This was an EXCELLENT light summer read. Especially after a lot of heavy series books that I've been finishing up, I needed something quick and easy. Scarlett is charming and still learning about herself. Mrs. Ambrose is classic diva. I love that Scarlett has so many siblings that are uniquely written. This book is as much about family as anything else. You'll love it!

This is a wow book. A "what have I just read and what do I do about it" book. I had to remind myself over and over that the stories and characters are real, and that's why they're so important. It made me evaluate the way I feel about people who lead different lives than me. Poorer, richer, cleaner, smarter, kinder...we're all still people who want to live without worry.
The most incredible (not in a good way incredible) observation of this book is how people would sell each other out despite their similarities. Just because you're all trying to reach the ladder to lead out of poverty doesn't mean you have some automatic bond. And the smallest argument can lead to something huge.
At the start of the book it's hard to imagine that the people of Annawadi could get more destitute, but international economy affects the extremely poor as well.
My heart breaks for the corruption of India. I know there's corruption everywhere, but to the extent that it is embedded into the culture of such a vibrant nation is sobering. Everyone is taken advantage of at all levels, and the circle is endless because sometimes the only way to rise above is to take advantage of those below you.
I'm curious about some of the basics of slum life. Where does the electricity come from for those who have it?
This book made me truly question the organizations I support as well. It seems impossible for a good charity to reach the people of Annawadi because the corruption is so deep. You would need an outsider with a strong moral compass but also they would need protection from the police/others.
How do you undo what India has become while still protecting the rights and freedoms of ALL the people there? How can people of all castes and levels be noticed and cared for? How do you break a country-wide mindset of being too preoccupied to assist a dying man on the side of the road?
I don't know what to do about having read this book. I think for me the most important thing is to remember the complexity of every human being. Impoverished people are not less human than me. They don't have fewer thoughts or feelings.

"But something he'd come to realize on the roof, leaning out, thinking about what would happen if he leaned too far, was that a boy's life could still matter to himself."

June 2014: Reread for the movie, which was incredible. The most accurate book to movie adaptation of all time. Probably half of the script was pulled word for word from the book.
Scenes I wish had been in the movie but weren't: when Isaac describes how Gus came to the hospital after his surgery and said that Isaac would live a long life with great and terrible things he can't even imagine yet.
Yep that's all I can think of.

January 2012: I put this in a tweet while reading, that I had never fallen in love with a book so completely while I was reading it. My loving a book usually occurs upon retrospection. I had to pause about every other page to write down a wonderful quote to hang on my wall when I am normally lucky to find one quotable moment in an entire novel. I have also never cried so hard in a book (except maybe The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, but that was only at the very very end), and I have definitely never found so many things amusing while also bawling my eyes out. John Green took my heart and put it in a cup of sadness, but then he would tempt me with drops of hilarity. They were enough to make me hopeful, but would fade out into the overwhelming reality of the pain. But that's not to say the book isn't hopeful. It addresses so many reasons for life. For living. John Green answers questions about life through his characters that so many people wish they could find the words for, and he truly does it with the utmost sense of prose. As a steadfast nerdfighter, I know how much of his heart and soul went into the writing and editing of this book, and it shows on every page.

John Green: thank you for The Fault In Our Stars. Thank you for telling a heartbreaking story in an impossibly funny and touching way.

I wish I had liked this book more than I did. And I think I may have had I read a hard copy but instead I listened to it. I went through the first half of this book thinking that B was an annoying little 5-10 year old because of the way the narrator did her voice. It was very whiny and high pitched. Then I realized she was supposed to be 14-15 so that bugged me. But like I said, I don't think it was necessarily the stuff she spoke or thought, it was the narrator doing B's voice.
The stuff I had heard about this book expressed that it was laugh out loud hilarious, and I didn't experience that once. All of the parts that may have been funny just seemed sad or dark to me - Audrey yelling at Bernadette, Sue Linn's letters, Bernadette's rants...
The only part about this book that I really loved was the last quarter when B was in Antarctica. It was exciting and had a great build. Other than that, this book was just ok.

Listened to this one. Started slow, but I LOVED this book. I loved that it was a zombie book that honest to goodness was not really about zombies. It was about relationships between people: between brothers, between friends, between enemies. And relationships between people and the rot and ruin: between the villagers and the zombies, between Benny and the zombies, between childhood and adulthood... There were times that the book got almost a bit too introspective - loooong conversations between Benny and other characters that seemed to drag on but definitely carried a lot of important information.
I was really pleased with the storyline about the Lost Girl and how it turned out. I was also really pleased with Benny's coming of age throughout the novel, although I thought at the beginning he was almost over the top idiotic and teenager-y.

Can't wait to read the rest of the series!

And the narrator was excellent I thought (on Audible).

Reread in July 2014 for the last book. I agree with my previous review - definitely the best so far, but I cannot STAND Jace. AT ALL. He drives me crazy. He has family and a parabatai and yet he walks around acting like he can't talk to anyone and he's so tortured and miserable and he just disgusts me. I do like Clary more and more, but I think it's because she acted alone or with Isabelle or Simon for most of this book. I don't really have much more to say. I'm still wondering where the Mark of Cain is gonna go with Simon - when are we going to find out how it's 'cursing' him?

The best so far of the Mortal Instruments series. I was so impressed with this book, especially because you can read my review of City of Glass here (http://vel629vet.tumblr.com/post/16075765679/taken-with-instagram-book-7-60-of-2012) and see that I was very very skeptical about Clare's continuation of the series. I was gripped from the start, and the action didn't stop through to the very last page (spoiler alert: cliffhanger ending).
I really wish I could give 4.5 starts rather than all 5 simply because of the angsty teen sections. For instance, I get tired sometimes with phrases that say something like, "when she saw him she actually felt faint" (that's my wording, not the author's). Or references to character's heart skipping beats or breath catching or any other terrible YA romance cliche. Also, I tire of the torn male character who thinks everything he does isn't good enough or he will never be redeemed yada yada yada...it's a bit too akin to a certain Edward from another vampire series. However, Clare was able to put these sections into the novel without it becoming too much, and I wasn't overwhelmed.
I am currently on a discount hunt for City of Lost Souls (I just don't like buying books full price) and will start it asap.

I wish I could give this one a 4.5. I loved the storyline, the excitement, the way the characters were separated but then brought together again....but I still thought there were portions of the book that were very drawn out. Where Maberry opts to have the characters describe verbally huge plans and monologue their lives to other characters.

Spoilers:

It's frustrating for me to read stories where the characters start with a goal destination and then the storyline ends up tearing them in a different direction. I thought they would learn more about the plane, but the plot ended up being very similar to the first book and the characters didn't learn a single new thing about the plane or what was happening in the east. More questions were raised, with no answers to supplement the previous questions.

Everything I loved about the first book was present in this one - the society problems, the action, the romance... I love this series!