the works. As with my new format expect spoilers read on at your own risk!

Divergent is the story of sixteen year old Beatrice (Tris). In what use to be Chicago, the citizens are divided into factions. Tris belongs to the Abnegation faction which means selfless, they are the people that always put others first. At sixteen each person is given a mental test to see what faction is right for them and the following day they can choose to stay with their faction or leave their families and move to a different faction.  Tris' test results are inconclusive and she is unofficially labeled as Divergent and told by her instructor to tell no one. She chooses to convert to the Dauntless faction (bravery).

Once in her new faction all pledges, if you will, are required to compete against each other for a spot in the Dauntless community. Needless to say Tris makes the cut but not without threats to her life from the other pledges. During the competition stage Tris and her instructor Four fall in love with each other. After the competition it becomes apparent that the knowledge faction is working in conjunction with the leaders of the Dauntless faction to declare war on the Abnegation faction (they control the government). They are doing this by way of injecting the Dauntless citizens with a serum that allows the person to be mind controlled.  This is where the Divergent come in, something is different in their brains that does not allow the mind control to take place.

I loved this book! I loved that Tris is sensitive, selfless and selfish, brave and scared. I really love Four, he is very smart and brave of course but also mysterious with good reason to be. I thought the story flowed very well and for a YA book the author wasn't afraid to kill off characters and didn't gloss over the violence. It was so sad when Al died and also Tris' parents. Overall I felt this book was about discovering oneself. Who we really are and what we are capable of.  I can't wait to get my hands on book two; Insurgent.

Quote:
“Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that people do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me.

But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her.”

Book #48 week #38, Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

I really didn't read anything this week until Friday night. It is just my luck that my library carries several copies of Club Dead, I even saw two last time I was there, but when I need it they are all checked out! So I had to wait to have a copy transferred. It came in on Friday along with another book I've been dying to read and lets just say I didn't accomplish much other than reading this weekend!

I am trying something different this post. I am getting kind of bored just writing synopsis of books, if you wanted that you could just read the cover of the book! So I am going to talk about how I really feel and that means spoilers. So not only will I recap book #2 Living Dead in Dallas I am going to recap book #3 Club Dead as well. So spoiler alert! : )

In Living Dead in Dallas Lafayette is murdered right off the bat and his body found in detective Andy's car. After some probing around it is reveled that Lafayette has been talking to multiple people about his involvement in a secret sex club. Meanwhile Sookie and Bill are fighting and his car breaks down so Sookie storms off. While walking she encounters a strange naked woman, a maenad, who attacks Sookie and cuts her back with her claws. The maenad tells Sookie this is a message for Eric.

Bill takes Sookie to Eric who explains what the woman is and tells Sookie she has been poisoned. The vampires with the help of a strange doctor set her right again and Eric tells Bill and Sookie he has a job for them to do. The pair head to Dallas to investigate a vampire disappearance. Long story short a new cult called "The Fellowship of the Sun" is behind the kidnapping. They want to eradicate vampires. Sookie gets herself kidnapped and almost raped and killed. The missing vampire is set free and all return to the vampire mansion to celebrate. Eric is there undercover and the group is ambushed by the cult members who fire into the house from outside. Sookie is able to "hear" them and shout a warning over the music only the vampires are able to hear, this means the human companions are the ones mowed down. Eric throws himself on top of Sookie and takes a bullet in the process. Nevertheless he enjoys this situation too much while Bill on the other hand is overcome by his vampire nature and goes after the attackers without so much of a thought of Sookie's well being.

Back at home Sookie and Bill break up for a few weeks. Since Bill is out of town Sookie commissions Eric to accompany her to a sex party. Even though she asks him to pretend to be gay, Eric is all to happy to oblige and takes every liberty he can with Sookie while there. Although she is not happy to be there, Sookie's friend, Tara is at the party with her fiance Eggs. Sookie soon learns that three other members of the party are responsible for the murder of Lafayette. Before anything to graphic happens the party is interuppted. Bill, Andy, Sam in his collie form and the maenad are all outside. The maenad kills all the humans at the party except for Eggs and Tara who Eric glamors to forget the events of the evening.

Club Dead
Bill and Sookie's relationship is strained as Bill is spending all his awake time working on a secret project for the (Vampire) Queen of Louisiana. Bill informs Sookie that he must travel alone to Seattle and he should be back in eight weeks or so. Eight weeks! While he is gone Sookie gets attacked by a biker (werewolf) while at work but she is saved by Bubba who has been sent by Eric to protect her. Eric informs Sookie that Bill has disappeared. He was last known to be in Mississippi not Seattle with the woman who changed him, Lorena. Lorena has summoned Bill and then turned on him. Eric goes on to tell Sookie that Bill was going to break off their relationship after making sure she is taken care of financially. Eric then convinces Sookie to go to Mississippi and try to find Bill using her gift. I am really pissed off at Bill at this point!

Eric sets Sookie up with a werewolf named Alcide to accompany her on her trip under the pretense that they are dating so she can get into an exclusive supes only club. Of course there is physical tension between Alcide and Sookie but she manages to keep it in her pants so to speak. One night at the club they have an altercation with Alcide's ex Debbie who is there celebrating her engagement to another man. The second night Sookie ends up getting staked in the side while intervening in a murder attempt. The (vampire) King of Mississippi takes Sookie back to his mansion so she can be healed. Eric is with her by this time, undercover, and he gives her his blood to heal her. He also starts to show her a good time if you catch my drift but they get interrupted by Bubba who has found Bill being tortured in the pool house. The next morning Sookie frees Bill and kills Lorena in the process. She puts Bill in the trunk of a car and drives back to Alcide's apartment. While checking on Bill, Debbie pushes Sookie into the trunk with him and when Bill wakes up he is in desperate need for blood due to the torture. Bill ends up biting Sookie pretty badly and begins raping her before he wakes fully and realizes what he is doing.

Sookie is naturally pissed at Bill and asks Eric to take her home leaving Bill in Mississippi. Eric is happy to help (isn't he always : ) but they get attacked by bikers on the way home and then ambushed at Sookie's house. Miraculously Bill shows up on time to help Eric, who has been shot several times, kill the 6 or 7 attackers. In the end Sookie breaks things off with Bill and rescinds both Eric and Bill's invitation into her home. In a very sweet move Eric does arrange and pay for Sookie's driveway to be re-graveled.

At this point in time I think I am switching to team Eric or maybe even team Alcide. I like Bill and I know he cannot do anything about his vampire commands but I feel he isn't that into his relationship with Sookie. Even though she is a fictional character I cannot help but be jealous of Sookie! Having all these hot men want you all the time must be really difficult ; )

Quote:
“How grateful are you?" he whispered, his mouth hovering over mine. His eyes were very alert now, and his gaze was boring into mine.

"That kind of ruins it, when you say something like that," I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. "You shouldn't want me to have sex with you just because I owe you."

"I don't really care why you have sex with me, as long as you do it," he said, equally gently.”

True Blood Show vs. The Books

Coming off of a marathon session of the first season of True Blood (thanks library for renting a whole season for only 2 days) I sat down today all excited to write a comparison of True Blood season one versus Dead Until Dark (the first volume in the Sookie Stackhouse series) but alas there is no point. When talking to a friend about the differences between book vs. show I learned that this is the only season that followed the book at all! Boo that sucks.

Well I can't help myself so I will post a little about how I feel about the show. I expected the show to be cheesy and I was not disappointed. I love Anna Paquin but it took sometime to get use to her playing a blond haired, respectful southern belle complete with accent to match. It is just so unlike her.

Don't get me wrong here I know in TV or movie adaptations changes are to be expected. The producers have to keep the material interesting and exciting and sometimes what is in the book doesn't translate well into screen form. Most of the main plot of season one is on par with the book with minor changes here and there. So not a huge deal overall. I did not like the adding of new characters or giving very minor characters, at best, big roles. Mostly however I did not like the character changes.

Aggh so frustrating! A lot of the characters are pretty true to the book; Sookie, Bill, Sam, grandma. But others were not. Take Sookie's brother Jason for instance, in the book he is handsome, slightly dumb and a ladies man. He is all those things in the show as well but also addicted to vampire blood and ends up joining the Fellowship of the Sun, what??? Oh and Lafayette... in the book he is a funny and flamboyant man. In the show? Still flamboyant and a little funny but also a hardass wannabe.

Then there is Eric. Where to start. I normally cut actors some slack because they will never live up to everyone's version of the perfect _______ whatever. But to me Alex Skarsgård looks more like a sad puppy than a burly, mean viking (don't hate me! I just don't like him, maybe he will grow on me). Then there is his personality. In the book Eric is tough and mean but also inappropriately funny. In the show he just comes off as indifferent all the time and so far all the sexual tension between Sookie and Eric is no where to be found. 

I hate feeling so torn. Especially since I can't stop once I started something so I will probably continue the TV series and just cross my fingers that it isn't too bad. Maybe I will post updates on character development because I don't think I will be able to compare books vs. show at this point.

Anyone else feel torn like me? I think if I hadn't started reading the books the show would appeal to me more.

Book #47 week #37, The Leftovers by Tom Perrota

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta has been on my reading list for sometime now and I have finally gotten around to it.

This novel follows the lives of quite a few people living in a smallish town. The planet has experienced a "Sudden Departure" or the Rapture if you will. The event has been named the Sudden Departure due to the fact that the people taken seem to be randomly chosen. Christians, Buddhist, atheist, good, bad, young and old were taken, while some obvious candidates for a rapture were left behind. Now it is three years later and people are finally trying to move on and piece their lives back together. But it is difficult, insanely difficult.

I liked The Leftovers, it is well written, the characters are interesting, some I wanted to shake and say "what the hell are you doing?!!". It flows very nicely and it is easy to jump around from character to character. The book is very thought provoking. It made me think about what I would do in these people shoes or heck what would I do if this really happened. But in the end I literally said "aggghh" out loud. The one question that was always on my mind, that keep me flipping the pages is never answered. Why? Why did this happen? Why were some people taken and not others? Why damn it, why?!

Quote:

“Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer — that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with people you’d left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn’t love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.” 

Book #46 week #36, Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

It didn't take me long to move on to Sookie Stachouse #2 (aka The Southern Vampire Mysteries) Living Dead in Dallas. That is my problem with series.. I need to know and I need to know NOW! I like to start posts about sequels with a recap of the book before the one I am posting about so if you haven't read book #1 you might want to stop reading now.

**Warning Spoilers for book #1**
Dead Until Dark- Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic who lives with her grandmother. Her parents died when she was young in an accident leaving grandma to care for Sookie and her brother Jason. Working at a bar in a small town is pretty boring until Sookie meets the vampire Bill. Vampires are now members of mainstream society. She is relived to find she cannot read vampires minds and it is a welcome break for her. Pretty soon people start turning up murdered by strangulation but with fang marks on their bodies. Sookie asks Bill to help her investigate at a well know vampire club. While there Sookie meets Eric, an older and stronger vampire than Bill. Basically Bill has to answer to Eric. Sookie is able to use her powers to find out who is stealing from Eric, a move that almost costs her her life. Now Eric is very interested in her and has contracted Bill to use Sookie's powers whenever he needs to. Being wary of Eric, Bill decides to become a vampire investigator that way Eric will be his boss and owes Bill his protection, this protection extends to anything belonging to Bill and that means Sookie is protected from any unwanted advances from Eric.

Getting back to the murders it doesn't take long until Jason is considered a suspect and their grandmother is among the victims. It is clear that Sookie was the intended target. In the end it is a friend of Jason's who is killing women who have been known to fraternize with vampires and he almost does kill Sookie as well but she is able to overpower him due to the vampire blood she has been ingesting. And on a side note we discover that Sam (Sookie's boss) not only has a thing for her but he is a shape-shifter as well!

Living Dead in Dallas takes our new twosome to, well you guessed it, Dallas. Eric has contracted Sookie out to the vampires of Dallas in order to help them locate a missing vampire. Naturally she needs an escort and that would be Bill. But first a coworker has been murdered and the body left in a police officer's car outside of the bar and Sookie gets attacked by a crazy woman beast in the forest as a message to Eric. The attack almost kills her yet again.

Now they are in Dallas. While investigating the vampire's disappearance Sookie discovers a new anti-vampire organization called "The Fellowship of the Sun". Seemingly a little nutty but basically harmless at first. Their main mission is to help vampires see the light, quite literally as in "meet the sun", but they should not be underestimated.

Quote:
  
I looked up into Eric's eyes. Incredibly, he was excited. He smiled at me. "I knew I'd get on top of you somehow," he said.
"Are you trying to make me mad so I'll forget how scared I am?"
"No, I'm just opportunistic."
I wiggled, trying to get out from under him, and he said, "Oh, do that again. It felt great.”

Book #45 week #36, Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

This series, the Sookie Stackhouse series, was recommended to me. It is the series the TV show True Blood was based on (which I have yet to watch but will check out from the library, we'll see how the show matches up).  I like vampires so what the heck. "Like" might be an understatement here I've been obsessed with vampires as long as I can remember.

Dead Until Dark is about Sookie Stackhouse, a twenty-five-year -old waitress in a bar in a small town in northern Louisiana. Her life is pretty uneventful and she has been waiting to meet a vampire. Vampires have recently come out in mainstream society and are no longer hiding. Finally one day while at work in walks a vampire.

Sookie is frustrated. Frustrated with her "disability" (she can read minds) and frustrated sexually. She is still a virgin at twenty-five because her mind reading intensifies with physical contact. Turns out she cannot read vampire's minds so there just maybe some hope for her yet! Everything is going well until people start turning up dead and naturally the new vampire in town is under suspicion.

I really liked this book more than I thought I would. The cheesy cover really through me off. Before I saw the cover I was expecting a more serious book. Dead Until Dark has its serious moments (and sexy moments) but it is also fun and funny. Though not as funny as the cover led me to believe, talk about "Don't judge a book by its cover!'. I'm glad I gave it a shot. Really short book though, I tend to like my books a bit longer luckily it is a long series!

Quote:

“Eric appeared to be counting my eyelashes. I tried to keep my gaze on my hands, to indicate modesty. I felt power tweaks kind of flow over me and had an uneasy feeling Eric was trying to influence me. I risked a quick peek, and sure enough he was looking at me expectantly. Was I supposed to pull off my dress? Bark like a dog? Kick Bill in the shins? Shit.”

Book #44 week #35, A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama

After reading The Street of a Thousand Blossoms and The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama I am hooked! So naturally I had to pick up her latest book A Hundred Flowers.

This novel is set in 1957 China under the rule of Chairman Mao. Tensions are rising as the people are not happy with their new life under the rule of a communist party. Chairman Mao has decided to open the government up to criticism and suggestions from the people, many intellectuals fear this is a trick aimed at locating any resistors to the new government power. 

In walk our new characters. There is Kai Ying (a herbalist), her husband Sheng (a teacher) and their six-year-old son, Tao. The family lives with Sheng's father, Wei, a retired college professor. Although Sheng has promised Kai Ying he will not do anything to harm his family a letter is written to Chairman Mao criticizing the communist party. Sheng is then arrested and sent to be "reeducated" for an indefinite period of time. 

A Hundred Flowers follows the journey of this torn family trying to survive after the head male of the household is suddenly ripped away from them. Kai Ying must focus on her work and patients in order to keep money flowing in. Wei is struggling with a heavy secret that is tearing him apart. Tao is trying to find a way to connect with his absent father. Once again Gail Tsukiyama has shown her knack for making a scene come alive. She has such a great way with words. Although I did enjoy this novel it is my least favorite of the three books I have read by Tsukiyama. Good story but easy to put down and pick up again at a later time.

Quote:

“Wei cleared his throat and said, “Have you heard the saying `The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher’? It seems I’ve been the pitcher most of my life. I’ve forgotten how to be fluid. It feels as if I’m finally learning now,” he said.”