Book #64 week #46, Origin by Jessica Khoury

Origin by Jessica Khoury is another book that was given to me and has just been sitting on the shelf so I decided to give it a go. This book reminded me a lot of State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Both are set in the amazon with scientist researching anti-aging anti-death drugs.

Pia is seventeen. Born in the scientist camp and has never stepped foot outside the electric fence surrounding it. Oh and she is immortal. The goal of the camp is to make more immortal humans. Pia was made that way through five generations of experimentation. She is content with her life. Pia is being set up through a series of mental tests to take over for the head researcher when the time comes. She is brilliant in science and math but knows nothing of the outside world.

Everything is going smoothly until the night of Pia's birthday. While sitting in her glass room she notices an upturned tree has cause a hole in the electric fence. Suddenly Pia finds herself going through the hole and running through the jungle. While on her escaped she runs into a boy quite literally! I should say man he is eighteen after all.  Eio is a member of the nearby indigenous tribe but he does not look like the typical tribe member. He confesses to Pia that his father is one of the scientist from the camp. It doesn't take much to make the sheltered Pia highly intrigued by this new world.

Soon Pia finds herself drawn to Eio and questioning the only life shes ever known and the very people she trusts so dearly. Just days after her first venture outside the gate two representatives of the company funding the immortal project show up to see how things are coming along. The representatives are not pleased with the slow pace of the project and force the head researcher to give Pia her last test forcing her to take over as head of the compound. Finally Pia will know what the catalyst to immortal life is and it is a shocker....

Being the debut novel from Jessica Khoury I was really surprised how much I liked Origin. The writing is good and the story really flows nicely. The character were very interesting with surprising ghosts in their closets and interesting back stories. I found the pace of this book worked really well, there are enough little shockers sprinkled throughout the book that I did not find myself waiting impatiently for the big bombshell to be reveled. If you liked Ann Patchett's State of Wonder you might enjoy Origin as well.

Quote:
“Now, when he touches me, I feel nothing but Eio, pure and whole and constant. Now, when I look into his eyes, I don't see death- but eternity. For the first time in my life, I am looking into someone's gaze and realizing that not only do I understand what's in his eyes... he understands whats in mine.”

Book #63 week #45, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The other day I was at the book store when I saw this one on the shelf. I remembered I had a copy at home that was given to me and I needed a new book to read so in typical me fashion I jumped right in without reading the cover.

The Fault in Our Stars takes place in Indiana and is the story of sixteen-year-old cancer patient Hazel. She is terminal but doesn't have a timeline set in place for her. Due to a new experiment drug (completely fictional just FYI) her tumors are shrinking but her lungs are compromised. She needs to be on oxygen 24/7 just to live.

Hazel graduated high school early and is taking some college courses but her mom worries about her not being social enough. It is because of this Hazel reluctantly agrees to start going to her cancer kid support group again. It is there, through a friend named Issac (who is losing his last good eye in his fight with cancer), she meets seventeen-year-old Augustus. After losing a leg several years earlier Augustus is now in remission.

Hazel and Augustus are both sarcastic, knowledgeable and wise beyond their years. It is not surprising that they soon fall in love however Hazel is cautious. She doesn't want to get close to Augustus because she knows she will leave him someday and she doesn't want him to deal with that kind of pain. During their first meeting Hazel shares with Augustus her favorite book. It is about a girl with cancer but the book ends abruptly in mid sentence and Hazel is frustrated not knowing what happened to the rest of the characters after the apparent death of the narrator. Since it had been ten years since the book was published and no sequel written, Hazel has tried numerous times to contact the author with no luck.  Somehow Augustus finds a way though and soon he is planning on using his Wish (think Make a Wish Foundation type of wish) to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author in person.

Soon they are off, with Hazel's mother of course, but the meeting does not go as planned. The author is a rude drunk who refuses to answer their questions. Hazel is irritated, the author is mean and his assistant is so appalled by his behavior that she quits! After the meeting she takes Hazel and Gus out to the Anne Frank museum. Hazel finally decides to open up to Gus and kisses him at the museum, soon they find themselves back in his hotel room. Before leaving Amsterdam Augustus confesses to Hazel that he has recently learned his cancer is back and it is everywhere. There is no hope.

Gus is deteriorating fast and holds a mock funeral with Hazel and Issac so he can hear their eulogies for him. Eight days later he is gone. Issac tells Hazel that Gus was working on the ending of the book for her but in her search of his house she cannot find it. Gus' mom tells Hazel some pages are missing from a notebook and Hazel contacts the author's assistant hoping Gus sent the pages to him. The assistant finds the envelope and scans the pages to email them to Hazel. Apparently Gus was hoping the author had something to add to this writing because of his way with words, he adds nothing though. Surprisingly enough what Augustus has written is not the end of the story but his beautiful and touching eulogy for Hazel.


Even though I cried horribly and am crying again now just thinking about it I absolutely loved this book. I can't even begin to explain all the emotions I felt reading this. First you have the doomed star crossed lovers, the doting parents that just want a bit more time, the distant friends who try to relate but can't and add in a quirky, mean author who as it turns out knows a little more about this situation than he originally let on. My review does not do this book justice it is just simply wonderful and a must read in my opinion.



Quote:
“Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.”

Apologies

My many apologies.... I have many reviews to write and have been slacking off quite awesomely. I am working on them and I might write and post them in random order but I will make sure they appear in the correct order when all is said and done.

Needless to say a few of these reviews are for Sookie Stackhouse books (True Blood series) and although I love reading them, can't put them down really, I am having a hard time keeping up with writing about them. But they will be done! Eventually : )

Book #57 week #41, The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

After reading The Lovely Bones I was looking forward to reading something else by Alice Sebold. I had no clue what The Almost Moon was about (seems to be a running theme with me) when I dove into it. I should really stop doing that! At first I thought the book would be painful, forty-nine year old Helen kills her eighty-eight year old dementia stricken mother right off the bat. My own mother passed away this May at fifty-nine and she had slight dementia. But over all this book was just blah.

Helen kills her mother without an explanation as to why. Then in the period of 24 hours she; sleeps with her best friend's adult son, calls her ex-husband to confess about the killing, goes to work (as a live nude model), is questioned by the police, picks up her youngest daughter at the airport, leaves her at a bar when she finds out the police are searching her house,  calls the friend's son to pick her up, sleeps with him again, convinces him to loan her a car, steals his gun and ends up at the recently empty house near her mother's house and plans to kill herself. However she decides she cannot go through with it because her own father committed suicide and she didn't want to put her daughters through that on top of everything that has happened. That is pretty much the main plot in a nutshell. The in between moments are where we learn of Helen's past. Both of her parents had some sort of mental illness that screwed her up pretty well. In the end I feel Helen killed her mother to save her from having to live in a convalescent home because she was extremely agoraphobic and leaving her home would have been very difficult for her.

Honestly though I just didn't care. I looked up the reviews of The Almost Moon on goodreads.com after the fact and they were not good! I didn't feel disturbed like a lot of the commentators did but even though the writing was good, some of the characters were amusing and the history was interesting something was seriously lacking for me. I couldn't feel for Helen or her mother. I was hoping their history lesson would change that but it didn't.

I can't say I loved or even liked this book but I can't say I hated it either. It had a lot of potential however when I finished the book I really felt nothing at all. It did not stay with me in either a positive or negative way.

Quote:
“To take the tops off all the houses and mingle our miseries was too simple a solution, I knew. Houses had windows with shades. Yards had gates and fences. There were carefully planned out sidewalks and roads, and these were the paths that, if you chose to go into someone else's reality, you had to be willing to walk. There were no shortcuts.”

Book #56 week #41, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child is another book that has been on my "to-read" list that I forgot what it was about by the time I got around to it. In the beginning I wasn't sure if I would like this book but I was pleasantly surprised! 

It is the 1920's. Jack and Mable, a married couple in their forties, move to untamed, wild Alaska. Their first year is rough. Not only are they adjusting to a new way of life they are also adjusting to each other. For years the couple struggled to have a child but it was not to be.

Mabel is feeling pretty good on the night of the first snow fall and she convinces Jack to make a snowman with her. They turn their snowman into a snowgirl complete with hat, scarf and mittens. The next morning Jack sees a little girl in the forest. The snowgirl is no more. Her accessories are gone and all that is left in her place is a small pile of snow and small footprints leading away into the forest. Mable sees the girl too and eventually the girl warms up to them and starts visiting the couple.

Mabel is convinced the girl is magic and has her sister send her a book their father use to read to her as a little girl. The book is in Russian but it has illustrations and her sister's letter explains the snowgirl's folklore. There are many versions but in all an old childless couple create a snowgirl who comes to life and as winter ends somehow or another so does the snowgirl. However Jack is not convinced. After all in secret he helped the little girl bury the frozen body of her father and he has seen her man made home built in the mountainside. 

For years the girl arrives with the first snow fall and leaves for higher mountains by winter's end. She grows and Jack and Mabel consider her as their own child. But no one else has seen the girl until she is sixteen or so and is at the homestead when Jack and Mabel's close friends come by for a surprise visit with their nineteen year old son Garrett. The boy finds a reason to stay in the barn for the winter and soon he starts spending all his time with the girl, Faina. They fall in love and Faina gets pregnant. The new couple gets married and Faina stays for the summer for the first time. She grows lean and tan.

Right before winter the baby, a little boy, is born. Faina is very happy but two weeks later it is snowing and she falls ill. Mabel takes her out into the snow to cool her fever. Sitting on a chair wrapped in blankets, Mabel falls asleep. When she is awoken Faina is gone and all that is left of her is the pile of her clothes. It was all so heartbreaking! For Jack and Mabel, Garrett and the baby too. I really don't understand why she fell ill in the winter and not in the summer. Even though the end is sad there is a little epilogue that takes place a few years later and gives a glimpse into their lives without Faina.

I loved this book. It is so beautifully written and gives a real idea about what it would have been like to live in rural Alaska. I loved how whenever Faina spoke there were no quotation marks giving her an air of mystery. I always read her parts in my mind as a whisper. I loved how Jack accepted Faina for who she was and didn't try to change her. Which in turn droves me nuts about Mabel. For someone who believed Faina was magical and could melt at any moment she sure did try hard to push her into a conventional life. Mabel seemed to worry so much about Faina melting that I was surprised she had no issues with her staying through the summer. Well maybe she did have issues with that but I just interpreted it as issues with losing Faina to Garrett.

Quote:
“We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?”

Book #55 week #40, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Now here is a book I felt compelled to read because EVERYONE has read it. A Thousand Splendid Suns follows the intertwining lives of two women in Afghanistan over 30 years or so. Ugh it was so depressing at times but I still liked it a lot.

I honestly don't know if I can write a review for this book just yet. It was too sad and I am not ready to feel that sad again. Plus I have more posts written and waiting on this to go up first so this is it for now. I hope to come back to this soon though. 

Quotes:
“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.” 

“Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”

Book #54 week #40, All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

So what happens in All Together Dead you say? Well I'll tell ya! There is a meeting at Fangtasia. Mr. Andre is there asking for financial help to fix the Queen's home which suffered serious damage in hurricane Katrina. It is reveled that only Sookie witnessed the death of the King and this could be a problem. Later Sookie attends Haleigh's (Andy's fiance) bridal shower and then she goes home. Quinn shows up and the two FINALLY have sex. Soon after Jason calls with news about his girlfriend Crystal's new pregnancy and they have decided to get married right away.

Seriously right away. Sookie gets ready and takes Quinn and Amelia with her to the unusual wedding where she promises to be held responsible if Jason messes up in his marriage. Quinn and Sookie head home while Amelia stays behind at the party. In fact Amelia does not return home that night which makes Bob the cat very unhappy. The next night at work Selah (Bill's new girlfriend) comes in alone and accuses Sookie of attending the vampire summit with hopes of stealing back Bill for herself. Claudine, Tara and Sam all express to Sookie at different times that they do not want her to go to the summit.

The next night Pam drops by the bar to talk to Sookie and her and Eric's relationship and about Sookie and Quinn. Pam is concerned and wants her old boss back since Eric has developed feelings for Sookie and is not acting like himself. Sookie is confused by this conversation because Eric has been avoiding her and not acting like he cares for her at all. If it were me I would have ran all the way over there and threw myself at him! Amelia comes into the bar and hits it off with Pam.

Pam and Sookie go outside and talk about Bill and Eric. Pam and Eric did not know Bill was assigned to Sookie. Pam tells her the story about how Eric made her into a vampire. Eric shows up, kisses Sookie and asks her about her relationship with Quinn. He leaves soon after wondering aloud why he was headed to her house after he'd been cursed with amnesia. The next day Amelia drops Sookie off at the airport for the vampire summit. She rides on a private jet with Mr. Cataliades, his niece Diantha and a human vampire lawyer named Johan Glassport and the coffins of their vampire party. Johan questions Sookie about the King's death.

At the hotel Barry the bellboy from book two is there. Sookie and Barry wander off together to test their telepathic gifts when Sookie is confronted by Jennifer Carter (of the dead King of Arkansas group). We learn Quinn is hiding something. Back in the Queen's room, the Queen arranges by phone a meeting with Jennifer but when they arrive at her room a short time later, Jennifer and two other vampires in it are dead. An investigation is under way and Sookie suggest to the Queen that she marry Andre and make him the King of Arkansas. Turns out Eric is a priest! (shocking I know!) and offers his services if need be. The King of Mississippi marries the King of Indiana. And finally the newly made vampire/were Jake tells Sookie Quinn's secret. He has a younger sister, Frannie, he is extremely protective of. Frannie is the result of an awful rape of his mother that Quinn witnessed and sequentially killed all of the men involved.

Andre corners Sookie with the brilliant idea to exchange blood with her so she will be tied to him and therefore the Queen as well. Sookie freaks out and Eric comes to the rescue. He offers to take Andre's place as that is the only feasible option and luckily Andre excepts. Sookie sucks the blood from a cut Eric makes in his chest. He gets very turned on in this moment right in time for them to be interrupted by Quinn. Needless to say Quinn isn't sure what is going on and he is not happy. Later there is a call to the Queen's room about an unclaimed suitcase. Sookie retrieves the bag and brings it to the room. On her way back to the room she notices a weird soda can. Turns out it is a bomb and hotel security come to help. The situation is taken care of and Sookie is interviews. She had sensed Eric coming to help her and he tells her Bill would have come too but he forbade him from coming. Eric is shocked that he even offered to take the bomb from her since he is known for looking out for himself first. Turns out the Queen did not know of Andre's blood exchange plan.

Quinn sleeps in Sookie's bed that night be he is very jealous because of Eric. The next night Sookie gets all dressed up for the ball but gets called to the Queen's trail instead as a witness in the killing of the King. The Queen is found innocent and a witness set to speak out against her is killed by an arrow. Quinn gets hit by a second arrow trying to protect Sookie. The assassin is killed while the arrow is pulled from Quinn's shoulder. In a new turn of events Eric's mere presence seems to comfort Sookie. Eric asks Sookie is she loves Quinn and if she loves him. Besides being affected by Eric's presence, drinking his blood for the third time seems to have opened her up to being able to read vampire's minds as well as human's. Sookie gets word that the Fellowship of the Sun is planning some sort of attack.

Barry and Sookie investigate local archery places to find out more about the assassin at the trail. They find the right one and are asked to return later. Sookie leaves the Queen a message stating this and when they return later the employees are dead. Barry gets upset with Sookie for tripping the silent alarm instead of sticking around to help the police. Jake shows an unusual interest in making sure Sookie gets out of the hotel the next day, he suggest she goes shopping or sightseeing. Sookie speaks to Bill and even he starts asking her if she is in love with Eric or Quinn or even JB!

The next morning at 10am, Sookie is awaken by Barry "calling" to her telepathically. She finds Jake knocked out from the sun by her door and she kicks him when she realizes what he has done. The unclaimed suitcases and coffins are bombs planted by the Fellowship and Jake. Sookie manages to wake up Eric enough to get him and Pam out of the hotel. Barry and Sookie uses their gifts to help find survivors and then leave to a motel together when they are too tired to help anymore. At the motel Mr. Cataliades stops by to update them. Queen Sophie-Anne lost both her legs. The hotel owner Christian Baruch planted the soda can bomb. He wanted to impress the Queen with hopes of marrying her and opening a vampire hotel in New Orleans. The Queen is behind the deaths of the accuser at the trail, the assassin (which lead to the deaths of the archery range employee's which Sookie feels guilty for) and the Arkansas vampires. Barry goes to the airport to return home while Sookie visits Quinn in the hospital. Frannie is there and lets Sookie use her car to get home since she needed to drive Quinn's car.

Once home Amelia starts to spill the beans that Sookie's friends got married. She thinks she missed Andy's and Portia's double wedding when a car pulls up. It is Tara, she has come to tell Sookie that her and JB got married! At the end Sookie remembers seeing Quinn crawl over to Andre and stake him in the commotion of the bombing at the hotel.