My Thoughts: The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

I go to the bookstore often. Sometimes with a mind to buy something and sometimes just to browse around hoping to be inspired. And this is what happened one day almost a year ago. I went to Chapters and walked around for hours, looking for something to call my name. I was about to head downstairs and leave when The Gargoyle By Andrew Davidson called my name. Normally I would have totally ignored such a calling but for some reason I decided to pick up the book and this is what I read:

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.

On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him - that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him.

And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he''d never uttered: love.

I was totally intrigued when I saw this and decided that this book was coming home with me, and boy am I totally glad that I did. This is one of the most beautiful books that I have ever read.

Where to start, it's not your most conventional novel. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's dark and it's harsh, but it's also hopeful and romantic. It's beautifully written. This book broke my heart, not because it was sad, but because Marianne Engel was an amazing character who loved, and was loved in turn.

Another great thing about the author is that he's Canadian, which is totally awesome in itself but he's also from a small town not far from where I live! Yes! I sometimes take Canadian authors for granted and don't really appreciate their work as much as I should, so I was glad to have loved this one so much.

It's a must read. A must must must read. I loved it, and I am so glad that picked it up when it called my name.

Happy Reading

Shout It!!!

I've recently discovered many a different book blogs this past week and have become fully addicted to finding out what they're reading and what they've thought. There are three that I've been following and I want to mention them...now:

-Ames who is Thrifty Reader and you can find her here: http://thriftyreader.blogspot.com/ who was the first blog I found, totally by accident while looking for a Megan Hart review (just because). In browsing her blog I discovered we have similar taste in novels and live in the same city. She's hosted on a lot of other blogs, which I think is totally cool, and seems to be pretty active in the blogging community.

-Kristi who is The Story Siren and can be found here: http://www.thestorysiren.com/. It's a wonderful blog and really fun to browse through. She does this thing called in my mail box where she talks about the books she's received either in the mail, or books she bought or got from the library and she does youtube videos for them and the link to her channel is: www.youtube.com/user/thestorysiren which are a lot of fun to watch. She mostly talks about Young Adult novels which is what I've been into a lot recently. So you should go check her out.

-Rowena from The Book Scoop and she is: http://www.thebookscoop.com/. This blog is also predominantly Young Adult fiction and it's great. Honest reviews with a kick. I really enjoy her. She also has an adult reading blog, The Book Binge: http://thebookbinge.com/ that's pretty cool to.

So there you have it, this is where I have spending a lot of my time, and where I will continue to spend a lot of my time. Happy Reading!

Out Tomorrow

Yippee the last installment of the Bride Quartet comes out tomorrow and I am pretty stoked about it! I loved this whole series, it was easy to read and made me feel all nice and gooey. So I can't wait!

My Thoughts: Crave by JR Ward

I love to read. We all know that. For me it's a little bit of an addiction, and sometimes not in a good way. I sometimes need to physically pull myself away from a book, tell myself OK Girlie, no more. So when I read a book and find that it's not all that hard for me not to read it I know something is wrong.

When reading JR Ward's new one in her Fallen Angel series: Crave, I found that it was pretty easy to put down and do other things. Not because I didn't like it (I did to an extent) but simply because it was too long.

I have posted about this woman and her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and how much I looooooove it. Any book in this series could be 1000 pages and it still wouldn't be long enough. However with the Fallen Angel series both books have topped off at over 450 pages, and for a new series, new characters, new everything, it got a little boring at around page 250, especially knowing that there was still 200+ pages to read.

But... Crave was a lot better, story wise, then Covet (book one) was. Maybe it was the second book and I knew what to expect. When I first read Covet I was a little disappointed because the Black Dagger Brotherhood series is soooooo good, and I had high high expectations for this new series. Like really high, and it was meh, a little busy and convoluted. So much in one book, so long. The second was less busy (still pretty convoluted) there was a little less to follow, and I liked the characters more. They were a little more believable, a little less pathetic.

Overall this isn't the greatest series, although it really isn't all that bad either, I'll probably keep reading it. I really love her other series and would rather read more of that then this new one.

My Thoughts: Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

I am currently working my way through my undergraduate degree in Conflict Resolution and Psychology, with the intention of doing some crisis counselling. Helping people is what I am passionate about, and helping someone who really doesn't have any where else to go, or anyone else to turn to is something that has pulled at my heart for a long time now. Victims of abuse, sexual assault, addiction, people who need marriage or grief counselling, doesn't matter their age, those are the kinds of people I want to be there for.

I recently read Sarah Dessen's novel Dreamland, and it really pulled at my desire to reach out to people, to listen and to hear.

This was not like a lot of her other novels (well the one other that I have read).

Dreamland was about a 16 year old girl who tries to find herself after her 18 year old sister runs away. She does find herself, but not in a good way. Caitlin thinks she's found everything she's ever wanted when she first meets Rogerson. He's older and more mature and slightly edgy. Which is exactly what newly independent Caitlin wants. But things go terribly wrong the first time Rogerson hits her.

The first time Rogerson hit Caitlin I knew that is was going to happen, but it still had me bawling my eyes out. My heart was broken, I felt like I could feel everything that this 16 year old was going through, and I wanted to scream at everything that she was losing. This poor girl. Her parents were caught up in the uncharacteristic behaviour or her older sister and and didn't notice Caitlin's free fall into a pretty messed up situation. The girl makes some pretty lousy choices throughout the book.

This story was amazing, truly. It dealt with some pretty heavy material but it had some humour to lighten things up without taking away from the severity of the situation.

The one thing that I wish it had however was some kind of disclaimer, or an announcement about what teens could do when faced with similar circumstances.

My Thoughts: Secrets by Freya North

It would seem that my last post was on Aug 10th, which was a good long time ago. And to be truthful I haven't really been reading anything that's worth talking about. Mostly just rereading books that I have read before. I do however have a book I finished a couple weeks ago (more like a couple months ago) that was pretty good. I actually enjoyed reading it. Secrets by Freya North.

The story starts out with Tess needing to get away from life in London and start new. So she takes her daughter Em, heads north to take a job as a house sitter for Joe. Joe is always away building bridges and needs someone around to take care of his beast of a dog and his monster of a house. So the woman moves into the man's house, and well what do you think happens?

It's a monster of a book at 466 pages, but every page is worth it. It's funny and awkward and completely heartwarming. The characters and the way their relationship matures is believable, which is refreshing because it's not often that you get that.

I would reread this book, and I am looking forward to reading more from Ms. Freya North. This story was one that made you smile when you were done, and that's a good feeling.

My Thoughts: Naked by Megan Hart

Usually I try to think of something witty to name my posts but this time at 1:15 in the morning I have nothing. Maybe because it's so late, or maybe it's because of what I just read and how truly beautiful it was.

I was in Montreal when Naked by Megan Hart came out and I knew I wanted to get it, like right away. But being on vacation in a city where I knew not where the closest bookstore was I was in a bit of a panic. I finally found one and thought that maybe my panic was over; yeah right. Montreal, Quebec a predominantly French speaking city, therefore a predominantly French reading city... Yeah. I was defeated and ready to head back to the hostel. When Voila, an Indigo Books (Which I was sure was going to be an English book store) I was right and promptly went inside to see if they had what I was looking for. I walked out of that store empty handed. Sold out is what I was told. I bawled like a baby on rue Sainte Catherine. So there was no Naked on my vacation.

I got home Sunday and Monday morning I was out the door really fast. I left my local bookstore with Naked and two others. I was a happy girl.

It took me about 30 hours to finish this book, 10 were spent sleeping, and another 4 in a meeting. so really maybe 16. I had a wonderful time reading this book even though sometimes it made me panic.

I have read every book by Hart since Dirty and some I have liked more then others. What I love about her writing is that none of her characters are perfect, nor do they have perfect lives. They have issues, real issues. And through out most of her stories readers get to see how their issues shape the characters and how those personalties make the story what it is. What I also love about her stories are nothing is ever "perfect" in the end. You may get a HEA but it's a real life HEA, with broken people an all.

Take Olivia for instance, the Heroine in Naked. A black woman in her late twenties who comes from a broken home, her mother an Observant Jew and her father a devout Catholic. Crazy eh? On top of that she's also adopted, has been in a relationship with a man who was Gay, and is now inlove with another man who likes both men and women. But don't feel sorry for her, because that's not what this is about, it's about relating to her. Maybe not to her situation, but most definetly to her feelings.

That's what I get from reading Hart's books. Real people, real emotions, and wonderfully beautiful stories. There is such beauty in this woman's writing. It's breath taking. I kid you not, if you are 18 or over (this is a must for this genre) pick up one of her books, you will fall in love.