Chaotic Reading Reviews

I am a notorious book buyer. I try not to laugh when customers tell me they cannot buy more books, they have three(!) at home they have not read. I have had to split my home up into the room with books I have read, and books I have not. Most of the time they are classics I have always been meaning to read, mixed with non-fiction books on topics I want to learn more about, and the ones along the way that sound interesting, so I buy them and then get distracted. Occasionally I buy books that people I trust recommend to me. Last week I picked up a book that has been in my to read room, I remember carting this book around my last two moves at least. I cannot remember where it came from, but reading the back, this is completely nothing I would have picked up on my own, luckily for me, I picked it up as I headed out the door to work, so now I am stranded at work with only this book. And I say lucky because Galore by Micheal Crummey is a magical, fable-like story full of interesting entangl...

David Leviathan's teen book Another Day comes out August 25th. I was "lucky" enough to get an advanced copy. Let me get the legalize outta the way- I cannot quote from an ARC, the copy I read might not be the finished product. Okay lets get to this. To prepare I read the first in this series,  Every Day . This book is a quick read, and has the premise that I have never encountered before: The main character "A" awakes in a new body every day. A can access the memories of the person who's body A is in, but does not have a body of their own. I think this book brings up important social issues of the day as A does not identify with being either woman or man. The body A wakes in is the person A uses (wow it is really hard to not write in genders). I applaud Leviathan for this work. It was not a book that I would overly recommend, the characters where a bit flat, and the main character falls in love with a girl (Rhiannon) who is a bit annoying (no personal...

Armada is the next highly anticipated blockbuster from Ernest Cline. This book is everything a geek needs in a novel. With nods to everything from Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Name of the Wind, World of Warcraft, Firefly, Battlestar Gallactica, Power Rangers, Aliens and so many more that I must stop now, before your eyes glaze over. Ernest Cline is geek cultures dream author. To a point this really heightens the reading, and the fun, but at some point you start to think - enough. It gets too much which is the difference in the writing between Ready Player One and this new book.   Even with the over play, every  cultural mention engages you as the reader as you remember other stories in an intertwined culture. As his friends fighting over Wonder Woman's use of Sting (the sword, not the singer), Zachary Ulysses Lightman fights with himself for control of his emotions, and with reality when things start getting dodgy. Invading aliens? A government cover up that has lasted al...

This week I read Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by Kate Bolick.  A book about solitude, gender, writing, amazing women, and trying to find and live a life that makes you happy. I think it was a good week to read this. Marriage Equality is free in the U.S. as of this week, the number of unmarried people in the U.S. right now hovers around 105 Million, and the national census states that for every 84 unmarried man in the country there are 100 women. Living alone, not being in a relationship, accounts for a vast part of the population.  We are struggling as a culture to define ourselves, instead of just allowing everyone to be happy, and healthy, and live their own lives.  Spinster focuses on the history of the word, the history of women, and the idea that you can by happy, no matter if that happiness is not what is the cultural norm. S pinster  focuses on is the many women who have helped shape Bolick's views. She is a writer, so she brings up a mob of...