A Trillian Books: August 2010

Monday, 30 August 2010

Teaser Tuesday (18)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

I just get a glimpse of Peeta, lit by a torch, heading back to the girl by the fire. His face is swollen by bruises, there's a bloody bandage on one arm, and from the sound of his gait he's limping somewhat.

Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver

I start with the first-grade yearbook. I open it directly to Mr. Christensen's class - just my luck - and ther I am, standing a little way apartt from the group. The flash reflected in my glasses makes it impossible to see my eyes. My smile is closer to a wince, as though the effort hurts.I flip past the picture quickly.

It's Monday (18) and Weekly Round Up

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey. Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week. Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week

Shadow Wave - Robert Muchamore

Sapphique - Catherine Fisher

Currently Reading

Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (audio)

Up soon

iBoy - Kevin Brooks
My love lies bleeding - Alyxandra Harvey

Reviews

Shadow Wave - Robert Muchamore
The Poisoned House - Michael Ford

Books Received

Library Loot

Posts of Interest

Teaser Tuesday
Booking Through Thursday - Giving Up

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Review: Shadow Wave - Robert Muchamore

After a tsunami causes massive devastation to a tropical island, its governor sends in the bulldozers to knock down villages, replacing them with luxury hotels. Guarding the corrupt governor's family isn't James Adams' idea of the perfect mission, especially as it's going to be his last as a CHERUB agent. And then retired colleague Kyle Blueman comes up with an unofficial and highly dangerous plan of his own. James must choose between loyalty to CHERUB, and loyalty to his oldest friend.

This is the twelfth and final book in the series. You can read a summary of what CHERUB is all about here. Hopefully one day I'll get round to rereading and reviewing the previous books.

James is seventeen now and it's only a matter of time before he retires as a CHERUB agent. This book takes on a slightly different format to the previous ones which mostly start out with a training exercise and then go onto the main mission. Shadow wave can generally be split into three parts. The first third starts off with James finishing up his previous mission with the Brigands Motorcycle Club before returning to the CHERUB campus. A lot of previous characters return for a reunion of sorts and James finds out from his best friend, Kyle, that the last mission he is set to go on isn't quite what it seems. This lead to a fairly long flashback section in the middle of the book - of a previous mission of Kyle's - that sets up the rest of the book.

The main thing I noticed about this book was that a lot of it wasn't centred around James. There's so many great characters in these books so it was good to see sections from the point of view of some of the other characters. There were some I'd have liked to have seen more of but I guess there's only so much you can put in one book! I'd have really liked to have found out more about the epically long mission that Dante was on. It keeps being mentioned throughout this book and the previous one; it'd be awesome to actually read it though.

There was also a sense of nostalgia about Shadow Wave, not only James feeling it because he'd be leaving campus soon but for the reader as well. James was around twelve-years-old when the series started so it feels like we've watched him grow up throughout the books. I liked how the author finished off the book (and the series). It was just the right amount of happy cheesiness without going overboard.

A great story and a great ending to an awesome series. I can't wait for Muchamore's next series and of course the next of the Henderson's Boys books!

Friday, 27 August 2010

It's Friday Again!

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer @ Crazy for Books. It's a chance for book bloggers to connect and share the book love. Check out Crazy for Books (click on the button) for more details and to find the links of some awesome blogs.

This week's question is:
Do you use a rating system for your reviews and if so, what is it and why?

I don't use a rating system for my reviews mostly because I can never determine what rating to give a book lol. When I give stars to books on Goodreads etc, they dont' quite seem to work for me. Like, I can have two 5 star books, but one can be much better than the other. I end up debating in my head "Well it's not as good as that one with 5 stars but it's better than the one I gave 4 stars". I just feel like I'd end up giving books 4.7 stars and that kind of thing if I used ratings. I just prefer to explain what I feel about a book in words. I get why people use ratings though, it's handy for a quick idea of the overall opinion of the book - I just can't make my brain function well enough to actually do it, hehe.

Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee. Just click on the banner below to see the rules and to join in.

It's also Mega Swagbucks day! If you don't use Swagbucks you should give it a try. Just use it to search as you would your usual search engine and you periodically earn swagbucks which can be redeemed for prizes. Currently I average about 2 £5 Amazon gift cards a month just by using swagbucks for some of my internet searching (I don't even use it all the time). Click below to join.

Thursday, 26 August 2010

Booking Through Thursday - Giving Up

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. This weeks question is:

If you’re not enjoying a book, will you stop mid-way? Or do you push through to the end? What makes you decide to stop?

I will definitely stop reading a book if I'm not enjoying it. I have way too many books I want to read to waste time on one that's just not doing anything for me. I don't have a particular cut off point as to how far I'll continue before stopping but I do try to give all books a fair chance. I know I've read books that have took until half way to get into but then I've ended up liking it. At the same time, I can think of a few books that I've not been able to make it past the first few pages.

As most people probably do, I do make more effort with books I've been sent for review. I think if a publisher or author has been kind enough to send me the book then I should at least do my best to actually read it - or at least enough of it to be able to still write an informed review and give good reasons why I didn't finish it.

With some books, instead of actually just giving up on them I'll put them to one side for a bit and have another try at a later date (could be a few weeks or years). This is when I can tell that the book is actually something I'd like but I'm just not in the right mood/frame of mind to read it at that particular time. Skim reading the rest of the book is another option if I'm interested enough in finding out what happens at the end.

What makes me decide to stop? Well, mostly the thing that makes me decide to stop is if I'm finding other things to do instead of read it or if it's taking a long time to read because I can only get through a few pages at a time. I've usually got a few books on the go at once and if I find that I'm constantly not picking a certain one then that's also a reason not to continue.

Occasionally there will be something that will annoy me enough to stop straight away though. This is most likely to be the writing style. I can remember one book I picked up from the library that was written in first person present tense and I just could not get my head around it so stopped after about a chapter. Books that are too descriptive and flowery put me off and it's sad to say but some books just have really bad grammar and I can't cope with that.

All in all, knowing that there's other books out there I could be enjoying is a good enough reason for me to not continue reading something I'm not enjoying.

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Library Loot - 25 August

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Clare at The Captive Reader and Marg at Reading Adventures that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

I only called in at the library to drop off some books today but naturally had to have a browse. With having so many of my usual type of book already on my tbr pile, I decided to challenge myself to only check out books that I normally wouldn't with view to reading out of my 'comfort zone'.

So, I got:

Every Boy's Book of Knowledge: A Giant Compendium of Yesteryear's Facts - Charles Ray

Although I love random facts and general knowledge, I very rarely read non-fiction books. I might in the future try to do so more often. Also, yes, I know I'm not a boy but boys books are more fun sometimes hehe

Mummy Said the F-word - Fiona Gibson

I'm really not a 'chic-lit' kind of person but the title of this caught my attention =D It's also out of my comfort zone in that it's a hard back and I tend not to read them much - too heavy to carry around lol

Wild Country - Noel Loomis

This is the one that's probably most out of my comfort zone as I don't think I've ever read a Western novel before. I picked a short one so it wouldn't be quite as daunting!

Tuesday, 24 August 2010

Review: The Poisoned House - Michael Ford

The year is 1856, and orphan Abigail Tamper lives below stairs in Greave Hall, a crumbling manor house in London. Lord Greave is plagued by madness, and with his son Samuel away fighting in the Crimea, the running of Greave Hall is left to Mrs Cotton, the tyrannical housekeeper. The only solace for the beleaguered staff is to frighten Mrs Cotton by pretending the house is haunted.

So when a real ghost makes an appearance - that of her beloved mother - no one is more surprised than Abi. But the spirit has a revelation that threatens to destroy Abi’s already fragile existence: she was murdered, and by someone under their very own roof. With Samuel returned to England badly wounded, it’s up to Abi to nurse him back to health, while trying to discover the identity of the killer in their midst. As the chilling truth dawns, Abi’s world is turned upside down.

The Poisoned House has all the right elements for a Gothic Victorian ghost story - from the creepy house and a heroine with a tragic history to the cruel housekeeper and dashing son of the household. Combine that with really great writing and you get a fantastic book that's just perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The story starts with plucky young Abi, the servant girl, running away from Greave Hall. She's soon found and returned to her employer's home. It's not the master of the house - who's not exactly with it - she's trying to get away from though, it's the overbearing Mrs Cotton, the housekeeper, who makes her life a misery. Abi's situation is made worse because she grew up being almost one of the family. Her mother was the nursemaid for young Samuel Greaves and Abi grew up along side him, not quite a sister but almost certainly a friend. On the death of her mother, Abi was allowed to stay at Greave Hall but now belongs 'below stairs' and is treated as less than worthless by Mrs Cotton, who seems to have a particular vendetta against her. Abi has friends among the other staff though, as well as Adam the delivery boy, and once Samuel returns home from the war injured it appears that things around Greave Hall are going to change.

There's also a ghostly presence that seems to appear after one of the household staff plays a prank on Mrs Cotton. Abi believes the ghost to be that of her mother and it seems she is trying to send her daughter a warning. but Abi can't work out what it is.

There's a few twists and turns in the story which makes you want to keep reading to reveal the truth. Some are more surprising than others. I did really enjoy reading this book but I wasn't really into how it ended- probably just because it wasn't what I wanted to happen. I'll definitely be looking out for more stuff by Michael Ford though.

Other reviews of this book:
Daisy Chain Book Reviews

Teaser Tuesday (17)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page (add more if you wish).
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others.
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Sapphique - Catherine Fisher

She felt Keiro standing close behind her. His voice, when it came, was dark and mocking.

"Well," he said. "Look at you."

Monday, 23 August 2010

It's Monday (17) and Weekly Round Up

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a weekly event to celebrate what we are reading for the week hosted at Book Journey. Post the books completed last week, the books you're currently reading, and the books to be read this week. Please comment or leave a link to let me know what you're reading this week!

Completed last week