In My Mailbox Monday

While I didn't get any books in the mail this week, I did get some books signed at the Miami Book Fair and even bought two new books for me (and one for someone else)....and now that I know how the whole thing works, I should be able to go next year and be able to manage my time and money better and buy some more then :)



bought new for me & got signed:
Riding the Universe by Gaby Triana
I'd Rather We Got Casinos by Larry Wilmore (think Daily Show...)

bought for someone else (yay Christmas) & got signed:
Psych Major Syndrome by Alicia Thompson
Beastly by Alex Flinn

that I already had, but got signed
Shrinking Violet by Danielle Joseph (I was going to buy someone one for Christmas but they sold out a few hours before so I bought something else)
Beastly by Alex Flinn



I have some picutes of, I believe all of the above authors and one or two more that may or may not be decent that I'll try to get into a post during the next week

Size 12 Is Not Fat ~ Meg Cabot review

Miami Book Fair International review

Size 12 Is Not Fat: A Heather Wells Mystery

Avon A

December 27, 2005

368 Pages

Amazon

Heather Wells is an ex-popstar. Maybe not of the same calibar or notariety as Britney Spears or even Christina Aguilera but teen and tween girls still had her poster on their walls and she was the live in girlfriend of a boybander.

Now, though, at twenty eight, Heather's lost the record deal, she's lost the boyfriend, her mother's run off with her fortune, she's gained some weight (hence the book title), and she's working in a New York City dorm---correction, residence hall.

Life's pretty ordinary: going to work, dreaming up scenarios where her landlord/neighbor and ex-boyfriend's brother suddenly falls in love with her, etc until girls start dying in the dorm. Everyone else believes the deaths are accidents, but Heather thinks there's more to them. And with a PI as a landlord/boss/secret-crush/future-husband-only-he-doesn't know-it, she knows they can investigate.

Can Heather convince Cooper (boss man) the case is worth investigating? And, perhaps more importantly, can she keep herself alive while doing so?

It might not surprise others s much as me, but Meg Cabot can apparently write mysteries as well as her other books and as well as dedicated mystery writers do. In terms of the 'mystery' (the development, the clues, the suspense, the red herrings, the eventual conclusion/solving of the mystery), it was great and very well done--better than some other mysteries I've read.

It did take me a little while to get into the book, compared with some of the other Meg Cabot books I've read it didn't just grab me from the very first page but once I really got into it I, well, was really into it. The characters introduced in this book were great and can easily last for a three book series.

The mixture of the music/entertainment business (and those characters) and the residence hall and its characters made for a lot of fun interaction---and a great and very unique character in Heather.

I still need to read my other Queen of Babble books, but now I have the Heather Wells books to add on to my TBR list!

(and this book is not YA but I think it could easily work for anyone over maybe 12 or 13 because in terms of 'adult content' it's really rather tame-I can be more specific if anyone's curious on that front.)

8/10

*Book One (of Three) in the Heather Wells Mystery Series

Becoming Billie Holiday ~ Carole Weatherford review

Miami Book Fair International review
Becoming Billie Holiday
(Ffloyd Cooper-illustrator)
Wordsong
October 2008
117 Pages
Amazon

Most people have not heard of Eleanora Fagan. But most people have heard of Billie Holiday. (Okay, so in Clueless she loved 'him' but we shouldn't base everyone on Cher, should we?) The fact is, Eleanora Fagan is the birth name of Billie Holiday. One of the many, many things that you learn reading Becoming Billie Holiday, the fictionalized, told in verse autobiography of Billie Holiday by Weatherford. But you never feel like you're being taught things, that's what's so perfect about the book.

Covering Billie Holiday's tough life up until the age of twenty-five in different poems, all titled with Billie Holiday song titles Becoming is a fantastic tale. While it is fictionalized, there was a lot of research done so it's not just made up facts of Holiday's life.

It stops short of the time that she really got into drugs, covering just the 'happier' times of her life but you still learn about all of the hardships Billie Holiday went through--some that I found hard to believe, but are in fact true.

Carole Boston Weatherford has great writing and the first person poem's really connect you to Billie Holiday much better, I think, than some other form of telling her story might. I'm really interested in reading some of her other books now.

While this book does cover someone's life that wasn't all roses and puppies by any means, I think it would be a suitable read for anyone from middle grade to adults.

If you do read it, I'd suggest that you read all of the notes in the back where Weatherford explains why she wrote the book the way she did and why she covered the time period of Holiday's life that she did--it was interesting.

And the artwork of the book is also explained. Cooper's art is really beautiful and the way it's done just seems to fit Billie Holiday's music in it's style and having the illustrations added to the telling of the story.

It was a quick read and one you definitely won't be sorry you picked up.

10/10 for this


(tagging this nonfiction and fiction because while it's listed as fiction, it is somewhat 'non')
And again, the cover will be added as soon as I have my computer internet-y again to add pics.

Temptress Four ~ Gaby Triana review

Miami Book Fair International review
The Temptress Four
April 29, 2008
Harper Teen
256 Pages
Amazon

To celebrate their high school graduation, four longtime friends: Yoli, Killian, Alma, and Fiona are going on a cruise. But the night before they're set to leave, at their school's graduation celebration, they decide to see the fair's fortune teller. Instead of predicting luck and good fortune for them she forsees eight says of strife and storms. And that only one of them will return from their voyage.

The girls try to play off her predictions but they're all anxious, after all, no one told her about the eight day cruise they were about to embark on. Or that they were even friends. For all she knew they could have been four girls who were hanging out at the graduation celebration and came into her tent for a bit of fun.

But they aren't--they're all best friends so they're a bit on edge during they're tropical getaway, worried that everytime they lose track of one of the girls, they'll never see her again.

Will one of them actually fail to make it back home? Will there be trouble on the cruise or was the old fortune teller woman just full of it?


The Temptress Four was a fun read. It was really easy to see all of the girls as friends. They weren't all cookie cutter carbon copies of each other but they also weren't so opposite that you couldn't figure out how on Earth they'd ever decided to be friends. They were different but similar enough that their friendships made sense (like actual friendships).

And the descriptions of the different places they went on the cruise was great, too--it really made me want to go on a vacation! It was nice that the girls did different things each place and didn't just go to the beaches or kayaking in each stop of the ship.

I thought I knew how the story would end for a good bit of the book but that didn't stop me from enjoying reading it. I still liked the progression of the story because of what happened between the girls even though I was, in fact, right about what happened in the end.

I plan to read more of Gaby Triana's books soon and I'm glad I finally read this one!

8/10


(same deal with the cover for this one--when I have internet back on my computer and can save pics, I'll add it)