I did not expect to like this book. It is not my typical type of read. I only picked it up because it is on Amazon's 100 Children's Books to Read in a Lifetime. However, there is a reason that I read off of lists. I find amazing books that I would not have otherwise picked up. Anne of Green Gables is such a book.

Anne is such an amazing character. She has spunk from the first time that you see her. She has enough mischief about her to keep you interested, but not enough that you disengage from her entirely. The most interesting relationship is between Anne and her guardians, specifically Marilla. Watching Marilla fall in love with Anne is an amazing experience.

Young or old, if you have not checked out this book yet then I recommend that you do. I bet you won't help but falling in love with Anne as well.

Augusten Burroughs is one of my favorite authors. He is raw with exceptional writing, and he makes me feel less bad about my childhood.

I am not exactly sure why I picked up his book on Christmas in late February. I think it was seeing the santa on the cover about to flash everyone. Yet I did pick it up, and finished it.

This book is unique from burroughs other works. It is a collection of short stories that focus on his memories of Christmas. The stories are told chronologically starting when he was a child to closer to adulthood.

This is not my favorite novel by Burroughs. At times it becomes quite crude. I had to stop listening to it at work as I wouldn't have wanted anyone to accidently hear. Specifically I have a hard time with the story about him sleeping with an older gentleman in a santa suit after a heavy night of drinking. After finishing the novel I see a more complete picture of the events. It was a not great period in his life, and the stories represent that.

The Road Ahead is an apocalyptic science fiction novel that follows Heather Morgan, a survivor of a virus that has wiped out the majority of the world's population. Heather was a biological researcher working on a vaccine to the virus before all hope was lost. Now she is just alone.

It is impossible to read this book and not compare it to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It is a testament to Broncucia's writing that even with such a comparison that this book rates a solid four stars. I knew I was going to enjoy it from the first page of reading. The writing is solid and the characters are realistic but at times a tad sterotypical.

When you have novels that feature so few characters the portrayal of the characters that you do have becomes essential. The book becomes more about human motivation then about action. Broncucia does a good job describing her characters making them distinct and full of depth. While I would have prefered that this was expanded a little more, it is really a personal preference and not a fault of the book.

After reading this book I was left with a breath of emotions. I find it hard to articulate without giving spoilers. However, it did leave me contemplating the journey of life and thinking about what risks are worth taking.

The book ended on a cliff hanger. While The Road Ahead is worth reading on it's own I would like to continue Heather's journey to see not only her fate, but also the fate of the world. She is possibly the only one who has the ability to save it.

The Better Man is 72nd book in the Original Series book series. It is a novel that focus heavily on Dr. McCoy. However, it also tackles a lot of important issues such as genetics, the impact of environment, the definition of family, and friendship. While I have been reading Star Trek books for years, I was struck by the depth that could be found in this novel.

It is evident that Howard Winstein is both an excellent writer and well versed in the Star Trek universe. The writing is excellent, and the characters are extremely developed and true to form. The book looks at more the interactions between characters and less on the technological or historical aspect of Star Trek.

I am excited to see that Winstein has authored more than the nine books that were mentioned in his bio of this book. I will be checking out more of his work.

Charlotte's Web is a children's chapter book written by E.B. White. This story is a classic and timeless. It teaches children about nature, death, and the joy of life. Perhaps its greatest message is that of friendship.

While I was re-reading this book I was mentioning parts to my children. They are all teenagers now, yet they easily knew what part of the book I was talking about. We then spent the entire car ride home talking about Charlotte's Web. Considering two of my children are not readers, this was a testament to the ability of Charlotte's Web to capture the reader.

I looked at the ratings (but not reviews) before I bought this book. They were very mixed and I was not sure I wanted to drop the money on a paper version of it. However, I had been on the waitlist at the library for months and I really wanted to read it. So, I bought the book at the bookstore and I am so happy that I did.

I love books that have beautiful writing and strong characters. It is why Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite writers, even though I think he cannot create a plot at all. I put VanderMeer in the category of Bradbury and Dickens. The way his words flowed were beautiful. I actually started underlining in my book. I read out sections to my children. The writing is amazingly beautiful.

While the plot does come behind characterization and writing, I still found it to be an engaging story that had me enthralled until the end. Although, the ending did leave me feeling a little let down. Except that it was also completely appropriate at the exact same time. I think we are so used to everything being tied up so neatly, and the world making sence by the time we leave a book, that we have a hard time when anything else happens. Yet, if Annihilation ended that way it would not be a trilogy, and would not be true to Area X.

I cannot wait to read the next book in the series, and even have ordered it in paper as well.

I live tweeted while I read this book. To view my life tweet click here

School for Psychics is the first book in a series about a top secret university for students who possess psychic abilities. The school is divided into the misfits who had no idea they were psychic and as a result were always in trouble, and the students who come from long lines of psychics. The books seem like they plan to follow the school year format - where the book starts at the beginning of the school year and there are mysteries that do not get solved until the end of the year.

While the book was a fairly interesting read there were obvious plot holes. At one point a character is invited to attend a school saintened event, yet she had to sneak over on a contraband student boat. There were also human behaviors that sent up red flags that were instantly dismissed, only to become important at the end. When someone tries to kill you, you do not just brush it aside.

The book itself is well written. While it could be more polished, there were no major spelling or grammar errors. The writing did not always flow as well as it could though.

The story was interesting and had potential, however I do not think that I will be continuing on reading the rest of books in this series.

Shadow Dancer is a the start of a mystery series about a Native American FBI detective who solves cold cases. In the first book he is called back to the reservation that he grew up on to solve a case that is similar to a personal crime.

The writing is fairly solid. There is no glaring grammar or spelling errors. Overall, the words flow well and it was easy to get pulled into the story. It is a fairly short read, but an engaging one.

There is times when the POV of the novel is fragmented. Specifically in the start of the book, you would have a third person limited view that switched between characters between paragraphs. At times it was even within paragraphs. This mostly stopped after the beginning of the novel.

The characters in this book are distinct with their own unique personalities. It is mostly easy to distinguish between all the characters. The exception being the side female sergeant characters. The secretaries are all women and all pretty cookie cutter. Even the main female characters were not as distinguished as the male characters. However, all characters were fairly stereotypical. Everyone fit into a mold and no one deviated from it. This is a good and fairly quick genre read.

Mission to Methone is a classic alien contact science fiction novel. It is apparent that it was written with the intention of staying true to more the more classic style. I found the novel entertaining and worth the read, but it did fall short of spectacular.

I found the writing well done. While it was not overwhelmingly beautiful, it also was not distracting from the story. The characters were each distinct and unique, although the side characters could have been given more dimension. Chris, the main character, is (per the author) on the autism spectrum. There is nothing in the book that would spell this out, but there are fine points that the author wove in. I read the annotated version of this book (from PageHabit) and was minorly annoyed that the author called Chris someone the reader was not meant to like. Ok, I admit I was actually kind of pissed off. I found his character quite enjoyable and fitting. I thought the description of him being on the spectrum was suttle and mostly well played. I also enjoyed how he was able to stay in the center of the team making first contact. He was quite enjoyable, and having autism does not make one unlikable - although, I have been called that a bit in my life. So, maybe there is more truth to that then I wish to explore. But back to the review.

I did question some of the motivating factors of both the humans and the aliens. While I appreciated where Johnson went with the book, I also think that he could have gone further. It was still a solid read and well worth my time.