Homebody by Orson Scott Card

So I started reading Janet Evanovich's One for the Money, from her Stephanie Plum series, and realized about half way through that I really didn't like it. Plus it was due back to the library, so I returned it. Unfinished. I'm awful. I know. Oh well.

What I did end up reading was Orson Scott Card's Homebody. I've read a couple of his Ender's series, and loved them. So when I saw Homebody at Half-Price Books, I had to get it and see what Mr. Card could do outside of spaceships and aliens. What he does when Ender isn't involved is not as good. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but it's a little cheesy. I however enjoy a liberal spreading of cheese from time to time.

Here's the basic gist of the book: The main character, Don Lark, flips houses for a living. If you can call it living. Since his wife and daughter died in a drunken car accident, he hasn't really been living much. He's emotionally wrecked and put his energies into his job to get by. This book takes up when he comes across an old North Carolina mansion from the 1800's and decides to buy and flip it. Along the way, he falls for the realtor, meets the crazy old ladies who live next door, discovers a squatter living in the attic, and deals with a small issue of blackmail. Nothing is really going the way he likes his jobs to go. Mainly because the house is alive.

The story itself is pretty predictable, you're basically one step ahead at all times. Also, it's so heavily focused on Don's miserable feelings on the front end, that no action really happens until the back end. I kept wondering when anything was going to happen, and once it started I wondered how he could resolve it with so few pages left! But he did, and it was enjoyable, albeit very cheesy. I actually liked the characters, and I liked the whole Monster House kind of feel to it. So if you're looking for a book that has a little mystery, a little thrill, and a lot of emotional baggage, then try this one out.

The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington

Now onto the best book of February. The Bookends of the Christian Life is a phenomenal read for any Christian looking to find a practical way to learn and apply some basic biblical truths about walking a life that is fully reliant on the Holy Trinity. I'm fairly new to the reformed doctrine, and greatly needed and appreciated this book. (Thanks Jessica) I've spent my whole life in Americanized churches being spoon-fed a sugar coated Jesus. Because just like medicine, apparently, sugar makes everything go down easier. However, finding who God truly is has been very freeing, albeit confusing and foundation shaking. Which is good and an experience everyone needs.

Okay, now back to the point. I didn't make this blog to get into theological debates, so I'll stop now and move onto the book synopsis.

This book focuses on 2 "bookends", as they refer to it. 1.) The righteousness of Christ and 2.) The power of the Holy Spirit. It explains, with complete biblical grounding, how apart from Christ's righteousness we are completely depraved and worthless. But by the grace and mercy of God and the sacrifice of his son, we can have a relationship with the one living God. But we need to understand our sin is every present and only by leaning on Christ's righteousness daily do we have any right before God. We have to see and understand our total depravity and our total dependence on Jesus daily to be free of Gospel enemies. But with an understanding of our total dependence on Jesus, comes the need for the power of the Holy Spirit and the understanding of what it means to practice dependent responsibility and have the help of the Spirits encouragement.

Creating a summation of this book is difficult for me. It's so full of wonderful, biblical, practical gems. And I feel I most certainly did not correctly capture the description of this book. But I urge any and all to get a copy of this book and read it. If I could afford to, I'd buy it for everyone. It's that good... even for a theological simpleton like me!

Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz

This is the 3rd book in Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series. I read the first 2 last year, but never read the 3rd or 4th because they've not been available at my library. But I went back a week ago and saw it there, so I decided to pick the series up again and try to finish it. The first 2 books were okay. They had potential, but Melissa de la Cruz is not a very good writer in my opinion. She had an idea that could have been good, but she went out far into left field with some cockamamie plot, her characters are flat, and her upper crust life in the New York/Hollywood scene has influenced her topically, which I just can't relate to and don't want to try to either. I try not to judge, but if her characters are this fickle and full of themselves, then I shudder to think of their creator. Not only do I dislike the characters and their lifestyles, I dislike the fallen angels/reincarnation story line. I can deal with some Godless literature, but something about this nonsense got under my skin. This 3rd book was a waste of my time. I am usually one to complete a series, even if I don't like it, but I have no desire to get the 4th one. I don't care what happens to the characters. I don't care what romances work out and who messes up their reincarnated vampire souls. I don't care who get the next modeling gig or who gets the next hot dress straight of the French catwalks. I just don't care.

But since I just handed you a hot steaming cup of my opinion, and that's not the only point of my blog, I guess I should summarize what this book was about. See, the stories been set up from the other books, so this might not make sense. But who cares, it sucked anyways. Schuyler(pronounced Skylar... stupid spelling, right!) Van Alan is an "outcast" weirdo socialite who is also a half vampire, half human, and even a little bit angelic outcast. (Her mom is Gabrielle, the arch-angel... yeah I know. And her dad is a, say it ain't so, dead human guy!) Her mom's in a coma in some upper crust NYC hospital because she was dumb and boffed a human guy, getting pregnant and breaking her silly reincarnated, angelic, vampiric, predetermined bond to the other arch-angel Micheal. Yeah, I know. Well the evil that has been about for all of eternity, the Silver Bloods, aka Lucifer and the angels who didn't want to try to gain back God's favor (I know, more and more blasphemous. Sheesh.) are going around trying to suck the life outta the Blue Bloods. You know, the "good" fallen angel/vampires who think they can gain back God's favor by being shallow socialites who take on human familiars (aka blood whores) for snacking on and doing other things with, and most of the time w/out their knowledge. Good way to get on God's good side, eh? Oh and don't forget the whole boffing each other thing too. And in this book, the battle between the Blues and Silvers comes to a boiling, shiny, fashionable, traveling to exotic locations, head. Which leads to secrets revealed, people dying, and a really weird make-out scene between the 2 shiniest, richest, characters; who also happen to be brother and sister in this life cycle. Yeah, I know. So it's stupid. Avoid it and save yourself, okay. I wish I had. :/

Flirt by Laurell K Hamilton

I've been off the computer for 2 weeks, so I'm behind on my posting. This is my catch up day for my February reading.

I haven't been allowing myself to buy books so far this year. It's a weakness of mine and I spend hundreds of dollars a year on them. But I finally caved and bought Laurell K Hamilton's most recent addition to the large Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series (#18). This little novella, at under 200 pages, was very entertaining, albeit a touch cheese-tastic. Since it was so short, just a side story in Anita's life, it was chock full of action and very little "smut". Don't get me wrong, I don't mind (and sometimes even enjoy) reading a good naughty scene as much as the next lady. But Hamilton is an amazing writer and I enjoy her stories and mysteries and action scenes far more then her descriptive frolics in the sack. (Or car, or field, or cemetery caretakers shack in this case.) So in Flirt we get to see Anita doing her job as a necromancer, AKA zombie raiser. This book has a couple of "tough" customers that give Anita a hard time over why she must ignore her morals and raise their dearly departed. Thankfully she has her entourage to comfort her when life is less then comfy... and this book definitely makes Anita less then comfy. It's a little predictable and hands over yet another interesting addition to Anita's very full dance card. I'm really curious how this little novella is going to affect Anita's very near future. The next novel in the series, Bullet, comes out in June and I am more then ready for it.

Mort by Terry Pratchett

FINALLY! I finished the 4th installment of the Discworld series. Things have been crazy about, and I just haven't had the desire nor time to really apply myself to getting through this book. But I finally did it. And it was good. Not my favorite work by Terry Pratchett. I was a little disappointed. It had a lot of potential, but it just didn't do it for me. And maybe it was because of the goings-on around here, but usually I use reading as my escape from life and this one wasn't taking me away from anything. :/

So the summation of this book is that Death takes on an apprentice in the likes of a gangling, awkward 16 year old boy named Mort. Death shows Mort the ropes and before long Mort's running the show, while Death steps out into the real world to figure out what it means to be human. As Death spends more time away from his job, the more he starts forgetting himself. And the more time Mort spends on the job, the more he is becoming Death, right down to the all capital letter speaking! But along the way Mort falls for Keli, a princess who's father is killed in her uncle's attempt to claim the throne. Soon enough her uncle is out for her too and Mort just can't let that happen. So he screws up space and time by not letting her be killed and thus reality is distorted. Little does Mort know though, that reality will inexplicably correct itself. So it's Mort's race against time to fight reality and save Keli. You meet lots of new characters and even get a small glimpse of Rincewind again.

I wanted to like this book loads. I liked the concept, and it had a lot of potential. I really like the character of Death that Pratchett has created, so I wanted a book primarily about him to be awesome. It wasn't. Not that it was terrible. It was still a good book, just not as good as I would have liked it to be. All in all, if you're reading the Discworld series, then don't leave this one out. But don't just pick it up randomly, it's not a good enough taste of all that is Pratchett's talent and awesomeness.

Next up, The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites is the 3rd installment in the Discworld series. This one introduces us to all new characters, and a few new places on the Disc. This book takes us to the town of Bad Ass and tells the story of Esk, the first girl wizard. It starts when a dying wizard went searching for the 8th son of an 8th son to pass his wizardy powers to, but found a little too late that Esk wasn't a son after all. It's well known that women are never wizards and, likewise, men are never witches. So the town witch, Granny Weatherwax, tries to raise Esk and help train her to be a witch, while never letting on that Esk is supposed to be a wizard. Eventually Esk discovers that she's a wizard, and Granny realizes she can't help Esk alone. So they make the journey from Bad Ass to Ankh-Morpork and Unseen University(which we heard about in the first 2 books). And we get to enjoy reading about all the fun that crops up when a girl goes against the wizard lore to try and be the first female wizard.

As usual Pratchett is funny and entertaining. I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward to book 4, Mort.

What's So Great About the Doctrines of Grace? by Richard D Phillips

My first non-fiction of the year and a very good choice indeed. In this book, Mr. Phillips goes through the 5 steps of the grace doctrines that create the anagram TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. For anyone who is interested in learning more about the doctrines of grace and Calvanism, I suggest this book. It breaks it down in an easy to understand way that I haven't really experienced before. I thought this was a very eye opening book and highly suggest it to anyone. At less then 100 pages, it won't even take that much of your time. (Unless you're like me and you slowly poured over it, asking questions and going to scripture.)

So in conclusion, you really should read this book.