Girls, girls, girls and some Cultural Revolution....

TITLE: The Scavenger's Daughters

AUTHOR: Kay Bratt

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLISHER: Amazon Publishing

PAGES: 230

Ok, so this isn't really my genre of interest but it was the pick for a book club I have recently joined.

This first book in a series is about Benfu, who was caught up in the Cultural Revolution in China during the 1960s. He managed to escape and start a new life for himself and his wife. Together they raise dozens of unwanted girls with a lot of love while living in the poorest of conditions.

Now this isn't all sappy love and lessons about overcoming the harsh realities of life, but also shows the determination of a man to care for his family and his struggle to deal with the painful memories from his past. The book jumps from his time in the 60's (the harsh camps or communes, for lack of a better word for me to come up with) to the present where he wavers between tradition and present society. 

This book didn't grab me like it did my fellow book clubbers. I thought it dragged a lot in the middle. The author just made everyday he worked seem to last for more than 24 hours. At times, it was too sweet for me. The daughters have their own individuality and are pretty fun to read about. Overall, though for me, the only real secret in the book is discovered and it's a pretty good one. 

Like I said, this is a first in the series,  and ends on a good enough note for me to not continue or be that interested in what else holds for this family.

I give this a 3 out of 5. Just average.

Pirates, magic, and mystery! Oh my! (Squeeze In)

I first heard of this book read on a tweet from @Booktips_tweet. The author asks for an honest review for the story.

TITLE: Crossbones Episode 1

AUTHOR: Stefan M. Nardi

GENRE: Fantasy, Fiction, YA

PUBLISHER: Mystic Inkwell

PAGES: 37

With this being Episode 1 you know there will be more, a lot more hopefully. Though I am not really interested the pirates and swashbuckling, this is a story of 2 brothers who search for adventure and quickly find it on the sea.

Filled with the normal hidden secret pasts and self discoveries found in many tales, this short read is fast paced and well written. Though it did not grab my attention as much, I would be interested in reading the rest of the series, but it isn't something I am dying to read. If I remember it and it's at a good price or free, I will pick it up.

I give this a 3 1/2 (I know on amazon I wrote 4 but I couldn't get the half star) out of five. Check out the free version!

A Twisted Sleeping Beauty....(Squeeze In)

TITLE: The Sleeper and The Spindle

AUTHOR: Neil Gaiman

ILLUSTRATOR: Chris Riddell

GENRE: Fiction, Fantasy, YA

PUBLISHER: Harper Collins

PAGES: 69

When I first saw this was out, I fell in love with the cover!! It is so beautiful! I quickly 

reserved the book from the library and at only 69 pages a quick and easy read.

This story about a Queen along with 3 dwarfs is about their quest to save her kingdom. This story is brought to life through pretty amazing drawings with only bits of gold to color them.

This book adds to the many retelling of old famous fairy tales but this one is worth a look.  For me, it had just the slightest of depression, but then again a whole kingdom is at stake from a terrible fate! I wanted more action, and just a bit more of something...to grab me but the story left me wanting to know a bit more.

Overall, a good read with illustrations that only compliment the story, though honestly I could just look at a picture book and still be very happy with this story.

I give this 3 1/2 out of 5. I will probably buy this one day so I can keep looking at the images! SOOO PRETTYYY!!!!

Anonymous - The Story of Aaron Swartz Full Documentary

Just hanging out on youtube and I came across this pretty amazing documentary of the late Aaron Swartz. I had never heard of him, but now I know who he is. Such a brilliant person and gone way to soon.

He created so many site and even had the idea of a version of wikipedia before it became wikipedia!

Anyway what touched me was a statement about passion (that is how I take the quote from the film) his thinking was, what was the most important thing you could be working on now and why aren't you doing it? Pretty powerful stuff.

But to tie this back into my book blog, I found out he created openlibrary.org A place where each published book could get a web page. Pretty incredible undertaking! Now I don't know who or how it's run but what an idea!

Check this film out. Pretty inspirational!