Review: The Summoning

Title: The Summoning
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Pages: 390
Rating: 3.5/5

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don't even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won't leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a "special home" for troubled teens. Yet the home isn't what it seems. Don't tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It's up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me (Cover Blurb).

I just finished this book up while I'm waiting for the glass guys to come and put in my new windshield, back window, and sunroof. I'll be honest, and let everyone know I bought this book because I really liked the cover. I wasn't even sure what it was all about until I packed it in my bag for vacation. The beginning of this story really really creeped me out but it kind of died from there. I still thought the book was suspensful but it could have been so much better. Also, I didn't feel like I could really connect with any of the characters. There just wasn't enough meat to the story to feel like I really knew anyone.

This is the first book in a trilogy, and I'm hoping that Armstrong was just really setting up the background of the story in this first book. I've already picked up the second book so I'm curious to see if it picks up more of the story, and what is going on with Lyle House. Also, I'd like to see how Chloe's mom and aunt fit into this whole story. Plus, the ending of book one really left you hanging on by a thread so I'm anxious to see how Armstrong continues with that in The Awakening.

I Hate Florida, and other great things!!

This is what the weather looked like when we tried to leave this morning:

This is what the weather did to my car

We are obviously not leaving today!!

P.S. When I was packing last night I realized that the thiefs took my precious Twilight movie...poor Edward has been kidnapped!

Vacation Part 2

All I can do now is laugh. We're leaving Florida and heading home tonight. So far they have received 14(!!) inches of rain in the past two days. The tide is almost up to the condo, and it is impossible to even see the beach most of the time due to the heavy rain. They're calling it a tropical storm...yeah for me!! Anyways, I talked to my mom and she said it is sunny and eighty degrees at home so Michael and I are going to head home, grab the dogs and just chill out there for a few days.

We did receive a call today from the local police department. They found my Kate Spade bag and it was full of our phone chargers, and the headphones for the mp3 player, and one cable for the camera. It had all been run over by a car so none of it is salvageable. However, they do think they know who did it and asked if we were going to prosecute...umm yeah since they ruined the one day of our vacation when the sun actually did shine!! They did say that they had received some calls from a pawn shop that probably has the camera and possibly the mp3 player. So that at least is good!

Anyways, I'm off to finish packing and then we're going to hit the sack so we can head out later tonight!

Review: Pretty in Plaid

Title: Pretty in Plaid: A Memoir
Author: Jen Lancaster
Pages: 363
Rating: 5/5

In Pretty in Plaid, Jen Lancaster reveals how she developed the hubris that perpetually gets her into trouble. Using fashion icons of her youth to tell her hilarious and insightful stories, readers will meet the girl she used to be.

Think Jen Lancaster was always "like David Sedaris with pearls and a super-cute handbag?" (Jennifer Coburn) Think again. She was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn't know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this humorous and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life—and wardrobe—before bitter was the new black and shows us a young woman not so very different than the rest of us.

The author who showed us what it was like to wait in line at the unemployment office with a Prada bag, how living in the city can actually suck, and that losing weight can be fun with a trainer named Barbie and enough Ambien is ready to take you on a hilarious and heartwarming trip down memory lane in her shoes (and very pretty ones at that) (Cover Blurb).

I aboslutely adore Jen Lancaster and her writings. I've been waiting for this new memoir to come out forever and couldn't get to Borders fast enough to pick it up. I made myself stop from starting this until we were on the road for vacation and flew through it in less than 24 hours. Unlike Jen's other novels that tell about the present, Pretty in Plaid tells the story of Jen's life from childhood. We get to see what Jen was like when she was in Brownies, her 11 years of college, and before meeting her husband Fletch.

This book was just as snarky and humorous as her first three, and contained many of those laugh out loud, pee your pants moments (I'm glad no one was sitting near me as I finished this up on th beach this morning). I would highly recommend this to someone who just needed to get away for a few hours, and wanted to forget their lives and read about someone else's for awhile!

Vacation

Well, we are finally in Florida after a 14.5 hour drive. The weather is absolutely beautiful...about 85 with a great ocean breeze. However, last night, my car was broken into. We had taken everything out, except Michael forgot to get my Kate Spade bag with my camera, mp3 player, and all of the phone chargers out. Yep, its all completely gone. I'm so sick about it I'm just ready to go home. All I want to do is sit and cry and be depressed for myself. This is the second time since Michael and I have been married that something of ours has been broken into. When we first moved into the house someone broke into the garage and stole his golf clubs and the weed eater and some other stuff. It took me weeks to get over that feeling of being violated. Now, all I can think about is "Why us and is my house even safe now that I'm gone."

Anyways, I did manage to finish a book already before all this happened so I'll have the review up here soon.

April in Review

It was a disappointing month for me reading and blogging wise. I only managed to finish four books within the month, as opposed to the nine from the month before. I've been so busy outside due to spring, that I haven't had my evenings to spend reading.

My long awaited vacation is only two weeks away (thank goodness) and I'm ready to hit the ground running. I'm so looking forward to getting the heck out of dodge and away from everything for a solid week!

I'm hoping to get a lot of reading done while we are away. I normally average around five books for that week so we'll see what happens this year!