Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld (Review)

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld 
Series The Austen Project # 4
Genres: Fiction, Romance
Publication date: April 19th 2016
Publisher: Random House  
Format: ebook, 512 pages
How I got it: NetGalley for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 3/5
 
This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.

Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .

And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.

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My thoughts:

This book follows the Bennet family as they are going through a crisis of Mr. Bennet having a health scare.   The Bennet's have five daughters, three of which live at home and the other two live in New York city.  The three daughters that live at home haven't really tried to get their own lives.   The oldest two daughters who live in New York both have jobs and are self sufficient.

I really enjoyed reading about the Bennet sisters.  They all have very unique personalities as well as goals in their lives.  I loved how no matter what they were going to be their for each other, even if they didn't like one another that much.  The author did a great job with keeping the importance of family as a major theme throughout the book, which I really enjoyed reading about.  Also,  I loved Mrs. Bennet she was out in left field a good portion of the time and that made me laugh while reading the book. 

I really enjoyed about reading of Liz's past experience with love.  I completely felt with learning a lot more about Liz we got to see where she was coming from and also why she was nervous about love.   Liz was a very strong character that the author did a great job developing. 

The author did a great job with all of the descriptions of the different settings in the book.  I felt like I could image exactly what the characters where seeing as well as interacting with each other.  I completely can image exactly what the Tudor looked like.

Things I didn't love about the story was at parts I felt like it was dragging on and was never going to end.  I felt like there were a lot of details that didn't really end up adding a lot to the story and that  could have been kept out of the book.   About half way through I figured out who was going to end up together and it felt like I would never reach the final ending.  It felt like some the build up was just not necessary to keep the reader engaged.  

Also, I didn't really care for the entire story being told from Liz's eyes.  I felt like the author really missed out on getting other perspectives of the four other sister as well as parents.  The story felt too controlled only being told in Liz's perspective.   Also, I think that if we got other perspectives the story would have flowed a lot better.   The details where sometime backstories that we didn't really need and if another character jumped in it would have made it more interesting to here what they thought was really going on.

I would suggest this as a nighttime read.  It was an easy book to pickup and put down since the chapters where very neatly divided and most of the chapters where very short so it was easy to find a natural stopping point.  I also thought the story was a good escape from reality so it allowed you to jump into a new world. 
 
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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About the Author

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the new novel Eligible, a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice (due out April 2016) as well as the bestselling novels Sisterland, American Wife, Prep, and The Man of My Dreams, which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Curtis's writing has appeared in many publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vanity Fair,Time, Slate, Glamour, and on public radio's This American Life. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she currently lives in St. Louis, MO.

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Curse of the Moon - Beth Trissel (Review)

Curse of the Moon by Beth Trissel
Series The Secret Warrior #2
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Publication date: May 4th 2016
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc. 
 Format: ebook, 182 pages
How I got it: From Beth Trissel for an honest review
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 4/5
 
The bad news? Morgan Daniel’s wolf is out of control. The good news? There’s a treatment. She just has to get a potion from a lizard shifter witch—without looking into the witch’s eyes. Easy, right? But when the witch puts a spell on her younger brother, Morgan has to do the witch's bidding to save him. Fortunately Morgan isn’t alone. She has Jackson to lean on, a few witches coming into their powers, a secret warlock, and the always mysterious Chief Okema. What could possibly go wrong?

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My thoughts:

This is the second book the series The Secret Warrior, which follows Morgan as she learns how to become a better wolf and all the challenges that goes along with being a wolf.  Morgan is still staying with the Wapicoli tribe while she is learning about her new life and her destiny.  Morgan's brother Jimmy is staying with them as well and he ends up getting cursed by a witch in the beginning of the book.   This book does not really recap a lot of book one so I would suggest starting with book one and not reading this as a stand alone book as you might get confused as the author dives right into the action.

The author does a great job with the amount of action and also details that occur in the book.   The story moves along at a fast pace and is easy to follow along with.   The author gives a lot of descriptions of the area so it allows the reader to have a vivid picture of what the characters are going through.    I also felt like the added smells the author describes helped me feel like I was there alongside the characters.

I felt like the author did a great job developing Morgan as a leader of the pack.  It is mentioned more in this book the leadership role that Morgan will be taking on in this series.  Morgan faced a tough challenge and really showed more and more of her powers to be able to accomplish anything she sets her mind out too.  Also, Morgan's faces a big challenge with her brother being cursed in this book and she keeps a level head during most of the challenge. The book does a lot of foreshadowing of a war coming, which makes me want to continue to read the series to find out what is going to happen. 

My one complaint with the book would be that a lot of characters got introduced quickly towards the end of the book and it was slightly hard to follow along with all their backstories.  If some of those characters where introduced with a little separation I felt like I would have been able to follow a little better.  When I was continuing reading I did have to check back to see who was who. 
I would suggest this as a nighttime read.  It was a quick read and you are able to fully escape what is going on in the world while reading this book.  This is the perfect book to clear your head before bed while focusing on a completely different world.   
 
I received a copy of this book from Beth Trissel for the purpose of providing an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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QUOTES I LOVE

 “Forget normal. There is no normal,” Jackson muttered. “Embrace weird.”

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About the Author

Married to my high school sweetheart, I live on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia surrounded by my children, grandbabies, and assorted animals. An avid gardener, my love of herbs and heirloom plants figures into my work. The rich history of Virginia, the Native Americans and the people who journeyed here from far beyond her borders are at the heart of my inspiration. In addition to American settings, I also write historical and time travel romances set in the British Isles, YA fantasy romance, and nonfiction about gardening, herbal lore, and country life.

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Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell (Review)

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Romance
Publication date: Feb 26, 2013
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Format: Audiobook - 8 hours, 56 minutes
How I got it: My public library
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My rating: 5/5
 

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

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My thoughts:

This was the first ever Audiobook that I completed and I am pretty sure it now has me hooked on audiobooks as well as Rainbow Rowell.

The audio version of the book is told in two different voices just like how the book is divided into narration by the two main characters.  We get to hear a male narrator for Park and a female narrator for Eleanor; although the narrators when conversing play both the male and female role; it really helped me to distinguish who was speaking during the audio book and captured the feelings the characters felt.  I felt like the voices chosen matched exactly how I imaged that Eleanor and Park would sound.  The narrators really captured my attention and it was easy to follow along since I enjoyed listening to them.

The book follows Eleanor who just moved back in with her family after an extended stay at some of her mother's friends house.  The author gives us vague details about Eleanor in the beginning so you are not really sure exactly how she got to where she is today.  As the story unfolds we get to learn a lot more about Eleanor.   Eleanor has had a very difficult upbringing and also has a very challenging current family situation.  Eleanor is honestly just trying to make it through her life without being noticed.

On the first day at her new school she sort of meets Park who ends up letting her sit by him in the bus.   It takes a little while for Eleanor and Park to form a friendship that eventually becomes more then a friendship.  

I loved both the main characters.  Eleanor was a lot stronger then she gave herself credit for.  She wanted to be able to protect everyone, but she also had to worry about herself at all times.  Eleanor had a large burden on her shoulders at the age of 16.   I felt like the author did a great job showing Eleanor's young age when she was thinking through complicated decisions.   Park had an entirely different upbringing and we really get to see more and more of what his childhood and young adulthood was like while reading.  Although Park and Eleanor have had very different upbringing they have a large amount in common that they don't see at first.  Park experienced different challenges from Eleanor, but they still caused him concern.

The author did a great job having the characters manage decisions in the book.  Each character was weighing there decision prior to just jumping right in.  I loved how the author allowed the reader to see the struggle the characters where going through from all different angles. 

Another aspect I loved of the book was the morals that they author installed upon the characters.  I felt like the book was building up for something big to happen with the characters.  I wasn't 100% sure what exactly was going to happen, which made me want to keep reading.   At the end of the book we get to see the side of some of the minor characters who I felt like changed 180 degrees from the beginning of the book.  I think a major takeaway was you should never judge a book by its cover and this can be applied when it comes to people because you never know how someone is going to react in a crisis. 

I would suggest this as a weekend or vacation audio or read.  I would highly recommend the audio version of the book, but I bet reading it would just be as fulfilling of an experience.  I felt like you really took a journey with the characters throughout the book and I wanted to know what was going to happen to Eleanor and Park at the end so I would pick a time when you had more free time to read or listen to this book. 

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About the Author

Rainbow Rowell writes books. Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS and LANDLINE). Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK and FANGIRL). But she always writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they're screwing up. And people who fall in love.

When she's not writing, Rainbow is reading comic books, planning Disney World trips and arguing about things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things.

She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two sons.

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