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Author Topic: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014  (Read 26459 times)

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zena

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Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« on: January 02, 2014, 12:30:27 AM »
My ratings: 5 = Amazing, 4 = Really liked it, 3 = Liked it, 2 = It was ok, 1 = Did not like it

Children's Books:
The Adventures of Caterwaul The Cat 3
Plumides, Damon , Boerke, Arthur Mark

Sam the Sneaky 3
Y. Yang

The Stinky Giant 4
Ellen Weiss

Are You My Mother? 3
P.D. Eastman

A Poor Excuse for a Dragon 4
Geoffrey Hayes

My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell 4
G.M. Berrow

My Little Pony: Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare 4
G.M. Berrow

The Wide Awake Princess 4
E.D. Baker

A Little Princess 5
Francis Hodgson Burnett

Fantasy/Sci-fi/Dystopia:

MaddAddam 4
by Margaret Atwood

The Firebird 4
Susanna Kearsley

Mystic City 2
Theo Lawrence

The Rose Garden 5
Susanna Kearsley

The Handmade's Tale 4
Margaret Atwood

The Shadowy Horses 2
Susanna Kearsley

The Winter Sea 3
Susanna Kearsley

The Ghost Bride 5
Yangsze Choo

Mila 2.0 2
Debra Driza

The Ocean at the End of the Lane 2
Neil Gaiman

The Girl of Fire and Thorns 3
Rae Carson

The Crown of Embers 4
Rae Carson

The Bitter Kingdom 4
Rae Carson

The Third Gate 3
Lincoln Child

Legacy 1
Cayla Kluver

Poison Study 3
Maria V. Snyder

Magic Study 1
Maria V. Snyder

The Bone Season 5
Samantha Shannon

Furies of Calderon 4
Jim Butcher

Academ's Fury 4
Jim Butcher

Anathem 2
Neal Stephenson

Neuromancer 4
William Gibson

The Blinding Knife(book 2 of the Lightbringer series) 5
Brent Weeks

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1) 3
Scott Lynch

Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gentleman Bastard #2) 3
Scott Lynch

The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3) 3
Scott Lynch

Lexicon 3
Max Barry

Magic Bites (#1) 2
Kate Daniels

Edge of Apocalypse 2
Tim LeHaye

1984 4
George Orwell

Graceling 3
Kristin Cashore

The Red Knight (The Traitor Son Cycle #1) 4
Miles Cameron

Fahrenheit 451 4
Ray Bradbury

Ender's Game 5
Orson Scott Card

Enchantment 4
Orson Scott Card

Brave New World 5
Aldous Huxley

Speaker for the Dead 4
Orson Scott Card

The Giver 4
Lois Lowry

The Broken Eye 4
Brent Weeks

Arena One 2
Morgan Rice

Romance:
Sacred Sins 3
Nora Roberts

Steamed 2
Katie MacAlister


Young Adult:

The Fault in our Stars 4
John Green

Inspiration/Motivation/Self-help:

Thrillers/Mystery

Daemon 2
Daniel Saurez

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 4
Steig Larsson

Historical Fiction

The Valley of Amazement 3
Amy Tan


You can follow my reviews at goodreads, here.


« Last Edit: September 26, 2014, 05:28:39 PM by moonangel »

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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2014, 12:33:47 AM »
MaddAddam
by Margaret Atwood

I liked this last book of the MaddAddam Trilogy but it was kind of too sad for me.  I guess I wanted more hope and more action.  I got my answer about how and who really started the pandemic though.  :)



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couchpotato

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2014, 11:05:46 AM »
Do you read any of the free books from amazon? I'm looking for a good fantasy book to read. :)



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2014, 02:55:45 PM »
anchor, I do sometimes.  Most of them are not that good, especially the romance novels.  But, I did find an okay fantasy one called, The Soulkeepers (I reviewed it in the 2013 book review thread).  It's the first book in the Soulkeepers series.  I rated it a B- because it was kind of slow at first.  It's a young adult fantasy.  I wanted to read the series but they cost so I'm going to wait and hope they show up at my library (e-library).

Do you read from a Kindle, an e-reader, or another device?



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Offline thePoster

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2014, 09:08:22 PM »
It's only been 6 days and you read this many books already?



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I went through all 15k posts and those 2 quotes I found were the only ones so I guess that would make it "everytime".  Feel free to go through all 15k posts and verify by quoting them all.  You need to quote them all to verifying prove "everytime".   Please verify that Im wrong.

zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2014, 08:58:26 AM »
It's only been 6 days and you read this many books already?

I actually read just the last book of the MaddAddam Trilogy, which was titled, MaddAddam, but I started it on New Year's Eve and finished on New Year's Day.

I've got a couple of books waitlisted that I want to read.  Sometimes, I'll slip another book in but I like the feeling the MaddAddam trilogy gave me (plus, I'm debating questions in my head from the storyline) and want that feeling to last so I'm taking a short break before getting back into reading.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2014, 10:35:41 AM »
Hmm I've been reading your book reviews on and off.. and I really appreciate your reviews and feedback. Also, it makes me want to start my own review thread too.  :)

Thanks.  Yes, do star a review.  It's always nice to know what others are reading and sometimes I do read books from other's reviews too.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2014, 10:45:46 AM »
Sacred Sins B-
Nora Roberts

This was a romance thriller that wasn't so bad.  There was actually a good storyline to it and it wasn't too cheesy.  Although, of course, because it's romance, it has that romance vibe to it and I wasn't really digging that but otherwise, it was good enough for me to finish.

This story wraps around a detective and a psychologist.  The detective, Ben, just detests psychologists in general but when he meets Dr. Tess Court there's something there.  They were put on a murder case together and in the end fall in love.




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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2014, 11:07:13 AM »
The Firebird A-
Susanna Kearsley

This novel is not only a fantasy (because of the psychic abilities which can't ever be real in real life) but it is also historical, with true life historical documentations, and romance...the good kind that you want to hold on to and really feel it because it's written so well.

This was really a great book.  The problem for me was it took until about 70% until it got really interesting.  It dragged on for most of the book.  I also felt that a lot of the situations that occurred in the modern day life wasn't enough for me to really enjoy it.  But, the historical part was very good.  Not the best, just very good. I think I've read better historicals before but I can't remember.  I just know that there were lots of questions I had about some of the military leaders and the impress and the Tsar. It was vague somehow but it could just be me but that's just a small matter.  Overall, I enjoyed it.

Anyway, in general, the story is about two psychics.  Nicola has psychometry abilities, which means that if she touches something, she can see its history, and Rob, who also has the same abilities as Nicola but he can go further and just close his eyes and see the visions.  A women comes into Nicola's workplace to see if she could sell a wooden bird that belonged in their family's history for enough money so that she could go on a cruise.  Nicola's boss says it's worthless but Nicola held it for a few seconds and saw a rich history behind it.  It scared her but at the same time, she wanted to know where it came from and if it was worth enough money for the women's cruise.  So she and Rob go on this journey to Russia following the story of the bird to where it was given to the women's family.

I was most in love with the relationship, in the historical parts, between Anna and Edmund.  I wanted more...LOL.  I really enjoyed learning the history of the Jacobites.  The author did well in her research.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2014, 04:06:43 PM »
Mystic City C-
Theo Lawrence

A young adult fantasy novel.  I think it's a trilogy.  The second book is out and the third is either in the works or hasn't been released, but I'm not planning to read anymore from this storyline.

My opinion: predictable.  Every scene was predictable. 

****BTW, I started a review on Goodreads.  I'm also tracking my books for this year on there.  I wasn't planning on having a goal because as I mentioned it stresses me out so I end up not enjoying the books but I decided to have a goal anyway but just have to remember that I'm doing this to enjoy it, not to hit a number.  I don't know if I will be putting my reviews here anymore.  You may have to just read them on my Goodreads page. You can see my page here.  I'll continue to add the books here and will probably change my rating system to match the one on goodreads.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2014, 03:52:51 PM »
The Rose Garden
Susanna Kearsley

This was an amazing story.  A historical fantasy with some romance.  I've always loved a good book that contained some truth to the history.  The romance is...so very sweet. Very well written.

I'm not sure if it's because of the sadness that I'm going through in life right now, or if it was really just the book, but there was so much in the story that touched me.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2014, 09:25:32 PM »
The Handmade's Tale
Margaret Atwood

Sharing a piece of the book that I found interesting.  It's in the yellow parenthesis.  The yellow circled word, that's just a misspelled word.  It's been awhile since I've come across any but they annoy me.  :P




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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2014, 12:52:51 PM »
The Adventures of Caterwaul The Cat
Plumides, Damon, Boerke, Arthur Mark

I wanted to add another book to January by reading this fun kids book.  There's about 200 pages.  I wasn't able to make this into the January reads but it was a really cute fantasy book about cats.  Thought about reading it to my kids but there's a part where the cats fight and I don't know if D2 can handle it.

I'm now reading The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley.  I really like her writing style and storyline so I'm going to try to read as many of her books as possible.  :)



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #13 on: February 12, 2014, 05:58:43 PM »
The Shadowy Horses
Susanna Kearsley

I was disappointed with this book and it took me forever to finish it too.  Here's my review on Goodreads:

It was too slow moving and the conversations kept getting interrupted every time two people were talking. The storyline really lead nowhere. It was almost like a romance novel with very little romance and a historical with very little history. Fabia, the antagonist didn't seem very sinister until the very end but even her part in the story was small and difficult to really understand because not much substance was given to create her character. There were too many storylines with none getting anywhere. Also, the protagonist, Verity, wasn't thoroughly described. I couldn't really put a face to her or a real strong personality even though the author stated (through the other characters) that she had a strong personality like David's mom. I felt neither with either of them. I found this book to be poorly written.

Although there was romance and history to this book, I think it falls under fantasy because of the non-realistic-ness of Robbie's ability to see things that most humans can't see, as well as Verity's ability (I wouldn't call it an ability though) to hear things, and feel things, and eventually see a bit of what Robbie sees.  I believe this story of young Robbie continues in The Firebird, where he's a grown man and is able to control his ability and utilizes it to his advantage.  In this book, he doesn't have a very big part, but in The Firebird, he's one of the main characters.



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zena

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Re: Moonangel's Book Reviews 2014
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2014, 12:14:09 PM »
The Winter Sea
Susanna Kearsley

Started out slow.  I wasn't big into Carrie's story but enjoyed the historical story.  I do like how the author creates a story within a story though.  It's neat but I wish her modern story was better.

I love the way the author writes.  I read that she was inspired by Mary Stewart.  I'm inspired by Mary Stewart too.  She was my first fantasy author, with the book, The Crystal Cave, about King Arthur through a young Merlin's eyes.  I'm going to reread the saga again. I don't think I ever finished the saga but I'm going to.


« Last Edit: October 10, 2014, 03:44:49 PM by moonangel »

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