The Alienist; Caleb Carr

What a great book! Descriptive and captivating, I loved every aspect of the mystery. The only problem I had was with putting it down. I loved the way they broke down the psyche of this mass murderer. Explaining reasons why someone would kill and mutilate the way their criminal did was so fascinating. Disgusting to a lot of people, but I loved it. The best was that it was set it 1896 and the methods used were groundbreaking at the time. I think the setting made the book for me. I can't wait to read the sequel.

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The Pillars of the Earth; Ken Follett

Amazing book! 1000 pages spanning about 30 years, it really gets you involved with the characters and story line. I loved this book. It had everything I love in a historical fiction and more. The amount of pages really helps give the right amount of detail to each character's story. It's hard to write a detailed review of this book because of the amount of things that go on throughout. What I did love was the account of the murder of Thomas Becket from two different point of view. Super interesting and completely captivating. This book is definitely for those who love their historical fiction.

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The Hunger Games Trilogy; Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (book 1) : This was an interesting book. The premise was completely unique and like nothing I've ever read before, which made it captivating right off the bat. But it was written in first person which sometimes gets in the way of the story for me. Only mildly distracting in this book, but still distracting. I really did enjoy this book, but the ending, however necessary to the next book, was too abrupt for me. Overall, good book.

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Catching Fire (book 2) : This was my favorite of the series. The first person did not confuse me too much because the story hardly ever slowed down. That makes it so much easier to follow. There was also very little of a love story that I feel sometimes gets in the way of the actual plot of the book, especially when the book has so many different things we are supposed to pay attention to and remember like this type of sci-fi. I really enjoyed the twists and turns and this book and how it's fast face helped me understand what was going on so much more than either of the other books. Overall, very good book.

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Mockingjay (book 3) : This was probably my least favorite of the series. The story, in and of itself, was really good. But it's overall story confused me in several places and the first person confused me and took me out of the story way too many times, much more than any book should. I'm still confused on a few points but pretty sure if I go back to read them they will seem the same. The shock value moments were really good, the author has no shortage of talent in that area. But following through afterward was not always the best. Plus, the ending was much too abrupt for the relationships to the main character she'd invested us in. I understand wanting to wrap up quickly as the book was getting long, but it was quite shady and lame, I thought. Overall, good.

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Mostly, what really would have made this series great for me would have been a look into the human psyche that helped explain what it is about killing a person or seeing a person killed that weakens and damages the mind so much. The main character was not just affected by close friends and family deaths, and that was made obvious by each of her breakdowns. But what was it that made her break down? One sentenced described her as "cracking open" on the inside and I though that was a very interesting way of portraying her emotions, but more description of what exactly causes that would have been great. However, I think that could only be described through third person, and we did not have access to that, which is just a part of these books. Still, it would have been nice.

Year of Wonders; Geraldine Brooks

I really liked this book. The flow of reading was interrupted by a couple library books but that did not keep me from wanting to finish it. The time period, 1666, was a new one for me to read about. It was fascinating and completely compelling. Especially from the character's point of view. Great read and I'm keeping it to read again someday.

*****

A Perfect Quote

"My Tom died as babies do, gently and without complaint. Because they have been such a little time with us, they seem to hold to life but weakly. I used to wonder if it was so because the memory of Heaven still lived within them, so that in leaving here they do not fear death as we do, who no longer know with certainty where it is our spirits go. This, I thought, must be the kindness that God does for them and for us, since He gives so many infants such a little while to bide with us."

-- Geraldine Brooks (A Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague)

The Daughter of Time; Josephine Tey

I really enjoyed this book. It felt like I was doing all the research for Richard III and Henry VII without having to do all the work of collecting. It was such a unique point of view and an interesting way to point out the discrepancies in historical information.

Because there was one main character, Alan Grant, and one secondary character, Brent Carradine, it makes the flow of the dialogue a little hard to follow. There are several other secondary characters but none have as much face time as Brent. When Alan and Brent bounce ideas and information off each other, it can get pretty confusing to understand who was saying what. I got lost several times.

My review system is going to be the standard 5 star scoring. This book gets 4.

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A Blog About Books

I enjoy a good historical fiction, heavy on the history. If I ever go back to school, I think I'd like to study history because it is completely fascinating to me to read how people lived 50 years ago or 500 years ago, anywhere in the world. This blog is for me more than anything else so I can keep the books I've read straight. I'm not going to do any serious reviews but I will start by talking about the Favorites on my side bar. And I'm only going to post pretty pictures just to make it more fun for me.