Book It!

Tell me you remember just how AWESOME Book It was?!  You would get pretty shiny stars on the chart and then one magical day, your teacher would give you the Pizza Hut pass.  One FREE personal pan pizza... and a prize.  I'll always remember getting the coolest Back To The Future sunglasses.  They looked something like this:  Pure Awesomeness. 

Anyway, let me get to the point.  I love reading.  No surprise there.  People always ask me how I find the time to read, having 2 under 2 and all.  Well, since I love it, I make time for it.  I especially have a lot of time for it when it's NBA season (GO HEAT!), when Mau gets a new video game, or during late night feedings.
Last year I made a goal to read 50 books in 2010... I failed that goal, but still managed to read more books in one year than I ever had before.  I read 33 books in 2010, so my NEW goal for 2011 is to read just 2 more books than I did in 2010... 35 total.  If I surpass that, I'll be thrilled!  These are just small steps in my self improvement process...

So, without further adieu, here are the last 6 books I've read (3 from 2010, 3 from 2011).

 If you love the Showtime series "Dexter", then you'll enjoy the Dexter book series by Jeff Lindsay.  After all, he started it.  Dexter Is Delicious is the 5th book in the series.  The show DOES NOT follow the book series.  In fact, only the first season is like the first book, with some changes.  The characters are mostly the same, but the show and book differ in some things as well... for example, in the show Dexter's baby is a boy, but in the book it's a girl.  No biggie.
The series as a whole has it's ups and downs.  The first 2 books were amazing... sick and twisted stuff you can expect from Dexter.  Unfortunately, the 3rd and 4th segments were lackluster.  It was way too far fetched and unmoving.  Luckily for Lindsay, he got his groove back with this one.  It's strange, crazy, disgustingly gross and hilarious.
The good thing about this series is that if you watch the show and know the characters, you can skip the 3rd and 4th books and not really miss much.

This is also another book that's in a series.  I wrote about the first segment, Hush Hush, in my previous book post.  Unfortunately this book did not do it for me.  It was so typical of a Young Adult second book.  We've seen it before... it's the "break up book".  Just conflict after conflict with whining and more whining.  Ugh.  
Of course, I will be reading the final segment of this series, because I like resolutions.
If you're a teen, you'll like it.  The rest of us can skip it and wont really miss a thing.

I was asked to review this book for a book blog I am currently writing for:  The Book Nook Club.  I am one of a bunch of writers... it's fun.  Well, I was assigned to review this book for the book blog tour that was to promote the author's new release.  I did not like this book and did not leave a very positive review.
It's a black Christian book.  On the back cover it says something about "uplifting the soul of the black woman".  That said, it is filled with cliche' talk such as "fine man", "you go, girl" and lots of baby-mama-drama.  Way to be original!
The main character wants to get closer to God so that she can "step into the good life".  As a Christian, this doesn't sit well with me... She's selling a "prosperity gospel" which is FALSE!  When you become a Christian, your problems don't magically disappear... in fact, you'll probably be faced with more adversity than ever before.  That's the cold harsh truth.
This book almost made me cringe with just how misleading it was.  Sad that people fall for this kind of stuff.

Can you believe I had NEVER read this book before?!  I was stunned to find out that Mauricio had read it in the 7th grade!  There's the great private school edumacation for ya!
I really enjoyed this quick read.  I'm not familiar with the history behind the USSR and what quite went down (thanks again, private school).  For me, it spoke more about how a corrupt leader can manipulate their audience and cause major destruction.  It speaks true for Hitler and even Castro.
I'm sure that it's beneficial for 7th grade minds, but even more so for adults who have a broader view of world politics today.  A great read for the first time, or the first time in a long time.

I really loved this book.  It captures you from the first chapter and moves well throughout.
It starts off with 5 toddlers that are found abandoned in the cabin of a luxury boat, parked in a dock off the coast of Puerto Rico.  No one knows who these children are, or where the parents are.  The children become known as the "Starfish children" because of a starfish drawing they each have on their hand.  The children are each adopted into different homes and live in various parts of the States and Puerto Rico, but they remain close as they consider each other to be siblings.  It isn't until one of the brothers is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor that they decide to find out their origins.
It's a beautiful story about family, love, compromise and trust.  It has a lovely hispanic flare that I just adored.
Pick this one up... it was my favorite of the group I'm writing about today.

I just finished this one yesterday.  It's another YA fiction that's in a series.  This series has 5 segments and I'm not sure if it's done yet.
Everyone ranted and raved about how awesome this book was.  I didn't really think so.  The writing is great... moves fast, it's funny and has good breaks.  However, I felt like I just wasn't in the right place for the story.
It's written in the year 2000, and the main character, Jessica, is a Junior in high school.  She's 1 year younger than me.  That said, I think I would have devoured this book if I had read it back in 2000.  But now, I'm just over teen drama.
The book talks PLENTY about sex, sexual desires and even orgasms.  TOO MUCH for me.  Now some may say that I'm being naive... I'm not though.  I was once a teen too and I remember that teens thought about sex, talked about sex and even did "it", but that doesn't mean I want to read page after page about it.  It honestly makes me sick.  And even more honestly, I think it's a little irresponsible of the author to make teen sex such a natural and casual thing (even though Jessica doesn't have any in this book).
I'm undecided as to whether or not I'll read more from this series, but since I liked McCafferty's writing, I may read something else by her in the future.

So there you have it.  I've got 3 out of 35 down... woohoo!  If you like my reviews, become my friend on Good Reads to see more!