May 30, 2014

Book Review: Hot Rock

Katie May 30, 2014 0Comment

Hot Rock is about a girl named Megan who heads from Australia to England to a music festival. She is there to do research so that she can write her PHD thesis. (What do you have to go to school for to write a thesis on a rock festival? Sign me up!)

When she arrives she is dropped off at the wrong cottage, without the key to get in, she sits on the porch and waits.  She ends up being greeted (if you can call it that) by a man who is a splitting image of her 70s Rock Idol, Davy Morgan.  It turns out that he is Davy’s nephew, David.  Or so he says… It certainly seems like there is something weird going on at this festival.

Megan wakes up in the medic tent at the festival and isn’t sure how she got there. Davy is performing and then David Bowie is performing.  Has she traveled back to the festival in the 70s? Is that really Davy or his nephew David? What is going on!?

This book has it all – romance, a rock festival, time traveling… It is a pretty quick and easy read and was a lot of fun to read about something that absolutely would never actually happen. (Or is it happening and I’m just not privvy to the path to time travel to rock festivals of the 70s yet?)

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Megan Miller is on a dream trip to research her doctoral thesis at a rock festival in England. When she arrives in town she’s stunned that her temporary neighbor is the spitting image of her 70’s rock idol, too bad he’s also a world-class jerk. So why can’t she stop thinking about him?

Seventies rock star Davy Morgan is a man with a secret: rockin’ in one time and living in another. He holds his privacy close to his heart, so when a beautiful girl who not only loves but truly understands his music moves in next door, he works overtime to keep her at a distance. Easier said than done.

Megan follows Davy to the rock festival, but it’s not what or when it seems. The lure of the music draws them closer, but can their newfound love span across the decades, or will it get lost in time?

Book Review: Double Play

Katie May 30, 2014 0Comment

Double Play is a biography about Tampa Bay Rays Ben Zobrist and his wife Julianna. The book is all about the importance of Faith and Family.  In fact, Ben’s at bat song is sung by his wife, Julianna, and has been since 2009!  The book somewhat alternates between chapters about Ben and Julianna and how they grew up and how their faith was instilled with them throughout their childhood and growing up.  The story of how they met and the conversations that they had very, very early on in their relationship are so adorable it’s almost sickening.  It was nice to read them recall these moments though and how even though Julianna thought that they shouldn’t continue their relationship so she could go to college in Nashville, a bunch of things kept happening making them end up seeing each other again – like Ben rooming with Julianna’s older brother! It certainly seemed that there was a higher power who knew that these two had to be together.

It was a very sweet story, though they did have their struggles in there as well.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

All-Star player Ben Zobrist (Tampa Bay Rays), considered one of the best all-around players in baseball, writes about the importance of his faith, life, and athletic career in Double Play. Written with his wife, Christian singer Julianna Zobrist, and MikeYorkey, best-selling author of Every Man’s Battle and Linspired: The Remarkable Rise of Jeremy Lin, the book gives fans a first look into the heart of an athlete whose talent and devotion to God, family, and baseball make him one of the most loveable figures in the Major League today.

Book Review: The Who FAQ

Katie May 30, 2014 0Comment

The Who FAQ is All that’s left to know about fifty years of maximum R&B.  Although the book is called “FAQ” there really aren’t any questions in the book.  Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the band – starting of course with “Who’s Who in the Who” (try saying that 5 times fast!).  Then it goes in to other band members, management, songwriting, unrecorded songs, on film, solo albums, girlfriends and wives and many, many more topics. (35 in total).   Between all the topics it covers everything one would need or want to know about The Who.

This is an interesting approach at a biography, it isn’t quite chronological in its grouping, but information is grouped in a different way than you are used to. I liked this approach though because it kind of “chunked” the information into categories which didn’t make it any more difficult to read or absorb.  There’s a lot of great information and photographs mixed throughout as well.  With it broken down in to smaller sections within each chapter it makes it really easy to read either all at once or here and there when you find yourself with a free moment.

I certainly know a lot more about The Who than I ever thought I would after reading this!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Book Review: Don’t Even Think About It

Katie May 30, 2014 0Comment

Don’t Even Think About It is about a group of teens all in the same home room in the Tribeca area of New York.  Things seem to be normal – that is until they were due to get their flu shots from the school nurse.  Starting that afternoon, the kids start hearing other kids in their classes talking – but their mouths aren’t moving.  How can that be?  It turns out that almost all of the kids who got the flu shot now seem to have developed ESP and can hear everyone around them’s thoughts!  Slowly, all the kids who get the shot begin to gain this skill and they make a deal not to let anyone know.  Now they can hear what their boyfriend or crushes are thinking about and even what the smartest kids in class are thinking to themselves during the next test.

The longer they are dealing with this skill, the more they are learning how to control it.  If people are in between them they can’t hear people.  If they close their eyes, they can’t hear it.  Everything seems to revolve around their eyes – which have begun turning from their normal shades of browns and blues to a lilac color.

Eventually, those that administered the shot have caught on and come to the school to discuss an antidote with the students and their parents. They will get a settlement and the antidote and hopefully everything will go back to normal.  But do they really want that? The ESP has made kids who otherwise would not be hanging out together bond and has brought them all together in ways that nothing else could have. Do they want to lose that and go back to being normal?

One of the smartest girls in the school, Pi, decides that she doesn’t want the antidote and wants to be a guinea pig for research on the effects of the flu shot.  She seems to convince the agents at the school to go along with the plan and use her for their research.  Meanwhile, the other kids are thinking that they don’t want to get the antidote shot either.

Will they go through with not getting the antidote? Will they did if they don’t? You’ll just have to read Don’t Even Think About It to see what happens.

This is a Young Adult novel, takes place in a high school and revolves around high school themes – boyfriends/girlfriends, cheating, crushes and all that goes along with being in high school.  It was a quick and easier read, but quite enjoyable.  Not something that I ever thought about happening but was certainly fun to ponder for the few hours I spent reading the book.

About the Book

Secrets. Scandals. ESP. A terrific and sexy new novel about a group of Tribeca teens from Sarah Mlynowski that will immediately appeal to fans of realistic fiction as well as readers who enjoy a little magic.

We weren’t always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn’t expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. 

Since we’ve kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what’s coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same. 

So stop obsessing about your ex. We’re always listening.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH MLYNOWSKI is the author of the Magic in Manhattan and Whatever After series, as well as Gimme a Call, Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn’t Have), Milkrun, and more. Her books have been translated into twenty-two languages and Bras & Broomsticks was optioned to Hollywood. Sarah was born in Montreal but lives and writes in New York City. Visit her at sarahm.com, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter at @sarahmlynowski.