Review | A Rhapsody of Dreams

Author: Tami Egonu  
Published: March 3, 2013  
Publisher: Amazon  
Pages: 173
Format: ebook  
Genre: Fantasy  
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis
(from Goodreads)
Tired of the monotony of life, Tyler hangs onto a magnificent balloon that takes him far above his London office. Seeing countless other daydreamers, Tyler is snapped back to reality and immediately abandons his stale life to begin a spiritual quest. However, his travels around a world void of magic makes it hard for him to keep believing miracles exist.

Meanwhile, at a Georgian house in Yorkshire, Tyler’s first love, Molly, has an extraordinary encounter with a heartbroken and bitter poet. But nothing is as it first appears in this story of a powerful enchantment, a field of magical sunflowers, a memory tree, and the search for love . . . even beyond death. 

Review
I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

This was kind of a strange book. I thoroughly enjoyed chapter one, but it just didn't click with me from there on. Most of the book was written like realistic fiction, but then there were these fantastical dream-reality...things that were abruptly put in making the story seem kind of choppy. It was also confusing that the chapters alternated between characters. It wasn't a consistent alteration, so you had to pay attention to who the chapter was about. Chapter titles would have helped, especially when the chapters weren't even about the two main characters.  

Review | A Girl's Guide to Vampires

Author: Katie MacAlister
Published: October 29, 2003
Publisher: Love Spell
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 374
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Supernatural, Vampires
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis
Joy is missing the romance in her life and enlists a friend of hers to help petition the goddess for romance to come her way. Soon after, Joy and her friend Roxy head to the Czech Republic where Joy starts experiencing visions around one of the local guys. Quiet and mysterious, whenever she's around him, she sees blood. Refusing to believe she's going crazy, their relationship progresses, but is this the relationship she had in mind when petitioning the goddess?

Review
I picked this up thinking I hadn't read it before. After about 40 pages in, I realized I had, but decided to read until the end since I couldn't remember much about it. I couldn't even remember if I had liked it. I didn't get into it this time around, but there are a lot of interesting and original elements included in this book. Don't let my 2 star review scare you off too much; give it a try and see how it goes. It just wasn't my type of book.

The Language of Flowers

Find The Language of Flowers on Goodreads
Genres/Themes: Romance, Women's Fiction
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Not quite sure why this book is rated as high as it is. Even the people in my book group mostly seemed to love it. I found it depressing from beginning to end. Victoria was so stupid about many of her choices. I couldn't connect with any of the characters at all. I pretty much wanted to slap everyone all the way through, especially Elizabeth. 




From Book Club Discussion:

The Capture (Guardians of Ga'Hoole #1)

Find The Capture on Goodreads
Genres/Themes: Adventure, Fantasy
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The movie was so much better.  There are a lot of potentially exciting events in this story, but the writing style is so amateur and flat that I was practically bored to tears reading this. There are also a lot of weird things about St. Aggies and the songs were...interesting. It was like she was trying to make a complex novel like Game of Thrones or something but over simplified it or didn't know how to correctly go about it.

I understand that this is supposed to be a children's novel, but I've read many children's novels that just completely drew me into the story. You know that point that you just stop noticing the words and the story is just running through your head? I didn't get that here. The Borrowers did a great job of that for example.

Game of Thrones meets The Little Engine That Could