480 pages read … “If I Stay”

Grand total for 2010 — 19,575 pages read

TOTAL OF PAGES READ: 19,575

TOTAL NUMBER OF BOOKS READ: 57

When I first started Project 15K, I thought it was going to be a struggle to finish. Apparently, I never really knew how much I actually read in a year. I even took long breaks and still ended up with almost 20,000 pages.  Don’t get me wrong, this project definitely got me back to reading more often, but it was a pain to have to write little book reviews every time I finished a book. That’s why, this year, I am going to a different format. (To be introduced later today.)

I am still going to keep a running tally of the books that I read this year, but I’m not going to make it into a competition again. I am just going to try to beat my total from last year. So, my goal for 2011 is 20,000 pages.

Books from December — 2,496 pages

December was so slammed, I didn’t get to review the books that I read to finish out the year. So here you go:

Chaos Walking Series

“Knife of Never Letting Go” (496 pages)
“The Ask and the Answer” (528 pages)
“Monsters of Men” (608 pages)
All by Patrick Ness

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Notes: Go read this trilogy right now. It’s fantastic!

 

“The Scarpetta Factor” by Patricia Cornwell (512 pages)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Notes: Cornwell is getting back to her old self.
“Scarpetta Factor” is much better than the last few she has written.

 

“The Recipe Club” by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel (352 pages)
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Notes: It’s a super quick read, but the recipes do nothing for the story.
The book wraps up in such a way that it made me angry.

 

2,079 pages over 15K … 15 books reviewed

I have been waiting to write this post/putting off posting the books I’ve been reading because I lost. Well, not against the goal. I have completed 10,000 pages this year, but I didn’t do it before my fiancé. Yeah, so rather bittersweet breaking that mark. But the good news is that we are still competing to see which one of us reads that most pages for the entire year. I have two months to kick his butt!

For sake of time (and the fact that forgot enough about most of these books to not be able to do a complete review), I will now do a recap post of books to catch you up to where I am. Here we go!

 

“Bright Lights, Big Ass” by Jennifer Lancaster (400 pages)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Notes: Not her best book, but still really funny.

 

“Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins (400 pages)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Notes: Excellent ending. LOVED IT. Go read this series right now!

 

“Such A Pretty Fat” by Jennifer Lancaster (400 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: I still thought it was hilarious, but the second half was all about her trying to lose weight.
It reads: GYM, GYM, I’M HUNGRY, GYM, GYM.
She just kept talking about how much more she likes her body now — which is like every other “fat” book.
Just read her first ones and then skip this one.

 

“Ghost” by Piers Anthony (279 pages)
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Notes: Worst Piers Anthony book I have ever read. SUPER SCIENCE!!!!

 

“Wake” by Lisa McMann (224 pages)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Notes: Interesting idea. Quick read.

 

“Hold Still” by Nina LaCour (304 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Apparently not that memorable …

 

“Deadly Little Lies” by Nina LaCour (304 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Really enjoyed the first book in this series, but Book 2 wasn’t as good.
It seemed to be pretty much more of the same. Don’t know if I will continue with this series

 

“Along for the Ride” by Sarah Dessen (400 pages)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Notes: Another great Sarah Dessen book! Doesn’t disappoint.

 

“Waiting for You” by Susane Colasanti (322 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Your standard high school love story.

 

“The Luxe” by Anna Godbersen  (433 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Completely predictable, but still intriguing.
A super quick read. I will probably try the next one.

 

“Fade” by Lisa McMann  (248 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Just more of the same out of this series.

 

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” by Stieg Larsson  (563 pages)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Notes: A fitting ending.

 

“Paper Towns” by John Green  (305 pages)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Notes: Good but I was a bit disappointed by the ending.

 

“The Stonekeeper’s Curse: Amulet Book 2” by Kazu Kibuishi
(224 pages, 112 pages counted)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Notes: Still a really interesting series.

 

“You Better Not Cry” by Augusten Burroughs  (206 pages)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Notes: Hilarious! Makes me want to read his other books.
It gets rather sappy at the end, but worth the read.

2,821 pages to go … “Bitter is the New Black”

I’ve had a couple of Jan Lancaster’s books sitting on my shelf for quite a while. When I got chosen for jury duty, I decided that I would probably need some humor and figured “Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office” (416 pages) would be light enough that the story wouldn’t be affected by stopping and starting all the time.

I was not disappointed, Lancaster is great. She has a great way of putting things that makes me laugh out loud.

She is hilarious, fat and proud. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. And unlike other memoirs centered around fat people, she doesn’t think she is ugly or beneath anyone or anything. Instead, she has more confidence than anyone I know.

She is a refreshing look how women can be fat AND proud!

Back of the book:

“Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life-until real life kicked her to the curb. She had the perfect man, the perfect job-hell, she had the perfect life-and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice. This is the smart-mouthed, soul-searching story of a woman trying to figure out what happens next when she’s gone from six figures to unemployment checks and she stops to reconsider some of the less-than-rosy attitudes and values she thought she’d never have to answer for when times were good. Filled with caustic wit and unusual insight, it’s a rollicking read as speedy and unpredictable as the trajectory of a burst balloon.”

3,237 pages to go … “Coyote Blue”

Continuing with Christopher Moore, “Coyote Blue” (320 pages) was good. It was funny, interesting, and quite an improvement from “Demonkeeping.” It was pretty good for a sophomore attempt and I have high hopes that the books are going to keep getting better.

Back of the book:

“As a boy, he was Samson Hunts Alone — until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is Samuel Hunter, a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo, and a hollow, invented life. Then one day, destiny offers him the dangerous gift of love — in the exquisite form of Calliope Kincaid — and a curse in the unheralded appearance of an ancient god by the name of Coyote. Coyote, the trickster, has arrived to reawaken the mystical storyteller within Sam…and to seriously screw up his existence in the process.”

3,557 pages to go … “Practical Demonkeeping”

Since I loved “Island of the Sequined Love Nun” so much, I decided to start at the beginning and read Christopher Moore’s debut novel “Practical Demonkeeping” (243 pages). “Demonkeeping” was just OK.

It still had funny parts, but it just didn’t capture my interest like the others. It was good for a debut attempt, but I think Moore’s later books are much better.

Back of the book:

“Travis O’Hearn is one hundred years old but still looks twenty. His traveling companion is a green demon with a nasty habit of eating people. When they arrive at the bohemian resort town of Pine Cove, California, all hell breaks loose.”

3,800 pages to go … “Island of the Sequined Love Nun”

“Island of the Sequined Love Nun” (336 pages) kicked off my Christopher Moore phase. I had read “Dirty Job,” and just thought it was OK, but this novel really showed me what Moore could do. It is my favorite book by Moore so far. It’s funny, dark and fast-paced — really everything I look for in a book. If you haven’t read any Moore, start with this one.

Back of the book:

“When Tucker Case demolishes his boss’s pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, there’s only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond High Priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells.”

4,136 pages to go … “Infected”

A friend recommended “Infected” by Scott Sigler (352 pages), and as you know I have to read things that people recommend for Project 15K.

As I was handed the novel, I couldn’t help but judge the book by its cover. As I flipped it over, I said, ‘You bought a book written by a novel podcaster? Really?” Needless to say, I didn’t have any faith in this book.

I, however, have to say that I enjoyed it. Not all of it, but some of it. It was a quick-paced book with short choppy chapters (which I happen to enjoy).

The science is terrible, the writing is Fail (with a capital F), but I kept reading it. It has an amazing story idea. The plot was interesting. The attempts at character development were a joke though. The author was always taking the reader on tangents that weren’t important to the main story and really didn’t add anything.

So, I’m just reading along willing to overlook the horrible writing for the sake of a good story, and BAM! I am hit upside the head with an ending that comes OUT OF NOWHERE!

What the hell was Sigler thinking? Why did he have to go there? It totally took me out of the story and tore down anything sort of good storyline that he had built up. Smashed it to a million unrecognizable pieces.

And when I turned over the last page, all I could think was, ‘What do you mean this is part of a trilogy?’ Am I intrigued by the other books? Sure. Do I plan to read them any time soon? Hell no.

Back of the book:

Across America a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families.

Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected.

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

4,488 pages to go … “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen”

I love “Hell’s Kitchen” and Gordan Ramsey so when my boyfriend picked up his book, “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection” (288 pages), I just had to read it …

… And I wasn’t disappointed.

It was a fun, quick read. You learn a lot about Ramsey, his troubling upbringing, his battle to fame, etc. It’s a very interesting ride, and he really puts it all out there.

The novel stops right when Hell’s Kitchen is really picking up so I can’t wait for his next book. I wanted to read about the time right after that — through all the seasons of the U.S. Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, etc.

I like to look at this book as the first on his life, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Back of the book:

Everyone thinks they know the real Gordon Ramsay: rude, loud, pathologically driven, stubborn as hell

For the first time, Ramsay tells the full inside story of his life and how he became the world’s most famous and infamous chef: his difficult childhood, his brother’s heroin addiction, his failed first career as a soccer player, his fanatical pursuit of gastronomic perfection and his TV persona – all of the things that made him the celebrated culinary talent and media powerhouse that he is today.

In Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen Ramsay talks frankly about his tough and emotional childhood, including his father’s alcoholism and violence and their effect on his relationships with his mother and siblings. His rootless upbringing saw him moving from house to house and town to town followed by the authorities and debtors as his father lurched from one failed job to another.

He recounts his short-circuited career as a soccer player, when he was signed by Scotland’s premier club at the age of fifteen but then, just two years later, dropped out when injury dashed his hopes. Ramsay searched for another vocation and, much to his father’s disgust, went into catering, which his father felt was meant for “poofs.”

He trained under some of the most famous and talented chefs in Europe, working to exacting standards and under extreme conditions that would sometimes erupt in physical violence. But he thrived, with his exquisite palate, incredible vision and relentless work ethic. Dish by dish, restaurant by restaurant, he gradually built a Michelin-starred empire.

A candid, eye-opening look into the extraordinary life and mind of an elite and unique restaurateur and chef, Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen will change your perception not only of Gordon Ramsay but of the world of cuisine.