Secret life of a townie

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian by Andy Weir
This is the best book I've read all year. Hands down. It's about a man who gets left behind during a mission to mars and has to survive on his own for over a year. If you can get past the first few sections where the MC is calculating potato calories, endlessly, it's so worth it. I'm wishing I had bough a copy of this instead of borrowed it from the library.

I feel like my BS in Biochem was rejuvenated. This geek girl loved the hard science banter mixed with humor. When I finished this book I wanted to go get my MS and work for NASA. An inspiring read. Just go read it.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Book Review: Unborn by Amber Lynn Natusch

I was super pumped to receive an ARC of Unborn!

The cover: LOVE!

The blurb:

Born into mystery. Shackled to darkness…

Khara has spent centuries discovering everything about the Underworld―except her place in it. But when she’s ripped from her home, solving the riddle of her origins becomes more important than ever. With evil stalking her through the dark alleys of Detroit, she finds salvation from an unlikely source: a group of immortal warriors sworn to protect the city. Khara needs their help to unravel the tangled secrets of who and what she is—secrets many seem willing to kill for. But time is running out, and the closer she gets to the truth, the closer necessity binds her to an arrogant fallen angel.

Can their shaky alliance withstand that which threatens her, or will her soul fall victim to the unholy forces that hunt her―those that seek the Unborn?

From the author of the bestselling Caged series comes a pulse-pounding new romantic urban fantasy series.

My thoughts:

I was so excited for this read. I wanted my pulse to pound, but, sadly, it stayed at its normal sluggish rate throughout this entire book. And the romance? Where the hell was it? Oz starts out as an interesting love interest but by the end it’s all toast. Too much talking, barely any action. The spots that had me hooked were few and far between.

The mix of greek mythology and angels did not meld well in this book. The world building was just not up to par.Great ideas, poor execution.

I marked my kindle at 46% with the note of, “finally gets interesting.” But by then it was too late, I was already detached. Khara’s character was hard to connect to; she lacked emotion.

There was a lot of awkward dialog, one minute everyone is talking like they are from another era and then there’s some slang thrown. It would be funny, if Khara’s dumbfounded reaction to it wasn’t so odd. She states that she’s been around for hundreds of years, she reads books, and although she detests television, she had one for a while, also she spends six months out of the year on earth hiding in the woods somewhere. So tell me, how does this character not understand simple slang terms and other languages? Khara has had hundreds of years to learn Greek! Does not make sense.

This book is not for everyone, but it may still be for you. Try it out. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of the series. This was the biggest disappointing read of the year for me :(

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Book Review: The 100

This was a fast read. Typical YA, strong on the romance aspect. I loved the Science Fiction/Dystopian storyline of everyone living in space and waiting for the earth to recover from the apocalypse. Every character has a love interest. I liked the alternating POVs but I feel like it ended very suddenly. The cliffhanger wasn't bad, but it was slightly annoying. I will more than likely read the next book in the series.