Extras by Scott Westerfeld #13

Extras is a spin-off from the Uglies series. It takes place in the same world, but in a different city, and different main characters although we do hear and see from Tally Youngblood again. They also answer one of the main questions I had when the triology ended although I had to wait until the very end to get the full answer.

I still liked this one a lot although not as much as the original triology. The story itself was good, but I didn't like the characters as much. I found them annoying at times and likeable at others, which really made it just seem like I wasn't connecting to them like I did in the triology. I found myself wishing that I was reading the same story but from Tally's point of view.

So overall it was a good story, the characters were so-so, but if I could have made some changes, I would have.

Extras gets 4 out of 5 stars.

Next up-The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer #12

A Prison Diary was a strange choice for me and I still haven't figured out how I feel about it. Maybe writing the review will help me decide. In 2001 Jeffrey Archer was sent to prison in Great Britain and kept a diary of what happened every day for the 2 years he was in prison, and has now published 3 books talking about each day. The first book starts with him being booked into prison, and he never explained what for, so I had to go searching on the internet to find out what he did. Turns out he was found guilty for perjury and perverting the court of justice.

It was very interesting to read about some of the things we experienced while locked up. The first book was pretty long and hard for me to get in to at times. I like to have a lot of dialogue and there was very little in this book. It was interesting to see what prison is like from the eyes of someone who has not been in and out of it his whole life, and who has the ability to describe everything in detail yet keep it interesting.

There were definitely parts that were intriguing, while others parts I could have done without. When I finished the book I was wondering what happens next but I don't know if I could make it through another whole book to find out.

Prison Diary gets 3 out of 5 stars.

Next up-Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies, Pretties, Specials by Scott Westerfeld Books # 9, 10, and 11

This is a triology written by Scott Westerfeld, I read all 3 books in 3-4 days. These books are kind of like Hunger Games, but also nothing like Hunger Games, just because I think they would probably be found in the young adult section, but adults will like them just as much as any teenager/young adult. They are also very clean, I can't remember if there is any swearing, but if there is there is very little.

They are about a civilization living on earth 300 years after the world as we all know it today is destroyed. They talk a little bit about what happened to destroy our world. It is full of different kinds of technology that we don't have yet, but is kind of fun to think about. Each of the books follows one girl, Tally Youngblood, who is 15-16ish through all 3 books.

I liked these books a lot and would recommend them to anyone that wants a good read. I had a hard time putting them down and had quite a bit of laundry and dishes to do after I was finished, which is always the sign that I have been reading a good book. I wish I hadn't read them yet so I could read them for the first time all over again.

Uglies is the first one and it took me a little while to figure out what exactly was going on, but I was able to get into it pretty quickly. I liked this one a lot, even though it ended up being my least favorite of the three.

The second one is Pretties and picks up shortly after the first one ends. I liked this one more than the first because I already knew what was going on and could understand the "language" of the book if you know what I mean.

The last one is Specials. I think this one was probably my favorite of the three, although it was close between this one and Pretties. This one introduces some new characters and new parts of the civilization that we didn't know about in the other books.

Each book leaves you wondering what will happen in the next one, but it doesn't leave you hanging too much. The last one wraps up pretty nicely although there were still a few unanswered questions I had that I ended up having to decide on my own. It took me a while to pick up another book after I finished these three because I needed time to digest them after I finished.

The Uglies, Pretties and Specials each got 5 out of 5 stars from me...the first ones of this year, with hopefully more to come!

Next up-A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer

Camp Rules by Jordan Rotter #8

Camp Rules was another one of the free books that I got at the mall. It is geared more toward teenagers, but those types of books are fun for adults to read sometimes too. It's just nice to read a book and not have to think about it at all, just enjoy the simple plot.

Camp Rules is about a 16 year old girl that is going to summer camp for the first time ever and doesn't want to be going either. She has to find a way to either be sent home or to fit in with the other girls who have all been going to camp together for years.

There is nothing bad to say about this book. It is a good easy read. It didn't take me very long at all to read it, and I enjoyed it.

Camp Rules gets 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Next up-The Uglies, Pretties and Specials Triology

Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult #7

Book #7 was Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult. This was an interesting book for me. I may have been a little biased about it because I read another online review about it that was not exactly favorable.

There are several different narrators in this book, although I would say there are 2 main characters. The 2 main characters are a mother and daughter. The mother is telling the story from the beginning to the end as you would expect. The daughter is telling the story from the end to the beginning. I found myself frustrated with that because the daughter kept referring to people like I should know them, but I had no idea who they even were. It would be like reading any book starting with the last chapter, then the chapter before that. It got confusing. I was happy when the mom and daughter's stories caught up to each other so it would make more sense.

The story as a whole was okay. It wasn't anything mind-blowing but it was good. I didn't find myself connecting to the characters like I am used to doing when I am reading Jodi Picoult. Definitely my least favorite book of hers so far.

3 out of 5 stars.

Next up-Camp Rules by Jordan Rotter

Tales From the Crib by Risa Green #6

Tales from the Crib by Risa Green was a random choice for me. I was walking through the mall one day and notice the B. Dalton had just closed for good the day before. There was a small box outside the door with a sign saying "Free Books" on it. So I dug through and picked a couple of books out. This was one of them.

I picked up this book and read the first few pages and put it down for a week or two, which is unusual for me. She had used the "F" word 3-4 times and so far had only talked about how much she hated being a mother. I don't mind a little bit of swearing, but I felt that was a little excessive, and I wasn't sure that the book was going to be my cup of tea so to speak. I picked it back up when I didn't have anything else to read. I was going to give it through the next chapter and then see how I felt. It picked up pretty quickly.

The main character has just had a baby and is having a hard time adjusting to life. As a mother myself some of the parts made me laugh as I could relate to how she was feeling as you are trying to adjust to life as a mother. Other parts of it made me roll my eyes. Overall it was a good book, an easy read and entertaining, and that's about it.

Tales from the Crib gets 3 out of 5 stars from me.

Next up-Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult #5

I love Jodi Picoult, I have read most of her books, and will probably read the ones I haven't already by the end of this year. I like her style of reading, how she typically brings the story from different characters point of view. It makes each of the characters more real for me, and helps me to understand them even when they do things that I don't agree with. Which is the case in just about every book of hers that I have ever read. I mostly like her books because they keep me thinking about the characters even after I have finished the book.

Vanishing Acts was as great as you can expect from Jodi Picoult. It involves a controversial issue and helps you to look at it from different points of view. I found myself feeling symphathetic toward the one person that I didn't expect. Which is again pretty typical.

I can't think of anything bad to say about the book. It kept my attention the whole time. I finished it in about a day and a half. I kept thinking about it in the days after I finished reading it.

Vanishing Acts gets 4 out of 5 stars.

Next up-Tales from the Crib by Risa Green

Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis #4

Book #4 was one that I had to wait a while in order to get it from the library. It was Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. I am sure it was just because I requested it shortly after the movie came out and everyone else had seen the movie and, like me, wanted to read the book.

The book was more about the fundamentals of football than I was prepared for. I learned more about football from reading this book than I had learned in watching it with my husband for the last 9 years. The author went back and forth about the fundamentals of football and the story of Michael Oher. I had no problem getting through the parts about Michael Oher, but the other parts took me a while.

The things I liked about the book was learning more about the story of Michael Oher, and also the knowledge I gained from reading the book. I have a whole new appreciation for football and football players after reading this book. The things I weren't crazy about was just the fact that it was different than what I was expecting, and not necessarily in a bad way, just different. I also didn't like the way they made Michael Oher look like he was completely clueless about a lot of things. I have only seen one interview with him that I can remember, but he did not come across as being as dumb as the book made it seem like.

I give this one 3 out of 5 stars.

Next up-Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything by Phil Bolsta #3

One Moment Changes Everything by Phil Bolsta was book #3. This was a different kind of book than I usually read. I did not have any books that I had requested at the library waiting for me so I picked this one up off the shelf. It contains a bunch of short stories about moments different people have had in their lives and how it affected the rest of their lives. Some of them were centered around huge life changing events and others were on a much smaller scale.

It took me a while to finish this one. Some of the stories I found fascinating, most of them I had a hard time getting through. I think the longest one was only 4 or 5 pages, which I was grateful for. It was nice to be able to sit down for a few minutes at a time and be able to read an entire story. I was able to put it down much easier because of that.

I give it 2 out of 5 stars.

Next up-Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis

The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer #2

Book #2 was The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer. This book is based on Florentyna the daughter of Abel Rovnovsky from Jeffrey Archer's Kane and Abel. It isn't really a sequel, or a prequel, it is a different story about a character from the other book. I read Kane and Abel last year and loved it, if you have read Kane and Abel and read this one you will find a lot of the beginning part a little redundant.

The book starts when Florentyna is a young child and finishes when she is an older woman. It tells about all the ambitions she has and how she goes about trying to acheive each of her dreams. I like to book quite a bit. It took me a while to get through the first 50-100 pages or so since a lot of it was repetitive from Kane and Abel. Once I got to the "new" parts of the story it became a lot harder for me to put it down.

Overall, I liked it quite a bit. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Next up-Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything by Phil Bolsta

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks #1

When I am picking a new book to read I only ever read the first sentence of the summary before deciding if I want to read it or not. Whenever I read the whole summary I find myself knowing what is going to happen through the first half of the book, and I hate that. If someone I know has recommended the book to me I don't read the summary at all, I like to be surprised. So I won't be sharing a whole lot about what the book is about when reviewing books here because I don't want to give away a whole lot about the book itself.

It has been two months since I read the Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks, and I read it right after reading The Last Song also by Nicholas Sparks. I had to look it up and read a quick summary of the book to even remember what it was about.

The Lucky One was good, although it was a pretty typical Nicholas Sparks love story book. It's about a man who travels to small town to find a certain woman who he doesn't even know, he only has a photograph of her. I guess I will leave it at that for now. I feel like a 3rd grader giving a book report. "If you want to know how it ends, you have to read the book."

All in all, I liked to book, I had a hard time putting it down and I read it in a couple of days at most, which is pretty average for me. I would give it 4 stars out of 5.

Next up-The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer