The Golem and the Jinni

At about one hundred and fifty pages in I started wondering if this book by Helene Wecker was going to go anywhere and telling myself this is why you don’t buy into hype. I was seriously wandering if I was ever going to finish this sucker.

Then the Golem (Chava) finally meets the Jinni (Ahmad) and it was as though everything kicked into gear in one shot and I could barely put the book down. I gave myself a headache trying to finish the last hundred pages in one night. For two characters based on myth and legend I felt as completely attached to them as what one might consider a real character. They have jobs. They have people they care about. They make huge mistakes and suffer through a lot of human pain.

It’s a beautiful book and I especially loved the story of how the Jinni was captured which spans throughout the book itself and though it does take a while to get to the point I cried by the time it finally did. I really liked everyone in this book (except the big bad- though he was very good big bad) and though it’s a little cliché I really, really wanted a happy ending for everyone involved and I’m not about to say whether I got what I wanted or not.

                Recommend: Absolutely. Just stick with it.

                Bonus: I have to admit pretty much from the early chapters I cast the main characters as Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes).

These Broken Stars

Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner- 384 pages


Loved it! I chose this because the cover was pretty. (I know I can be shallow. But I've learned to accept that fact about myself.) In truth I wasn’t expecting much else from a story that seemed like Titanic in space and had characters named Lilac and Tarver so it was a real surprise that this turned out to be one of my favorites all year (so far).
Reading the story it shifts from a crash story to a survival in the elements with possible traces of a ghost story as they start to wonder pretty quickly if they aren’t being lead across this seemingly deserted planet to some kind of reckoning. But what really sold the story for me was Lilac who had way more to her then the spoiled little rich girl you think you’re going get at the beginning. She really drew on her strength and that became the key to their survival. I liked the fact that she decided it was worth her life, if necessary, for Tarver to live because she didn’t want his family to suffer the loss of another child.

Near the end of the story there’s a devastating shift that once again changed the tone for me. It would be impossible to explain it without giving away any spoilers and for just a moment I wondered if it was going to work out or, even if it did, if the story was about to get so unbelievably sad that I wouldn’t want to finish it. But somehow it does work out I not only stuck with it I couldn’t put it down. There was quite a lot about life and death and love and the things that survive after all those things. I believe this is the beginning of a series and this is one of the rare times when I actually hope it is because I would most definitely keep reading.

Recommend: Absolutely

Bonus: The cover! The green dress, the red hair… I would so make a poster out of this cover.




Found this on Amazon:




Release date: December 23, 2014 No mention in the synopsis of Lilac or  Tarver. These two are called Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac. (I rolled my eyes at Lilac and Tarver anyway.) Hopefully it will be as good as the first one!!!

Anna and the French Kiss

  

Anna and the French Kiss
Stephanie Perkins
400 Pages

For 90% or so of the book it was great reading and a real surprise. Anna is a fun, easy to relate to character and a very smart girl (even if she did whine a little bit too much about her horrible father sending her to Paris. I get homesick too.) Her friends are lovely the relationship with St. Clair has a nice build to it and the descriptions of Paris made me want to hop on a plane and stay for the whole year because I didn’t know what sounded better spring or winter.

 It wasn’t that the last ten percent of the book was bad per say it definitely just descended into your typical teenage crying in the streets everything is the end of the world because he doesn’t/might not love me as much as he does/might love his girlfriend. Yeah, Anna pretty much unravels before coming to some hard truths about herself. Hey annoying as she gets in that part I guess give her the credit for coming to those truths especially about her relationships with her Paris BFF and her Atlanta BFF.

I’d still recommend it despite not loving the angst stuff. It’s a fast, fun and mostly enjoyable read.

BONUS: I love when I read books and I get ideas from the books about other stories or authors that I want to read and I took quite a few from this one including; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Like Water for Chocolate, Pablo Neruda's poetry and finding a good Rasputin biography. All of which went right onto my wish list!