The American Heiress: A Novel by Daisy GoodwinMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This seemed like it was probably a faithful portrait of what it was like to be an American Heiress married into English nobility. That said, I may have enjoyed it more if I hadn't believed the blurb on the cover advertising that this would be a good book for someone going through Downton Abbey withdrawal. The stories are only superficially similar and I was hoping this book would be something more like what was promised.
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by Richard Ford. I've never read any of his work before so I was very curious about him. I love his style of narrative. It's beautiful and sweeping and grand while at the same time his story seemed so grounded. To be honest, I enjoyed his writing style more than the story itself but I liked that aspect of it so much I would still recommend him.
by Carol Rifka Brunt. This book was almost like wandering into a time capsule for me since I was probably close to the same age as her main character at the time. Brunt is a wonderful storyteller and she's brought up an issue (AIDS) that doesn't seem to get much attention anymore. It really left me thinking and wondering why we've sidelined news about this disorder when it still hasn't been cured.
by Octavia Butler. Several people recommended it and thought it was grossly overlooked as a modern classic. I agree. Just read it. Tell everyone else to read it. 'Nuff said.
by Kate Williams. I really didn't care for this. It was trying to be some sort of twist on Jack the Ripper but it was predictable and difficult to follow. It was hard to tell what was real and what was imagined in the mind of the narrator. It's an interesting idea to have a crazy narrator but this just felt like a gimmick. 
by Dustin Thomason was a fast paced read and if you're interested in the notion that the world will end in December or if you like zombies, you might like this one. Neither interest me but I still got a kick out of reading this. It was a nice twist on both.
by Matthew Dicks. It's the story of an autistic boy who finds himself in a dangerous amount of trouble and it's told from the perspective of his imaginary friend. This book was wonderful!! So original and wonderfully told. Read it. 
by Karen Thompson Walker, I'd really been looking forward to reading it. I devoured it in a day. Great end-of-days story. Well worth the wait.
by Deborah Harkness. I do like stories about witches and supernatural themes so I think I was naturally drawn to this, even though one of my co-workers struggled to finish it. Harkness does a good job of making a scene come to life. The only real problem I had with this book was that it occasionally reminded me of Twilight. It would be going along very nicely and then a passage would come up that sounded like it was being narrated by Bella Swan and my mood instantly soured. Mostly, I liked it. The set up for book 2 sounded interesting and I look forward to getting around to reading that one.
by Gillian Flynn. What a wonderful and messed up story. I don't usually read mysteries but I'd heard so many great things about this that my interest was piqued. Wow. Just wow.
by James Treadwell. This doesn't happen to me very often, I couldn't finish it. I was so ridiculously bored out of my mind. I keep trudging away at it, hoping it would get better but I finally gave up when I had 100 pages left. I felt like I was torturing myself.
by Philippa Gregory. I have liked everything else I've read by her and this was not bad either. It's her first book targeted at the Young Adult audience. It was predictable but it was still fun and imaginative.
by George R. R. Martin. I'm about a third through and I really like it so far. I'm a big fan of this series. I like the way Martin isn't afraid to sacrifice really great characters in order to make the story more real and interesting.
: You'll never look at carnies the same.
by Diana Gabaldon. I loved the first book, Outlander, but was not a huge fan of the second, Dragonfly in Amber, so I'd put off reading this. This was my not as good as the first but definitely better than the second. Briefly, the Outlander series is a historical romance story about a modern woman who goes back in time and falls in love with a Highland Scotsman. The stories chronicle their adventures. This book ended up taking them out to sea and dealing with pirates and Caribbean slaves during the course of trying to rescue a kidnapped relative. I really do love Gabaldon's writing and enjoyed this book but I'm used to reading a lot of different books and I found myself getting antsy from reading the same book for so long. Consequently, I'm going to be reading some books now that are a bit faster paced. (But I do recommend this book if you like the genre) :) I am currently reading 
by Cassandra Clare. I'm about 2/3 through and am enjoying the return to the original characters.
by Eric Blehm. It's a biography of a man of extraordinary strength and courage who never gave up. I'm not a religious person and there's a big element of that in this story but it was not off-putting and the whole thing was just very inspirational. Adam Brown was a member of SEAL Team Six but you should not buy this book if you are only interested in the story of Osama bin Laden's killing. That is an event beyond the borders of this story. There is a great quote from Adam on page 137 (it sounded a bit familiar so he may have been quoting someone else) that I really like and I think sums up very well the way he lived his life: "The truly courageous and powerful never have to prove it. It is always shown in their actions."
Then there was 
by Jenny Lawson. I mainly read this book at work and was snorting with laughter so much that a bunch of my co-workers ended up ordering it just to find out what the deal was. I follow "The Bloggess" on twitter and read her blog when I see links to it and have always enjoyed reading what she has to say. She's a very entertaining storyteller and I can't wait until she writes another book. If you've ever thought that your family was strange or that you are a weirdness magnet, read this book and you will get a proper sense of perspective.
I have yet to decide how much I liked 
by Alex Adams. This is the first book in a trilogy (White Horse being a reference to the Biblical allusion to Death) and when I know that going into a book, I like to reserve my final judgement until I've completed the whole story. It's another dystopian tale that was very compelling, I'm just not sure where she's going to go with it. It was very well written and didn't seem to be targeted at a young adult audience, like so many with this theme seem to be lately.
by Patrick deWitt was an interesting read. A story of two brothers who are hitmen in the Western United States during the time of the gold rush. It's told from the point of view of the younger, less bloodthirsty, of the two who once idolized his brother but doesn't think he's the best person anymore. It follows them on their journey of completing a job in California. It was a good story and well told but it was very understated for a tale of two murderers. I really enjoyed the relationship between Eli and his poor horse, Tub.
by Madeline Miller is an interesting telling of the life of Achilles told from the prospective of Patroclus. My mythology is a bit rusty and I need to re-read some of the other versions of this story but I don't remember Achilles and Patroclus being lovers but since Miller is a professor of mythology I'm willing to go with her version of much of this tale. I'd forgotten how young Achilles was when he went to war (I blame the fact that when I now mentally imagine this man, I picture Brad Pitt in his late 30's) so this was a very interesting way of putting it back into perspective for me. Very good book! I think part of why I liked it so much was that when I first really developed a love of reading was in Junior High School and I had an excellent teacher who introduced us to Homer. It brought me back to that time a bit and the nostalgia factor made a great book that much better.
I'm getting ready to take on some lighter reading right now with 
by Stephanie Laurens.
by Laura Hillenbrand. This was an absolutely amazing survival story. My dad, who is a Vietnam vet, read this book and suggested it to me. I just can't imagine enduring the struggle that POW's go through and have no way of measuring the amount of respect I have for them.
by Roger Rosenblatt. Despite my lousy criteria for taking it off my shelf, I thought this was an excellent book. A true story about a man and his family coping with the loss of his adult daughter. It wasn't overly sentimental or syrupy but was simple and true.
by Veronica Roth. Somehow, I ended up with a bad printing and all of page 16 was black. I thought it might be a plot device for a while until the story kept referencing back to events on that page. I was able to get a hold of someone from the publisher and they said they'd send me a new copy. It's so odd to me that dystopian novels are so popular, but when you take into account the Occupy movement and the resulting dialogue, it makes sense. I liked Divergent. I suspect it will be the popular series to follow up on The Hunger Games. Book two comes out in May and I look forward to reading that one.
by Jean Zimmerman. I had a bit of trouble getting started with it but I think it's going to get better.
by Rosina Harrison. I learned about this book from all the Downton Abbey fan reading lists that were circulating the web in January and February. It was entertaining in a gossipy sort of way and a fun read.
by Jonathan Safran Foer. I'm not a big fan of reading books based on critical hype and general popularity, but sometimes the books are genuinely deserving of such success. This is a prime example.
by Audrey Schulman. This book grabbed my attention right from the introduction and never let go. It was one of those rare novels that I didn't want to put down and I didn't want it to end. I wish this author much success, she put a lot of work into this story.
by Gail Carriger. This series has just been so much fun and I'm sad that this will be the last book. I really adore the humor in these tales. 
by Erin Morgenstern. This story is an absolute gift of wonder! I love these stories that bring your imagination out of hibernation and create their own little universe. I'd be interested in seeing this as a movie, if it were put in the right hands. I think we have sufficient technology that someone like Guillermo del Toro could do it justice.
by Robin LaFevers. It was okay. As indicated in the title, it is book one of a series so it's mainly a set-up for stories to come. As such, it was not bad and I think the series as a whole will end up being pretty good. Who wouldn't like a series set in 15th century Brittany revolving around a group of young female assassins trained by nuns?
by Moira Young. I started reading it as soon as I finished the last book and I hardly put it down. I really enjoyed it. I think it caught my interest because I'm getting a little excited about the Hunger Games movie. The heroine of this story, Saba, could definitely give Katniss a run for her money. It sounds like the movie rights for this book have already been optioned and it'll make a great film someday!
by Molly Shapiro. Meh.
. I've been a fan of Rice for a long time but over the years she seems to have lost her edge. I was hoping that her return to the realm of the supernatural would revive her a bit but this felt like more of a rut than anything. The beginning half of the story felt almost the same as Interview with the Vampire, except with wolves. Then she just had to go there, pseudo-bestiality. Vampires can be sexy but, I'm sorry, this was just kinda gross. I spent the last half of the book just waiting for it to be over. Fortunately, it's a fast read. One thing to hold out hope for, she did introduce several very unique characters and dangled the possibility of a few interesting stories to come. Hopefully this was just the awkward set-up novel that writers sometimes use as a lead-in to better novels.
by Maria Duenas. It's no fault of the novel that it took me so long to read it, the story was very interesting. I used to have much more down time at work to read and since I've switched schedules, I find I'm too busy to read as much as I'd like. But, I digress. I really enjoyed this story. It starts out with the main character being not much more that a simple errand girl in a sewing shop in Madrid. Through the course of the story, she grows through many adventures set against the backdrops of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. This young lady is I truly interesting heroine and I loved going along on the ride of her life. 
by Todd Boss. I saw a write up for this book in last week's Sunday paper and became curious, now here we are! Boss is a Minnesota poet, and as such, I found it quite easy to relate to his work. His poetry has an excellent rhythm to it, as the musical title implies, and is very accessible and not ostentatious. "That crick in your neck is the heck you've got from being somebody you're not" (Luckenback). The words he uses to describe music could just as applicably describe his own work, "everything man makes is an aspirant song sawn across / along a deeper grain within" (Instrument). Boss is doing a reading in MN next month and I'm looking forward to going.