Grave mercy book review

The semesters starting up, the holidays are winding down, and I have been reading like mad! While the books will come out looking like the good the bad and the ugly we will start with the good.

Grave Mercy

A fun historical fiction that is packed with girl power, poison, and a slow simmering love story. Isme is a women in the middle ages who is treated as a sin by her father and community after she survived an attempted abortion in the womb. Suffering a life of slights and flat out abuse she comes to be rescued by her sisters, a group of nuns serving the god of death. After years of training to be a handmaiden to death she takes on her four assignments to become a full sister. Little does she know these actions will propel her into the royal court and all it's strange workings. Thank goodness she has the help of a dark and unintended companion, shame she has to pretend to be his mistress.

The only downfall is that the book starts to lag in Resolutions if not in my interest and created the dreaded over fast conclusion. The entire book is wrapped up in the last twenty pages and it brings a sad let down on fullness of description. While I wish that after such a long read it hadn't ended in such a rush the overall work was original and fun. Would most definitely suggest picking this one up for a fun read.

What we think

As I sit here watching the news that show billions of dollars spent so far in the holiday rush while at the same time desicussing the looming possibility of rising taxes with the upcoming fiscal cliff I start to wonder, what are our perceptions of reality? Now this might just be me but I have come to know that we all do not live on one rational plain. How do I know this? Because I am part of a couple.

All of you out there who have a long term partnership will know what this means. In their world  your eating habits are strange, in yours it's unhygienic to eat the piece of the French fry that touches your fingers. I your world The Hobbit is just a book, that you never read, while in theirs it's a family obsession. (yes these are real quirks) but what to do when the perceptions become deeper?

Here we enter the real issue, what do you do when the real world is to honest?

If you have ever experienced a physical disability or "visible" illness you will understand, for those of you who don't know this is any of those illnesses that make you stop and do a double take in a public place maybe with a " wow they look bad"  or " what do you think they have?" thrown in. Dont shrink behind your monitor you know you have done this at least one. And you know what? For the most part the person you talked about could hear you, yes they could, and they just didnt care. 

It happens, we get used to it, and we tone you out. because that's the code right? People will look, point, mutter, and stare. You will pretend not to see. There are lines of course, socially expectable harmless stupid comments and questions vs. the ones you never ask. 
Example: wow does that hurt? (you might want to give a snide comment but they ask because there worried and curious) Vs.   Man that looks like shit! You shouldn't go out like that, it looks like it hurts. (this person can be given the snide comment)

But the major taboo holds. Never talk to someone about a sick friend or relative, with them in the room, as though that person is not there. And while we might know the worst that those around us might think. 

Example: Mother to son dating a chronicle Ill girl: are you sure this is a good idea? I mean there are so many girls out there that aren't this much work! What are you getting into? ( don't laugh this happened to a friend) 

While we might know the though exists and even except it, wonder it deep down ourselves, what happens when the golden rule is broken and these things a said in front of the person in question? Can you come back from that?

This Republic of Suffering

While this was a school read I am so glad it came my way! This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust is a masterpiece for historical lovers and the general public alike. Covering not the war in common terms of battles and troop movements but through the real loss sustained on individual and state levels Faust peels back the patriotic veneer that covers our modern understanding of these long lost "war dead". In this was This Republic, while not the most uplifting read, opens up the past back up to modern eyes and allows us to see through the mass of suffering at a more understandable level. With all the Civil War events in the years to come read this before stepping on the battlefields to understand these brave men better. If the book doesn't seem your thing there is a documentary based off the work by the title Death and the Civil War: Amewrican Experience that does a good job of covering the condensed material for a more visual audience.

austenland

Well another book down millions more to go! Austenland is in fact the first book on tape I listened to in a beta test of listing to new filler books on the long drive to class. It worked well except at some points the writer had me so interested in this Jane austen themed comidy/romance that I wasn't really sure how I had ended up in my driveway at the end of the night.

The book follows a women in her early thirtys who has become more and more disheartened by a string of bad relationships. As each one failed she slips just a tad bit farther in love with Mr. Darcy, and really who can blame her? But the relationship with her fictional ideal is running her real life into the ground. So, with some help from a recently departed relative, don't worry they weren't that close, she sets off to a land where she can live out her fanticy of Mr. Right and come home in three weeks to her real life and give up on love for good. I mean how much can happen in three weeks? Well at Pemberly Park apparently quite a lot.

A great read, but challenging if you haven't in fact read any Austen while that seems to go without saying I will anyway. The author also references Jane Eyre though it is in passing. Overall a fun and witty work for any classics lovers out there!

Crossed

Well I have finnished Crossed the sequal to Matched by Ally Condie. I have to say that Matched in itself was just a beach read and that it filled that role wonderfully. however, matched while nice was not as of the same calleber as its predeceser. Crossed seems to lose some of the human element held in matched as we read the wondering and fragmented thoughts of ky and Cassia in alternating chapters. to be fair I dont personally care for books that switch points of view every chapter but in this case there are times when the minds of the two charectures are hard to tell apart from one another without the aid of the chapter headings. perhaps this is because they seem to both spend the entire book whining and cryptically looking back over there lives as they wonder through a dessert with no plan that can be seen. In this way Crossed was a sad let down, and for someone looking for reading that wouldn't interrupt the sound of waves that bar was fairly low. Here is hoping that the third book will be better.

Grade: C-

Little Century

   
A must read! Another teenage girl story for all of you out there. when her mother dies unexpectedly Ester is left to figure out her life on her own. she choices to take the chance to move to the frontier with a distant cousin she has never met. Ester takes her chances in the wilds of America at the turn of the century with nothing but the will of youth and the spirit of change coursing through the country on the eve of a new day. Ester might not get everything right but you will turn the pages and hold your breath through the life changes and murder mystery to come!

Grade: A+

Matched

This book was fun. That's about all, it didn't change my world view or in-rich my mind but it was quick and easy. The perfect beach read for someone overwhelmed and wanting to unwind just like I was. Matched looks at a distopian society, so in right now, and the effects its confines have on one teenage girl. apparently hormones don't stop in the future either and Cassia gets a good dose of em' when her prearranged match goes wrong. She not only sees the face of her best friend and match on her screen but that of another boy....
what is a teenage girl to do in a society monitered by statistical probability?

Grade: Beach Read