firstimpressionsreviews's reviews
608 reviews

As soon as I got home from the book store I idmediatly began to read it and was hooked from page one. I don't know but there's something very intriguing about the whole vampire love thing; and Edward is just so charming and mysterious how can you not fall in love with him? I really enjoyed all the references to Wurthering Heights Bella, who is Edward's mortal girlfriend and is also telling the story from her point of view. Bella representing Cathy who is caught between a love triangle who loves both men but in different ways. Edward plays Heathcliff who is madly in love with Cathy {Bella} and only realizes these feels while they are separated and expresses them when it is almost to late. Jacob, who is Bella's best friend is Linton and while he also loves the girl with a passion and is married to her, it is not reciprocated the way he would have liked-- although in Twilight Bella and Jacob never even date. Sorry, excuse my literary comparisons. Seriously, this is a great novel, Twilight is a book that you just want to bite into.

The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi.

Almost as soon as I finished Twilight, I was at Barnes and Noble yet again, to buy the next two installments of the vampire saga. I think I read New Moon in like a day and a half, although this was my least favorite of the three. Like most trilogies the second book was mostly filler, My least favorite part in the book was when Edward goes to Italy to give himself to the Volturi after believing that Bella has died; that probably does take up a good chunk of the book, but I just had difficulty getting into it. Believe it or not I actually enjoyed the scenes without Edward in them better than the ones where he makes an appearance, excluding Edward talking inside Bella's head. I also enjoyed learning about Jacob and his "growth spurts" of becoming a werewolf. Stephenie Meyer does explain the two "monster's" dislike for one another, such as staying on your own territory and Bella having to choose who she can be with. I thought the whole Werewolf/Vampire thing was very West Side Story minis The two gangs breaking out in song and dance.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is the last novel in the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. The third installment picks up where The Girl Who Played With Fire left off, our hero Lisbeth Salander hanging on through life and death after being shot in the head. When she is "captured" and taken to the hospital she is put under security until she can be transferred to jail and await the trial. Meanwhile, those at Millennium and Milton Security are working hard to prove her innocence.

I felt The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest was just as fast paced as it's predecessors and grew a stronger bond to the characters making it more difficult to shut the book. Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander could be compared to a modern day Nick and Nora Charles. They banter, drink freely and have sex without a second thought. They are on the case first, discovering clues that others have glaringly missed making it look as easy as tying your shoes.

I do have two small complaints, that while sometimes a bit annoying still did not detract from the storyline for me. One is that Stieg Larsson goes into great detail of the politics of Sweden and while it can be interesting could have shortened the novel by at least a hundred pages if half had been removed. Second, there were a plethora of evil-doers all conspiring against Salander and sometimes I got confused or mixed up on who was who, having to flip back and forth to make sure I had it straight.

Like the two before, the ending was a pageturner and sped read as fast I could go, waiting on pins and needles while reaching the conclusion of the Millennium Trilogy.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris is a child's storybook for adults, or a fucked up version of Aesop's Fables. The book is filled with short stories accompanied with illustrations of everyday occurrences or controversial themes, all portrayed by animals.

Strangely enough, they all seem to have a moral. In The Squirrel and the Chipmunk for which the novel was named after, involves a love crossed squirrel and chipmunk who's respected families don't approve of the match eventually leading to the breaking of the couple. Although, a misunderstand of what jazz is also contributes. "What if jazz was squirrel slang for something terrible,like anal intercourse?" All in all a very clever look at biracial marriages.

The Motherless Bear deals with loss and pity. A young cub loses her mother and tries to live off of the sympathy and sorrow this abandonment presents, "And then she just... died". After testing all the other animal's patience she moves on to fresh blood, but doesn't go exactly the way she had hoped.

Lastly, in The Crow and the Lamb, a crow commiserates with an ewe on the trials of parenting and suggests she take up meditation, giving the sheep her first lesson. Well, let's just say you should never talk to strangers and keep both eyes on your lamb.

A hilarious book of short stories, The Squirrel and the Chipmunk didn't have me laughing as hard as some of David Sedaris' other works but was enough for people to ask, what are you reading?

Suspense and Sensibility is the second in the Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries in which the Darcys mingle with characters from other Austen novels and solve crime in between sips of tea.

In Suspense and Sensibility Elizabeth and Darcy sponsor Kitty Bennet and Georgiana Darcy during a season in London. Kitty meets Harry Dashwood, a young cousin of Elinor and Marianne who is now all grown up. It seems to be a match made in heaven until Harry begins exhibiting some strange and disorderly behavior, putting Mr. and Mrs. Darcy on the case.

This novel was a very lite read, but felt more like a fantasy than suspenseful. The dialogue was rather witty and was interesting to see the mix and reintroduction to many characters. But as a Austen retelling just didn't fit the bill for me. The leading characters could easily have been interchanged to any person and just weren't as developed or believable to stand out as this classic couple. Regardless, Suspense and Sensibility put an interesting twist on familiar names with their own unique flair.

A tinker is a mender of pots, kettles, pans, etc. Therefore, Tinkers is a very fitting title for this Pulitzer Prize Winning novel as every character is somehow wounded with their past and in some respects is far beyond mending.

George Washington Crosby, a lover of the workings of clocks lies dying and reflects upon his life. George had a very different childhood, his father was a traveling salesman and also epileptic. Every evening the family would wait for Howard to return before starting dinner until one night he didn't come home.

Howard and his wife, Kathleen find ways to hide his epilepsy from their children, the blood from severe convulsions, sudden tiredness or a dazed look with simple white lies. That is until they witness a grand mal seizure that questions the safety of the family.

"There was the ring of pots and buckets. There was also a ring in Howard Crosby's ears, a ring that began at a distance and came closer, until it sat in his ears, then burrowed into them. His head thrummed as if it were a clapper in a bell. Cold hopped onto the tips of his toes and rode on the ripples of the ringing throughout his body until his teeth clattered and his knees faltered and he had to hug himself to keep from unraveling. This was his aura, a cold halo of chemical electricity that encircled him immediately before he was struck by a full seizure."

"What is it like to be full of lightning? What is it like to be split open from the inside by Lightning? Howard use to imaging that it was like the rupture of a fit. Although he never remembered them, he had the sense that, although there was cold before the chills after, during his seizures his blood boiled and his brain nearly fried in its skull pan. It was as if there were a secret door that opened on its own to an electric storm spinning somewhere out on the fringes of the solar system."

I am epileptic myself and grew an immediate liking towards Tinkers, not necessarily because I could relate but because Paul Harding did what I felt to be a accurate portrayal of the disorder in both descriptions and a sense of how it was viewed in the 1920s. His writing is so elegant and puts the experience of an epileptic convulsion in to delicate dialect, with a plethora of excruciating detail. As for the view of the 1920s I will only touch on briefly, so as not to give too much away but is exceedingly accurate and pulled at my heartstrings under the realization that the actions were true and took place under a century ago.

Even though I am focusing on the neurological side of this novel there is much more to it. Tinkers also possesses an understanding of forgiveness, acceptance and fulfillment in ones life and circumstances. For being such a petite novel Tinkers is a very powerful read.