on the bookshelf

___Firstly, I hope you don't mind I took the comments off my last post. I only wanted to get people to at least see that message, and I figured if someone wanted to talk about it, an e-mail would probably communicate better. Secondly, Happy Easter everyone!

___Now, moving on to the point of my post: I've been reading quite a bit lately (well, quite a bit for me...), and I thought another book review was in order.

The Basic Eight Daniel Handler

___I met the author last weekend! You may know him better as Lemony Snicket, aka the author behind The Series of Unfortunate Events. We got this book for free from my college (where he was speaking), and it's actually quite interesting. The summary is simple. The whole book is a series of journal entries from a girl, Flannery O'Conner, who murdered a boy while she was a senior in high school.

___The book is hilarious, and you oddly finding yourself to like Flan. Her friends are pretentious, the small anecdotes from Flan to the "experts" she's retyping her journal for are hilarious, and weirdly enough--the boy she murders is also the one she's in love with. I personally loved this book because it was so clever and sarcastic.

Twenties Girl Sophie Kinsella

___How do you not love something by Sophie Kinsella? British humor and words (I wish I could get away with saying "bloody" and "wanker"), hilarious heroines, and a sweet little love story meshed in, always. Confessions of a Shopaholic is one of my favorite series (Mini Shopaholic is coming out next!), and I've enjoyed all her other books as well. Twenties Girl was definitely no exception.

___While the main character definitely made me cringe in parts and I didn't like her quite as much as I liked Becky Bloomwood or Samantha Sweeting, she grew on me. The premise? Basically, Lara is haunted by her great-aunt Sadie. Sadie is on a mission to find a very important necklace, and she manages Lara to get her life together along the way. The twist is fabulous, and interactions are beyond hilarious, and, well it's Sophie Kinsella!

The Witch of Cologne Tobsha Learner

____Definitely one of those books you cannot judge by the cover or the genre (erotic romance, if you're wondering). A friend recommended this book to me and after leaving it go for a bit, I decided to give it a go. And it was fantastic. I'll admit some of the plot points were a bit hazy and the sex scenes of course made go completely scarlet while reading, but the overall story was interesting.

____Set in the mid 1600's in Germany and the Netherlands, it is amidst the Inquisition. Ruth is midwife, daughter of a rabbi and her deceased mother, Sara, who was a part of the Navarre family in Spain. She is pursued by the Inquisition for her interest in science and philosophy, and because the head of it all once loved her mother. She is saved by a rich canon, sun Detlef, and they begin a love affair, mixing their curiosity and intelligence with passion. (I'm a terribly explainer, and so much happens in this book. You really ought to try it out, I promise you'll be riveted.)

So what's on your bookshelf? I'm currently finishing Atonement.

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