Jamie's Book #16: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Again, I saw this movie before reading the book, so I was familiar with the plot and characters. Another great book. The story is set in the 1960s and follows Skeeter Phelan, a young woman who takes a risk to write something new and controversial in an attempt to jumpstart her writing career. She writes about life in Jackson, Mississipi in the 1960's from the point of view of the help, the African American maids who do the cooking and cleaning for and raise the children of their employers. The story is told from Skeeter's point of view as well as two of the maids who contribute to the book. It's funny, frustrating, and heartbreaking. Overall, a 8.5/10.

Jamie's Book # 15: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

No surprise here, this was a great book. I had already watched the movie, so I pretty much knew the entire plot line. My least favorite part was that the story was told through the memories of the main character in his old age. I've never been a fan of that - not in Titantic or The Notebook. I want to be immersed in the plot line, and that's hard to do when I keep being brought back to the reality that everyone gets old, people you love die and life starts to suck. Aside from that, I really enjoyed this book. It paints a picture of life in the circus during prohibilition that is shocking yet believable. I grew to love the characters - I even loved to hate horrible August. And of course, I'll never forget Rosie the elephant. Over, this is an 8.5/10.

Gina's Book #13: The Death Cure: Last book in series just doesn't hold up.

Well I read this book pretty quickly because after reading the first two in the series I was curious to see how James would bring last book to a close. The beginning was pretty boring to me. It felt like just another maze, this time in the real world. I guess that could have been an interesting spin but I was just bored. I agree with Jamie, you can tell a man wrote this book. Where he takes the love aspect of the plot line was a bit ludicrous and I was quite appalled. I felt like he was taking short cuts. I understand if he didn't want the book to be all romance, but being that he did introduce a love triangle, it was his responsiblity to fully develop it.

This twist in the end did surprise me, but really I felt like the last page could have been turned into a whole book itself and would have been much more interesting than another maze.

Just my thoughts.