The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1) Rick Riordan 3.5 / 5	Published 2005 First Sentence "Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood."
Publisher's Description: Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends -- one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena -- Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.
Dear Reader, Okay, this book was so much cooler than I expected it to be! I had of course heard the name before, from the popularity of the books and the release of the movie in the past few years. However, I had kind of written it off as yet another Harry Potter-ish fandom, which I wasn’t terribly interested in joining. Luckily, though, I have a coworker who is a big fan of the series and talked me into picking up the first one. Will I read further in the series? Probably not, unless someone presses the book into my hands. (I am also told they get better, which does intrigue me…) Am I glad I read that first one, though? For sure! I had no idea (despite the series name) that this was a book all about the Greek gods, which is a topic I’ve been fascinated with ever since I was gifted a copy of D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths when I was little. I used to love reading & rereading those stories! What kid isn’t fascinated by the legends of Zeus and his (often petty) pantheon? Which is why I think this story works so incredibly well: those who already know & love the stories will latch onto the books quite quickly and become big fans; those who haven’t yet studied them in school will totally jump at the chance after they’ve become familiar with Percy and his gang! I love it. It makes me understand why these books were so popular with middle-grade reluctant readers. (It helps that Percy is easy to identify with, having been a “problem student” and diagnosed with ADD, which is explained as being one of the things he’s inherited from his immortal parent.) The book pulls you in immediately by giving you action right off the bat: the reader watches Percy realize something strange is going on...when he slays his algebra teacher with a ballpoint pen. Sounds intriguing, right? And it just gets better! I loved how the author unrolled the story, revealing things to the reader as Percy discovered them. Riordan’s take on the Greek gods and how they have survived (and changed) in this day & age are great - usually amusing and often pretty spot-on. I particularly loved his characterization of motorcycle-riding bad boy Ares!  Cross-country adventures (with quite a few bumbles). Warring gods who might cause the end of civilization. Satyrs who wear fake sneakers. Glimpses of familiar favorites, such as Medusa and the Sirens. Abandoned water parks. Revenge on jerkwad stepdads. And the entrance to the Underworld being located just under LA. What’s not to love? I think this book (and perhaps the whole series) are a wonderful choice for anyone, but particularly for those young boys who haven’t yet discovered the joys of reading. I can see Percy winning many fans, for years to come. Yours, Arianna P.S. I don't know how long this will last, but it appears the Kindle version of this book is $1.99 at the moment!

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West of Sunset

West of Sunset Stewart O'Nan 4 / 5	Published 2015 First Sentence "That spring he holed up in the Smokies, in a tired resort hotel by the asylum so he could be closer to her."
Publisher's Description: A “rich, sometimes heartbreaking” (Dennis Lehane) novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last years in Hollywood In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruins, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. By December 1940, he would be dead of a heart attack. Those last three years of Fitzgerald’s life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart O’Nan’s gorgeously and gracefully written novel. With flashbacks to key moments from Fitzgerald’s past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, begins work on The Last Tycoon, and tries to maintain a semblance of family life with the absent Zelda and daughter, Scottie. Fitzgerald’s orbit of literary fame and the Golden Age of Hollywood is brought vividly to life through the novel’s romantic cast of characters, from Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway to Humphrey Bogart. A sympathetic and deeply personal portrait of a flawed man who never gave up in the end, even as his every wish and hope seemed thwarted, West of Sunset confirms O’Nan as “possibly our best working novelist” (Salon).
Dear Reader, I don't know why I keep ending up reading books about F. Scott Fitzgerald, even though the dude is not my favorite author. I am not a huge fan of The Great Gatsby or anything (although I did love The Beautiful and Damned!). I suppose I am just fascinated by the man's roller coaster of a life story. Especially for being such a cherished American author. But the time during which he lived allowed him to taste fame and fortune, yet also destitution and despair (and ordinariness). Plus, there's the whole Stuart O'Nan thing. I thought I had read more of this amazing author, but apparently I have to jump on that bandwagon more often! I remember loving reading The Circus Fire when I was a teenager; of course, it was quite intriguing because it was about Hartford, the capital of my home state. And this book, too, was so well written. I think Salon is onto something there when they brand O'Nan with the title of "possibly our best working novelist" today. Granted, I have many other favorites who I think are equivalent in talent. But O'Nan is just so good. What I think really hooked me into this book once I'd started it was that it was almost the perfect follow-up piece for Z by Therese Anne Fowler, which I read last August. Opening West of Sunset felt like picking up the thread of an old friend's storyline, albeit from a different perspective. (Apparently for a true Fitzgerald-phile, there are a lot of books about the passionate and strained love between the two; there is also Zelda's novel as well as the letters the two exchanged. Phew! One could read - or watch - on this subject indefinitely!) In any case, the story drew me back in like I was reading a sequel, and I was fascinated to see how the last several years of the Fitzgeralds' marriage played out. I had not known about Sheilah Graham, Scott's Hollywood lover. I hadn't known that he tried so hard to juggle his budding romance with taking care of his unstable wife, and struggled dearly between both. I hadn't known he and Humphrey Bogart were such good friends! I was intrigued by the glamour and glitz of 1930s Hollywood, with all of its caricature-like characters. I also loved learning that (how did I not know this?!) Scottie Fitzgerald attended Vassar, at the urging and encouragement of her father. (Recently, too, her papers were donated to the school - I am eager to explore the collection!) What's even niftier is she also attended the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT, which is just a town away from where AmberBug & I both grew up! So, clearly, I felt quite a connection to this book, in so many different ways. Luckily, it did not disappoint my high hopes: O'Nan wrote the struggled of Scott intimately and sympathetically: the man and his entire life had tumbled from apex into chasm, and he kept trying to find himself a foothold from which to push his way back out. He was humbled in his own time, and unlucky enough not to see the honor and recognition we now give such a great author. He is fortunate, however, that we as a country mostly manage to overlook his rough time in California at the end of his life, when he worked against deadlines to doctor terrible movie scripts just to pay his debt, when he had to step carefully around his wife and daughter (and force these remnants of their family together), when he fell in love and engaged in an affair with someone who wasn't his wife. These were his low times, and unfortunately he never managed to find a way out. O'Nan's novel was tragic and heartbreaking. But oh so good. Yours, Arianna

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Lucky Us (Review by AmberBug)

Lucky Us Amy Bloom 3.5/5	Published July 29, 2014 First Sentence "My father's wife died."
Publisher's Description: "My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us." So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called "a literary triumph" by The New York Times. Brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny, Lucky Us introduces us to Eva and Iris. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey across 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris's ambitions take them from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island. With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life. From Brooklyn's beauty parlors to London's West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.
Dear Reader, Before you read my review, check out the insightful one Arianna posted a few weeks back. I don't have as many great ideas brewing in my head for this review, not sure why since I really liked the book. I do want to mention that I ADORE the cover, it speaks to the characters of the book so well and it looks kinda quirky and fun while the underlying message isn't that at all. Lucky Us is a story that weaves between the lives of two half sisters. Iris comes from a wealthier mother who rears her up to have absolute self confidence and over grandiose ideas on where her life should lead. Eva was the daughter left behind with her destitute mother, she gets "returned" to her father who is now shacking up with the mother of Iris. Neither girl loves their family and the pair share a strange bond, mostly strung together by Iris who takes the girl in as her confident for her big life plans. Eva doesn't seem to mind being the drag along and willingly follows Iris into disaster after disaster. Thinking back on this book, I keep playing the "Oh, the places you will go" phrase, over and over in my mind. I think I loved the bouncing Iris so much because she brought us into these areas of the world I would never have experienced myself. I love reading from the perspective of someone SO different from the way I am. Even though she is abundantly indulgent and full of herself, she still has this warm heart that doesn't forget the little people in her life. The relationship between the two of them is unusual but also slightly comforting in a dysfunctional way. Eva gets to see Hollywood and attend fancy shindigs due to her sisters fame. I have to say, I have a sweet spot for old fashioned Hollywood, there is something romantic and tragic there that keeps me wanting more. We also get thrown out of that world and into NYC, not the glamour of the bright lights but the gritty and honest streets of Brooklyn. As the environment changes, so do the characters and events. Gone is the glitz and glam and to replace it, we have hardship and struggle which is such a stark contrast to the Hollywood chapters. I love that Amy Bloom brings us from here to there with a flick of her wrist (or what I imagine her writing process would look like). I have a feeling this book is going to be welcomed with wide arms, maybe even a little jazz hand action?! Amy Bloom has this way of captivating the reader and I think she has accomplished this yet again, I'm pretty sure all her fans will be gobbling this up without disappointment. I like Amy Bloom, I think she is a solid writer with great stories to tell but I don't see a huge difference between her and many of the other literary writers I read every year and like. I guess I'm not a "Bloom" fan girl, but will that stop me from reading her books? No way! Don't get me wrong, I respect her writing and books very much and I KNOW she is totally worth the read. Be prepared for another successful developed story that has "I want to meet them" characters. You really can't go wrong with Amy Bloom, I can pretty much promise you won't "hate" it but I'm hoping you enjoy it as much as I did. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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Left: Hardcover - Right: E-Book

Lucky Us

Lucky Us Amy Bloom 4 / 5	Published July 29, 2014 First Sentence "My father's wife died."
Publisher's Description: "My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us." So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called "a literary triumph" by The New York Times. Brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny, Lucky Us introduces us to Eva and Iris. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey across 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris's ambitions take them from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island. With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life. From Brooklyn's beauty parlors to London's West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.
Dear Reader, Bravo, Amy Bloom.  Another great novel.  I really enjoyed Away several years ago, and had hoped for another great period piece; the author did not disappoint.  This time, the story focused on two half-sisters who first meet when they are in their teens, just around the time of the second World War.  Iris is flamboyant and always wants to be center stage, while Eva often plays backup to and supports her older sister in her adventures.  The girls quickly escape their boring lives in Ohio to flee to Hollywood, where Iris makes it (pretty) big, only to fairly quickly tumble from grace.  From that disappointment, the story moves back to New York City, with the girls picking up an entourage which includes Iris' gay stylist, the girls' estranged father, and a pair of spinster hairdresser sisters (among, ultimately, many others).  Despite not having much lasting contact with most of the characters, the reader is still able to care for the entire cast, which to my mind takes enormous skill on the part of the author. The book moved interestingly along; it flipped between Eva's first-person narrative, some epistolary chapters contributed by Iris and Gus (an accused German spy), and some third-person perspectives that allowed the reader to watch some of the secondary characters move through their lives, separately from their relationship with Eva.  But Eva really was the main character, despite the backup role she often played to others, in her own life.  She was the sister with the heart, the one who attracted people to her with her kindness and caring and love.  In her quiet and unassuming way, she was the one who really played the central role in many's lives.  I found especially interesting her relationship with Danny, the orphan boy whom Iris and Eva "adopted" by stealing from an asylum.  Originally, Danny was intended to be Iris' child, but she easily abandoned him when her own life fell apart, and there again was Eva to pick up the pieces, to be the true backbone of the family.  It was interesting to watch the sisters together, and examine their roles. Some parts of the book I felt digressed from the story and could have probably been cut from the final piece with no loss, but they were interesting sidebars and I suppose they did help to flesh out the characters' lives.  Bloom, being originally a short story writer, clearly still has that talent, of sharing whole slices of life in short flashes.  But it works well for this book, particularly in the way that it is constructed. As usual, I look forward to more from Amy Bloom. Yours, Arianna

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Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief Lawrence Wright 3/5	Published 2013 First Sentence "Scientology plays an outsize role in the cast of new religions that have risen in the twentieth century and survived into the twenty-first."
Publisher's Description: A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the now-classic study of al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack, the Looming Tower. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with both current and former Scientologists--both famous and less well known--and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative skills to uncover for us the inner working sof the Church of Scientology: its origins in the imagination of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard; its struggles to find acceptance as a legitimate (and legally acknowledged) religion; its vast, secret campaign to infiltrate the U.S. government; and its dramatic efforts to grow and prevail after the death of Hubbard. At the book's center, two men whom Wright brings vividly to life, showing how they have made Scientology what it is today: The darkly brilliant L. Ron Hubbard--whose restless, expansive mind invented a new religion tailor-made to prosper in the spiritually troubled post-World War II era. And his successor, David Miscavige--tough and driven, with the unenviable task of preserving the church in the face of ongoing scandals and continual legal assaults. We learn about Scientology's esoteric cosmology; about the auditing process that determines an inductee's state of being; about the Bridge to Total Freedom, through which members gain eternal life. We see the ways in which the church pursues celebrities, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and how young idealists who joined the Sea Org, the church's clergy, whose members often enter as children, signing up with a billion-year contract and working with little pay in poor conditions. We meet men and women "disconnected" from friends and family by the church's policy of shunning critical voices. And we discover, through many firsthand stories, the violence that has long permeated the inner sanctum of the church. In Going Clear, Wright examines what fundamentally makes a religion a religion, and whether Scientology is, in fact, deserving of the constitutional protections achieved in its victory over the IRS. Employing all his exceptional journalistic skills of observations, understanding, and synthesis, and his ability to shape a story into a compelling narrative, Lawrence Wright has given us an evenhanded yet keenly incisive book that goes far beyond an immediate exposé and uncovers the very essence of what makes Scientology the institution it is.
Dear Reader, This was the perfect type of book to listen to in the car, which is the format I used. I normally like my audiobooks to be non-fiction, I find missing parts of a "story" can get me lost more than "facts" from a non-fiction book. I thought I was going to like this just as much if not more than a book I read awhile back called "Inside Scientology" by Janet Reitman, published in 2011. You can find my very brief review of that book on goodreads, here. The hype was all over the place when "Going Clear" was first published, it was hard to miss it. I was skeptical about reading yet another book about Scientology but caved in when I signed up with Audible again and it popped up on clearance. I do love a good controversial book about crazy people that exist, which is essentially what this book is. I think where this book succeeded was in the details, the Author also made sure we saw both sides and ALL the facts. I love and hate when this is done because when you've been over-bombarded by all the facts, sometimes things get boring and this book had quite a few of those moments. However, this didn't take away the creep factor, that wacky side of the religion that makes everyone laugh. I have to admit that given all the facts, some aspects of the religion started to make "a little" sense. The thought behind getting rid of these "bad" things that hold you back... this is a common idea that fits with many "self-help" ideas. Everyone wants to get rid of those bad vibes, bad emotions, bad memories that hold you back, and Scientology pulls you in with the lure of taking all the BAD away. Who wouldn't think twice about that, especially someone who isn't well informed about the evils of Scientology. Not many people see the whole picture, that the religion will try and suck you dry (of every penny you have), that they will record every confession and then use it against you when you try to leave. They will use every tactic imaginable to keep you, and you'll be so intertwined within the religion at that point (so finally invested as well) that it doesn't make sense to leave. How scary is that? I wish everyone could read this and understand the dangers Scientology brings forth to society. This is one powerful religion, mostly due to the wealth they've accumulated. Not even the IRS could touch them, awhile back Scientology was in a legal battle with the IRS and Scientology won (meaning they will forever be considered a religion (along with any new branch they decide to create regardless of religious base). How convenient, right? The book starts with the history of L. Ron Hubbard, flows into his life and how he discovered and created Scientology. The book ends with David Miscavige, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and all those other celebrities. It explains how the celebrities were coaxed with lavish surroundings, slaves from the Sea Org to cater to them and fantasy retreats for them to escape to. They don't see the side of Scientology that takes someone from the middle class and makes them destitute within a few years. The entire religious scam they have going on angers me and scares me, and this book just heightens all of that. I want people to be aware of this, so I'll recommend the heck out of this book even though I only gave it three stars. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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