The Help

Title: The Help
Author: Kathryn Stockett
Goodreads Rating: 4.45/5
My Rating: 5/5
Pages: 451
Reviewed by: Amy

Goodreads Synopsis:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Into The Darkest Corner

Author: Elizabeth Haynes
Goodreads Rating: 4.16
My Rating: 3.8
Pages: 406
Reviewed by: Nicole 

I received this book from HarperCollins as part of a blog tour for this book. It has been a while since I read a phycological thriller and this was a great way to ease back into it. If you can really ease into those. It was a huge hit in England before coming to the states this July. Definitely not a book to read at home alone.

Goodreads Rating:

Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous - Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape. Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. Until one phone call changes everything. This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense.

Check out my review after the jump!

The Hunger Games: The Movie

So I've expressed how much of a book nerd I am to all of you. I told you about my books, how much I intend to read and that I love to go to the midnight release parties for books as well as for the movies. What makes you think Hunger Games was any different? Not only did I go to the midnight viewing, but I went with my mother, my best friend (who was jet lagged from having landed from a trip to London not 24 hours earlier), and my boyfriend (who I forced to read the book, but admits he enjoyed it). I know this is a little late, but I still had things to add to it.

We got there at 9:30 to find that there was already a line out the door. We hit Target for snacks, Barnes and Noble for coffee and then we went to the theater where they told us they had already let in about 200 people so we could head on in if we wanted to. We found four seats easily, and then settled down to wait for two hours. I had a book with me and so did my best friend, but the boy had to venture down four stories, back to his car to get his. And there we sat reading while the younger children around us screamed in excitement. (I was going a little deaf when they started to hand out posters to whoever was the loudest.) Side note to the posters: My mother marched down to the employees and demanded a poster, who told her they were only for the kids, she proceeded to remind the worker that she was in here talking to him months earlier about the movie, and then he gladly handed one to her. Mom -1, Little kids - 0.

There was lots of screaming when it came to the movie starting and the theater getting darker- but how could there not be? We had all been sitting for TWO HOURS waiting-just waiting. Thats when it started. I spent the entire movie squeezing my boyfriends hand because it was the most stressful movie I have ever seen.

On to my review. Which contains spoilers about the movie.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Author: Stieg Larsson
Goodreads Rating: 3.99
My Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 16 Hours (465 Pages)


I gave into the hype for this book, not because of the hype, but because my boyfriend, who (if you're new) hates books, said it was great. Because of this, I just had to try it. Since I had heard all bad things about the start of the book, I decided to try it in audio version. I knew that it was supposed to be graphic, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. That being said, I'm not sure if I'll watch the movie or not.


Goodreads Synopses:


Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. 


Follow the jump to see my review. Warning: graphic details to follow.

Water for Elephants

Author: Sarah Gruen
Goodreads Rating: 4.06
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pages: 335


I saw all the movie previews for this book so in traditional me fashion, I wanted to read the book first. I got it from the library so it was a waiting game as to when I would get to read it. Now that I have its another book that I can't believe I waited so long to pick it up. Why must there be so many books in the world?


Goodreads Synopses:


An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of "Riding Lessons." "Gritty, sensual and charged with dark secrets involving love, murder and a majestic, mute heroine (Rosie the Elephant)."Q"Parade."


My review after the jump.

Wintergirls

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Goodreads Rating: 3.97
My Rating: 3.5
Pages: 278 
Reviewed by: Amy

Goodreads Synopsis: 

“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other people's lives. Her father is away on business. Her step-mother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weigh less. If she keeps on going this way—thin, thinner, thinnest—maybe she'll disappear altogether.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the National Book Award finalist Speak, best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson explores one girl's chilling descent into the all-consuming vortex of anorexia. 

Review: 

Lost Voices From the Titanic

Author: Nick Barratt
Goodreads Rating: 3.32
My Rating: 3.5
Pages: 286 (264 w/o appendix and index)
Reviewed by: Nicole


I am a disaster junkie. It's terrible to say, but it is so true. I went to see the Titanic when it came out the first time in theaters (I was only 6 or 7 and I constantly wonder what my parents were thinking, but then I remember that I was just that persuasive). I saw this book while I was in Mystic, CT and then I saw my library had it so I decided that in honor of the 100th anniversary of the maiden voyage, I would review some books about it.


Goodreads Synopses:


On April 15, 1912, the HMS Titanic sank, killing 1,517 people and leaving the rest clinging to debris in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic awaiting rescue. Here, historian Nick Barratt tells the ship’s full story, starting from its original conception and design by owners and naval architects at the White Star Line through its construction at the shipyards in Belfast. Lost Voices From the Titanic offers tales of incredible folly and unimaginable courage—the aspirations of the owners, the efforts of the crew, and of course, the eyewitness accounts from those lucky enough to survive.
In narrating the definitive history of the famous ship, Barratt draws from never before seen archive material and eyewitness accounts by participants at every stage of the Titanic’s life. These long-lost voices bring new life to those heartbreaking moments on the fateful Sunday night when families were torn apart and the legend of the Titanic was cemented in our collective imagination.


Jump into my review!

Amy's Review of Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3)

Author: Suzanne Collins
Goodreads Rating: 4.09
My Rating: 3.5
Pages: 390
Reviewed by: Amy

Note from Nicole: Even though you already had a review from me on Mockingjay, I wanted to get Amy's take on the book. We're both very different people and I thought it would only be fair to you to provide her side of things.  


Goodreads Synopsis: 

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plains - except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay - no matter what the personal cost. 

Review: 

The Hunger Games Party

So if you've ben paying any attention to my blog, you will know that my mother works for a Barnes and Noble and I love the Hunger Games. With the movie release being on March 23, Barnes and Noble has decided to host parties the night before and the night of the Movie release. (Basically there is a party on March 21 and March 22, and the movie is out on March 23)

If your local Barnes and Noble is near a movie theater (like in the same shopping center as a movie theater, chances are the party will be on Thursday night and then you can walk over to the theater for a midnight viewing of the movie.) If you aren't sure, your best bet is to call your local Barnes and Noble by clicking here. I'm not sure if other local bookstores will be hosting parties as well, but you can always find out.

I couldn't find a picture of my
from the release party, but this
one shows my fandom in high school.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"

I think going to the parties are the best because (at least the way my mom does it) its a lot of fun especially when people get dressed up and go all out for it. I have a Mockingjay necklace, and pin that I'm going to wear and I'm even getting my hair done to be dressed like the capitol. It's mean to be a good time where we can let out inner geek out. I remember getting dressed up for when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out (If I can find the pictures I will share them with you). There was the time that I convinced my mother to host a party for Breaking Dawn also, (I met a really great friend that night.

So call your Barnes and Noble or local bookstores to get in on the action, because tomorrow night is bound to be a good time, and if you're lucky enough to have two Barnes and Noble's near you, like myself, then go to both of them! (I have one in a mall with a theater and one that isn't, so I'm going to hit up both!) I know at my mom's store there is going to be trivia and giveaways and all sorts of fun!

Robopocalypse

Author: Daniel Wilson
Goodreads Rating: 3.56
My Rating: 4/5
Pages: 347


I saw this book over the summer in a paper talking about summer reads and I knew that I had to read it. Ask anyone that knows me and they will tell you that I love all of those disaster, end of the world type of books and movies; I even liked 2012 the movie. So when I saw a book about a robot apocalypse, I was all over that. Sadly, I hate hardcover, so I was bound to wait to get to read this book anyway. I got it from my library for my Nook only three days ago. That quick of a read.


Synopses from Goodreads:


In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late. 

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.


My review after the jump!