A New Bookcase

Yesterday we went to IKEA to get me a present for my birthday.
We had french fries at the restaurant. Yum!


And this is what I got:
A bookcase on wheels!


More room for my books.
We immediately began rearranging.


Doesn't it look awesome!?
Because of the wheels it can be easily moved to get to the books in the bookcase behind it.


After midnight we celebrated the start of my birthday.

The Unnatural Inquirer - Book Review

The Unnatural Inquirer (Nightside #8) by Simon R. Green

What is it about:
The publisher of The Unnatural Inquirer—the Nightside’s most notorious rag—has offered John Taylor one million pounds to find a man who claims to have evidence of the afterlife stored on a DVD. The Inquirer made the guy a sweet deal. Then he and the disc vanished. And if Taylor’s not careful, he may be next.

What did I think of it:
And yet again I stumble into a series somewhere along the way. Luckily this book can be read as a standalone although you do feel you're missing some background here and there. Otherwise it's a dark, gritty detective story with a film noir feel set in a strange, dangerous otherworldly city. I really liked the worldbuilding and the characters. The story could have been better, but the setting and the writing kept me entertained enough to overlook the lack of strong plot. I might pick up another book in this series if I run across it.

Why should you read it:
It's a hard boiled detective story dipped in a paranormal sauce

Renovation stress once more

The coming month I'll be busy with repainting, redecorating and recarpeting our house after it has just been renovated, so it might be that I will have less time to read and therefor review books.

Don't fear though: I'll try to keep posting as often as I can so you won't be without me completely and at the end of November I will be posting regularly again.

Don't forget to enter my giveaways while you still can: tomorrow I will draw the winners.

MUSING MONDAYS

Another meme I decided to join.

MUSING MONDAYS is hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page.

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about the ‘best’ books'.

What elements do you think lands a book in that ‘best’ category? Think of your top 5 best books and tune in next week to see the collated list.

For me the best books I've read were books that were well written, had cool characters, a great story and made me want to read them again really soon after finishing them.

To give a top 5 is always difficult, it changes a lot, but here's my current top 5:

1 - American Gods by Neil Gaiman
2 - Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson
3 - Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines
4 - Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
5 - Hasse Simonsdochter by Thea Beckman (a book by a dutch author, too bad it's not available in english as it's a great book)

A Great and Terrible Beauty - Book Review

A Great and Terrible Beauty - Libba Bray

What is it about:
It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?

What did I think of it:
As both my owner and Voodoo Bride love to read girlish books, I can't escape having to read them too from time to time. This book is pretty good I must confess. The story really held me in it's grip even though it's a Young Adult book and therefor there's a lot of teen drama and girls acting like morons. (I really wonder if my owner ever acted like that in her teens.)

There were times I could just kick Gemma, but all in all I must say the characters acted true to what you could expect from teenage girls (mostly) and it was refreshing that all of them had both their good and bad sides and that Gemma isn't that super special besides her strange gift. It's the first part of a trilogy, but pleasantly enough it ends in such a way that you don't feel frustrated you do not have the next book ready right away.

(I must confess we did read book two closely after reading this book and that my owner ordered book three and both her and Voodoo Bride are waiting for it impatiently.)

My one big objection to this book was that it's written in present tense, but luckily the story is so compelling that I could get over that once I got into the story.

Why should you read it:
If you like a Victorian setting, a well written and compelling story and don't mind teen drama this is your book. Best thing: if you like it, there's two more!

To list all three:
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Rebel Angels
The Sweet Far Thing

Generation Dead - book review

Generation Dead - Daniel Waters

What is it about:
When dead teenagers who have come back to life start showing up at her high school, Phoebe, a goth girl, becomes interested in the phenomenon, and when she starts dating a "living impaired" boy, they encounter prejudice, fear, and hatred.

What did I think about it:
Ok, I don't need my zombies to be brainless, decaying monsters who are out for brains, although that's always an added bonus, but I do want my zombies to actually have a function no one else can take over. When reading 'Generation Dead' however I kept feeling you could replace the zombies easily for any other group of people who have ever been victim of prejudice and/or discrimination.

Apart from that the story is predictable and Phoebe annoying, although I did like it that finally a writer made a Goth the lead character in a book and didn't bash on Goths like so many other writers of supernatural fiction do (which always strikes me as odd as I'm guessing goths are a large part of their audience).

An other thing that annoyed me was that Waters is throwing up storylines that don't reach a conclusion in this book, but most probably will be solved in the next book. Now don't get me wrong: I don't mind if a storyline is divided over more books, but if that's the case I want to have it clear when I buy the book that it's part of a series and nowhere on the outside of this book was that the case.
Somewhere on the inside there's mention of a second book, but not in such a way that you feel like you can't read this book without having to read the second book.

In conclusion: I didn't much like this book and will not be reading the second book.

Why should you read it:
If you don't mind a book with functionless zombies and annoying teenagers you could give this book a try.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

My first review on this blog will be about one of the best books I've ever read: American Gods.

What is it about:

Shadow is only a few days away from being released from prison when he gets the message that his wife has been killed in a car accident. As he gets out of prison one of the first persons that he meets is the mysterious Mr. Wednesday who offers him a job. When Shadow reluctantly takes this job he meets some strange individuals and is pulled into a series of even stranger events of which no one seems to know the outcome except that it might get very ugly indeed.

So why do I think it's good:

Gaiman mixes a suspenseful story with mythology and fantasy. I learned a lot of history from this book without having the feeling that someone was trying to teach me something.

The way he writes his characters made me want to keep reading to learn more about them, they feel lifelike even those that aren't quite human. The story itself is intruiging and beautiful. It has a good pace and everything fits. And it even has a sort of zombie in it!

Why should you read it:

If you like a well written story that challenges you to think about certain things and makes you curious about other things, this is the book you should read.

And if after you read this book you think: Hmmm... that Anansi guy was a cool character, don't hesistate to pick up a copy of 'Anansi Boys'.

What this is about

Well, I decided to make a second blog on which I'll post reviews about books and movies. Voodoo Bride will be helping me out with some of the reviews (especially when a book or movie is a bit girly). I'm not sure yet how often I will post a review, but it won't be daily I think.