Book Review: Quake by Lisa Arrington

Finished January 28, 2014

Synopsis on Good Reads

Ali and Caden thought they were your average teenagers trying to navigate high school pressures and college decisions.

During a camping trip all of that changes when an earthquake ushers in an Alien invasion on their small desert hometown.

Lives are lost and friendships are tested as Ali and Caden, along with their best friends, begin running for their lives. However, nothing can prepare them for the secrets they discover when they begin learning more about themselves then they ever thought possible.


My Review on Good Reads
3 of 5 stars

I wish they had half stars or 10 stars Good Reads. Quake is definitely worth a 3.5 closing in on but not quite 4. The book was too short and the ending abrupt. I remember reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm in one night high school. That’s classic literature not young adult but it was a shorter book than Quake so the length of the book is not my issue for a young adult book. It’s just that it ended with me not craving more but looking for the next chapter.

Now onto the reason I gave it the almost 4 stars.

I absolutely loved every one of the characters! The teens in the book are very real and I could have easily been friends with them when I was in high school if my brother had been on the basketball team. My brother and I were close like main characters Ali and her brother Caden so they seem very real to me and their mom has definite similarities to our mom when we were in high school. I already kind of disliked the bad guy before she was revealed as the bad guy and she is perfectly despicable.

The story is riveting and moves appropriately fast for young adult fiction so it makes the book hard to put down. Once the details of the alien invasion become apparent how the pieces all fit together makes sense.

I’m anxious for the follow-up book, AfterShock, to come out and will definitely read it. I’m just personally not a great fan of cliffhangers but I suppose the suspense is supposed to “kill me.” That worked. I’m on the mailing list because when it’s ready that next book “must be collected.”

January 29, 2014…

badge created with Peppermint Mocha by A-Manda Creation

I’m wishing me a Happy Half-Birthday today! I’m officially 47-1/2 years old. As I was telling a cousin this morning my birthday is in July; I’ve never been cold on my birthday and I’ve seldom even seen rain. 6 months later it’s not the comfy day I love! This year in Toledo it is bright and sunny, wonderful to look out and see, but that sunny comes at a price! It’s noon and 14 degrees! That’s what happens when there are no clouds to hold any tiny bits of heat close to the earth; we get bright sun and bitter cold! It’s over a month since the beauty and festivity of the holidays and it’s still over 2 months before Opening Day! It’s cold and there is snow and ice everywhere. I celebrate my half-birthday to make me smile at a time of year that is unquestionably void of cheer and Nani-happiness! Do please, find a smile with me today thinking about July and that it was just 6 months ago that I asked you to have some ice cream to celebrate with me and know that on a warm day just 6 months from now, I’ll encourage you to do the same! But for the half-birthday, join me in a cup of hot cocoa!

I’ve seen photos and read news stories about the devastation this insane winter has brought to the south! It’s so sad to see the craziness and the traffic tie-ups yesterday and now. I saw photos of people sleeping on the floor at CVS using maxi pad packages for pillows because they just couldn’t get home last night! In their defense to any of us up north who say they “should have known better,” how? For many of them, including city and state officials, this is possibly the most snow they’ve ever seen at once and they’ve certainly never seen that much snow and ice on their homes and workplaces. In a discussion about the 4” in Atlanta this morning I brought up and imagined what I’d be like driving in bumper to bumper traffic after being evaluated for a hurricane. I’d be scared, confused and making bad choices because I’d simply never been in anything like it before. I’d have known ahead of time, but I wouldn’t be able to fathom how bad it could really be until I was faced with fleeing from my home. The difference in places like Atlanta is that they are trying to flee TO their homes and can’t. As one who has always lived in areas that get several inches of snow and below freezing temperatures in the winter I cut them a little slack. This isn’t just another half foot on top of the half foot they usually get or below zero instead of the 20s. It’s 8 times the snow they get every few years all at once in a part of the country that’s seldom cold enough for the snow to stick when it does flurry. It’s a totally different experience; it’s got to be pretty surreal.

To everyone dealing with the crazy weather, bless you and be safe!

Let’s NOT Talk About The Weather

This week I posted a new profile picture on Facebook:

This photo was taken on Christmas day 2013, just a month ago. I have no makeup, my hair is messy and it’s one of my favorite photos of me I’ve seen in a while. I asked David to hand me my camera as we were getting ready to head out of the hotel to go to my dad’s for Christmas morning breakfast and he took the photo just before he handed it to me. So it’s a fairly candid photo except that, just like Tori, when I see a camera pointed in my direction I smile. What I love about that photo is that David took it.

Years ago when I was an assistant editor for a wedding videographer I scanned a set of photos I’ll never forget. You see part of my job was scanning and editing to music “growing up“ photos of the bride and groom before the even met and doing the same if honeymoon photos were provided. One couple in particular provided growing up photos of the slender boy in glasses who was not in a rock band in high school and there were no sports photos. He would’ve been what was probably a “geek,” maybe a “brainiac,” not one of the super popular or even well-known kids at school. The bride was the adorable little girl in dresses and cute poses with professionally done photos and high school photos that included the prom and her varsity cheerleader photo. From the wedding photos I could see that the “cheerleader” was not the ultrathin beauty queen she’d been in high school. I’m not saying that to disrespect the bride. What made their photos memorable were the honeymoon photos.

On an Alaskan cruise there weren’t as many photos of them together as there were photos they took of each other. In the photos her new husband took of her she was incredibly more beautiful than even the professional wedding photographer could show. A professional can set up the classic poses with different people and produce great photos. A nonprofessional captures a moment, a millisecond when they see exactly how their mind perceives the subject. It’s that point where the subconscious makes you click the shutter. I was almost in tears looking at those photos, as I’m often almost in tears talking about them years later, because in his mind eyes he grew up, fell in love and married “his beautiful cheerleader.” The photos from the heart will always be more amazing than a professional could take. David still clicks the button when he sees that split second where I look cute and fun; it’s what he sees when he thinks about me.


I got lots of “likes” and comments on my new profile picture. I posted my new cover photo on the top of my timeline and got very little in the way of response. Hmph. Actually I’m very pleased, even proud, of my new cover photo.

Credits: Snow Fun by Sheri Ferguson Designs.

 

I had the idea that if I used the right mask I could make it look like I wiped the snow with a mitten to expose the baseball. Considering that it replaced the December cover photo when I usually don’t remember to replace that photo for six or seven months I thought it would get more response. Oh well, I think it was a pretty creative idea and a good-looking cover photo.


Tomorrow is my half-birthday! At 7:45 AM I will be 47 ½ years old. I have never expected gifts or greetings or anything like that for my half-birthday. I think the half-birthday is a personal acknowledgment point and for me it also marks the point in the year where I start to round up the next age when someone asks how old I am. It won’t happen right away; if someone asks me how old I am on Thursday I won’t necessarily say I’m 48. But I’ll start the segue to 48. The funny thing is that yesterday I went in for my second steroid injection in my lower back and my hospital bracelet said I was 47.5 years old. When I noticed that after I got home I giggled and feigned an offended tone and told the bracelet I am NOT 47 ½ yet!

I really don’t buy myself presents for my half-birthday although this year it seems I may have accidentally done exactly that. What I mean is I’d purchased some “presents” that were originally scheduled to be delivered on the 29th. Now most of them, according to the shipping information I was emailed, has been delayed a day. I said I wasn’t going to talk about the weather so I have no idea what may have delayed the shipments but they’ll be here late. On the 30th my closer to 48 and 47 self will be expecting a box of coffee (Golden French Toast), my order from drugstore.com that includes citrus body wash so that’s kind of presenty, and my full spectrum light desk lamp. Light as bright as a sunny day will not only help me see better but also feel happier.

I am so looking forward to coming out of the shadows!

So there is my taste of Tuesday Nani. I hope everybody has a great, bright day and if you don’t I’ll let you know how the sunny lamp works.

Whoosh--Woooo--Woosh BANG-SQUEAK-BANG!

I’m starting today a little talk about the weather, then I’ll change the subject, okay?

If I don’t talk about the weather the title makes no sense. I started off the day early this morning at -2° but barely windy compared to what it’s been this afternoon. There was snow earlier this week and my power chair wouldn’t be able get through the end of the driveway to get the bus so I changed my appointment with my counselor to 9 o’clock this morning. I considered after that and especially when I woke up this morning that I might be just a little bit nuts after all. Why would I schedule my appointments for earlier in the day when it will be colder instead of afternoon when it would warm up to today’s sweltering forecast high of 15? As it turned out, cold as I was this morning, I made a better choice after all. The wind picked up and it’s been whoosh-woo-whoosh all afternoon.

I had medication delivered and invited the woman delivering it to come inside while I signed the paperwork and I ordered lunch delivered and welcomed delivery woman into the house to make the delivery as well. Before you even wonder about it, yes, I definitely included the appropriate tip for a delivery made when the wind chill is below zero, 10 below, yanno when it gets to below zero, actual temperature or wind chill, it doesn’t really matter it’s definitely cold enough to warrant a bonus tip. After I brought lunch in I started hearing the “bang-squeak-bang!” That’s our side door. It doesn’t close really well. There’s a latch at the bottom that helps keep it from opening like that but I can’t reach it without tipping over down the stairs so it’s not latched. I sent David a text to let him know that if the door is still attached when he gets home it will need to be latched.

When lunch came Marco was more interested in meeting delivery person than he was in the food. In fact he didn’t seem interested in my semi-comfort food Italian sub at all. But when I opened the salad…

Our little vacuum cleaner will eat anything but he LOVES his lettuce!

I think the cold and wind has something to do with it but I’ve realized that I scrap a LOT of Cat pages especially in the beginning of my books. My theory is that in those first couple months I don’t get out a lot, or at least I try not to. So I take lots of pictures of the cats. Since I have January and February completed for the years I’m catching up I decided to see what page number the 10th cat page was for each year.

In 2008 the 10th cat page was page 38 but that was also after eight pages of my first trip to Iowa. In 2009 number 10 was page 28 and it was 27 in 2010, 31 in 2011. Keep in mind percentagewise we’re talking 25-33%. After my MS diagnosis that percentage increased. In 2012 cat page 10 was page 19 and it was page 20 last year. So far this year January pretty much snow and cats with an occasional lunch. My counselor suggests that scrapbooking is a good thing because it keeps me focused on happy or funny subjects and is a good stress-relieving creative outlet. I agree with her 100%, but I also think a doctor who prescribes that you scrap more is almost as good as a doctor who tells you to drink more coffee!

But all the cat layouts in the beginning of my books do look good!

2008 – Good Cats?

Credits: Day By Day by Nibbles Skribbles

Kaline 2010

Carla 2012

The last two are layouts done a while ago and I don’t have the credits recorded. (The first one was posted in a scrapbooking gallery so I was able to swipe the credits from myself)

That’s it for tonight – Stay warm!

Book Review: The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders

Finished January 23, 2014

Synopsis at Good Reads

In the first novel in Lawrence Sanders’s bestselling Deadly Sins series, New York cop Edward Delaney chases a serial killer who’s armed with a mysterious weapon

New York Police Department Captain Edward Delaney is called to the scene of a brutal murder. A Brooklyn councilman was struck from behind, the back of his skull punctured and crushed with an unknown weapon. The victim wasn’t robbed, and there’s no known motive. The commissioner appoints Delaney to head up a clandestine task force, but soon this effort ignites an internecine war of departmental backstabbing.

Distracted by the serious illness of his wife, Barbara, Delaney begins his secret investigation. Then the killer claims another victim—slain in the exact same way, leaving the strange puncture wound. As more young men are found murdered, Delaney starts putting the pieces together. Soon, he’s faced with a cop’s dilemma: He knows who the killer is, but the man is untouchable. That’s when Delaney lays a trap to bring a monster to justice . . .


My review at Good Reads
1 of 5 stars

The five star system just hasn’t worked for me so far this year. This time I want to award negative stars. How do you rate a book that gave you serious pain for the last 50 pages because it just wouldn’t end?

I started to read The First Deadly Sin just after Christmas. After reading the first couple of chapters, I checked out the reviews on Amazon. There were a lot of people who hated this book, but they “hated” the whole book so much after reading just a little bit of the beginning. One reviewer made it through almost a third of the over 600-page book before he “couldn’t stomach it” any longer. But there are raving reviews about how great the story and book are. Of course those reviewers read the whole book. I decided I was going to go on reading the book until New Year’s Eve. At midnight I’d decide if I was going to continue reading the book or put it away and start something else begin 2014. This was not my first book of 2014. I enjoyed my first book of 2014.

The one positive I can say about The First Deadly Sin is that it’s only January and I’m quite sure I’ve already read this year’s worst book on my reading list! It’s an old book. I know in 1973, when it was written, it would’ve been a horrendous choice for seven-year-old. In 2013 and 2014 it was a horrendous choice for a 47-year-old.

The book is about 300 pages too long, 603 pages too long for my taste. It’s overly descriptive about unimportant things that don’t need to be described for character or plot development. Perhaps that added to the fact that I simply didn’t like any of the characters. I didn’t care who the good guys were, who the bad guys were or who came out on top in the end. Add to that the subplot of the main character’s sick wife that really didn’t need to be part of the story and only added a flat character and made the main character less likable. The end of the book was 50+ pages, 10 days, of a long drawn out anti-climax. There was no shocking high point in the action. There was no “I can’t believe that!” There was no edge of your seat reading. There was just an incredibly boring description of the last 10 days of the story. It was just the same redundant over descriptive detail.

So there you have it. I read the whole book. I should be singing the praises of a great well-written story. What happened? Maybe I just live in the wrong state to legally like The First Deadly Sin.