The longest book I read in 2011 was “The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson. I read a bunch of interesting graphic novels. I read entire published series. I caught up on other series.I even joined a book club. I’ve missed my Ohio book club a lot. They were AWESOME.

Here’s a summary of what I didn’t get reviewed already:

“Forever in Blue” by Anne Brashares: This last installment of the Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants gave a nice full circle end to the saga of the miraculous pants. The writing was the same, the characters the same, yet it really just didn’t grab me as much as the others. Still, it’s a nice and light read.  Sometimes those are worth their weight in gold.

“Stork” by Wendy Delsol: I actually liked this book. It wasn’t quite what I expected and I wanted more information about the Stork society because I found the whole mythos interesting. Human storks? That’s just interesting. There was some Scandinavian ties with Norse mythology and that’s awesome. I like that sort of thing. I just don’t even know what to say without giving away too much of the story, which was captivating.

“Size 12 is Not Fat” by Meg Cabot: The title says it all. Amen. On to the story. Meg Cabot creates characters that I not only like, but that I can relate to in some way or another. This centers around a former teen popstar working a cruddy job and trying to make ends meet. That is just a fun character. Of course there is a smoking hot private eye love interest and college students falling down elevator shafts to spice things up. What’s not to love?

Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher: Harry Dresden is back! Only he’s dead. Creative, and it got him out of his element. It also meant that a lot of changes for Harry, like he couldn’t rely on Bob the Skull or flame spells. No magicked trenchcoat protection and no wizard’s staff. Definitely no mention of his kinetic energy bank bracelet. I like turning things on their heads. This did that. In a series as long as the Dresden, things can quickly go stale. Leave it to Butcher to laugh at this and prove he won’t let that happen. The mystery? Who killed Harry Dresden. No, I’m not spoiling it for you. Let’s just say it was pretty much exactly as I postulated following my reading of the previous book. If you want more, read the book and then talk to me. No spoilers here!

“Flip This Zombie” by Jesse Petersen: I dove right into this after reading “Married With Zombies“. It looks like the main characters have a stronger than ever marriage, but there’s still some weak links. We see how humanity takes to surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Yes, it’s different than The Walking Dead.  That’s all right by me. I like them both for their differences. I liked the Super Zombie problem introduced and the creativity of the survivors to still dream of idyllic life somewhere.  Humans live for hope. And the laughs? They carried right through this book. Zombies + Comedy…really, the two do go hand in hand.

“Undead and Undermined” by MaryJanice Davidson: All hail Queen Betsy! I’m far more a Queen Betsy fan than a Bella Swan fan. OK, I’m also more a Sookie fan than a Bella fan. That’s a whole other topic. After the last Queen Betsy book, I was a little put off. Let’s just say it wasn’t my fave. It was dark, it was depressing, and it was just not what I’ve grown to love about Betsy. I liked the idea, but the end was just sad. This picked up where that left off. I felt a lot of “going around in circles” went on in this book, and it sure didn’t seem like a whole lot got accomplished toward the end goal we saw in the previous book. Namely: Stopping the end of the world as we know it. That was a bit of a let down. I don’t need books to have happy endings, but this leaving me hanging thing is just driving me nuts. I want to know what caused the Eternal Freeze and how they can stop it.  I was intrigued by the alternate time line. Ooops. Guess that time hopping messed things up! Which is good, what with the whole butterfly effect and all.  In the end, not my fave, but I still love Queen Betsy and team!

That leaves three books to review. They are a trilogy so I’ll give them their own post later this month.

Hope you enjoyed my book-talk! Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

–Lady O