The Next Book On My List

The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis                 The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963 is the story of a black family in 1963 narrated by Kenny, the youngest son and second child. His mom, father, brother and sister all live in Flint, Michigan. He takes the bus to school every day, plays with dinosaurs with his friends and gets teased by his ill-behaved brother. They joke. They tease. They laugh together. This is life in Flint, Michigan for a black family through the eyes of a ten year old. A trip to Birmingham to visit their Grandmother throws the family into an event that young Kenny struggles to understand.                 It’s hard to find children’s books with young black narrators. I am glad I was able to read this one because it is extreme simply and yet very powerful. The struggles of the parents and of what was happening around the children was very subtle. It was almost too subtle but it was there until the very end. One of the things tha

The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice                                 I love when I get lost in the pages of a novel. When the narrative is beautiful, interesting and just whisk me away to whatever time and place the story is taking place. I absolutely hate it when the story gets muddled half way through and the story gets lost in an unnecessary lengthy plot that starts to drag the story out. This in a nutshell is my relationship with The Queen of the Damned. Now, mind you, this isn’t in any way shape or form a bad novel. I enjoyed this story. I simply lost interest midway through and dragged myself to the finish line.                 Lestat (yes, that Lestat from Interview With The Vampire which I absolutely loved) is a rock star. He has an autobiography out where he admitted to being a vampire and where he also divulged the history of Akasha and Enkil, the first of the vampires. He claims to have kissed the frozen statue that Akasha is now and claims to have drank her

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin I can only imagine how difficult it can be to end a series. Your fans have high expectations about what is going to happen. They are eager to jump back into the experience and as an author you are competing with your own work. I am a huge fan of Cronin. I read the first two novels in this series when they came out. I even re-read The Passage and The Twelve before beginning to read this book. I was ready and excited to begin reading The City of Mirrors. What I got was something completely different from the previous novels and yet an experience I appreciated and grew to understand.                 The twelve have been destroyed. The survivors are now trying to live in a world where virals haven’t been seen in over two decades. The roles in this new world have changed and people are branching out beyond the protection of the walls to begin anew. Townships have formed. Families are living their lives. All seems well. But Fanning is waiting

The Twelve by Justin Cronin This is a review of the second book in The Passage series. If you have not read the first book, you may want to rethink reading this review. It will have spoilers for the first book. Now we begin. Re-reading The Twelve was very different from re-reading The Passage. This doesn’t feel like a horror novel. Where The Passage would have these terrifying moments where it was clear just how terrifying the virals could be, The Twelve would have suspenseful moments that capture the characters fear but not necessarily put fear into the reader. It is not a stand-alone novel. I would highly recommend reading The Passage before even attempting The Twelve. The Passage sets the tone perfectly and The Twelve continues but in an extremely unexpected but still enjoyable way.                 The Passage brought the story of the beginning and then propelled readers into the future. The Twelve takes us back to the beginning, bringing to light what hap

The Passage by Justin Cronin                 I was super excited about this re-read. I read this book when it first came out in 2010. It was a book recommended by Stephen King and honestly, I haven’t mistrusted his taste ever so I was definitely ready to read this book. My first time reading The Passage was quite an experience. I had nightmares. I was seeing things in the trees. I loved it. It was suspenseful. It was a new and refreshing look at vampires and the horror genre. It was different and at that time I needed something different. I didn’t originally know that this book was the first in a trilogy written by Cronin. The way it ended left an option for a sequel with a nice little cliffhanger. And now the time has come for this trilogy to end and I thought it was time to bring the world back to me anew. So here we go.                 This all began because they were looking for a cure. A cure for death. A cure to live. A cure for sickness. The scientist thought they

In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Caren Zucker                 The first night I decided to pick this book up I had only planned on reading a few pages, more than likely the first chapter, and then calling it a night. I wanted to get an idea of what the tone of the book would be before diving headfirst the next day. I ended up fully engaged and forcing myself to put the book down after reading over a hundred pages. From the first pages of In a Different Key: The Story of Autism I knew I had begun a book that would educate me, touch me emotionally, and make me reevaluate autism as I know it. I was right.                 This book provides so much information that I am honestly having a hard time trying to quantify it for this review. In a Different Key begins where autism begins, with Donald Triplett, the first person every diagnosed with autism. Here was a boy who emotionally indifferent to everything, known for throwing tantrums, set in his routi