The Pig,The Prince and the Unicorn Review

The Pig, the Prince, and the Unicorn by Karen A. Brush

(from the back of the book)

Behind the Gate lurks chaos, carnage, horror vast and evil unimaginable. And the Gate must be locked every hundred years, or the world will be plunged into darkness.

The Key Bearer must be fearsome enough to fight Pitch Fiends, wage war against the Water Demons, defy Death Wings and master the Manslayers.

The Key Bearer is chosen by the key itself. And this century it has chosen an unlikely hero. Instead of awesome, he’s winsome. Instead of beheading his enemies, he befriends them. Instead of a war-hungry sword, he has a curly tail. He’s bigger than a bread box, but barely…



A young little piglet is chosen to save the world and along the way finds that he is stronger than he imagined and that when faced with great responsibility knowing who to believe is sometimes the hardest part. It's a cute little story. An unlikely hero who faces great danger and manages to get places simply because he is cute and loveable. He's naive and not yet jaded with the world and sees things differently than those around him. Not set in his ways like everyone else he questions what others have taken on faith all their lives. So there are some good themes and some fun stuff in here. But there are some odd things too. Half the book takes place under water and you have someone washing and drying off while in the water, or you have a pig running while holding a jar in his hooves and you are not sure how the author meant for those things to work out in this world she created. And the ending is rather too neat and easy to be quite believable. It’s a goofy, cute little story. An easy fun way to kill a few hours but there isn’t very much depth here in characters, plot or setting.

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Review

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau

(from the back of the book)

Fourteen-year-old Jamie will never forget the summer of 1976.  It’s the summer when she has her first boyfriend, cute surfer Flip Jenkins; it’s the summer when her two best friends get serious about sex, cigarettes, and tanning; it’s the summer when her parents throw, yes, naked swim parties, leaving Jamie flushed with embarrassment.  And it’s the summer that forever changes the way Jamie sees the things that matter: family, friendship, love, and herself.

This book is okay. Just okay. And those are always books I find hardest to review. There was nothing very good or very bad about it. It had its moments. There was some humor and some serious parts. I liked the complicated relationship between the sisters, it felt very real. It did a good job of making you feel the awkward, embarrassing moments. And it made it okay to be different from your friends and everyone else you know and it let you know that you are not the only one who feels apart from everyone else. But was there a lot of sex, drugs and drinking for a bunch of 14 year olds? I think so. And if I had a daughter I don't think I would want her to read this. There was something lacking in the characters here too. I couldn't care as much about them as I think I was supposed to. There was nothing here that I can point at and say 'that is what is wrong with this book'. Nor can I pick anything out that I loved. It turns out I just don't want to read about 14 year olds having sex with boys 3 and 4 years older than them or about what happens to various naked body parts when people are swimming and jumping on diving boards.

WWW Wednesday (June 19th)

To play along just answer the following three (3) questions...

*What are you currently reading?
*What did you recently finish reading?
*What do you think you’ll read next?


Leave a link to your post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.



What are you currently reading?

Decked by Carol Higgins Clark
I wanted a light easy read and I thought this would fit the bill.


What did you recently finish reading?

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
The book does make you think but unfortunately I wanted to be done with long before it was over.


What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m thinking about Endurance by Alfred Lansing. But I also need a Y title for my A to Z challenge so I’m also thinking about The Year of the Monkey by Carole Berry.

Win Loads of Books!

Live to Read is having a big Summer book giveaway.  Over 150 books will be given away. 50 books will be given away to 2 people.  But there is also going to be a new giveaway for every day in June and July.  I know that we've missed a few.  But don't worry you can still enter all the June ones too. 

There are a bunch of ways to enter to go on over there and get some books!

The Passage Review

The Passage by Justin Cronin

(from the book jacket)

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment.  Then, the unspeakable:  a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered.  All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear – of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary.  FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty.  Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse.  Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey – spanning miles and decades – toward the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

I like vampire books and had heard good things about this one so I had high hopes. Maybe that was the problem. I should have gone in blind. But I still don't think I would have loved this one. If you are going to have a book this long and expect people to come back for more it better be really good. And I just don't think it was good enough to carry all that length. There were some characters that I really liked (most of who died on me) and then some I really didn't even find interesting. There were parts of the plot that were great and then some odd little things that were thrown in there that didn't make sense and just seemed to muddle things and then were never cleared up. There were parts that made me want to keep reading when I should be sleeping and others that put me to sleep. On the whole the book was just okay. But it was slow and long and if I am going to invest this much of my time in a book I want it to be better than okay.