![]() ![]() Although you can’t wait to hear about this book, you can’t help but feel a little curious about Xiaolong’s past. ![]() “I’d like to tell you about it one day, but maybe not today, because you’re here to listen about my new book, right?”Īnd when you nod, her eyes light up, her big grin is back, and she jumps to her feet. ![]() When you look a little bit closer at the papers scattered around her, you see illustrations of axolotls, runes, and long paragraphs in tiny print. And I loved it! But, it got me thinking a lot about where I come from.” She pauses. “Hi friend,” she says in an unusually quiet voice when you sit down across from her. Instead, she looks like she’s thinking about something from a long, long time ago. When she hears you approach, she smiles her big smile, but she doesn’t look excited, like she normally does. ![]() However, when you find Xiaolong, paper and books are at by feet, and she looks like she is hard at work looking for something. Come back later?”Īh yes, you understand that feeling of a good book all too well. A few days have indeed passed now, and you find yourself pretty excited to hear what Xiaolong has to say about her latest read. (It looked like she hadn’t gotten out of bed yet!) “Friend, you know I always love talking to you but I’m reading this really, really good book right now and I want to finish this book so I can tell you all about it. The last time you visited the Pond, Xiaolong was under her blanket, her eyes glued to the book she was reading. ![]()
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![]() ![]() It is always enjoyable to see how they misunderstand things from the real world, and change them to suit the toy world. ![]() win a race, grow an apple tree) and they usually find some amusing way around the problem. Most of the stories involve the toys being annoyed at not being able to do something (e.g. Filled with some great characters (Old bear, the extremely cute little bear, bramble, dog and zebra) and the greatest TV theme of all time (the line "sit in your favourite chair" still always makes me laugh for some reason) it is an absolute joy to watch, and with each episode only ten minutes in length, it never outstays its welcome. I'm sure there was a book that predated the TV show as well. ![]() A pretty simple and familiar premise, certainly, but when you take into account that this show was made in the early 90s even before Toy Story, you can see how Old Bear Stories has been influential. It follows the story of a group of living toys who have adventures inside a house. It is a truly wonderful show that makes you feel warm inside every time you watch. I used to watch this show when i was a kid, but i only rediscovered it recently when they started showing it on Channel 5. ![]() ![]() ![]() Which is fine-but this is not a romance, and scifi the norms are different. ![]() So don't assume I liked this book less than other books, simply because I say bad things about it. (Note: this is an actual review for the book-which normally I don't post, as the community norm in romance is that authors don't review books. I'll post a warning before we get into them. The second half of this review contains spoilers for the book. ![]() ![]() Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping-something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to re-write her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning Don’t mess with the secretary. On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of generation past repair. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp-an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future-attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter Miles to check it out. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove-he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Rose has no idea how Owen spends these Sundays and would never dream of asking. Every Sunday, they go their separate ways Rose reads the paper and works in their apartment, while Owen spends the day at a gay pornographic cinema. While Rose and Owen both know that their intimacy has faded, neither is willing to question the basic value of their relationship. They lead a tightly structured life, devoting their days to work and their evenings to reading. Rose is a copy editor, and Owen, the director of admissions at a private boys’ school. Set in 1980s New York against the backdrop of the Aids epidemic, the novel recounts the lives of the Benjamin family parents Rose and Owen (both 52) and their son Philip (25). It explores the terrible secrets that families keep from one another, and the consequences of their discovery. The Lost Language of Cranes is David Leavitt’s first novel and was published in 1986. ![]() I was thinking every day how I had to change my life, how I couldn’t go on this way but I knew the more I thought that, the farther I was getting from where I thought I should have been.” ”It was horrible, really, what I was feeling, the sense I had that I was running a terrible risk every minute of my life - risking my family, my career - but not being able to help it somehow just not being able to help it. ![]() ![]() ![]() “I came to writing for young adults because my kid,” Hopkins said. Most of these children went to be raised by Hopkins. She drifted in and out of prison, giving birth to many children to different fathers. Just like that.”Ĭristal’s story is meant as a warning for her readers who are mostly young adults.Īt the time, Cristal went through rehabilitation, but she did not get better, partly because she did not want to get better. ![]() But instead she came home with a meth addiction. ![]() She wanted to work for Pixar or Dreamworks. “On that two week summer visit with her dad, a guy she met talked her into trying crystal meth,” Hopkins said. Her daughter Cristal, whom Kristina is loosely based off of, left for a trip to visit her father, Hopkins’ ex-husband and a fellow cocaine addict, and came back with a meth addiction. “Real life comes to play in a lot of my books.” “ are about 60 percent fact, 40 percent fiction,” Hopkins said. Her first book Crank is the story of Kristina, a girl who gets addicted to methamphetamine. Hopkins has firsthand experience dealing with some of the topics addressed in her books. She smiles easily and leans in to whisper as if she has known you all her life. You would never think author Ellen Hopkins has gone through life’s hardships because her attitude is bubbly and bright. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Their more average neighbors crowded into their gardens for the awesome festivities. The wealthiest-considered particularly blessed-even had two or three automatic servants beyond the public contribution, which they destroyed in private. ![]() These traditionally consisted of household utensils, electric heaters, air conditioners and the family servant. In the evening of the Day they proudly made their private heaps on the neat green lawns of their homes. For days prior to it joyous throngs of workers helped assemble old vehicles, machine tools and computers in the public squares, crowning each pile with used, disconnected robots. The Sacrifice took place only once a decade, on High Holy Day at dawn of the spring equinox. His own, though, had come at a more appropriate time, just a few weeks before the Great Ritual Sacrifice. Later, discussing it with other members of the Savers’ Conspiracy, he found they had experienced the same slow, almost casual awakening. Wendell Hart had drifted, rather than plunged, into the underground movement. VadimsadovskiĮric was the best robot they’d ever had-perfectly trained, ever thoughtful, a joy to own. ![]() ![]() But sometimes, when secrets are everywhere and the truth seems unknowable, you have to listen to your heart, pick a side-and then fight like hell…Įvery Last Breathis the final book to the Dark Elements series by Jennifer L. Torn between two worlds and two different boys, Layla has no certainties, least of all survival, especially when an old bargain comes back to haunt them all. To keep Sam from a fate much, much worse than death, Layla must strike a deal with the enemy while saving her city-and her race-from destruction. A Lilin-the deadliest of demons-has been unleashed, wreaking havoc on those around her…including her best friend. ![]() ![]() Hardest of all, Layla has to decide which side of herself to trust. Wickedly sexy demon prince Roth, or Zayne, the gorgeous, protective Warden she never thought could be hers. ![]() Some loves will last ’til your dying breathĮvery choice has consequences-but seventeen-year-old Layla faces tougher choices than most. Purchase at Amazon | Barnes & Noble | KoboĪn alternate cover edition for this ASIN can be found here. Published by Harlequin Teen on March 26, 2019 ![]() ![]() ![]() Ezekiel is a cool guy, and I have grown to love the guy – wait, no, crap…. ![]() Although things aren’t great with him and Michonne, he still attempts to show a smile to his people. Although Shiva may be dead, I still love how enthusiastic he is towards life. Great”, but then suddenly, we see Ezekiel wielding her famous sword! I love Ezekiel, he’s so bloody awesome. Volume 24 begins with a walker’s head being sliced in half, which instantly makes me think “Oh, ok. Carl Grimes (!!!!!!!!!!) sneaked out of Hilltop to go follow Lydia’s group and all I could think was What are you doing? Seriously? Volume 23 ended on a cliffhanger that made me want volume 24 to be released pretty much immediately. ![]() ![]() Cassie was a real character with real issues (like alcohol abuse). I enjoyed Cassandra Bowden because she is not your typical heroine. His main character Cassie was done just right not your typical heroine but a flawed one. Characters:īohjalian does a great job in exploring the complex nature of people. I enjoyed the inside stories that the attendants shared. The details added authenticity and made the book more enjoyable. It is evident that Bohjalian did his research on the life of a flight attendant. The suspense builds right up until the end. It does start off slower at the beginning but the pace moved along as we got closer to the end. I liked that it was balanced and not wordy. There’s enough description to get the gist of scene and enough dialogue to move the plot along. I liked that The Flight Attendant was easy to follow as well. ![]() ![]() The book was an easy read and it sucked me in right at the beginning. Did she kill him? She can’t remember because she was black-out drunk! Author’s Style: ![]() Now she has to get out of place and figure out what happened. Cassandra Bowden wakes up in a hotel in Dubai to find a murdered man next to her and she is covered in his blood. The premise of The Flight Attendant was fantastic. Find Chris Bohjalian: Website| Twitter | Facebook Plot: ![]() ![]() A writer of anthropology, essays, poetry and fiction, Behar focuses on issues related to women and feminism. Her literary work is featured in the Michigan State University's Michigan Writers Series. īehar is a professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has specialized in studying the lives of women in developing societies. She travels regularly to Cuba and Mexico to study aspects of culture, as well as to investigate her family's roots in Jewish Cuba. She studied cultural anthropology at Princeton University, earning her doctorate in 1983. Behar attended local schools and studied as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, receiving her B.A. More than 94% of Cuban Jews left the country at that time, together with many others of the middle and upper classes. She was four when her family immigrated to the US following Fidel Castro's gaining power in the revolution of 1959. Life and work īehar was born in Havana, Cuba in 1956 to a Jewish-Cuban family of Sephardic Turkish, and Ashkenazi Polish and Russian ancestry. As an anthropologist, she has argued for the open adoption and acknowledgement of the subjective nature of research and participant-observers. ![]() ![]() Her work includes academic studies, as well as poetry, memoir, and literary fiction. Ruth Behar (born 1956) is a Cuban-American anthropologist and writer. ![]() |