The Crown

I was surprised that this book existed. I read the one previous...The Heir. And from my memory it ended in a way I thought the story was done but I must have remembered wrong! It was interesting because I remember her falling for one guy then in this book she falls for someone else. It was obvious who it would be, but I didnt like that they hardly spent any time together or talking really. To me the love story didn't seem real. I liked seeing Eadlyn's character grow, but I felt disappointed in the ending of this book. There are also details shared at the end of the book about old characters that I thought were totally unnecessary to the story and almost felt like it was totally made up on the fly to make it all more meaningful or something? This story is pretty clean, I think I would want to talk to my teenagers about the details shared at the end and maybe even throughout the book when Eadlyn realizes who she is falling for...and if she was making correct choices trying to hide it, etc. I read this book in a day or two so it was a quick enjoyable read (until the last little bit) but  again I was left feeling really disappointed with the ending and even a little mad at the author for her choice of ending. Ha!

Snow Whyte and the Queen of Mayhem

I grabbed this book not remembering that I had read it before. After a couple of chapters I realized I had read this book previously but since I was enjoying it again and couldn't remember the ending exactly I kept reading!  I originally found this book because the author is my friend's sister! My friend Sharee had a Mary Kay party at her house because her sister Melissa Lemon had just started selling it, so I met her before she was an author!
I really liked the story and I love retellings of fairy tales. At times it felt like it needed a little more editing or something...it didn't quite flow right but I loved reading the book and did so quickly. I also love that it is clean so I would let a teenager read it with no qualms. She has another book published and one coming soon...go check her books out!

The Siren

I could not put this book down! It was definitely a teenage love story which are always unrealistic. Nevertheless I really enjoyed it and the different complication of her being a mythical Siren owing 100 years to the ocean and he being a human.  I read it in a day which shows you how much I couldn't put it down! If you want a fun easy read, check this one out! There is a little bit of innuendo but nothing at all in detail, I would be okay with my teenagers (if I had any) reading this book.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

 I loved this book!  The beginning was so interesting and fascinating.  I thought it was so interesting to read this during an election year and comparing this year's election with one long gone by. I thought the beginning of this book was great, in the middle it started to feel really slow and drug on.  I had a hard time wanting to keep reading but then in the end it gets really interesting again and I loved the ending so, so much.  I have always loved Abraham Lincoln and reading this book made me love him even more. Elizabeth Keckley was a real person and bought her freedom and moved to Washington where she began sewing dresses for the women there.  She became Mrs. Lincoln's "modiste" (which includes so much more than just sewing her dresses) and was a good friend to her. It was heartbreaking to learn all of the history of Mary Todd Lincoln and there were some scandals that happened because of some of her poor choices. Elizabeth always supported her and tried to help her.  When she wrote a memoir of her life, there were some things that happened (according to this novel, which I don't know if it is all true) that caused Mrs. Lincoln to push Elizabeth away as a friend.  I thought this was the most heartbreaking thing of all...she wrote it trying to help Mrs. Lincoln and instead caused even more problems.  The end told of how Elizabeth tried so many times to reconcile the friendship with Mrs. Lincoln but ultimately Mrs. Lincoln died before she could.  The end was filled with hope though.  I loved that she realized her legacy was so much more than just the dresses she had sewn or who she had sewn them for but was a sum total of all the things she had done and even how she had paved the way for other African Americans.  The last sentence reads "she was ready to lay down her burdens and rest, and perhaps to find in heaven the reunion and reconciliation that had eluded her on earth." I loved that so, so much!  I have come to the realization lately that dying won't be a bad thing...not that I want to die!  But I will be so happy to be reunited with those I love who are in heaven. I also have been learning the importance of our relationships with people.  It is one of the only things that can last and we can take with us when we die. They are so important, one of the great commandments is to "love they neighbor as theyself" and how awful would it be to not treat people well and then to see them after this life and have regrets. Anyway I really enjoyed many aspects of this book, learning a little more about politics which I know almost nothing about, learning more about Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln and all the historical aspects that were in this book.  Also the inspirational message I felt it conveyed.  This is not an action book by any means, so if you're looking for that this wouldn't be the book for you, but I highly recommend it!

The Night Garden

This book was a quick easy read but I didn't feel like I loved it when I really wanted to.  It was interesting and different from other things I've read.  It includes a bit of fantasy that never really makes sense to me.  Olivia becomes "poisonous" after growing a garden with her father of poison plants.  This in turn makes her drive everyone away for fear of hurting them with her touch. Her teenage love comes back after years and they still love each other but she doesn't want to hurt him so she tries to push him away again. He has been in an accident and can't physically feel anything anymore. There are a couple of sexual scenes which don't go into a lot of detail but it still was more than I wanted to read.  This is an adult book, not for teenagers in my opinion.
Anyway I think it would be a good book club discussion and even includes some great questions in the back, but I feel like I need to think about it more to decide if I really like it.  There is a theme of temptation and touch.  How important is touch?  Can you have a relationship without it? I feel like Olivia was so afraid she just pushed everyone away when if she had been open they could have been closer and understanding and found ways to get around her toxic touch. I felt like this book everyone was hiding something...hiding the poisonous touch, hiding that the "saving gene" skipped them, hiding the fact that you caused your daughter to be this way...and all the hiding made everyone miserable for years. I did like the ending which seemed hopeful and old hurts were resolved.
Sorry this is a disjointed review but overall I enjoyed reading this book.  I didn't love it like I had hoped and was frustrated with some of the decisions of the characters...they all need to learn how to talk to each other!!

Forged

Okay...I'll grudgingly admit.... I guess I liked this book.  There was a lot of fighting and a lot of dying and I still don't like the way the love interest went.  I liked it a whole lot better than the second book Frozen but not as much as Taken. But all that aside, I really liked how everyone started to recognize the corruption in their leadership and started to work together to stop the fighting and get rid of the corrupt leader. It was hard for them to really trust each other...but they did.
It makes me think of our leaders today and how unfortunately a lot of leaders in our country are corrupt but people don't seem to notice or they don't care?  I don't understand it. This book gives me hope that maybe someday things won't have to be corrupt, that people will wake up and all work together to take back the freedoms we should all have that mean political leaders won't get away with committing crimes.

The Girl with Glass Feet

I was really disappointed with this book.  My husband teaches LDS seminary and one of his students had this book at the seminary building one day during lunch.  So I just assumed a good little LDS young woman would be reading a good clean book and I went home and put it on hold at the library!  I am really surprised that she was reading this book.  It is an adult book.  I would not let my children read it...honestly I'm disappointed in myself that I finished reading it. I kept thinking it would get better though. It is full of bad language, including multiple, multiple uses of the F word (at least it seemed that way to me!  I try to avoid it though).  Sexual innuendo as well as just sex talked about casually. Broken families and marriages and it was just kind of awful. It reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman books: dark, weird fantasy.
So there are mythical winged creatures who live in St. Hauda's Land and upon visiting Ida encounters one and is now slowing turning to glass.  The search for the cure is on...but unfortunately is not found.  She meets Midas and the two unlikely matched somehow fall in love...probably because time is so short between them. It really bothers me that Midas hates his dad so much, he is preoccupied with his hatred of his dad.  And in the end he doesn't resolve that, he just throws it away and lets it go.  He never finds out the reason his dad acted the way he did was because his heart was turned to glass. His mother who had an affair I guess? with a strange man doesn't get back together with that man.  Another man who was obsessed with Ida's mother ends up being miserable and it just...nothing happy happens in this book.  Except maybe Midas becomes more capable of showing love?  I did not like this book. I don't recommend it. In case you are considering this read...I say skip it!  Unless you don't mind the f word and dark books. I didn't like how this book made me feel which should have been my first clue that I shouldn't read it. Can I tell you enough that I don't like this book? Just...don't read it.

The Girl with the Glass Bird

I read this book completely randomly.  I didn't know anything about it, but had been looking for a different book that a student of my husband's was reading and came across this one in my search. It looked interesting so I put it on hold at the library.  I really enjoyed this book!  It reminded me of my Nancy Drew reading days as a young girl. An orphan girl Edie lives with her grandmother who has gone blind...when that is discovered her grandmother is put into an elderly home and she is given to the care of her aunt and three horrible cousins who are not disciplined and constantly torment her.  It happens that another young girl the same age is at a boarding school and constantly losing her things...but then they show up again.  At school people think she is making it up and but her father believes her when she says things are missing but mysteriously show up again.  He wants someone to be a "spy" and figure out what is going on with his daughter so Edie is chosen as the spy. What follows is an incredible coming of age story and discovering who you are, while saving the day as well.  I loved the mystery part of this story and really the only complaint that I had was that it is a modern setting...but you wouldn't guess that at all.  There are a couple of weird references to cell phones but to me it doesn't fit at all.  I think it should have been set in the early 1900s instead of modern day.  I think there were a couple of mild swear words but I would be okay with my tween daughter (if I had one) reading this.

Frozen

Frozen is the second book in the Taken series.  I did not like this book anywhere near as much as the first book.  This book introduces the concept of "forgeries" where a person can be copied and be almost exactly like the original person with their memories and feelings but have like a computer program ingrained in their brain that leaves them loyal to the enemy known as Frank. Also there is more of the love triangle which just makes me mad.  How can you love someone for so long and then suddenly just throw them away because of another pretty face who throughout the whole book he is saying how he just fights with the new girl and they pretty much bring out the worst in each other. I feel like Emma brings out the best in him and Bree does not but she doesn't try to correct him ever so I guess she is more "accepting" because of that?  Whatever real relationships need to have elements of both and he never really gave the relationship with Emma a chance!  Anyway it really bothers me and this book just wasn't as interesting to me as the first...but I'm still going to read the last book to find out how it all ends!  I'm hoping maybe the love triangle can be resolved in a way that will make me happy. Ha. :)

Taken

This book sucked me in right away.  It is about a small, seemingly poor community completely surrounded by a wall where the boys are taken or "heisted" at age 18.  Anyone who crosses the wall has their burned body returned to the village the next day. The book opens on the day of Blaine Weathersby's heist.  The main character is Gray Weathersby, Blaine's younger brother born exactly one year apart.  He finds a secret letter in his home after his brother is heisted and wants to find answers to what is going on in his community.  He teams up with his long time secret crush Emma to find answers and they decide to take the chance to cross the wall.  Luckily for Gray he and Emma become very close in the process.  After they cross the wall...it quickly goes downhill in my opinion.  Obviously much more is going on with this community behind the wall.  But maybe the thing that bothers me the most it that there is a love triangle.  The first half of the book is all about how much Gray loves and wants Emma and has for years since he was 6 years old .and how he can't believe she is finally starting to return his affection.  So it really bothers me that the first girl he meets after being separated from Emma he is attracted to and he gets confused.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised in a teen book, but as a married woman...it really bothers me.  Still a fun read, the mystery was cool but once it's over...it just isn't quite as interesting. I still couldn't put this book down though even after all the secrets are revealed.  Good summer read!