The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice Book Review

Genre: Drama, Horror, and Romance

Age: Adult

Pages: 435

Gender: Male and Female

Puplication Year: 1992

Plot: 7/10

Description: 10/10

Characters: 9/10

Pacing: 6/10

Writing: 10/10

Interest: 9/10

Other: 9/10

Cover: 1/5

Memorable: +1

Total: 62/75

Percentage: 83%

Grade: B

   This book took me a long time to finish, as most of the other books I read by Anne Rice. It was an ok book, not the best but still worth reading.

   The plot was interesting, but at points ridiculous. The anti hero of the series, Lestat got an offer to switch bodies with this man who had the power to switch bodies for a short period of time. The man gave Lestat many warnings that he was a not very trustworthy man, but Lestat wanted to be human, so against all his friends advice he switched bodies. So in this book you get to read about how Lestat tries to be human, and many other slightly interesting things.

   The characters in all of Anne Rice's books are very well developed. You really get to feel as if you know them. The characters really should get ten, but I have one problem with Lestat. He is just extremely annoying, he always does really stupid things. Then he mopes around feeling sorry for himself and that just makes me extremely irritated so I only gave characters a 9.

   Their is one, singular reason why these books take me so long to finish. The pacing of them. They are always really slow and it is not really a even slow either. In some parts it goes just slow and in some parts it goes really slow. But maybe it is just me who thinks that.

   Anne Rice has a wonderful writing style. I don't know how to explain it, but it is just epic. To if you are looking for a book with excellent writing in it, this is definetly a series for you.

   Since I read some books in this series already, my interest level was pretty high. I recommend this book to people who like vampires but not really in the horror area but more in the drama area.

   There is not really anything else that bothers me with this book except for the nun character in this book. She is supposed to be a nun, but she doesn't believe in God, so why is she a nun? That's my question.

   The cover for the edition of this book I read was just hideous, nothing really else I can say about it.

   This book is memorably, really just because of it's plot that is more on the weird side.

   This book was an ok edition to the vampire chronicles. But it definitly is not as good as the first book.

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson Book Review

Genre: Historical Fiction and Romance

Age: Young Adult

Pages: 383

Gender: Female

Publication Year: 1981

Plot: 8/10

Description: 10/10

Characters: 6/10

Pacing: 9/10

Writing: 10/10

Interest: 8/10

Other:  10/10
Cover: 2/5
Memorable: +0

Total: 63/75
Percent: 84%
Grade: B

   I thought this book was going to be great, it didn't turn out that way. I am not saying it was bad, but there was a few things that bothered me. Mostly the characters, but other then a few things, it was a decent read.

   A Countess Below Stairs was about a Russian countess names Anna. After the Russian Revolution leaves her family in ruines, Anna, her mother, and her brother move into her governess's house in England. After a little while Anna decides to get a job to earn her family money. So she goes to work at Mersham. After a short bit of time she becomes widely accepted among the other servants. The reason why she was hired was because the new master of the house was coming home from WW1 with his fiance who happens to have a pretty nasty attitude. This book is pretty much about her life in this house and at the very end her love life with the Rupert. When I picked it up it sounded like a pretty good plot. So I gave it a 8/10.

   The description in this book was just spectaculor. The best part of the book in fact. One of my favorite descriptions used in this book is this: "Mersham was honey-colored, graceful, light. There was a central block, pillared and porticoed like a golden temple plucked from some halcyon landscape and set down in the hollow of the Wiltshire hills." Isn't that just great? Since this book was such beautiful description in it I gave it a 10/10.

   The characters were my real problem with this book. The main character Anna, is in my opinion, one of the most boring characters in literature. She is just way to perfect. Characters are supposed to have flaws. She has absolutely none, except maybe not being drop dead gorgeous. She was just so unreal. You couldn't relate to her at all. Other then her all the other characters weren't that bad. So I gave characters a 6.

  The pacing was good. But at times, mostly when they were focusing on the side characters it got a little slow.

  The author's writing skills were really good. Everything about it was good. All the author needs to do is work on her characters a little bit.

  My interest level in this story was pretty high, since I love reading books based around the time of WW1.

  I had no other problems with this book.

  I think the cover is just horrible. There is nothing on it that would make me want to pick up this book. It looks like they only spent a few minutes making it.

  The book was not really memoreable at all.

  This book was a pretty good read if you like romances and historical fiction. But if you like a good interesting main character. I would not suggest this book to you.

We Hear the Dead by Dianne K. Salerni Book Review

Genre: Historical Fiction and Romance

Age: Young Adult

Pages: 422

Gender: Female

Publication Year: 2007/2010

Plot: 9/10

Description: 8/10

Characters: 9/10

Pacing: 10/10

Writing: 9/10

Interest: 10/10

Other: 10/10

Cover: 4/5

Memorable: +2

Total: 71/75

Percent: 95%

Grade: A

   Sorry for the temporary break. But I'm back with a review about a book I read while I was in England. I must say, I'm impressed with it. It totally drew me in.

   The plot was very interesting. The story is about the Fox sisters, who are said to have created Spiritualism. The story started with Maggie and Kate Fox playing a prank on their family to get their neice (who was way older then them) to leave. Their prank starts becoming very serious and before long the sisters become entwined in it. Eventually, they end up practically making a new religious. The story mostly followed Maggie. For the first half of the book it described how they became stuck in a hoax. In the last half it describes Maggie's love for Dr. Elisha Kane and how she thinks of quiting her Spiritualism business. It is really quite a great plot. (Though I think my description is a little lacking.)

   I don't remember anything quite exceptional about the description, but it was not bad. I remember thinking that they should of described the characters appearences. So I gave it a 8.

   The character were really well done. In other books with real people as main characters, I find that the characters are as flat a cardboard. But not with this. The characters had depth. I loved reading the story from Maggie's eyes. I also liked the few chapters where Kate talked. They were just so insightful. Even though I loved Maggie's character, I think if they made the book from Kate's point of view it might of even been more interesting. The character Dr. Kane was also very good, but sometimes he was quite annoying, his family just seemed to be controling him way to much.
  
   The pacing was great. The story just flowed perfectly, absolutely sucked you in. Nothing else you can say about it.

   The writing was good as well. I don't remember much about it, but I don't remember having any complains about it.

   My interest level was very high. 1800s, spiritualism, those two just go so well together. Since I have already heard of the Fox sisters it was even more interesting. I recommend this for people who like Historical Fiction and romance, but also like their stories to have a dark twist.

  There was nothing else that really bothered me about this book. So I gave the other section a 10.

  The cover is really nice, but I really don't think it fits the book. I think it fits more with a book about a circus, not one about spiritualism. It was also not really accurate, since the real Maggie Fox doesn't really have red hair. The first edition of the cover first this book it really good though.

  The book is semi-memorable. I will remember it since it was a great interpretation of a true story.

   In all this book was an outstanding piece of Young Adult literature and a definite read for people who like young adult books with Spiritualism in it.

Under the Jolly Roger by L.A. Meyer Book Review

Genre: Historical Fiction, Adventure, Romance

Age 12+

Pages: 518

Gender: Female and Male

Publication Year: 2005

Plot: 9/10

Description: 8/10

Characters: 9/10

Pacing: 8/10

Writing: 10/10

Interest: 10/10

Other: 6/10

Cover: 5/5

Memorable: +4

Total: 69/75

Percent: 92%

Grade: A-

    The third edition in the Bloody Jack series thrilled me. It was a perfect mix and history, romance, and adventure. I first started reading the Bloody Jack series about 2 years ago. I absolutely loved the first two, but after I read them I never seemed to have the time to read a series book, but finally I did. I enjoyed it immensely. 

  

    The plot was wonderful. After Jacky leaves Boston she goes to London in search for her love of her life, Jaimy. But when she gets there she sees holding the hands of a beautiful maiden. Jacky immediatly thinks that he is not smitten for her anymore. So she runs off, but right after she runs off she get pressed into the navy. You think the captain would let her go immediatly after he found out she was a girl. But no, he decides to keep her on for vulgar intentions. Soon Jacky figures out that the ship is a mess and she decides she is going to fix that. In this book she has many adventures and the story is utterly satisfying.

   The description in the book is good. I really have few complaints, but I sometimes had a hard time figuring out what was happening on the ship because I don't really know what all those ship words mean, but that is completely my fault. Other then that I love Jacky's descriptions of things.

   I adore the characters in the Bloody Jack series. They are all so unique and interesting. I think the character Jaimy is just charming. But sense he was not in this book for the most, I had to choose another character to adore. So I chose Georgie, he just acted so cute. But the end was just so sad! There is one single reason why I gave characters a 9/10, it is because Jacky, don't get me wrong I love her character, but she just did so many reckless things, yes, her doing reckless things is what makes the story interesting, but it just makes me so worried!

   The pacing was pretty good. There were times when it went a little slower then needed, but in all it was pretty good.

   I love the writing in this book series. Exspecially the first book. I love all the written accents. I jsut love everything about the writing.

   My interest level for this book was very high. Everything in it was interesting. The historical facts, the romance, the whole plot was interesting!

   There was only one other thing that does not fit in the other sections that bothers me. Near the end of the book Jacky says the world crap, this bothers me because this takes place during the early 19th century. And the word crap didn't enter the dictionary until 1846. I know it is not anything horrible, but it still bothered me.

   The cover for this book is just beautiful. I have always been fond of Cliff Nielsen's work.

   I think this book is very memorable. So I gave it a +4.

   This book was just so good. I would recommend it to anyone who liked the Napolean War and to anyone who likes adventure stories.

  

Blogger Hop!

It is time for another Blogger Hop hosted by the wonderful blog Crazy for Books. If you haven't heard of it go and check it out now. Hope you have a nice Friday! Oh yes, I am also going to try to write my two book reviews right after I am done typing this.

News

Sorry I haven't posted a review in a while. The reason why is because that I was in England for for 6 days. Since my last post I finished two books. So I should have those reviews up soon. I also made a new grading system I am going to test out and hopefully like. I was trying to make it add up to a hundred, but I could only think of enough to add up to 75 if you have any ideas just post it is the comments. I would highly appreciate it. I also plan to make a color scheme for my blog that is much lighter colored and I also want to make little pictures to put with the letter of each grade. But that might take a long time.Thank you for reading.

New Grading System:
Plot: 10


Description: 10

Characters: 10

Pacing: 10

Writing: 10

Interest: 10

Other: 10

Cover: 5

Memorable: +_

Total: _/75
Percent: _%
Grade: _

Blogger Hop

A new Blogger Hop! Yay! Blogger Hop is a meme hosted by Crazy for Books, a wonderful blog. Anyway thanks for visiting!

Pandora by Anne Rice Book Review

Genre: Horror and Historical Fiction

Age: 13+

Pages: 344

Gender: Male and Female

Publication Year: 1998

Plot: 5/5

Description: 4.5/5
Characters: 5/5
Developed: 4/5
Fast Paced: 5/5
Cover: 2/3
Memorable: +1

Total: 26.5/28
Percent: 95%
Grade: A

   This book was awesome. I don't know why it got so many bad reviews on Amazon, it was just awesome. My second favorite Anne Rice book (I have read four). But before you read this at least read up to Memnoch the Devil, becuase I made the mistake of only reading up to Queen of the Damned and at the beginning this book gave away things that happened in The Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil. So just make sure you don't make the same mistake as me, for even though this is not really part of the vampire chronicles it discusses some things in it. But this book was still very enjoyable.

   The plot was fantastic. It was about Pandora, the vampire born in Augustan Rome. It tells mostly of her life before she turns into a vampire. It gives you a lot of facts about Rome as you are reading it so you can also learn something. It tells of her love for Marius and of how she had dreams that might suggest she was once a vampire before in a past life. It tells of how Marius watched over the Akasha and Enkil. So if you have read some of the other books you will know what I'm talking about. It is truly great to read of Pandora before she was a vampire.

   The description was just great! But the author could of described a little less at some parts.

   The characters were brilliant. Pandora was full of depth. They were all very interesting and fun to read about. I was exspecially fond of Flavius, for the short time he was in the story. Anyway the characters were throughly enjoyable.

   The story was well developed until after Pandora was made a vampire, after that the story got a little choppy and thin. But it didn't ruin the story, even though the end was choppy it was still enjoyable. But I think the author could of added more stuff at the end to make it better.

   The book was very, very fast paced. As I said earlier, this is the fourth Anne Rice book I have read. It took me a week to read Interview with the Vampire. I took me around a month each to read The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned (in my defense I was reading other books at the same time). I read Pandora in a day. So obviously it was much faster then the other books. Actually, this was the fastest I have ever read an adult book. So it was super fast.

   The cover is okay. It is pretty, but so much more could of been sone with it. Exspecially since it was such a great book.

   I gave it a +1 for being memorable since it is a Anne Rice book and all Anne Rice books are memorable.

  This book was a great book in all (face that you one and two star amazon reviewers). I suggest this book to anyone who likes the non-Twilight vampires and Rome.

Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge Book Review

Genre: Historical Fiction

Age: 13+

Pages: 277

Gender: Female

Publication Year: 2009

Plot: 4/5

Description: 4/5

Characters: 3.5/5

Developed: 3/5

Fast Paced: 5/5

Cover: 3/3

Memorable: +1

Total: 23.5/28

Percent: 84%

Grade: B

   I originall found this book at my local library. I intended to check it out but I decided not to since it was only a one week rental. So I bought on Amazon for a few dollars a couple months ago. I finally decided to read it. It was ok, but it had some major flaws, well at least in my eyes it did.

   The plot was good, but the problem is that the author went off and just had to talk about things that had nothing to really do with the plot. The story was about a women named Grace Hammer. She lives in Whitechapel in the year 1888 (I know such a wonderful year to live in Whitechapel) with her children. Grace is a thief, in fact it is the only way she really gets money. Apparently she is really good at being a thief because she lives a well life for living in East London. But her past is coming back to hunt her, because she stole a precious gem from this guy she used to work for, Mr.Blunt. You see, Mr.Blunt is a easily angered man, so he now wants his gem back, but he does not want to stop after getting the gem. There is really not much else to the plot. There are a lot of little side plots though.

   Since I finished this book awhile ago, I barely remember anything about the description used in it. All I remember was that I wasn't astounded by it, but I wasn't disappointed by it. I remember that the author never described the setting well. So I gave it a 4.

   I believed the characters were never fully developed. There was nothing really anything unique about the characters except that they had all their teeth. Jack is a player and Grace is a thief. Her children are smart and good looking. Mr.Blunt is angry, he kills people. They are as flat as a piece of printer paper.

   The story was poorly developed. Mostly because they kept going to different people's point of views. The author never made you care about the characters, or what happened to him. The story just seemed to go in a pointless direction. The characters did things for no apparent reason. The author told us things that the story didn't need. It was just so pointles, nothing really had any depth.

   The story was generally fast paced. If you aren't put down by the changing point of views. Then since it is short and has big print you should be able to just zip through this book.

   The cover is really good. Except for one thing. There are these orange splatters on the cover. First I thought someone spilled something on my copy, but once I looked up the picture on the internet apparently all the covers have the splatters on it. I don't know if it is blood or supposed to be lights or something, but the cover can for sure do with out it. Otherwise the cover gives the book a mysterious look to it.

   This book was a little bit memorable. I remember it because another one of my favorite characters in the book was executed (In almost all the historical fiction I read, if there is a execution in it, it has to be my favorite character.)
  
   This book was not the most impressive book in the world, but it is not the worst either. I recommend this to you if you like historical fiction.

Blogger Hop!

The Book Blogger Hop is a wonderful meme by Crazy for Books. It is where new people can find your blog and you can find other peoples' blogs. To any readers who have been here before, sorry I haven't posted musch this week, because I read a book full of short stories and I have no idea how to grade it. Anywa, have a good week.