Book: The Language Of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Publishing Info: Published by Ballantine Books; 336 pages in Hardcover

The Language Of Flowers is about 18-year-old Victoria Jones, who has spent her whole life going from foster home to group home.  She has an incredibly hard time getting close to people, and using flowers is her way of communicating.  After leaving the system, she sleeps in a park until she gets a job assisting a local florist.  She comes across someone from her past and wonders if she should start opening up.

I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought.  I just couldn’t care about Victoria, and didn’t find her likeable.  I felt bad for her, since she was abandoned at the tender age of 3 weeks and spent her whole life in and out of foster homes.  But there were people who clearly cared for her, and it’s hard to see why, when she did her best to shut them out of her life.

The aspect of communicating through flowers, with their own hidden meanings, was interesting, but it got tedious to read about the meaning of flowers after a while.

It started off well, when we get introduced to Victoria and see her life right after leaving the foster care system.  Shifting between the present and her time in one of her foster homes didn’t work for me, but Elizabeth (one of her foster moms) seemed to have an impact on Victoria’s life.  It starting going downhill about halfway through, when Victoria gets pregnant.  She tries to take care of her unnamed baby (after having it completely off-grid) but ends up leaving her child her father’s house.  But it turns out that he couldn’t handle taking care of a child either, so he gives the child to Elizabeth, who turns out to be his aunt, and the woman who would have adopted Victoria, had she not set Elizabeth’s vineyard on fire and lied about Elizabeth abusing her.

It was hard for me to care about what happened to Victoria or muster any kind of sympathy when she seems hellbent on leaving people in the wake of her 0wn self-destruction.  And when she seems to only care about her own burgeoning flower business.

And the ending!  It wrapped a little too nicely, with Victoria deciding to give raising her daughter another chance.  It didn’t seem to fit the character, and for me, it was far too random to make much sense.

I have to give it a 1 out of 5.  I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and it’s just not for me.

Book: Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Publishing Info: Published by Viking Juvenile: 352 Pages in Hardcover

Because I Am Furniture is the heartbreaking story of Anke, who is witness the abuse that her sister and brother suffer at the hands of their father.  Anke is ignored, and feels very much like a piece of furniture.  Through her time on the volleyball team, she learns to speak up and finds the voice she thought she didn’t have.

I really liked it.  The thing I thought was most interesting was that the entire book was told in poems.  It was refreshing to see Anke’s thoughts just spilling out onto the page, but at the same time, I felt like I was just an observer.  The poetry made it really easy to follow but it also added a certain complexity to it.

The ending felt a little rushed, and it would have been nice to see what happened to her dad, her friend Angeline, and a couple other people mentioned in the book.

Overall, it was realistic and very emotional.  I give it a 4 out of 5.

Book: The Last Wife Of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson

Publishing Info: Published by St. Martin’s Press; 326 pages in hardcover

The Last Wife Of Henry VIII is about Catherine Parr, Henry’s 6th, and last, wife.

It’s an interesting novel, but I feel like it could have been a little longer.  Erickson pretty much glossed over different events from Catherine’s life, and it went by far too quickly.  I would have liked more of her marriage to Henry, since it is titled The Last Wife Of Henry VIII, but no such luck.

I love the people and all, and Tudor England is one of my favorite historical periods ever, but I couldn’t get into it.  However, it was interesting to see the court and Henry’s other wives through the eyes of Catherine.  It just wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be, given she was one of two wives (the other being Anne of Cleves) to survive Henry relatively unscathed.  Erickson’s version was a tad boring for me, but she is free to write her as she sees fit.

There certainly was not a lot of detail about clothing or food or what the different castles and homes looked like.  It would have made the book feel more real and give the book some life.

Overall, it gets a 3 out of 5.  While not bad or amazing, it was a good, enjoyable read.

Book: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Publishing Info: 441; Hardcover; Published by HarperTeen

Delirium is set in Portland, Oregon, and is about a society that believes love (deliria) needs to be cured because of the problems it causes for society.  The government demands that everyone gets cured when they’re 18, because it doesn’t work on anyone under the age of 18.  Lena has looked foward to it, until she mets Alex 3 months before she’s supposed to be cured.

I liked it, and found the idea that love is a disease that has been (mostly) eradicated very interesting.  It seemed like everyone feared love, but I myself didn’t feel very scared of love at all.

I loved that the chapters were headed by nursery rhymes, playground chants, schoolbooks, government pamhplets and The Book Of SHHH, amongst other things. 

One thing I’m curious about, and something that wasn’t fully explained, was why love is considered a disease, and how they cure it.  It’s surgery- I think brain surgery- but other than that, we don’t know the specifics.  Perhaps it will be revealed in one of the other books in the series?  It’s mentioned what the symptoms of deliria are, but nothing about why it’s considered bad…and almost contagious. 

It gets a 3 out of 5.  It’s very imaginative and clever, and Oliver does have a way with words.  But there was something missing from it.  Still, I’m intrigued enough to read the next one.

Book: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Pages: 849; Hardcover; Published by Scribner

It’s been years since I’ve read Stephen King, so when this book popped up on my recommendation list, I decided I needed to read it. 

11/22/1963 is about Jake Epping, a man who goes back in time to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. 

I thought it was just okay.  But when did Stephen King stop writing horror/supernatural stuff and start writing novels that are more science-fiction?  His stuff always had a hint of science-fiction, I suppose, but for some reason, it seems like he’s more science-fiction than horror.

Back to the actual book though.  It was well-written, but most of the book focused on the 5 years leading up to the assassination.  There was a lot of build-up for something that didn’t last very long in the book.  And with the element of time-travel thrown in, the main character goes back to his present time, only to learn that the entire country has been living in a nuclear winter.

It’s not as suspenseful or as thrilling as I would have expected, and it’s more about Epping’s long lost love than the Kennedy assassination.  There’s not enough conspiracy theory in it for me.  The book doesn’t really delve into how the Kennedy assassination would change the course of history, and when we finally got to it, it felt rushed.  Almost like King forgot what he was writing. 

It had a good start, with a boring middle and rushed/anti-climactic ending.  The ending wasn’t what I expected, with Epping having to choose between staying in present time and letting it all be done with, or going back and trying to change fewer things.  Either way, it was a let down, because why go through with trying to change it?

It could have been a really interesting book, but I think going back to 1-2 years before the assassination (at most) would have been nice.  5 years before was just too long of a time.  And if it had focused on how an attempted assassination changed history instead of the events leading up to it, I think it could have been a lot better and a lot more interesting.

I give it a 2 out of 5.  Slightly disappointing- it was just okay.

Book: She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor

Pages: 480; Hardcover; Published by Faber and Faber

She-Wolves was an interesting book.  It chronicles Matilda, Eleanor Of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou.

I thought Matilda was most interesting, and Isabella was pretty interesting too.  Margaret’s section was the most familiar to me, so I ended up glossing over it.  Eleanor was also interesting, and while I knew of her, and probably learned about her at some point, I was a bit fuzzy on her life’s story. 

It was dry, and pretty dense.  It was hard to get through, and the only reason I managed to do it in one sitting was because I had nothing else to do.  She managed to connect Matilda, Eleanor, Isabella and Margaret to both Elizabeth I and her sister Mary (a queen in her own right) rather well, and it was at that point that her interest seemed to shine through. 

It is a very good overview of 4 women, and she does a good job at condensing the information, especially in the Margaret of Anjou/Wars Of The Roses section.  If you’ve read about any of them, then you might be bored.  But if you want an overview, this is the book for you.

I give it a 2 out of 5.  It was just okay for me, but has some good information in it.

Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Pages: 451; Hardcover; Published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

The Help is about Skeeter, who has just returned home from college and Aibileen and Minny, 2 maids.  They come together for a project about what it’s like to be 2 African-American maids in 1960’s Mississippi.

I wasn’t sure about this book during the first few chapters, but as I continued reading, I found myself wanting to know more about Aibileen and Minny and what secrets they knew about the people they worked for.  It was really hard to put down, and I just got so caught up in the story. 

It felt very real, and Stockett did such a good job at bringing the people and the relationships between them to life.  You really see that we’re more alike than different, and that even a few differences aren’t so bad. 

It did start off a little slow, and it took a while for it to get going, but everything came together at the end.  The book shifts between Abileen, Minny and Skeeter.  I wasn’t sure about the 3 different narrators at first, but by the end, I thought it worked pretty well.

It’s hard to believe that this is Stockett’s first novel.  It’s so believable, and I could relate to so many of the characters, even the ones that I didn’t like.  It’s definitely engaging and thought-provoking.  I really can’t wait to see what Stockett comes up with next.

I give it a 4 out of 5.  It’s pretty uplifting, and I’m glad there was a happy ending.

Book: Twisted by Sara Shepard

Pages: 305; Hardcover; Published by Harper Teen

Twisted is book 9 in the Pretty Little Liars series.  The girls take a vacation to Jamaica to take their minds off of everything that happened to them.  While there, they come across a girl they believe is Ali, who might have survived the fire.  They are attacked by “Ali” and Aria shoves her off the rooftop in an attempt to save Hanna. 

Months later, they are no longer friends.  Aria is having trouble dealing with the Kahn’s new exchange student, Klaudia.  Klaudia wants Noel for herself, and it causes a rift between Noel and Aria.  Aria pushes Klaudia off a ski-lift in a fit of anger, and Klaudia ends up being injured.  Emily meets a girl named Chloe, and reveals that she was pregnant with Isaac’s child, whom she had given up for adoption over the summer.  She’s now worried about getting a college scholarship, which is her only option for college.  Chloe’s dad offers to help, since he has strings at the University of North Carolina.  However, he makes a few sexual advances toward her, which ruins her friendship with Chloe.

Hanna gets offered a modeling job by a photographer named Patrick; he sees her at a commercial her dad is doing since he’s running for Congress.  However, he was just trying to have sex with Hanna, and he goes on to blackmail her with some photos he had taken of her.  She steals money from her dads campaign and frames one of her dad’s campaign workers. 

Spencer’s mom gets engaged to a man named Nicholas Pennythistle, while Spencer has feelings for his son Zach.  He confesses that he’s gay, and Spencer promises to keep his secret.  Mr. Pennythistle accuses Zach of sleeping with Spencer and beats up Zach, which causes Spencer to accidentally reveal Zach’s secret.  It’s hinted that Spencer ruined a girl’s life in order to get into Princeton.

This book was just okay.  It really reminded me of the 5th book in the series- just tacked on because the series is really popular.  I mean, how many times can you bring back A, who’s holding something over the girls?  As much as I like the series, it’s starting to get a little tired now.  She’s really starting to recycle the plot every 4 books or so, and I’m pretty sure this book and the next one (Ruthless) were written because of how well the t.v. show is doing.

I did have pretty low expectations, and I’m starting to detect a pattern with the series.  It seems like there’s a new A, who threatens to reveal new secrets every 4 books.  If Shepard wants to do a book about their lives after everything, fine.  But is recycling the same storyline every few books really that worth it? 

It’s definitely never-ending, and while the next book probably won’t be good, I still feel the need to read it and figure out who A is. 

It gets a 2 out of 5.  It was painfully predictable, and the series doesn’t really need to be continued.