The Gemma Doyle Series.... completed.

This week i finished reading "The Sweet Far Thing" by Libba Bray, the third and final book in her Young Adult Gemma Doyle Series.

The first book in the series "A Great and Terrible Beauty" was very good, started a tad slow, but picked up well and finished nicely. The second book in the series "Rebel Angels" was terrific and i finished it in record time. Staying up late into the night with this page turner that i just couldn't bear to put down was a treat that i haven't had since my Harry Potter days...

The third in the series, "The Sweet Far Thing", i must say, was a disappointment. The story did resolve itself, the good guys won, more or less, and Gemma proved herself magically, but it took 819 pages to do it. ***Sigh*** Too long in my opinion and it took me over a month to read it.

i would compare my disappointment to this: if i had read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (book #7), gotten to the end and Harry had lost Ginny in the final battle and not lived happily ever after? That would adequately describe my disappointment in the end of this book. It really was a shame too because the series itself was good, i just couldn't get over the length of book #3 and the deeply disappointing denouement.

i have moved on to reading The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull, a Juvenile novel recommended to me by my 10 year old son. i am about 80 pages into it so far, so stay tuned for updates! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!

Barb

Until next time...
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

What Carmen just read...

“Scarpetta”, by Patricia Cornwell, is the newest of the Kay Scarpetta series. If you like forensics and suspense, this series is quite the master piece. Kay Scarpetta was once the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia and is now basically a consultant who has accepted an assignment in New York City. Oscar Bane, extremely paranoid and voluntarily being held Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward, insists on seeing only Scarpetta and tells her of a murder he didn’t commit. Or did he? As Oscar’s doctor, she cannot discuss the interview with anyone, including her forensic pathologist husband, Benton Wesley. Lucy, Kay’s billionaire computer genius niece, joins the team and helps solve one of the biggest mysteries of who runs a gossip website. They are all reunited with Marino, a NYPD cop, who is the lead investigator. I quite enjoyed this book. Very suspenseful and educational! And it was good to see Marino again. He disappears in the last book to get away from some damage he created. Even though he's extremely rude, he's my favorite character.

Free Stuff!

In these times of economic insecurity and hardship, many of us are looking for ways to tighten belts and stretch budgets. Almost always, one of the first things to go is the budget line for entertainment. Nobody understands the money crunch better than your local library, which is why we're glad to provide many services to you free of charge! For example: newspapers and magazines for your need to keep in touch with what's going on outside of our little corner of the world; VHS and DVD movies that can be checked out on your library card and kept at your home for a full week; board and card games that can be played at the library; internet access for adults and for the under 18 crowd who's parents have signed permission for them to use the computers; a children's section with board books, toys and audio books; weekly activities for families and for teenagers; access to information that may not be on our shelves via inter library loan; and the list goes on and on. Let us help you ease the budget stress a little, if you don't have a library account in any of the public libraries in Navajo County, bring your driver's license or MVD ID to the front desk with a piece of mail that you've received in the last couple weeks (needs to have your name, address and the postmark) and fill out an application for a library account. It's easy and it's free!