The Road

This book was fantastic. I loved it. So vivid and intense. It was actually quite frightening. This book makes me interested in reading more post-apocalyptic literature. What I liked most about this was how realistic it was! No zombies, mutated people or anything. Just raw emotion. I also like the ending. It will probably keep me wondering for a long time.

Sarah's Key

This book was hard to put down! I had to know what was going to happen next. I liked that there was lots of twists and turns. I never quite knew what was going to happen. I loved both story lines. Sarah's story was just heartbreaking. I have always liked fiction books about the Holocaust and this didn't disappoint.

The Pact

This book just went on too long for me. It couldn't decide if it was going to be a romance, a law and order episode or an adult drama. I wanted to just start skipping over some sections. I mean, it was a good story, but it could have sped itself up a little bit. It was also slightly predictable. It kept me interested just enough to finish it.

Update Mission 101 List

1. Goat -- Brad Land Finished 6/14/2009!
2. Sold -- Patricia McCormick Finished 11/27/2009
3. The Abstinence Teacher -- Tom Perrotta Finished 11/19/2009
4. The Girls -- Lori Lansens Finished 1/10/2010
5. Skinny Bitch -- Rory Freedman Finished July 6, 2009
6. The Joy Luck Club -- Amy Tan Finished 6/3/2009
7. Lessons in Taxidermy -- Bee Lavendar 3/9/2010!
8. The Book Thief -- Markus Zusak Finished 2/28/2010!
9. Unsweetned -- Jodie Sweetin Finished 2/14/2010!
10. Random Family -- Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Finished 1/18/2010!
11. Infidel -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali Finished 1/7/2010!
12. Zeitoun -- Dave Eggers Finished 9/15/2009!
13. Life of Pi -- Yann Martel Finished 7/25/2009!
14. The Pact – Jodi Picoult
15. Thursday’s Child – Victoria Poole
16. The Working Poor – David Shipler
17. The Camel Bookmobile – Masha Hamilton
18. The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
19. Partly Cloudy Patriot -- Sarah Vowell
20. Saving Monticello -- Marc Leepson
21. Rats -- Robert Sullivan
22. The Bear Went Over the Mountain – Carll Tucker
23. The Lost Boys of Sudan – Mark Bixler
24. Stiff -- Mary Roach
25. Love’s Shadow – Ada Leverson
26. The Majic Bus -- Douglas Brinkley
27. Living at the Edge of the World -- Tina S.
28. Swallows of Kabul -- Yasmina Khadra
29. The Help – Kathry Stockett
30. Life on the Outside -- Jennifer Gonnerman
31. Girls of Riyadh – Rajaa Alsanea
32. A Dog Year -- Jon Katz
33. White Noise-- Don DeLillo
34. The Writing on the Wall – Lynne Sharon Schwartz
35. White Rabbit – Martha Morrison
36. Amerika -- Franz Kafka
37. With Their Backs to the World – Asne Seierstad
38. The Lottery – Shirley Jackson
39. The Warden Wore Pink – Tekla Dennison Miller
40. Stones into Schools – Greg Mortenson
41. White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
42. Homer’s Odyssey – Gwen Cooper
43. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down – Anne Fadiman
44. Nomad Diaries – Yasmeen Maxamuud
45. A Mile in Her Boots – Jennifer Bove
46. Committed – Elizabeth Gilbert
47. This Way to the Gas Ladies and Gentleman -- Tadeusz Borowski
48. The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Murial Barbery
49. Wishin’ and Hopin’—Wally Lamb
50.Sarah’s Key – Tatian De Rosnay
51. Bones Would Ran From the Sky – Suzanne Clothier
52. Home – Julie Andrews
53. The Case of the Missing Books -- Ian Sansom
54. Black Girl/White Girl -- Joyce Carol Oates
55. White Girl -- Kate Manning
56. A Hundred and One Days – Asne Seierstad
57. Surviving Justice -- Dave Eggers
58. Charity Girl – Michael Lowenthal
59. Acceptance – Susan Coll
60. Stolen Innocence – Elissa Wall
61. William’s Princess – Robert Jobson
62. The Latehomecomer – Kao Kalia Yang
63. Born in the Big Rains – Fadumo Korn
64. The Children's Hospital -- Chris Adrian
65. Alex Kotlowitz – The Other Side of the River
66. The Hour I First Believed – Wally Lamb
67. Our America – LeAlan Jones
68. The Lacuna – Barbara Kingsolover
69. Monique and the Mango Rains – Kris Holloway
70. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England -- Brock Clark
71. Things I’ve Been Silent About – Azar Nafisi
72. The Middle of Everywhere – Mary Pipher
73. Amazing Grace – Jonathan Kozol
74. Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri
75. Wasted – Patrick Murphy
76. Preserving Memory – Edawrd Linenthal
77. Fish – T.J. Parsell
78. There Are No Children Here – Alex Kotlowitz
79. I Walked The Line – Vivian Cash
80. Ghost Town – Patrick McGrath
81. A Good Dog – Jon Katz
82. Snoop – Sam Gosling
83. Dewey -- Vicki Myron
84. Without a Map -- Meredith Hall
85. Prisoner of Tehran – Mrina Nemat
86. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures – Vincent Lam
87. Saints Behaving Badly – Thomas Craugwell
88. The Lost Daughters of China – Karin Evans
89. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids – Kenzaburo Oe
90. When You are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris
91. Written in Stone – Sanford Levinson
92. The Lost Children of Wilder – Nina Bernstein
93. The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse – Nancy Butcher
94. Grand Central Winter – Lee Stringer
95. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
96. The Echo Maker – Richard Powers
97. Academy X -- Anonymous
98. Moloka’I – Alan Brennert
99. The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski
100. Walking – Matthew Sanford
101. A Walk in the Woods

Lessons in Taxidermy

Wow. This book was a whirlwind. I couldn't put it down and I can't believe this woman is still alive. Being curious by nature I scoured the internet looking for pictures of Bee Lavender. I really wanted to know what she looked like. It is hard to find any pictures of her. (She does state in the book she doesn't like her photography taken.) It's horrible what she has been through at such a young age, yet the book ends on a hopeful note. She is going to live her life to the fullest while she can. That is amazing. I think she is a true hero in her own sense. She is also an amazing writer. She has a very strong voice and lays things out just as they happened. She doesn't try to get the reader to feel sorry or have sympathy for her.

The Book Thief

This book was quite unusual. I am still on the fence on how I feel about it. A very well told story, but very sad. I think this book could have been shorter. There were some story lines which I thought could have been eliminated and others that I thought could have been elaborated upon. I did however enjoy the point-of-view of Death. I thought that was a really interesting plot point.

Unsweetened

I was really looking forward to this book. I LOVED the show Full House and I also love memoirs. But this book just didn't do it for me. I found it pretty poorly written (no big surprise I guess), very repetitive and just too "hip" (I guess that's the word...) She was just trying too hard to relate or maybe impress the readers I think. I mean how many times can we read about her relapsing? She tells a sad, sad story, but in the end she wants us to think that she is recovered and I just don't believe it. I would not at all be surprised if she is still using or starts again. I was also disappointed she didn't write more about her Full House days. I guess she was pretty young at the time and maybe she doesn't remember all that much, but I thought that would have been more interesting than hearing about her endless partying and then lying on national TV.