Nightmares

Nightmares!  has been a very good series so far.  I am NOT a fan of nightmares themselves, who is? Which is why I think this series works so well.  The Last Lullaby is the third book and it does a nice job of reminding the reader of the backstory without being overly repetitive, if one has just read one and two.  Good stuff!  Easy series to recommend!  I had read the second one, Sleepwalker Tonic during the year I wasn't writing about a lot of books, but I swear, it was great, too!

Ty on Another One!

The Life is Ty is a good first chapter book series.  I really enjoyed Friends of a Feather, the latest installment, even though it took me a long time to get around to reading it.  Ty is still super sweet and super real.  He still wants to get a pet for his baby sister.  Joseph is back, his cancer is gone or in remission, I am not sure what the right thing is in this case.  But this is a lovely and funny and real story.  And I love Lauren Myracle so very much.

WOW

The 15th Jesse Stone book, Debt to Pay is just incredible.  Incredible.  Reed Farrel Coleman has done incredible things with Jesse.  And I would bet that Robert B. Parker is proud.  And just as blown away as Jesse fans must be.
This book is a must-read for Jesse fans.  If you have not read the others, you will want to do that first, but man, you need to get to this one.  Wow.

Masquerade

I don't know why, but I don't like the word masquerade.  I did like the book Bronx Masquerade very much though.  I love Nikki Grimes and so I am always opening one of her books with the expectation that I will love it.  And I always do.  This book is another multi-POV story.  Eighteen students in an urban school, a class in which the teacher has started a poetry unit.  On Fridays the students are invited to share their original work with the class.
Each chapter is first a student sharing their thoughts and that is followed by their poem.  Excellent and realistic.  As always.  

From Night Owl to Early Bird

Becoming a morning person was one of the best things I ever did.  It is unreal to me what a difference it makes.  I will never forget Joyce Meyer saying that we all have the same amount of time in a day, we just choose to spend it differently.  When I became a morning person I realized that I could get so much more done.  What the Most Successful People Do before Breakfast was a very good book, but most especially for people who are going to try become a morning person.  For me it just backed up what I have already learned to enjoy.

Old Whatshername

Polly Horavath is super funny.  I would love to meet this lady.  I loved that she is the reader of the audiobooks for the Bunny's.  Lord and Lady Bunny-- Almost Royalty!  is the second book in the Bunny series and I hope there are more.
I especially love the depiction of Old Whatshername.
Hilarious!  Loved it!  Love Polly Horvath!

Jasper Dent

Blood of My Blood is the last in the Jasper Dent, I Hunt Killers trilogy and it was brutal.  Brutal, man.  But really good.  I just looked up the series on goodreads and I see that there are some little stories that go with it and I can't wait to read them now!
I do think that adults would really like this book, even though Jasper is a teenager.  A work of warning, this is not for the squeamish.

A Nightmare

Nightmares was not a nightmare.  It was actually a really, really good book!   It did feel a little long for me round about 3/4 of the way so I didn't give it 5 stars, but I still would recommend it.
It kinda reminded me of A Monster Calls, but not as intense.  Nor was it supposed to be, I think, so that isn't a criticism.  A really good book.

Sometimes

you need A Little Something Different.  This was a sweet little story told from many POVs about two college kids who are meant for each other and everyone, even squirrels in the park and the park benches themselves know it, but the two kids.  Very different and very sweet.

David

So a million years ago, in another life, I was a pastor.  One of the kids in the youth group was a young lad by the name of David.  He was a very special child who grew into a very special young man.  Today he is a professional counselor.  He is a young man of great faith and incredible insight and well, just a heart of gold.  A gentle soul.  David really spoke highly of Rob Bell.  David's recommendation of Bell was the first time I had heard the name.  For whatever reason though, I never even looked up the dude on the wikipedia.
Then last month a new friend of mine, also a person of great faith and incredible insight sent me a link to a Drops Like Stars.  That I would count the book as having been read is probably cheating.  And if I would have been on the edge of my yearly goal of books read, I wouldn't have counted it, but since I made the goal, I figured it was okay, because this was just a fantastic experience.  And if you can't watch the video or would rather read the book, whatever!  Just in some way, have a look at this.
I can't thank this new friend enough for sending this to me.  It came at the most perfect time and was balm for a soul that was hurting.
This Bell is really sharp.  There is so much here for anyone who has ever experienced life.  So yeah, for everyone.
Great.  Great.  Great.

Fear Not!

When I read the last Virgil Flowers book I was a little worried.  It just didn't seem like Virgil.  But Deadline as brought Virgil back and silenced my worries!
Great, great, great book and it reminded me all over again why I fell in love with That F*&king Flowers in the first place.

It will be hard to wait!

for the next Stone Barrington book!  This one ended at such a crucial time!  Paris Match was Stone at his best.  Loved it, loved it!

Not just another Katrina story

Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere came out in the same year as Zane and the Hurricane.  Both are about Hurricane Katrina and both are exceptional.  Again, it has been a very, very good year for middle grade books, IMHO.

Love this series!

Again Sarah Mlynowski has written a very funny little book, one that fans of Whatever After will love.  Cold as Ice is the story of the Snow Queen, but also mentions that one movie, it was a minor hit, Disney did it, a take on the Snow Queen...Frozen or something?
A great, great addition to the series!

Something else...

Belzhar was a good, good book.  It was one that I will think about for a very, very long time.  There's a lot of stuff in here.  Is this a magical realism book?  I am still not sure exactly what is and what isn't.  Because there is paranormal stuff in here...but it really isn't "out of this worldy" again.  I think that authors that can do that really show great talent in their writing.
Jam goes to a boarding school for teens who are in fragile mental states.  We don't know what caused Jam's fragile state exactly until the end and I didn't figure it out until the end and wow!
Sylvia Plath figures into this book and so I was glad that I had read Your Own, Sylvia.  Good, good stuff.

It was a very good year...

Maybe it was because I joined an great group on goodreads that seeks to read Newbery contenders, but man....2014 has been filled with incredible books.  The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond is one of them. This one did remind me a lot of Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It.  But there is such a need for books of quality and on subjects such as this, that I won't squabble about how similar they are.
Brenda Woods a new author for me and I look forward to reading her other books.

Marathon

Am I too old to run a marathon?  Probably.  But man, Resolve made me want to try.  Resolve is told from the POV of a professor at a fictitious college in Pittsburgh.  It was near to hear the city described as Dr. Keller runs the Pittsburgh Marathon and tells of his plan to murder someone on the course and the events that led up to that decision.  Like successfully run marathon, this book is paced very well.  I hope to read more from J. J. Hensley.

Oh how I waited!

for the publication of Jala's Mask.  I knew about it for a long time because I know Rachel Ross, who is Rachel Grinti of Rachel and Mike Grinti!  I was actually the muse for this book!
Not really.
But I love Rachey and I get to work with her every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday!  And she is just an amazing person and so that is why I was a little bit worried when I found out that their new book was not a kids book or a teen book.  And that is why I was even more worried when I found out that Jala's Mask was fantasy.  And that is also why I was MOST terrified when I found out there was LOVE in it!  How in the heck was I going to enjoy this book?
Well, it was easy.  Quite easy.  I opened it, started reading and "What is that giant sucking sound?"  It was me, being sucked into Jala's Mask and loving every single minute of it.
I loved their first book, Claws.  But keep in mind, while that was fantasy, which isn't my thing, it was still a kids book.  And I loved, loved, loved it.  But I was so worried that I wouldn't understand Jala's Mask, but man....this book is just incredible.  The whole world that Rachel and Mike built here is one that seems as real as Bethel Park or Upper St. Clair.  But different, of course!  But real!  Like you could honestly find them on a map.

Maybe it was just a really hard subject

After reading Your Own, Sylvia:  a verse portrait of Sylvia Plath, and loving it and after having failed to get through Frankenstein itself, I thought that I would read Hideous Love:  the story of the girl who wrote Frankenstein and that I would love it and that it would motivate me to try Frankenstein again.  But I really couldn't get into HL.  It just didn't grab me and maybe that is because Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley sound like complete jaggoffs, not just in this book (but for sure in this book) but also in the other places I have read about them.

Sisters SPOILER

As I have mentioned before, I don't have a sister and can't imagine what a special bond many sisters enjoy.  Would You is a powerful story about sisters who seem to have a normal relationship (good times and bad times, just like real people!) and a story about great loss.  It is also the second book this month that deals with a head injury!  Blah, but this one didn't have the kind of ending that Courage for Beginners did.
Claire is injured in a car accident the summer before she is set to go off to college.  The book is told from the POV of her younger sister, Natalie.   I wonder if Marthe Jocelyn experienced this in her own life, because the emotions here seem so real.
I just realized now that Jocelyn is the author of one of my most favorite books, Same Same! I really want to read What We Hide next.  Very well done and it made me cry.  Books rarely make me cry!