anne of green gables by lucy maude montgomery

amazingly, i have never read any of the anne books. i don't know how this happened. i've seen the movies (in fact, i just added them all to my netflix queue so i can watch them again) and loved them. it's too bad, i would have loved these as a little girl. i loved it now!! 

i love anne's wide-eyed wonder and optimism; her passion; and her inherent goodness. i'll definitely be continuing on with the series and i'm sure it will be revisited several times throughout my life.

the lost symbol by dan brown

i forgot that i read this book, which, i guess, speaks to how much i enjoyed it. i didn't really have a desire to read this book. i left the book i was reading in a hotel room somewhere in the french countryside, so i had to pick a book to read out of the very limited english section in the paris airport. and thus, i came to read the latest dan brown installment. 

it wasn't bad . . . it just wasn't as good as his other two books i've read, or maybe i'm just used to his formula now . . . overall i found it mediocre. 

there's not much to say . . . there's a lot of history and science that may or may not be true; a big conspiracy; a crazy person who gets carried away in an obsession and involves robert langdon because he's the only person who can solve the riddle . . . . same ol', same ol'.

i finished it because i got so far into it on my SUPER long flight home it seemed like a waste not to. but it was too long, and i think it's safe to say i'm done with dan brown novels. 

the swan thieves by elizabeth kostova

i'm so frustrated that i wasted so much time on this book. it's long. i read about 400 pages before i finally threw in the towel. i skimmed over the rest of it to see what happened in the end . . . definitely not worth it.

it's very disappointing because i loved kostova's the historian so much.

this novel is all about paintings and artists and obsession stemming from mental illness. i didn't like the narrator (boring, didn't care about him in the least); i disliked the pivotal character (oblivious, selfish, self-destrictive); didn't care about the women involved with the pivotal character (insignificant in any way). 

boring, tedious, wordy, a lot of pointless back-story . . . and all for an ending you could pull out of a write-your-own-novel workbook.

don't waste your time.

love walked in by marisa de los santos

i didn't enjoy this book as much as i expected to. it had such great reviews. i didn't find the main character as charming and lovable as i think i was supposed to . . . i mean, she was fine, i guess, and the whole book was nice enough . . . it will make an excellent chick-flick. but, as i discovered earlier this year, i don't like to read my chick-flicks.

i particularly didn't like how much time she spent describing about how great martin was, just for him to turn out to be not great. and the way they hit it off was awkward for me, it rang untrue for some reason.

the book ended well. i think my main problem was that she spent more time constructing then deconstructing martin when there were so many other more interesting and purposeful things in the book to explore. 

there is a sequel book, but i don't think i'll bother with it. but it was a nice enough fluffy book to read on the beach at the lake.

summer at tiffany by marjorie hart

i don't have much to say about this book. it was a fun little read, no big plots or morals or agendas. it tells the story of the summer the author spent living in new york city and working as a page at tiffany in the 1940's. it was fun to hear about her experiences, the glamour of the 1940's and the excitement of new york city. 

things fall apart by chinua achebe

i read this in my african history class. i didn't like it. at all. i disliked the main character. i had no connection to or sympathy for him. the voice of the book was really broken, the narrative didn't flow, which was very distracting and off-putting.

mockingjay by suzanne collins

i found myself really disappointed with this last book in the hunger games series. the first half of the book was good, on par with the rest of the series. katniss had purpose, drive, something she was working toward, but the end almost negated the entire series for me (much like my reaction to 1984). i didn't like her absence in the aftermath of the fall of the capitol. it's almost like the author didn't know how to make it all come together, so she avoided writing it by removing katniss from the situation. i felt like the final resolutions were untrue to the characters, particularly gale and katniss. i would recommend the series to most anyone, but i'm disappointed with the ending.