Book Reviews , Books and Accessories

Review of books, book accessories and just plain book talk.

Tender Graces



Tender Graces What can i say? This book was one of the best books i've read in a very long time. I didn't want it to end, i wanted to keep reading , to follow the rest of Virginia Kates life.
Virginia Kate, along with her older brother Micah, younger brother Andy live with their Daddy Frederick and Momma Katie in West Virginia. Their Momma and Daddy fighting constantly and Daddy ends up leaving to Texas to live his Mom while finishing school. And then everything goes downhill from their. I wanted to hug Virginia Kate and tell her everything will be ok and i wanted to slap Katie for destroying their kids life. I wanted to slap their dad too and throw every bottle of boose in the garbage.
Loved every minute of this story.



The Red Scarf By Kate Furnivall

What an awesome story. Loved every minute of it. I wanted to run to Anna and rescue her from that horrible place and i wanted to help Sofia convince Vasily to help her rescue Anna. The story is touching and sad and happy and heartbreaking, of course everything you want in a good book.

The story set in Russia, during the reign of Stalin. The labor camps for so called "criminals" were harsh and torturous, similar to the holocaust camps. Sofia and Anna as slaves, living hour by hour, minute by minute. Anna is dangerously ill and Sofia decides that she must escape to find Vasily , Annas lost love, to help her rescue Anna before she dies.

Sofia finds the town Tivil, where Anna says Vasily is living and falls in love with Mikhail who she thinks is Vasily. WELL you'll have to read the story to find out what happens to Anna, Sofia, Vasily and Mikhail. You won't be able to put it down.

This fun book is a great tool for parents to teach their children about the pitfalls of whining.

I had my 8yo son read this with me. My son whines constantly, and when he read this , he could relate!! It made him think about those things and i asked him, "are you going to whine anymore?" and he said "probably not except for the car ride" hahahahha . I would say this book would be good for any young child, not just preschoolers. I highly recommend I Like to Whine
By William G. Bentrim.

UPDATE on The Red Scarf:

The Red Scarf

Well I'm half way thru the book and i can hardly put it down. Its so powerful, sad, exciting! Its about Sofia and Anna are in a labor camp in Siberia, Soviet Union. The girls in this camp have to endure horrible living conditions, crammed in a hut with dirt floors and rats, with sickness especially TB and walking 2 miles to where they endure hard labor while sick, weak and starving . I dont' want to tell to much exept Anna decides she needs to escape and try to get someone to help get Sofia out who is ailing.

I can't wait to read the rest and see what happens!

Friday is my favorite day LOL! Of course, its the end of the week.
Today we are taking care of my MIL bird. Her name is Chirpy and she's a zebra finch.

I can't get a good picture of her because she freaks out when i get close to the cage.
She's a cute little thing .

Over the weekend we went to a park to relax for awhile. It was a beautiful day out, not to hot and not to cold. I read my book and listened to the birds chirping. I highly recommend doing this at least once a week for mind cleansing.

Wish there was a library like that around here!

http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/?p=702

From the Library today:

The Red Scarf
I have been wanting to read this ever since i read the reviews. From Amazon:
Sophia Morozova's relationship with fragile Anna Fedorina begins through a small act of kindness at a 1930s Siberian labor camp. As the two inmates struggle daily to survive, they increasingly rely on each other for hope and comfort; when Anna falls ill, Sophia escapes, intending to find Anna's lifelong love, Vasily, and rescue Anna. Beautiful and charismatic, Sophia quickly becomes a force to reckon with in the town of Tivil, where she hopes to find Vasily, and her connections with powerful gypsy Rafik, the handsome factory director Mikhail Pashin and the stern but unreadable Aleksei Fomenko become satisfying sources of danger and desire. Furnivall (The Russian Concubine) paints a stark picture of rampant scarcity, grim regimentation and blaring propaganda in pre-WWII Soviet Russia. In pushing the limits of Sophia and Anna's love and friendship, she nicely pits small lives against a monolithic state, paradoxically composed of watchful villages. (July)

The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman

Love Kellermans books and i only have 3 more to read of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus Novels.

From Amazon:
From Publishers Weekly
A coincidence so improbable that a character comments on it renders bestseller Kellerman's 16th novel to feature Lt. Peter Decker of the LAPD and wife Rina Lazarus (after 2003's Street Dreams) one of the series' lesser entries. After a commuter airplane crashes into an apartment building shortly after takeoff from Burbank Airport, Decker and his team investigate what many fear was a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, the parents of Roseanne Dresden, a flight attendant, suspect that their daughter was murdered by her stockbroker husband, Ivan, who claims his wife joined the doomed flight at the last minute. Roseanne was considering divorce, and Ivan stood to lose financially. As the probes into the crash and into Roseanne's fate converge, readers will find it a challenge to suspend disbelief. Fans of the extended Decker-Lazarus clan will enjoy catching up with old friends, but those looking for a plausible police procedural may be disappointed. (Aug.)

Banned Books