KindleObsessedJust another random rambling!!

The paranormal world is one of ups and downs…For example, you can read 6 or 7 fantastic books in a row and then BLAH you run into a swamp. You would think that over the years my love of reading and my somewhat educated mind would learn that anticipation is a horrendous habit, yet there I was 12:30am Monday morning, hopped up on caffeine and waiting not so patiently for the Kindle faeries to bring me a prize.

“Light Beneath Ferns” was supposed to be a smash, I didn’t just decide this for myself, it has been splashed across the literary world for a few months now making several (including mine) lists of what to read in 2010. So as I sat on the edge of my bed, freezing my ass off cause my husband steals the covers, I opened the well worn cover on my Kindle and began to read.

The first chapter was brilliant. Spouting warnings like…”If death and the dead make you afraid, you better just stop reading and go take a nap.” and I loved the heroin of the book, she was brooding, witty, sarcastic and an overall pain in the ass (kinda like me) but as for the remainder of the book? Yes, thanks….I think I’ll go take that nap you suggested.

The concept of this book was captivating…very quiet girl who would rather spend time with bones than live people moves to town and meets mysterious disappearing boy. Great right? Just reading that sentence alone could spin a million different scenarios into your head, unfortunately…the book spent more time focusing on the emotional instability of Elizah and her screwed up family than it actually did with the “supposedly” scary scenarios.

Elizah likes to be alone, to her, talking is unnecessary and “fitting in” is the last thing on her list. After her father gambles all of the family’s money away and then jumps trial, Elizah and her equally as quirky mother hoof it out of town only to turn around and take up residence in a old house that borders a cemetery. Elizah, wanting nothing more than a little peace and quiet wanders the property eventually running across a human jaw bone. With bones on her mind and a mother on her back Elizah set out to find the truth, but instead finds Nathaniel, a boy that speaks like a fortune cookie and dresses like a pauper.

After the first chapter the plot becomes a tangled mess of witty but sloppy writing. All the questions are… in the end answered, (some very abstractly) but with the book being so short (it took me only a few hours to read it) there was hardly time for proper character developement leaving me with a somewhat distant or lost feeling. “Spollen’s” YA moments were lacking the push/pull that is necessary to keep an audience enthralled and the so called “scary” was almost completely non-existent. What was supposed to be a bright shining mark in this years literary catalog was nothing more than a mild jog through the woods with an overbearing guidance counselor and paragraphs of sloppy descriptives.

My suggestion? Save your money…if you require substance in your reads than this book is just to short to make any sort of lasting impression.

Happy reading my fellow Outcast and remember: if you find a random human bone in the ground just leave it there… picking it up and turning it into your pet is just plain weird.

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(2/5)

Everyone loves a Fairytale, it’s what we grew up on…stories of Cinderella and her glass slipper, tales of Little Red Ridding Hood and her fight to save her grandmother’s life.  We relish in the details, little girls spend hours pretending that their handsome prince is right around the corner, but what happens when there is no happy ending? Well, if you have read the original “Brothers Grimm Tales” then you already know, but for the rest of you…just imagine if the handsome prince wasn’t so handsome…imagine that after 5 months in the castle Cinderella concluded her new husband was a whack job…imagine if someone decided to twist the stories we grew up loving.

“Amanda Marrone” did exactly that in “Devoured” twisting and turning the story of Snow White in to a whole new tale of desperation and greed.

Megan has a little problem…her sister Remy is a ghost. A very small, very wet, very cranky ghost, who follows “Meggy” everywhere showing her glimpses of dead girls and throwing epic tantrums that cause light bulbs to shatter.  Her father is in a coma, her mother spends every waking hour training a dog to dance, and there’s a new boy in the mix that turns out to be a “Ghost Whisperer.”

After deciding her boyfriend has a little too much freedom, Megan takes a job playing the part of Snow White, in the “Land of Enchantment” amusement park, and while she’s ok with fake smiles and dads who tend to grope she’s not ok with hiding from approaching death in an oven in the Hansel and Gretel ride.

The writing was fluid and the plot was intriguing, like I said before…”Marrone” took a story we all know and love and flipped it into a full out battle of psycho ancestors and a magic mirror with a warped sense of humor.  The ending was a little bit abrupt, but by no means did it affect the story.

There were creepy moments inside a dark tunnel, a drunk mother who loves pink velour, haywire nursing home equipment, bad apples, a very dedicated father willing to do anything for his deranged daughter, hidden graves, and 1 very good reason to never loose your keys.

Overall I liked it… it was nice to see things from a different angle.

Get it, live it, love it…pass it on.

Happy reading my fellow Fairytale lovers and remember: never waste your 3rd wish.

For a complete book description click image

(4/5)

What happens when we die? Do we descend to heaven? Hell? Are we stuck in some sort of everlasting parallel we refer to as purgatory? Where does our soul go? What do we remember? Who is there with us?

These are the questions “Laura Whitcomb” tries to answer in “A Certain Slant of Light.”

Helen is a ghost, she has spent hundreds of years following one host after another, joining in their daily activities and clinging to them as if they were her only source of life, in a somewhat clumsy attempt to find her way to heaven. She does not know who she is, she does not know what she did to be stuck in the loop she’s in, and she is sad.

After years of lonely wandering, blind to those in the “Quick” world around her, she suddenly notices a boy staring at her, his name is James, he is the answer to her prayers, and a way out. (or in… If you’re looking for acuracy.)

Although “Whitcomb’s” writing at some points are breathtaking, spouting beautiful descriptives such as: “They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown.” the book was horribly jumpy. One moment I was reading a captivating novel about the implications of being a ghost and the next I felt as though I had inadvertently picked up the wrong book and starting perusing some horribly cheesy Harlequin, complete with instant love and naked marriage proposals.

Needless to say…40% of the way through I lost interest.

Fortunatly in the last 30 pages the plot picked back up… but unfortunately, I was sound asleep by then.

I wanted to like this book, I even tried to convince myself that I was being to harsh on it, but the reality of it is… I just didn’t give a crap. (which is never a good sign.)

It was a book…I read it…now I’m moving on.

There were moments of body hopping, a cult-ish like… secretive father who made my skin crawl, an overly protective big brother with understandable trust issues, an odd skittishly written war scene, a very sad moment of self recognition, and 1 very uncomfortable meeting with a shrink.

Even with all the little moments of literary genius…the complexities of the plot and the well thought out moral lesson, (except the mistakes you’ve made and forgive yourself.) it was still a flop.

Save your money.

Happy reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: everyone has a muse… chances are you just can’t see yours.

For a complete description click image

(2/5)