Kat with a K

Books for September

Yes, trying to catch up a bit before the end of the year. I know I still won't have posted about all the books I read, but I at least wanted to mention some of them from the last part of the year. I'll try to do better next year! :)

Jinx by Meg Cabot
Genre: Young adult paranormal
Pages: 262
Rating: 4.5
We all know how much I love Meg Cabot. This is another fun YA from her - as with many of hers (fantasy or not), the premise is pretty ridiculous, but as long as you can get past that, the book is a delightful read. It's probably more similar to Avalon High than to any of her others. Jean, or Jinx, is an unlucky 16-year-old who moves from small-town Iowa to the Upper East Side to live with her wealthy aunt, uncle, and cousins. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't fit in, and she and her cousin have all sorts of conflict about many things, including their family legacy of witchcraft. As with almost all of Cabot's novels, there's a great male lead and sweet romantic subplot. Highly recommended.

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
Genre: Mystery, academic/paranormal
Pages: 304
Rating: 3.9
I had mixed feelings about this one. I thought that Stott was definitely a good writer, and I was impressed by the way she demonstrated complex relationships and histories between her characters. But I was unimpressed by the actual mystery. There were many threads of the plot, both in present-day Cambridge and in the Cambridge of Newton's time, and they never connected the way I wanted them to, and thought they would. Most of the individual threads were resolved, somewhat, but the connections between them ended up being some sort of "Oh, look, everything in the universe is connected" thing instead of anything actually interesting or satisfying. Still, I'll probably give her next book a try to see if she improves.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
Genre: History, Colonial
Pages: 461
Rating: 4.7
I love love loved this one. I find the early Colonial period fascinating in general, and this book provided much more of the "real story" of the Plymouth community than is usually heard. Don't let the title mislead you - it goes far beyond the actual Mayflower voyage and covers King Philip's War, which was a fascinating conflict that I didn't really know much about. I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in that period of history.

Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs
Genre: Mystery, forensic
Pages: 411
Rating: 4.3
For those not as obsessed as I am: Kathy Reichs is the executive producer of Bones, which I feel is the best show currently on TV. Although the main character of Bones has the same name as the main character in Reichs' novels, but the show is actually based on Reichs herself, not her books. The character, Temperance Brennan, is, like Reichs, a forensic anthropologist who writes mysteries. ANYWAY. I knew all this going in, but since I love the show so much, I still had a hard time getting past the fact that this Temperance wasn't the Temperance from the show. Other than that, though, it was quite a good book, and I will be looking for more in the series. It is set in Montreal, so it included some interesting things about the law enforcement/criminal justice system there.