Christine Carey

This one is very visual, so the comparison that sticks out for me comes from television. It???s like the Scoobie gang grew up and moved into a crazy apartment building where Bobby from Supernatural also happens to live. Honestly, I would not be surprised if I found out that Peter Clines had written for Buffy, because holy crap, there are some Joss Whedon moments. If he didn't, well, I would love for J.W. to get ahold of this.

I had not listened to him before, but I'm going to search him out now, because wow - the story was great, but his performance knocked it out of the park.

I can???t spoil any of it for you, because as fast paced as this thing is, the story and reasoning unfold over the course of it, but just trust me on this ??? if you're a Whedon/Supernatural fan, pick it up. I was listening to it while I worked yesterday, and I almost wanted to stay late just so that I could finish it ??? it was that good.

Usually Nora writes very strong female characters. That's still the case in this one, but there's so much little-lady-ing going on that I just can't enjoy the story. I don't mind the fire-jumping - I think that a lot of her most interesting stuff centers around whatever career has caught her fancy, but a lot of the male characters here, while possibly true-to-life, just turned me off.

I got through a little over 4.5 hours of the 10 hour book and just had to set it aside, which is unusual for me. Sure, the book is bleak and dark, set in a world where we've genetically modified everything, and the first 20 minutes or so I found completely awesome, but over the next 3 hours, I found myself caring less and less about the main character and came to the conclusion that I've read stories like this before, and seen them done better. EARTH ABIDES comes to mind. Hell, FEED, a post-apocolyptic zombie novel where bloggers are the real news reporters is set in a more believable and well thought-out world than ORYX AND CRAKE, which somehow managed to be both simplistic and over the top while leaving me emotionally cold.

I guess this is the book I should have expected by an author who was offended when two of her books (O&K and HT) were labeled sci-fi. "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen... ORYX AND CRAKE is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians... Science fiction (as opposed to what she wrote) is talking squids in outer space." A smidgen more understanding of how good sci-fi works would have made this story much more enjoyable.

If you read "Time Traveler's Wife", think about all of the bits that tore you apart inside. Don't think about the romance, though that was wonderful - think about the miscarriages, the loss, the parts that made you want to cry. Amplify those gut wrenching bits from 40% of the book to 70%, replace a time traveling husband with ghosts, twins, a cemetery, and an incredibly screwed up family, and you'll come close to "Her Fearful Symmetry."
Note - if you take a drink every time you hear the word "Victorian" in the first 30 minutes, you'll have to pick the book up days later after you've sobered. Otherwise, this was the most satisfying book I've read in a very long time. And every character gets exactly what she deserves.

I watched the movie first, and this is one of those rare occasions where I'm really glad I did it in that order. I knew going in what to expect, which was not a book about cooking, but a humorous navel-gazing book about finding a passion and sticking to it. I wish there had been more about Julia Child, but that's really my only complaint.
Sure, Julie does some things that are deplorable - most times, I felt awful for her husband, and sometimes, I really didn't like the author and would have loved to say a few things back to her, but overall, this book made me laugh more than it made me cringe, and even the cringes were worth it.

Dark Harry Potter.
The magic school here doesn't let kids eat until they can conjure their own food. And it just gets worse from there.
Absolutely amazing read - couldn't take out my headphones (was listening to the audio version). The voice actor was also very good.
Warning - this is the first in a series. The story doesn't end at the end of this book. But I can't wait for the next one.

A modern day girl is bequeathed a trip to Austenland, a three week immersion in the time period of Ms. Austen's stories.

I wanted to love this book. I just didn't. I took it off my ipod after listening to about an hour of it and decided to go back to the source material. e

The sequel to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," which had one of the most interesting and wonderfully sociopathic heroines I've read in a very long time - Lisbeth Salander. We learn more about Salander's past as Millennium magazine is gearing up to publish a huge expose on sex-trafficking.

Just as amazing as the first book. I could not put this down. I would listen to it at work, then plug the ipod into the car, and then plug it in again as I made dinner. Then I wondered why it was over so soon... I saw online that the paper version of the book is 700 pages and my jaw dropped - it went by so quickly I would have thought it was closer to 350.

This one is hard to sum up in one line, but I'll give it a go - Teenage girl gets one cold autumn with the human form of the werewolf she's loved since she was a child.

Very sweet without being saccharine, an enjoyable read. I'd like to read this one again, but on paper - I sometimes found the male narrator's characterization in the audio version distracting, but the story was still quite lovely and shone through the awkwardness.

The werewolf lore here was different - instead of changing at the full moon, they change when it gets cold, which was a nice touch and really added to the story.

I really liked it and can't wait to read more from Maggie Stiefvater.

Interview turned narrative, real life murder of an entire family.