A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Miss Shayne returns this week with the review for the second installment of the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore.  Read on for her thoughts about Fire by Kristin Cashore! As I mentioned in my blog post reviewing Graceling by Kristin Cashore, I wasn’t expecting another book in this series. However, this book is a partner to Graceling . It is set in an area adjacent to the realm where Graceling takes place. However, the areas (somehow) don’t know of one another and the superhuman phenomenon is different. In this land, instead of people being graced with abilities, there are monsters in the shape of animals and humans. For example, there are regular raptors and there are monster raptors that come in a variety of colors. These monsters are so enchanting; they can lure people to their deaths. Fire (appropriately named because her hair is like fire) is the last of the human monsters. She is beautiful and has the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts. Her father was ...

This is the last post for the Staff Picks of 2016, and this week Miss Cherrie shares her favorite reads from the past year.  It's about a month into 2017, and we're already reading here at the library (who are we kidding?  We never stop reading here!).   Ms. Angie and the rest of the staff can't wait for the great books, movies, and music the rest of the year will bring! Miss Cherrie's two favorite books from 2016 are: The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

It's time for some straight talk.  I'm feeling like I'm over the Grantchester Mysteries as a book series but not necessarily as a TV series.  There was a spell earlier this year where I read a couple books in a row from this series, and Sidney's whole act about being "conflicted" about solving crimes/mysteries and always being pulled into any hint of trouble in the vicinity of Grantchester (and now Ely) worked on my nerves.  Like either solve mysteries or don't, either prioritize your family over your mystery solving or don't, but this fretting and obsessing over this work/family/mystery solving balance is getting old.  Well, guess what!  It seems Sidney heard and heeded my advice.  The fretting/obsessing over his mystery solving and whether or not he should be doing it is at a minimum in this installment of the Grantchester Mysteries . It's the late 1960's in Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation by James Runcie, and this is the ...

This week Ms. Angie is sharing her favorite books and movies from the past years!  Please click the title to read the review. Books Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James Mini-series Happy Valley season 1 I'm looking forward to reading the new releases from Anna McPartlin, Emily Arsenault, and Simone St. James in 2017 as well as watching the new season of Mercy Street .

Miss Shayne returns with a new book review.  Read on to find out what she's reading! This book has been on my bookshelf at home since summer. I have a habit of collecting books with every intention of reading them, only to discover I don’t have enough time to read my ever-growing library. I was determined to pick something out and read it over my winter break. I decided on Graceling  by Kristen Cashore mostly because I thought it wasn’t part of a series. As it turns out, it’s a trilogy. So I have my work cut out for me. In this book, some people have incredible abilities called graces. These graces range from mind reading to predicting weather patterns to baking good bread. A person could be graced with anything—even if it’s useless. In most countries, the graced usually strike fear into the hearts of people who are not graced. In Katsa’s case, this is especially true. She has the ability to fight really well and this has resulted in her harming several people and killin...

This week Shayne shares her picks for 2016.  Read on to find out her favorite books, movies, and music from the past year! Books Without Tess by Marcella Pixley; Shayne says, "this story is about the bond between two sisters.  In the present Lizzie is dealing with the death of her sister.  She has flashbacks that show Tess's mental illness slowly getting worse." Thanks for the Trouble by Tommy Wallach; Shayne says, "this is about a couple of days in the life of a loner who encounters a person that changes their outlook on life.  There isn't a lot of action in this book, but its creative elements kept me interested."  Shayne also reviewed this title on the blog!  Click here to read her review. Movies Suicide Squad Nerve The Shallows Music Death of a Bachelor by Panic! at the Disco; to read Shayne's review of this CD, please click here . This is Acting by Sia; to read Shayne's review of this CD, please click here . In 201...

All the Missing Girls is Megan Miranda's first adult novel; she has previously written several YA novels.  However, I haven't read any of Miranda's YA novels.   All the Missing Girls is a thriller, a genre I don't read as often as I used to, and a page turner.  You won't be able to put it down, and you won't see many of the twists coming until they're right on top of you.  The story opens on day 1 and then flashes forward to day 15 and unspools backwards one day at a time back to day 1 before jumping forward again at the very end to wrap up the story.  It's a messy ending and it's probably not your stereotypical 'happy ending.' Nicolette's father is slowly succumbing to dementia and now that he's run out of money, Nicolette and her brother, Daniel, must sell the house to finance their father's upkeep at the convalescence home.  So Nicolette returns home to tiny Cooley Ridge, NC, for the summer to ready her father's house...

We're kicking off this year's Staff Picks with Tim's favorites from 2016!  Read on to find out what he picked! Tim's favorite book: American Gods by Neil Gaiman / Tim says about this read, "[it] is really good, I appreciated how it managed an Americana atmosphere without glossing over early foreign influences." Tim's favorite movie: Kubo and the Two Strings!

What the Dead Want is Norah Olson's second novel; it is the first novel by Olson that I've read.  It's a rather fast paced novel in that the whole story takes place over just a couple or three days.  This is also a young adult novel.  I don't read a lot of YA, and even though there are quite a few YA titles in the library that pique my interest, I usually don't ever get around to reading them. Gretchen travels on short notice out to the boonies of upstate New York to spend the summer helping a great-aunt she never knew she had clean out her family's ancestral mansion.  When phrased like this, this seems an extremely ill-advised decision that Gretchen, a teenager, makes.  And her de facto guardian, Janine, just lets her make it even though Janine is so "level headed" and calm.  When Gretchen arrives, she finds the mansion isolated, dark, and in disrepair; the aunt, Esther, is eccentric and evasive; and cell phone reception is spotty and unreliable....