I read “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins back in May and June but it took me some time to actually finish the final book, “Mockingjay.”

I loved “The Hunger Games,” it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be about; I obviously had not looked into the story line before I started reading. I just decided since so many people were talking about it that it was probably good.  Going into it I assumed the book was either about a group of people fighting for their survival against starvation or about some sort of eating disorder…boy, was I off.

Never would I have thought this trilogy was about a teenager forced into a game of survival for sport, watched by millions of people.  But I was hooked.  I enjoyed “The Hunger Games” so much that as soon as I finished it I HAD to start reading “Catching Fire.”  I actually found “Catching Fire” pretty entertaining as well and made it through the book quickly as well.

I was so anxious to start “Mockingjay” that I borrowed it from some friends because I didn’t want to wait for it to be in stock at the library.  (Sorry you still don’t have your book back guys!) I started “Mockingjay” in June and was immediately bored.  Theoretically this book is actually very similar to the first two, it just wasn’t as interesting to me.

I put off reading it for months and have just now finished it.  Finally in the last 3rd of the book I did get hooked and actually wanted to find out what happened.  I definitely have to go with the majority on this one and say that book 1 is the best and they go downhill from there.

I’ve heard that some people are expecting “The Hunger Games” movies to be bigger and more popular than “Twilight.”  What do you think? I’m not sure that’s possible.

After what felt like a self-imposed beating, reading “The Marriage Plot;” I wanted an easy read.  Since “One for the Money” was about to be released in the theaters and I’d never read a Janet Evanovich novel I thought…why not?

This was such an easy read.  I read it on my Kindle, so I’m not sure the length of the book.  But I started it Tuesday and had it finished Saturday morning and I didn’t even have a chance to read on Wednesday and Thursday.

This series is at least 18 books long, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’d read any more.  Evanovich’s writing style is easy to read but it didn’t really suck me in to the story.  Who knows I might change my mind if I find another book like “The Marriage Plot” and need a nice easy read I might pick up “Two for the Dough.”

This book to me is a “surface” novel; you don’t get a lot of depth about the characters.  Though to be honest I’m not sure there’s much depth to develop.  Stephanie Plum is your stereotypical “Jersey Girl;” well prior to the onslaught of the Jersey Shore.  But let’s face it, the Jersey Shore people aren’t really even from Jersey.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a fun read and I really appreciated the easiness of the writing.  It was the perfect fit for this past week.

“One for the Money” was originally written in 1994, and I’m sure Evanovich was thrilled to finally have it made into a movie.  The movie was good, but definitely not an award winner and to be honest I’m a little surprised that Katherine Heigel wanted to play Stephanie Plum. 

There were obvious changes to the story in the movie and I’d assume for mass appeal, the Benito Ramirez story line was toned down so much that it almost seemed pointless to even have him in the movie.  This is one movie I don’t think you HAVE to read the book before seeing, but I’m glad I did.

Well, that’s 3 books down…maybe this goal of 20 in a year won’t be so hard to achieve after all!

This Christmas my dad hooked me up with a Kindle Fire; naturally I felt pressure to make my first Kindle purchase a good one!  So I pulled up a few best seller lists and every place I looked I seemed to come across “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides. I have not read either of his previous books, “Middlesex” or ”The Virgin Suicides” so I had no idea what I was in for.  If I’ve read a book by a Pulitzer Prize Winner before, it was because it was required reading for a high school or college English class.

This book is about Madeline, an English major/graduate of Brown College in the early 1980s (I say major and graduate because the chronology of this story bounces around quite a bit; in parts she is an undergrad and then at other times she has already graduated), and two love interests: Mitchell and Leonard.

Madeline, finds herself lost in a romance similar to one that could’ve been written by Jane Austin; one of her favorite authors.  Madeline wants so desperately to be in love that she is willing to inject herself in the painful life of Leonard, while Mitchell is willing to do anything to have Madeline.

The story begins the morning of graduation and then the reader is taken back in time to learn why Madeline ended up hung over and being woken up by her parents to go have breakfast before her graduation ceremony.

Despite being an English major, I found myself lost at times as Eugenides went on and on about different authors and their works because the detail was so tedious.  Let me take a moment right here to pause and say, I was an English major with an emphasis on literature and not grammar.  I am sure this is not too surprising of a revelation.

At first I found this book to be interesting but the further I got into it I just wanted it to be over.  Since this was my first book to read on the Kindle, I had no idea that my progress would be tracked in percentage and with this book, that has made reading it even more painful.  As much as I want to give up, I’m not going to. I will follow through and finish up with this book, hopefully tonight because I am 81% finished at the time of this post.

Leonard has manic-depression and is learning how to cope with this “Disease” as he calls it, while Mitchell is traveling the world on a spiritual journey.  This leaves Madeline playing the role of Leonard’s nurse while thinking about Mitchell and wondering “what if.”

I am still hopeful that the culmination of the these three story lines will make my perseverance a worthwhile cause.  Once this book is finished I will have finished book 2 of my goal of 20 books this year.  Not too bad!

Have you read this book? What did you think?  Trust me, you will not see me running out to pick up another Eugenides book any time soon!

If you haven’t read Tina Fey’s book “Bossypants,” I highly recommend it.  I found myself literally laughing out loud as I read it and I think you will too!

I always find it fascinating to read biographies and learn how people become who they are. This book won’t reveal anything shocking or unexpected about Ms. Fey, but it’s just interesting to hear how she came up with the idea for 30 Rock. Though I have to confess, I don’t watch the show.

I’ve never been a consistent SNL watcher, but I could’ve sworn that Tina Fey did more than just the Weekend Update during the show, but apparently I was wrong.  She said she tried doing a few other sketches during her tenure there but no matter the sketch she said she just always looked like Tina Fey but in a wig.  I would have never guessed that; to me she was one of the biggest stars of SNL while she was a cast memeber.

Apparently if you get the audio book, it is read by Tina Fey…now I kind of wish I’d done that!

Well it is on to the next book!

(That’s one book down in 2012, 19 to go!)

Last year seemed to be super busy and reading a book that took too much concentration seemed to be more than I could handle.  So…I just now read “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”  This year I plan to be a much more faithful reader and have actually challenged myself to read 20 books this year, though secretly I’m hoping I read more than that!

I first attempted to read this book back in May/June but man, those first 30 pages were just too much.  So I put it down thinking I’d come back to it when I had a good chunk of time to devote to it.  Next thing I knew the movie would be out in a matter of weeks and I still hadn’t read it.  I don’t know about you but I hate to see a movie before reading the book.  And I definitely recommend reading this book before seeing the movie.  So many details are left out of the movie.

My sister gave me a great piece of advice that I will pass on here. If you haven’t read “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” yet, keep a piece of paper handy and write down the characters names and a couple words about them to help you know who they are.  Since the author is Swedish and the book was originally written in Swedish the names can be quite confusing; there never seem to be enough vowels in there.

I did that this time and for some reason once I started reading I could NOT stop!  It was addicting, yet at the same time reading it at night freaked me out a bit.  Yes this book has some gruesome parts that are hard to read.  But overall this book is very well written in my opinion.  After finishing this book I truly felt like I knew the characters.  Larsson did a fabulous job of making you really feel like you felt what the characters were feeling.

Despite this book being really popular and hearing about it all the time, I loved that this book was by a Swedish author and the story takes place in Sweden. My dad’s mom was 100% Swedish; both of her parents immigrated here. Of all the different nationalities I have in my family, Swedish the most predominate, most of my grandparents were “mutts” (for lack of a better word).

I haven’t yet read books 2 and 3 but am looking forward to it. It’s too bad for Stieg Larsson that he did not live to see the success of his novels.  Though I wonder, would they have gained such notoriety if he hadn’t passed away?

Yesterday I went and saw the movie, and I thought it was one of the best adaptations that I had seen.  Yes there were things that were omitted and yes they changed some rather significant parts; but overall I definitely recommend the movie, after you’ve read the book!

Thanks to the brilliant advertising efforts of Barnes and Noble I purchased and read, Star Island by Carl Hiaasen.

I had never read one of his books and was surprised to discover that this was the man who wrote Striptease, and series of children’s books; odd mix if you ask me.

This was the fifth book I took on my trip to the Dominican Republic a little over a month ago and I have just finished it this past weekend. No it isn’t that long it was just that boring to me. Well boring might not be the right word. Complicated is probably more accurate. There were entirely too many characters and story lines. In fact at the end of the book in the author’s epilogue I didn’t remember who a few of the characters were he mentioned.

Star Island is the story of a troubled young pop star, Cherry Pye, who can’t seem to keep herself out of trouble for more than a few minutes. The entourage around her has hired a double to stand in for her when she is too high or drunk to function, which seems to be the majority of the time. Despite their best efforts to keep Cherry out of trouble she seems to be attracted to it and finds it everywhere she goes.

The range of characters Hiaasen includes is quite impressive.

The most unexpected and intriguing character to me was Chemo. An ex-con with a weed whacker for an arm, hired by her manager to be Cherry’s body guard because he isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to get his job done.

Ann DeLusia the actress that was hired to play Cherry’s undercover stand and is flown all across the country on a moment’s notice to make sure Cherry’s reputation stays intact in the public eye.

Bang Abbott, a paparazzi with poor grooming habits, who thinks he is entitled to invade the private lives of anyone famous simply because he has spent decades perfecting his craft, building a network of informants to tip him off to the stars whereabouts and networking with top tabloid magazines to ensure his pictures get published for top dollar.

However, my favorite character was Skink, who I hear is one of Hiaasen’s reoccurring characters. He is a colorful and lively old man who was surprisingly a former governor of Florida but is currently parading as a homeless superhero.

This book might appeal to you if you don’t mind keeping a cheat sheet with you so that you can keep all of the characters and story lines straight, but for me it took entirely too much effort to keep up with just a mediocre story.