REVIEW: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

My Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

This was a funny book. I'm not sure that I liked it as much as Moore's other works, but I guess that's to be expected since I didn't resonate with the Christianity aspect as much as others who follow the religion and know it's history would. However, that being said, I did recognize a few things from what I recall of the story of Jesus, for instance, it was funny the way he worked the walking on water thing into the story at one point, as if it was something Joshua (his real name) did every day. And the way they'd talk, even the Buddhist monks, saying things like, "Just fucking with you..." That was a hoot! A sarcastic and ironic tale, in the manner I've come to expect from Moore. I only hope that Christian fundies didn't get all over his ass for writing this, and took it with the grace and humour with which I'm sure was the author's intent.

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REVIEW: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

My Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

This was the first book (or story) I've read by Neil Gaiman, and I found it a pretty interesting read. It had the air of a wild, hallucination. One of the blurbs at the front of the book compared it to Alice in Wonderland which I think would be an accurate comparison once you figure in the dark aspect of the novel.

I really like dark novels and there wasn't anything I didn't like about this book. However, I couldn't give it a 10 simply because, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I couldn't quite rank it up there with my favorites that I've given the highest possible score. Perhaps it was the inability to fully relate and sympathize with any particular character in the story. Not that you don't feel for them in some way, they were certainly depicted well enough, and quite colorful as someone else mentioned. But only Richard's, and sometimes Door's character, managed to endear themselves to me in any meaningful way. On Amazon's scale though, being a smaller range, I'd probably give it a 5, the highest. The BC ratings scale of 1 through 10 allows for a bit finer distinction between those that are your absolute favorites and those books you really liked a lot. I definitely plan to read more of Gaiman's work in the future.

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REVIEW: Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon by Donna Andrews

My Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

This was a quick and fun read. I saw someone on Amazon refer to the first book in this series as a "cozy mystery" and I think that's an accurate description. There's not a lot of horror, and what horror there is, with regards to the murder that has taken place, is somewhat silly and zany. Meg is a likable character and based on this book, I've added the others in this series to my wish list now too. :)

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REVIEW: Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz

My Rating: 10 out of 10 stars

Wow! This book totally blew me away. Best Koontz book I've read yet, and I thought Odd Thomas would be a tough act to follow. I may have to pick up a copy of this book for own PC bookshelf so I can let hubby and all my other non-BC friends read it too. :)

Great character development, suspense, the kind of book I didn't want to put down. At times, I was so anxious to know how a particular situation would turn out that I'd find myself skipping ahead a couple of chapters, and then immediately scolding myself for doing so. Screw going to bed! I must read a few more chapters so I can see how this part turns out! LOL

Though it contained plenty of suspense, it was also a love story in a sense, not a romance, but so many parts of the book, and particularly the end, gave me the warm fuzzies--the kind that bring tears to your eyes. I guess touching is the right word, as the story touched me on so many levels. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it held me in thrall. An excellent read indeed!

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REVIEW: Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska

My Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

I read this as part of a bookring started by SandDanz, it not being the type of book I'd usually pick up of my own accord. However, with SandDanz's recommendation, I decided to give it a whirl. Let me also preface this review by stating that my rating and review stems from my own personal preferences as opposed to how I believe it will be received by others.

The plot was fairly decent. I appreciated what Jane, the author, who's also the main character, was doing by coming out, placing her ad, and trying to get what she wants out of life, despite society's frowning on such behaviour. I applaud her courage and strength of self for such actions. However, much of the book also tells the story of her life leading up to her current age of 67, and I found it more difficult to empathize with this part of her life. Sure, it gave me a bit more appreciation for the kind of sexually repressed environment she was raised in, and the fact that she was able to overcome all that later in life. But times of sexual repression have always been a major sore spot for me. People who are afraid to talk about sex, express their sexuality, or even look at or touch their own bodies... well stuff like that just raises my hackles. I'd have never been able to live before the time of the sexual revolution, for I'd most certainly have been put down for sure, or hung up as the case may be. ;) Perhaps in a past life, I was a victim of some sort of sexual repression, and thus the need to be such a free-spirited, sexually-liberated woman now. The point I'm making is that because of all this, certain parts of her story made me angry, when it was clear at the time that that wasn't the author's intention, and because of all this, I felt more emotionally distanced from the main character during all these parts of the story. (I wonder if this will make sense to anyone reading this besides myself.)

In any case, I also disliked all the timeline jumping around she did, sometimes even within a single paragraph, and more often than not, multiple times in a single chapter. Often times, while reading of a particular event, I kept forgetting whether it was taking place while she was much younger, or closer to the present day, or even somewhere in between. A journal format, similar to the way Bridget Jones's Diary was written, would've probably worked better for this book, making the constant shifts between timelines easier to focus on.

Okay, now that I got the stuff I didn't like out of the way first, let me tell you what I did. I definitely appreciated the tales of Jane's more current adventures, after she placed the ad, and began to let go of all her hangups, misconceptions, and paranoia. I empathized more with this later-in-life Jane, and though she still had a hard time with certain things, she was starting to slough away all the bullshit that had been burned into her (brainwashed) all her life. I was happy that in the end, she finally seemed to let go of the last of her inhibitions and *gasp* even had sex with the light on! That last hurdle finally being overcome. Shouts of "Bravo!" and "You Go Girl!" immediately come to mind. :)

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REVIEW: Killing Moon by Rebecca York

My Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

This was a great book! There was plenty of mystery going on to keep you wondering right up until the very end of the book, and multiple plotlines to hold your interest. Of course, the fact that one of the main characters was a werewolf weighs heavily in its favor in my book anyway since I love books with vampires, werewolves, necromancers, and other supernatural creatures.

Now I'm really looking forward to reading the other 2 books in this trilogy, Edge of the Moon and Witching Moon. Too bad Darkangll doesn't have them listed on her shelf. I'll have to scout them down elsewhere. Of course, I'm willing to share with any of the other participants of this ray who liked this book as much as me. :)

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REVIEW: Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore

My Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Another great book by Moore! Thanks to yllus for allowing me to borrow this. :)

This book has a lot of elements that really resonated with me as a Pagan: Coyote, the trickster, imperfect Gods, and the Egyptian pantheon later in the book. I also totally related to Calliope and her attitude and outlook on life. I'm somewhat of a hippy myself and most of her ways of looking at things, that seemed so strange to Sam, seemed natural to me. Yeah, she's very much at an extreme in some regards, i.e. calling the ants in the kitchen sink her kitchen pals and refusing to allow Sam to kill them, but I am like that with spiders. I draw the line at ants and any other kind of crawling bug anywhere in the kitchen or where food is prepared or eaten though. But I digress... ;)

Overall, I found this a great book, right up there with all the other Chris Moore books I've read. I've got Lamb here too, but since a number of bookring books just arrived too, I'll be tending to those before I start on Lamb.

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REVIEW: Sex and the Single Vampire by Katie MacAlister

My Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

I must agree with LiZzYbEtH199 who told me this book was better A Girl's Guide to Vampires, the first book in this series. Though A Girl's Guide was okay, Sex and the Single Vampire was great. After reading A Girl's Guide, I could've went either way as to whether I wanted to read this author again, but now, after reading Sex and the Single Vampire, I'm looking forward to the next tale in this series. (I hope there is one though I really don't know for sure.)

In this book, in addition to vampires, we also encounter ghosts, demons, Summoners, triumvirates, and other workers of magick. Joy and Roxy are no longer the main characters in this book, though they still play a bit more than a minor role. So though their annoying bickering and cutting each other down continued in this book, it was certainly more bearable. The main characters are Allie, a Summoner (of ghosts) and Christian, a Morovian Dark One, very similar to a vampire, who was also in the first book. There was a lot more going on in the book besides a simple love story. And though this book is indeed considered a paranormal romance, the danger and intrigue inherent in the rest of the story made me forget I was even reading a romance most of the time.

I had sent a copy of A Girl's Guide to explorer1118m whose opinion of that book was very similar to mine. I think we both rated it around a 6 or 7. So I'm going to send this on to her next to see if she agrees with my consensus and likes this one bunches better like I did. :) (SandDanz wants to read this one too, though she hasn't gotten to the first one yet.)

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