I asked the author for a review copy of this book when it first came out because I liked his premise. He warned me their was romance in it - something I'm not a big fan of - but stubbornly insisted upon wanting a review copy and Parry kindly obligated. And then sadly, I sat on this book for months after starting it, not because I didn't like it, because I did, but because there was romance in it ;/ (I'm never if not illogical).

Matthew Wildish, our main character, is a poet on a mission - a mission to find love that transcends the real world. He is surrounded by women but comes to have feelings for his best friend's wife, something which gave me pause. In the meantime, he continues his career as a wigmaker. He often finds himself in amusing but tricky situations.

The middle part of the story was really when I stopped reading - there's a lot of history, which was interesting, but I struggled with the plot which I felt wasn't going anywhere and I struggled with the lack of storyline moving along. The book is shocking at times, but because of that, it helps you to keep going with the parts that feel like they are dragging.

Scarlatti's Cat is a cute children's story about an Italian music composer, Scarlatti, and his beautiful and smart cat, Pulcinella, and how his cat composed a sonata. Man, I wish my Wedgie was talented like that - does this mean his scratching on my furniture is really a display of artistry?

This book is beautifully drawn, and I especially love the drawings of Pulcinella, who reminds me a lot of my beloved Zorro. There's a great drawing of Scarlatti holding Pulcinella, with Handel's dog nearby.

The book also teaches young readers to follow their hearts, their passions and their dreams. Though being a proud and crazy cat lady, I was very sad to read the ending.

I'm not sure exactly how to review this book, except to spell out the good and the bad like I usually do.

I want to say I'm biased; I love Piers Anthony & I love the Xanth books, but unfortunately, that's not really true, either. I USED to love Anthony & I LOVED the books as a kid; still love the earlier ones - I even reread them ever so often.

But seriously - Anthony's a dirty old man - 78.

In one way, the books are clean, though they aren't as clean as his earlier books. He doesn't spell out adult scenes or use adult language, instead writing "bleep" or "bleeping". It's amazing, however, how often his characters lose their clothing, show their underclothes, refer to sex, or otherwise get involved in adult situations. Perhaps it's just me, but I don't remember his characters in earlier Xanth novels actually engaging in adult behavior, just casual mentions of "summoning the stork". Board Stiff is very different.

Regular Xanth readers will want to know about the puns. Once again, I have to say, I enjoyed how he used puns in his earlier books, but after the first dozen or so, he seems to just try to cram as many puns as possible into a given book, without trying to have them actually make sense.

Most of them in this book aren't that bad, and I don't think there's as many puns as some books, but a lot of them just don't really fit into the story. There's a particularly bad one involving women who miscarry that's just horrifying - to me, there's just certain things you don't make fun of, and certain miscarriages is one of those topics. It's just crass, especially when it was just so random. There's several other puns that are equally as bad.

But what about the story line and the plot? In a way, this book has a better plot than some of the other books, but most of the adventures are triggered by a sequin falling off of a dress - as in, a sequence of events (I hear a groan). It was funny the first few times, but Anthony repeatedly uses this plot device in every chapter, to get the characters to the next part of the story.

My other big pet peeve was EVERY new character the "quest" group met up with, had to be reintroduced to the group and to their mission. I'm not a writer & don't pretend to be, but you're telling me Anthony couldn't figure out another way? He couldn't have just written, just once, "And Ease caught so and so up on their adventures so far"?

My last complaint is typical - you know how the book is going to end, and it ends exactly that way, and all in the 2 pages.

So what's my rating? Well... after all of my complaint, I still enjoyed reading Board Stiff. It's a fun, Xanth romp after all, and that's what it's meant to be, a fun, fast, don't take things too seriously and just enjoy it kind of book. You are supposed to read a Xanth book & groan throughout it, but if it makes you forget about life for a little while, then the book is doing its job. I'll continue to read Xanth books, maybe not every one, but every one I happen to come across by random chance, and I'll continue to appreciate the books for what they are.

I received a review copy of this book from Edelweiss/the publisher.

I consider myself an avid vegetable gardener, but I've only had a garden two years so I'm definitely still in the beginner camp. I've been reading a lot about it, but I've learned the most just from talking to other gardeners. My boss has had a huge, successful garden for most of 30 years, and he's taught me the post, and he was teaching me about companion planting before I had ever heard of the term or knew what it meant.

This book is really rather basic, doesn't present anything that hasn't been mentioned before, and the drawings/illustrations are so tiny as to be useless (I looked on kindle keyboard & on my kindle nook app, which is in color). If you try to enlarge the screen (which I did) the drawings end up blurry.

The only "good" thing about this book is its length - and the reason why I gave this 3 stars. The book is very short, but it makes it very easy for you to find the information you are looking for. If you are about to plant peas, for example, and you can't remember what to plant with it or what not to plant with it, it's easy enough to find that section in the book.

The other good thing is the author does talk about what flowering plants are good for your garden - something I attempted to do last year, but all my flowers died, defeating the purpose.

I got this book on amazon when it was listed for free.

I'm not a prepper, but I often read books like this because they usually talk about gardening and canning and preserving the harvest, topics that greatly interest me.

This book does cover a wide variety of subjects, including a long list of needed tools or survival skills, many of which I already possess to varying degrees (animal care, sewing, weaving, making my own clothes, knitting, gardening, saving seeds, canning, preserving, deydrating, etc etc etc.)

There are many areas where the information is repeated over and over again. I think the author is doing this to make a point, but since I'm not in kindergarden, I didn't feel it needed to be repeated so often. The author tends to go off on a tangent, and then get back to his original point (which he then restates for you, to get back on subject). There are typos and spelling errors, which could have been caught with a decent editor. I did like the author's writing style, which was like talking to a friend over a cup of tea about the subject matter.

I picked up this book when it was listed for free on amazon.

I don't really read a lot of romance, but I do enjoy my Christian fic so I was happy to request this book to read for free in exchange for an honest review from booksneeze.

This is the second book in the series, but you can really read this one as a standalone. I know, every author says that about their books, but I hate reading books in a series without reading all the earlier ones, but this one you can really read alone.

The premise of the series is simple:

Every year, young Amish men descend on the cozy little town of West Kootenai, Montana, arriving in the spring to live there for six months and receive 'resident' status for the hunting season in the fall. They arrive as bachelors, but go home with brides!

I can't imagine living in a world like that!

Lydia is a book editor, who goes back home after her mother's death and finds her "promise" box. The book goes from there with twists and turns and every time you think you figure out where the book is going, Goyer twists the story just a little bit more. The characters are very relatable and as such, became very real to me on the page.

Eric Lindner's book is about a few different hospice patients he worked with at the end of their lives. The people he meets up with are all memorable in their different ways.

Eric briefly starts his book with his training, and often refers back to it when he is faced with any dilemmas (and sometimes ignores his training, as in the case when he gives a woman her meds when he knows he shouldn't have, something I think I would have done in the same situation). In between his stories of his patients, Eric also talks about his own family and his travels overseas, especially his aging parents. While I understood talking about his parents in the book, I did not like that Lindner did so. I wasn't reading a book about Lindner's life, I was reading a book about Lindner's dying hospice patients. The author often seemed to be bragging about how good his life was, about how they have so much money that they can afford to donate a lot of money to charity (the bragging really turned me off, becausehe was comparing how good his life is to someone who was dying (I honestly don't think he meant it that way, that was just how I felt. To clarify, I think it's wonderful the author's family does give so much back to their community, I just didn't feel it was appropriate talking about it in the course of the book).

Surprisingly, the book isn't sad at all. I know I was really worried (in agreeing to read this book) that it was going to be too sad & to hit too close to home, but Eric really does a great job in balancing his visits with his patients end of life.

-
I agreed to read this book as part of a blog tour in Jan 2014 and was not paid for my review. I wanted to read this book because I worked in nursing homes for a few years and saw the good in hospice

Overall, this book was greatly disappointing.

A lot of the writers in this volume didn't seem to read "get" the Hunger Games trilogy, of which i am a HUGE fan. It seemed some of them might have just skimmed the books or watched parts of the movie, and then decided to preach about it.

I thought I was going to get insights about the trilogy, or maybe actually read something that was going to make me "think" - I quote that the book is supposed to include:

"How does the way the Games affect the brain explain Haymitch’s drinking, Annie’s distraction, and Wiress’ speech problems? What does the rebellion have in common with the War on Terror? Why isn’t the answer to “Peeta or Gale?” as interesting as the question itself? What should Panem have learned from the fates of other hedonistic societies throughout history—and what can we?"

and in one way, yes, these subjects are covered, but in such a way it makes you scream at the book in frustration.

So why am I giving it 3 stars? Well, because a few of the authors here actually do a good job with their essay, and though I disagree with most of it, I didn't actually hate it & everyone has a right to disagree. I was just very disappointed, that the authors weren't as passionate about the Hunger Games as I am.

This is another book I read months ago but had to spend some time thinking about it before I had to read it.

This is the story that goes along with the TV show, Sister Wives. I admit, I'm a fan of the show. Do I believe it's all true? No, no reality show is gonna be that - the editors are going to pick and choose what scenes to show to share the story they want to tell. It's still fascinating to me all the same, all the more so as the kids are getting older and going off to college.

The book is told by Kody Brown and his wives. A lot of the information is the same as the show, but there's some new information presented here as well - especially the early years, when Kody Brown had just one or two wives. Meri was truly horrible to her sister wife back then, and it's really unclear how she feels about it now. The wives all struggle with jealousy, which is understandable, and you do see some small insights into that in this book as well - how they handle it.

Whether or not you agree with their lifestyle and choices, it's still an interesting read and if you enjoy watching the show, you'll most likely enjoy the book as well. I watch the show - and read books like this - because I enjoy learning about other lifestyles and cultures, and because more often then not, the truth is stranger than fiction.

If you are looking for more information about their faith, and what they believe - that's not covered in this book, as it's a 'personal' thing. This book is about their lives and relationships, not their faith.

I started reading this book almost a year ago - back in January. I love this series, but this book felt very slow going, and with all the other books in my to be read pile, this one fell by the way side, a lot. I was borrowing it from the library, and had to keep returning it and re-requesting it, which added to why it took so long to read. Most of the book has the family divided - Jamie and Claire living in the past, and the rest of the family living in 1980, and my favorite parts of this series has always been when the whole family is united. There's also a lot about Jamie's illegitimate son, as well, who is fighting on the British side (I admit, I can't stand the Lord Grey parts and don't understand why there's a whole other series of books about him because he's seriously the most boring man alive, and I skimmed some of the sections and screamed at others).

Being a very long book, there's so much to discuss in this book but it's hard to do so without giving away the whole plot. Some minor spoilers will still occur... you've been warned.

Every time Jamie & Claire cross the sea, major disasters happen. Why? What is the point? This was OK the first 50 times in the series, but seriously... this gets old fast. And now the disasters don't even add to the plot, really.

The book is really, really long, and really, really doesn't need to be. I know a lot of people like the Lord John Grey storylines and that's fine, but if someone wants to read about him, they are going to read his own series, so exactly why is so much of this book revolving around him? Most of his storyline does eventually make sense, but none of it was needed, it's just to open up another plot hole and when DG claims she's trying to wind down this series, why is she adding more plot holes, that don't need to be added and don't really even make any sense?

I'm angry really, that there is so much fluff and filler in this book - I normally read and reread this series, and there's so much fluff in this book - with the four complicated storylines - that I don't want to reread this one, which leaves me angry and mad. I love Jamie and Claire, and I can't love them in this book.

The pacing was really weird in this book - it's the "hurry up and wait" syndrome. Parts are really rushed to get to the point, and then when you finally get to the point, nothing happens.

There's this bit where Claire does something completely uncharacteristic. We get to know Claire rather well, and the thing that drives Claire is her love for Jamie. And then she does something completely unexpected, and stupid, and so out of character, and there was absolutely no point to it. Obviously in the next book this subject will be discussed more, but what is the POINT?

All in all... I don't know how I feel about the book. Disappointed is probably my overwhelming word.