Trespassers Will Be Baptized: The Unordained Memoir of a Preacher's Daughter by Elizabeth Emerson Hancock

This was so much fun to read. Another airplane book but very enjoyable. On second thought, you wouldn't want to read it on an airplane. The number of times I laughed out loud would definitely draw stares in an enclosed space.

Emy is a very precocious child. Her stories are poignant, sometimes inspiring and always entertaining. I appreciated that the ending was unpredictable. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I want to thank Kim at Good Clean Reads for the recommendation. When I finished this book I felt as if I'd walked- well, not a mile in someone else's shoes, but at least to the end of the driveway- and because of that I'd say it is something more substantial.

Specials by Scott Westerfield

I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Adrenaline rush on paper! I am so glad that Scott Westerfield made reading Pretties worth the effort. : ) There is definitely an environmentalist agenda in this one so be aware if you have not yet succumbed to the mass marketing of "being green". I am so relieved that this was something more substantial.

Girls In Trucks by Katie Crouch

Skip this one. This is what I get for judging a book by its cover. Love the picture. Hated the book. This is a light-minded-read-on-a-short-airplane-trip book about making all the wrong turns in life. I have nothing against fluff books. Sometimes I really enjoy a good airplane book. Not this time. I kept waiting for the girl to learn her life lesson and change her ways or her path or something. I was disappointed. She never does get a clue and I think we're supposed to feel happy that she meets someone at the end who is not a total slimeball. I don't go in for man-hater books and I definitely felt this was one. Total waste of time. In the words of a good friend, "I would like those three hours of my life BACK please."

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

My mom sent us this one along with several others to be used as a family read-aloud. I am glad I read it by myself first however, as I do not think it suitable as a read-aloud for young children. That said, I thought it was a wonderful book for probably 5th or 6th grade readers. It is filled with tons of great vocabulary (it has a glossary in the back) and is a sort of who's who of children's books with mentions of everything from the Bobsie Twins to Anne of Green Gables. Be warned that almost ALL of the adults in the book are wicked, evil people and the story has a slightly anti-parent/child slant. Everything turns out all right in the end and to the satisfaction of the reader and the characters. I don't want to tell about the plot because I don't want to give too much away. Just trust me when I say it is a charmingly good read and something more substantial.

Thyroid Power by Richard and Karilee Halo Shames

Ugh. Infomercial.

I have an open mind. I am willing to consider alternative medicine and homeopathy and other methods of wholistic healing. I do however, believe that if you are looking for information on a particular approach to wellness, it is a mistake to find out about it from someone who is going to directly benefit from your use of it- say the inventors, for example. This book was recommended to me because of the thyroid problems I've been dealing with for several months but it is completely biased and I would never recommend it to anyone. Skip this one.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Eh. Color me nonplussed. This was disappointing after the excitement of the first one. The writing was consistent throughout the book but because the setting was among the light-minded "pretties", it was consistently annoying. I read this book beacuse I loved the first one so much and I am hoping/expecting the next one ("Specials") to be better, but on it's own I'd say skip this one. Except you can't. Oh well. : )

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is an apocalyptic tale of a society where the rich/ruling class control the masses through a campaign of televised intimidation. Katniss Everdeen rebels against the system when she volunteers to take her sister's place in the Hunger Games, a mandatory fight to the death with 23 other teenagers from across the country. This story was very exciting, and not entirely predictable. I read the whole thing in one sitting- about 5 hours and enjoyed all but the last minute of it. The flavor of the book suggested something along the lines of Uglies. If you liked that one, you'll like this one. The writing of The Hunger Games was average but very engaging. I was disappointed that the story came to a screeching halt and left me hanging for the next book to have anything resolved. I hate that. Scott Westerfield handled that so much better in Uglies. In this book I felt like almost nothing was resolved. Still, it was a really fun read so I say it's something more substantial.

Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks

This book is a memoir written about the author's family and experiences growing up. I liked the themes of family solidarity, sibling friendship, and putting your family first. It was fun to read about the people that Nicholas Sparks' other books are based on. Overall though, the book was just a little ho-hum for me. Like this review, it just didn't have any- SPARK. I enjoyed it but I was never so drawn in that I could not easily put it down and when I did put it down, I did not easily pick it back up again. I think it is something more substantial based on content but the writing doesn't quite qualify it for a hearty endorsement.

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon

Ooooo. This is so good. This is the other time travel book recommended to me by a friend that I mentioned before. I have to say it was much, much more fun to read than the other one. The only thing about the other one that I liked better was that it was clean.

This book was very realistic. The series is historical fiction chronicling the lives of those involved with the Scottish Rising, Colonial England, the pirates and slave traders of the Carribean, and the American Revolution.

Claire Randall is swept back in time through one of the many "little Stonehenges" that dot Europe and finds herself in Scotland during the mid-1700's. The book follows her adventures as she tries to survive the dangers of life at that time and falls in love in the process. The man she meets there- Jamie Fraser, is the Colonial Era Forrest Gump (sans the slow mind). The series finds Jamie pretty much anywhere that anything historically significant happened. Diana Gabaldon does this so artfully though that it seems completely natural for Jaimie to be everywhere and in every walk of life.

The writing is skillfully executed, often beautiful, sometimes poetic. The books are long and sometimes a little drawn out (think Dickens) but absolutely enjoyable nonetheless. Another thing Gabaldon has in common with Dickens is her extraordinary characterization. Both the detail and the web of interconnections of her characters brought to mind "Great Expectations" (without the boredom). The action is exciting, the time travel is intriguing, the setting is fantastic, and the love story is compelling.

A few words of caution: You won't be finding this series on GoodCleanReads. These books have a lot of foul language in them, particularly the taking of the names of Deity in vain. There is also quite a lot of explicitly detailed sex in these books. (Enough that my mother's local bookstore actually has this book in the Romance section. I disagree with that assessment, BTW.) The sex is not the focus, but it is a facet of the stories which comes up several times. It is, with two exceptions, always between married couples. There are three rapes in the series in addition to those exceptions. Also, there was some pretty brutal torture (including the aforementioned rape) toward the end of the first book which was hard for me to read. Just a word to the wise for those of you survivors out there who prefer not to relive past traumas.

I really liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction. I'm not sure it exactly qualifies as something more substantial though, if only because I think the objectionable material may not be edifying unto "the improvement of the mind by extensive reading."

My favorite quote from the series is in this first book: "Overall the library held a hushed exaltation as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers."

I liked this book less than the first one. The love story gets better, but the political intrigue bored me a little. There is a whole part of the book when Jamie and Claire are in France that I found nearly mind-numbing. Interestingly enough, that part is what my friend loved so much about this book. To each her own, I suppose. I liked the book enough to keep going though and it's worth it to continue the story in the third book.

Voyager takes us to the high seas. Our characters travel to the Indies, visit a slave market, and end up shipwrecked more than once. There are pirates, kidnapping, and danger at every turn.

I had so much fun reading this book. However, I think my enjoyment of it may have been augmented by having read "The True Confession of Charlotte Doyle" and watching the Horatio Hornblower miniseries.

There is a little bit of strange voodoo in the Carribean but it didn't detract from the story in my opinion.

I found Drums of Autumn to have a slow start. Diana Gabaldon introduces some new characters in this book and I found myself impatient to find out more about the characters I was already emotionally invested in. Stick with it, the new characters are every bit as good as the old ones.

The Fiery Cross was my most and least favorite. I loved the American history it chronicles but I felt that it should have been two books. To wit- it felt to me like there was one book that was less interesting sandwiched into the middle of another book that I liked very much. The events leading up to the Revolution begin to take shape in this story. The love stories continue and do not disappoint.

Hmmm. What to say about this one? I love the emotional depth which the romantic relationships have achieved by this point in the story. I found the beginning of the Ameican Revolution fascinating. I found the plot interesting, but I confess it was the same interest one might have after getting sucked into a Prime Time soap opera (inaccurately dubbed "drama"). The plot just had one too many twists for me. It was still a good story but I felt a little exasperated by the Young and the Restless quality it had. I liked the book but I felt it lacked the aspect of realism Gabaldon had achieved so well in the prequels.

I will definitely be reading the next in the series, slated for release this fall. One other thing people may want to know about the books is that they are pretty long. (Between a thousand and 1500 pages.) Don't start one if you won't have time to finish it, because trust me- you'll want to finish it. I think I'm going to have to come up with a third rating option for enjoyable books that are probably not the best things to read. I think I'll call it- Refined Sugar. It's so good but you shouldn't try to subsist on it.

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

I was a little impatient with this book. It is a real-life fairy tale set in the present and in the past; in the United States and in Russia; in reality and in fantasy. I grew frustrated with waiting for the setting to be where I wanted it to be; with the characters interacting how I wanted them to act; and for the plot to get to the good part. The ending was thoroughly predictable- not in a lovely fairytale sort of way but in a poorly executed fashion that was glib and cliche. My impatience was probably due in part to the frazzled state of affairs here at the NotQuiteTheBradys household. (I was throwing three kid's birthday parties in three days.) Mostly though, I was simply not very impressed with story. It had so much potential but I just felt Mr. Card was a little off his game when he wrote this one. I would say it was just o.k. so probably you could skip this one.