This is a fascinating look at Transcendental Meditation and enlightenment. I don't know much about meditation other than the most basic knowledge, so I was interested in reading about how a child grew up in the culture and returned as an adult, learning how to cope and how to grow and change, both as a mother and as a women and a wife.

Since the book is a memoir, there is obviously some information about her family history, but the book is mostly about the TM movement and its founder, but it's also to a certain extent a coming of age story. There's a lot of suffering here, but mostly it's about Claire's loneliness, something I think we can all relate to.

While this is a great memoir and is very well written, I did have a few issues with it. I felt Claire really skirted the truth about a lot of issues - she brought up some subjects / controversies, but really didn't dive into them - again, this book is a memoir and not a tell all, but in books like this I always say the same thing - why bring up the subject at all if you aren't going to delve into it?

I also didn't care for the ending, where Claire really glosses over the last few years of her life, only very briefly mentioning her time with her father / late teen/early adult years. Considering this book was supposed to be a contrast between her youth and her adult years, this was disappointing.

All in all, an interesting read about a subject I knew little about.

-
received book from author as part of a book tour

So this was another of my favorites as a kid. I just loved the fact that the Castle had, in its own way, a personality and mind of its own. Dor is kind of a brat in the beginning of the book, but turns out to be a likable kid, and the other characters are a lot of fun. There's Anthony's usual amount of smut-treating women as objects/inferior creatures - but not as much as in most of his books, by a long short.

It definitely wasn't as enjoyable as when I was in the forth grade, let me tell you I loved those books then. Even though the books are written for adults, they really are written for juvenile males, and as an adult female, I really notice that now.

(note for goodreads: I'm leaving the five star rating for old time's sake; but in honesty, I can only give it three stars as an adult)

OK, wildly different from the movie.

--

Originally published on my blog over the summer; I'm just now on 10/30 updating goodreads ... sigh...

So, I originally read this book a few years ago because I liked the movie "Outbreak" and when I originally wrote a review - just a few words - I commented it was nothing like the movie.

Well, I finally figured it out - the movie's not based upon this book! LOL No wonder it's not like the movie! (I'm a little slow sometimes)

So, Outbreak is about, duh, an Outbreak. Robin Cook, if you aren't familiar with the author, writes medical thrillers. I read a ton of his books back in the day, when I was actually reading thrillers. Not really sure what possessed me to read this now.

It was good - and if you like the genre you'll probably like this one. Things to keep in mind: it's dated. It's very dated. I didn't particularly like how relationships were written in the book, either, but it is a product of its time, like any other book. The main female character was supposed to be this smart, educated, independent women, yet she kept going out on dates with men she didn't even like romantically and kept calling them when she was out of town, and the men all but patted her on the head and called her "good little kitty" (they didn't really call her that, but I felt like they were treating her like a pet).

All in all though, I did enjoy the book, and it would make for a good movie!

I've read this book a few times over the years, and I'll state the same thing at the beginning of reviewing all the I of I books: this is a re-read, and the first time reviewing the books. I'm reviewing all of the books after I finished re-reading the entire series, which I don't normally do & didn't do deliberately this time, either...

I do believe this is one of Anthony's better series, but there's a lot of promise to the series, and for some of the books, a lot of promise and not a lot of delivering.

This was always my least favorite of the books in the series, not counting the horrible 8th book which I pretend doesn't exist because it's so horrible WRONG and BAD. This continues to be true in re-reading the books, especially after finishing rereading all of them.

My issue with the book- or main issue, really- is the same now as it was then. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that Chronos lives backwards. I understand why he does, but it just seems like there's these huge gaping holes in the story line that is just ignored, all these holes created by the fact that he lives backwards. And the only explanation in the entire series is that Chronos is "mostly immune" to paradox- mostly immune meaning whenever Anthony doesn't want to explain something, Chronos is immune, the rest of the time he's not immune? Hmm.... I don't write books, I don't pretend to be an author, but when there's HUGE gaping holes in a story line it just feels like the author is being lazy... In his LONG author's note in the back of the book, Anthony leads you to believe that the holes in the story line will be answered later on in the series, but this never happens.

This is turning more into a series review, and I apologize.

To make a long review longer, a lot of this book is important to the rest of the series, and I do feel as if it's important to hear each Incarnation's point of view for the series as a whole, but it's still my least favorite of the series.

Let me start by saying this is not a young adult book. I thought it was, though I'm not sure where I got that impression. I also thought it was paranormal, not paranormal romance (I am not a fan of a lot of romance). The first half of the book was well done, with only a few hints of romance - a perfect blend (for me). The pace was a little slow for my liking, and I thought there were a couple of minor holes in how Hannah became a vampire, but nothing that most people would probably even notice (I just particularly like the backstory's in my books, so I notice when there are holes). I didn't particularly care for the term "keeper"; actually, it rather makes me sick to my stomach, though it fits very well with the whole vampire theme. The first half of the book reads as an young adult story.

I didn't find any of the characters terribly likable or necessarily well-developed. Hannah, our main character, drove me crazy in a lot of ways. She's a senior in high school, but in most ways seemed way too adult for her age. Her main love interest, Jackson, is just clueless throughout most of the book, and that drove me crazy as well. None of the characters I really cared for, but that didn't detract from the story in any way (I do enjoy books more when I really like the characters, but I still enjoy stories when I don't like the characters, and sometimes it's nice to read something when you don't like the characters, because you can focus more on the plot).

The second half of the book changes drastically in feel. The intensity and suspense of the book picks up, but the book is no longer young adult, but adult all the way. There's graphic sex (not my thing), romance (not my thing), and a lot of gore/violence (not my thing). There's a particular scene between two characters that just does not make any sense at all, there's no explanation behind why it occurs, and had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book/plot, and to me, it really disrupted the entire feel of the book because it was so out of place. I'm sure it'll be explained more in the following book(s); however, it just didn't work for me.

I always like to end my reviews with why I give the rating I did. I mentioned a lot of things I didn't like about the book, but the book was well written & edited. There's similarities to a lot of other paranormal books out there, but of course that's only natural. The relationship between Hannah & Jackson was really very sweet, and that was a big part of why I gave the book four stories. I think there's a lot of promise in the series, and there's some nice open holes in the story line to explore as well.

-
I received an ARC from the author to read and review, as part of a book tour, and was not paid for my review

I originally read this book in 2008, and I'm pretty sure I've read it at least once since then, but not recorded on goodreads.

I read most of the books - I think all but the last few - and used to really love the series, until it turned into erotica. I used to really like Anita, too, and have fond memories of the first half or so of the series, enough that I want to reread and review the series. I also skip 99% of the sex, so won't touch upon that in the review really. I'm not a prude, I'm just not really interested in reading romance/sex. (hence my problem with the latter boxes; I can't really even review them, because there is 0 plot & 100% sex)

I'll also mention briefly that I always have grave difficulty in reviewing a book that has hundreds or thousands of reviews, especially a book that most people rave about - what I can possibly say that no one else has?

(I'll also mention I'm planning on cutting / pasting the above for however many Anita Blake books I happen to reread and review).

So, here goes.

Rereading the book, I don't like Anita nearly as much as I used to / thought I did. I was actually really surprised by that; I kept waiting to see what attracted me to the series in the first place (it did dawn on me eventually, that I'm pretty sure I started the series with the second book, not realizing it was the second book, and I'm not sure I ever went back to to read this first book). Nothing really happens in the book; it is definitely setting the scene for the series, letting us get to know the characters, etc., but the plot itself isn't terribly exciting.

I really don't like Jean Claude. I never really cared for him, never really understood how Anita ended up getting so attached/attracted/involved with him. Of course, you only see the barest hints of the beginning of something with this first book, but I just don't get it.

Quick comparison to the Sookie Stackhouse books, because a) how can you not and b) I'm re-reading both series more or less at the same time, at least for now.

Anita is more "real" and developed for Sookie, at least as far as book one is concerned. Anita is almost more lovable because she has the more developed personality, but Anita is just a little too hard assed for me to really like. The vampires are darker, scarier, and more like what vampires should be, and they are definitely less human.

I've read this book a few times over the years, and I'll state the same thing at the beginning of reviewing all the I of I books: this is a re-read, and the first time reviewing the books. I'm reviewing all of the books after I finished re-reading the entire series, which I don't normally do & didn't do deliberately this time, either...

So I always liked this one in the series. Niobe is pretty cool. She's written as a character that is supposed to be a little dumb, but I don't find her really that dumb (though she does have a few moments where she's a bit slow, but we all have those moments). Her story line is one of the more interesting ones to me out of the interesting story, and she's probably the character I like second most out of everyone (I really like Orb).

Every time I read the book, I'm a bit fascinated by the whole three people/souls in one body bit, and how the whole thing works. Yes, I realize that's the smallest part of the plot, but it just always fascinated me.

As a knitter, spinner, and weaver, it also fascinated me that Fate uses similar elements to tie together all of humanity.

That being said, Piers Anthony is a dirty old man and loves his sex, and paints women in general as nothing but beautiful sex slaves. Ugh. The man's a genius with his ideas, but it takes him forever to get there as he's too busy talking about sex, and his writing is sub-par.

I've read this book a few times over the years, and I'll state the same thing at the beginning of reviewing all the I of I books: this is a re-read, and the first time reviewing the books. I'm reviewing all of the books after I finished re-reading the entire series, which I don't normally do & didn't do deliberately this time, either...

OK this is another one in the series I liked. Mym is a sexist jerk, but he's a product of his upbringing and Piers Anthony wrote him that way, so it's not Mym's fault he's a sexist jerk. Lots of icky sex, one sided flat female characters that are beautiful but breathtakingly stupid, but Mym's still a bit of a cool guy.

Orb is my favorite character in the series (as dumb as she's written for huge chunks of her storyline throughout the series), so I like this book mostly for the Orb sections. There's lots of racism/stereotypical garbage in the book to wade through, so as much as I do like this one, it still only gets a three star rating. It's starting to get harder and harder to wade through the series.

I've read this book a few times over the years, and I'll state the same thing at the beginning of reviewing all the I of I books: this is a re-read, and the first time reviewing the books. I'm reviewing all of the books after I finished re-reading the entire series, which I don't normally do & didn't do deliberately this time, either...

So Orb is my favorite character in the series, so naturally I enjoy this book, though it isn't my favorite out of the series. Orb is beautiful - though not as beautiful as Niobe - and for a female in Piers Anthony's world, is smart. She's still mostly a one-dimensional character, as all the women in his books are, but she's not as bad as most of the females in his books.

The first half of the book is nice because you really get to know Orb, however, the storyline drags, and isn't terribly magical/fantasy/incarnation-y. The second half of the book involves Orb being lied to-alot- and she's so clueless she doesn't pick up on ANY of it (a few scenes/times I can believe, but a few of the scenes are just so obvious that there is something WRONG with it, that I want to shake her entire body until she stops being an idiot)

This book was intended to end the series, and ended up not being the final book - mostly because Piers Anthony was making a crap ton of money off of it, so why would you stop writing?

(Sadly I keep staring at my computer screen, trying to add something else to this review, and I'm failing miserably)

I originally read this book in 2008, and I'm pretty sure I've read it at least once since then, but not recorded on goodreads.

I read most of the books - I think all but the last one - before ever watching True Blood, and I've only watched the first four or so seasons of True Blood, though I will finish them (I got interrupted by new fall television).

I also skip 99% of the sex, so won't touch upon that in the review really. I'm not a prude, I'm just not really interested in reading romance/sex.

I'll also mention briefly that I always have grave difficulty in reviewing a book that has hundreds or thousands of reviews, especially a book that most people rave about - what I can possibly say that no one else has?

(I'll also mention I'm planning on cutting / pasting the above for however many SS books I happen to reread and review. Right now, I'm planning on doing all of them, along with the Anita Blake series, but we'll see).

So, here goes.
This one is another quick read, and very different from the show in a lot of aspects. I'm realizing part of the appeal of this series is just how quick/fast of a read they are. There's still more world-building in this one, and we meet a few new characters and learn more about the old ones. Sookie continues to get herself and others into trouble, and this bothered me a bit in this book. The big mystery of who kills her coworker almost feels like an afterthought. It's mentioned a few times, and then all of a sudden there's a big scene at the end where Sookie feels really uncomfortable and embarrassed and then some people die and the mystery is solved and the book just ends (like honestly, all the books in the series do). I think I mentioned this for book one: if I was reading these books for the first time now, I don't think I'd continue because there's just no meat in the book at all, the plot is just so thin/light, and nothing really happens except a lot of little scenes.