The Van Alen Legacy

The third book that I read for the RIP IV Challenge is the newest installment of the vampire series, The Blue Bloods Saga, The Van Alen Legacy, by Melissa De La Cruz. Since this book is the fourth book in the series, its hard to write a review without spoiling the previous books.

The Blue Bloods are a group of vampires who live and rule modern day New York City and their group of rulers, the Conclave is like every other type governement who keeps things hidden and unacknowledged simply out of their own fear. The Silver Bloods, the evil vampires who hunt other vampires have come back and are attacking again, but the Conclave acts like its something else. These vampires live out their mortality by living in human bodies for cycles of life.

Again, this story revolves mostly around Schyuler but we also see part of the story from Bliss and Mimi’s perspective. Schyuler and Oliver are on the run from the Conclave. Bliss finds out more about who she is and struggles to remain true to herself. Mimi finds herself working for the Venetors and wanting to complete a higher destiny as she had back in Rome. The fight for truth continues on whether its for the community, relationship or to one’s self. Can love and goodness survive where evil, heartbreak and fear seem to rule all? The story ends with some questions answered, but more asked and new journeys to embark upon to bring peace back to their world. Their only hope is that they can somehow find the courage to follow their hearts.

I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the next book, which the inside flap says the author is working on. There is also a secret ending chapter, which you can read online, but as the author an publisher teamed up with Target, you can only get the code from books purchased there. Seeing as I bought mine from Borders and then found out about the chapter later, I went to Target to see how the code was distributed, and luckily for us, it was printed on a sticker on the cover. To read the secret ENDING chapter, go to www.bluebloodsbooks.com/target and enter the password as LEGACY. I have yet to read it as I am currently living without internet as Eli’s grandparent, who we are now living with, have yet to get it installed. I’m praying its soon! I am so behind in my reviews and have so many things I want to look at! Lol.

Well, I hope you liked this review and I hope that it will make you want to start the series from book one, which is called Blue Bloods. The second is Masquerade, and the third is Revelations. Also, I know that there was a secret chapter for Revelations, if anyone knows where you can read that one, please let me know!

Thanks for reading everyone! Again, please feel free to comment if you’ve read the book, but please stay away from spoilers and let us know what you are reading for the challenge, if anything!

Happy Reading!

~Sarah

Impossible

The second book that I chose to read for the RIP IV challenge was Impossible, by Nancy Werlin. This book is a supernatural, fantiful one about a girl named Lucy, who finds out that the women in her family have been cursed by an evil Elfin Knight so that after they give birth at the age of 18 to a baby girl and fail to complete their tasks, they go crazy. The story is based around the song, “Scarborough Fair,” by Simon and Garfunkle. And in the song, there are 3 impossible tasks that she must perform or else the curse will fall to her unborn daughter. The first one is that she has to make a shirt without any seams, the second is she has to find an acre of lane in-between the seastrand and the ocean and the third is to plow the land with a goats horn and sow it with 1 kernel of corn.

The thing that differentiates Lucy from her mother and grandmothers is that she has a loving foster family as well as the love and devotion of a boy. As Lucy and her team prepare for the tasks, she learns more about herself, her family, responsibility, love and that sometimes we do things that others might not understand because we know it’s the right thing to do. As Lucy’s due date approaches, she fears for her sanity and for her daughter and the visits from the Elfin Knight do nothing to help put her at ease and she feels more alone than ever, knowing if she confides in anyone, they will think her mad.

It was a very interesting book and story line and the addition of the folk song brings a new way at looking at song lyrics. Its also interesting, because it seems like a lot of authors these days are listing music playlists on their websites or at the back of their books as music that influenced them in writing or songs that fit certain scenes. So it was interesting to actually read a book inspired by a single song.

Please feel free to comment if you’ve read this book or to let us know what you are reading for the challenge, if you decided to join!

Happy Reading everyone!

~Sarah

Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

Last night, I finished the first book that I decided to read for the RIP IV reading challenge, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception by Maggie Stiefvater.  And as part of the challenge is to  post reviews on what you read, here is my first one!

The book is about a talented sixteen-year-old harpist named Deirdre and how she learns that she is a cloverhand, someone who can see faeries.  It reminded me a little bit of Wicked Lovely, but its nice to read more about the fey!  Dee meets a mysteriously handsome and charming young man named Luke Dillion who turns out to be the Faerie Queen’s gallowglass, a soulless assassin, who has been ordered to kill her.   Even though everything in her being tells her she should run away from him and that he’s trouble, she is utterly drawn to him.  She also finds out that her and her best friend, James, also a talented musician have extraordinary powers that apparently have been linked with musical genius, Dee’s being telekinetic and James being able to see the future.  Amongst all that is changing around her, she finds herself thrown into Faerie, with James and Luke right there with her.  And you know that at some point she will fall in love, but lets just hope its with the right guy.  The story ends with an obvious link to a sequel, which is supposedly supposed to come out later this Fall, and I hope it will be good.  There were a few loose ends that weren’t tied up at the end and too many unanswered questions.  Needless to say, I’m excited for the next installment!

Today I started my next book for the challenge called, Impossible, by Nancy Werlin.  Stay tuned for my review on that one!

Happy reading everyone!

Please comment on what you are reading!

~Sarah

R.I.P. IV Reading Challenge

Earlier this year, Christine and I participated in Stainless Steel Dropping's Once Upon a Time reading challenge and had a lot of fun with it!  It was probably one of the reasons that lead up to us starting this book club!  Anyways, Carl over at SSD has posted another reading challenge in time for Halloween called the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril IV.  Here is what he says of the challenge!

"Walk this way...

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

The desire for the thrill that comes with this kind of reading drifts in on the autumn winds. You breathe it in and it takes hold of you, tempting you to late nights, book-in-hand, turning pages and starting at every unknown noise. Something wicked this way comes…"

There are different levels of the challenge that start at reading 1, 2 or 4 books from any of the listed genres.  He said that he usually starts the challenge on September 1 and has it end on October 31, but this year he started it early on August 24th.  Even though we are almost a month into the challenge, I have already read books that could qualify me for completion of the challenge, but I want to do it for real.  Also, if you feel like you can't participate because its already started, you have the entire month of October, so you have no excuse!  If you want to sign up for the challenge, click on the link above and he explains how to join.  Also, if you plan on joining, please please please leave us a comment sharing your readings with us!!! That can be another way to connect even if you don't like the books we are reading.

Here is the list of books that I've read since Aug. 24th that could count...               

*Bubbles A Broad, Sarah Strohmeyer

*Bubbles Betrothed, Sarah Strohmeyer

*Bubbles All The Way, Sarah Strohmeyer

*Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

*The Musician's Daughter, Susanne Dunlap

... but I wanna do it right, so here is the list of books that I am thinking about reading for the challenge!

*Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice

*Lament, Maggie Stiefvater

*Thrive, Maggie Stiefvater

*The Summoning, Kelley Armstrong

*The Awakening, Kelley Armstrong

*Blood From Heaven, Bill Myers

*Prophet, Frank Peretti

I am going to try to complete "Peril The First" which is to read 4 books from any of those genres!  

I'm excited for this and I hope you guys are too!  Please feel free to join and to comment!!! Happy Reading!

~Sarah

Bubbles!!!!

The Reading is my Hobby book club is starting a new series! The series is called Bubbles by Sarah Strohmeyer . 

It seems that this series is about a woman named Bubbles Yablonsky who is a beautician-reporter-sleuth. I am excited about this series because I always love a mystery and want to solve it before the book resolves the issue. There are six books in this series so far and we will start with the first one. I look forward to all the excitement Bubbles will get herself into and I hope I can help her solve her mysteries. 

If you would like to join us feel free. Just go to your nearest library or local book store and pick up a copy of Bubbles Unbound. We, my sister and I, will be posting our thoughts and opinions on what we read and you can let us know if you agree or disagree by commenting. You may even have other thoughts that you would like to share that we don't mention. Your comments can be short and sweet or novel in length. Don't feel shy. 

~Christine

PS Even if you don't want to read this series you can still join the club. Maybe our next series will catch your interest. To join just click on the List of Members link on the left side or click here and leave a comment saying that you want to join. We will put you on the list. The more you are involved the more fun we will all have. Happy reading!

The Sweet Far Thing

Today I finished the Gemma Doyle Trilogy. I never made a post about the second book Rebel Angels by my sister did. You can read her review below. 

In The Sweet Far Thing, Gemma and her friends Felicity and Ann try to solve the mystery of the Magic of the Realms. The Realms is a magical land of good and evil and everything in between. The story depicts this place as where you go after you die before you go on to heaven or wherever else you go according the Libba Bray. 

Gemma, in all three books, has visions that direct her to solving the mystery of this magic that is within her. In this, the third book, she tries to solve the mystery of the Tree of all Souls. She has the magic of the Realms within her and she has to decide what is the best course of action, on what to do with it. Who is to be trusted who should she turn from. I think this is a good example of why you should not judge a book by its cover and that you can't always trust what is in your heart for it is the first to deceive you. There are people that she trusts that she shouldn't have trusted and people that she should have trusted that she didn't. But that is real life if you ask me. One lesson that she learns through all three books is that you can't live in the past and regret the choices that you have made but to move on to the future and make the best of what was made. 

I find that there is a bit of controversy over the ending of the series. I do agree that the third book is a bit long and that it is a bit scattered. I think that Libba shouldn't have put a limit on herself to making a trilogy and left it open to writing more. She could have split the book in two and developed more and had it less like a run on sentence but thus she has not and like I said in the last paragraph you cannot live in the past. But back to how I feel about the ending. There are parts that make me very sad. I know that my sister thinks that Bray could have done something else but I feel that the course that the book took was more to reality (granted this is a fantasy book, a fairy tale; still it left me with a feeling that that is how life is) that not everything turns out how you would hope. There is not always going to be a happy ending in real life. You will be heart broken, you will cry for days, you will be disappointed and you will loose things very dear to your heart and mind. That is life. There is  time for everything, happiness and heartache. It comes, that is the way of life. I feel that the choices that Gemma made for her life were good choices. I feel that she was true to herself and who she was as a person. I am glad that she chose to allow herself to think and not be conformed to the mold that society tries to force on you. Good job Gemma. 

Do I recommend this book? Yes, I do. Even though it could have been better I still think it is a good story. I think that if you are to read any of these books that you should read them all. It is a continuing story after. 

Happy reading

~Christine

Rebel Angels

Last night, I finished reading the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty of the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray, Rebel Angels!  I was really excited about the story and had even checked out the book on CD to listen to on my drive to Oroville today for my best friend Morgan's going away party, but like I said, I finished it last night, so the CD's and the book will be returned fairly soon.  

This second installment follows the young Miss Gemma Doyle in her Christmas holiday away from school to the bustling town of London where she has many adventures with her friends, deals with family problems and meets the dashing Mr. Simon Middleton.  Even though the pressures and politics of being a lady seem to rule their lives, Gemma and her friends still find time to whisk away into the magical realms that they discovered only months before.  However, things in the realm have changed due to unforeseen circumstances that I would rather not disclose as they conclude the first book of the series.  The girls, now equipped with the mission of figuring out how to save the realms, roam the streets of London by giving their chaperone's the slip in search of answers.  Though the journey is marked by mysteries, surprises and shocking events, the girls make their way through each learning something more about themselves but also retreating to their easy pasts and ultimately doing what they know in their hearts is the right thing to do.   Gemma, Ann, Felicity and Pippa's friendships all become stronger, even though they all have their secrets, hopes and fears that they keep from one another and can sometimes be cruel towards each other.  But deep down, I believe that they all know they need each other, even if that is the last thing they want to admit.  As Gemma says at the end of the book, "And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path, that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it."

I started the final book A Sweet Far Thing, today and I look forward to what happens next and to see where all the girls end up as the school year is coming to an end and their lives are to begin.  Will they do what is expected of them?  Or will they dare to be all that they can be in a world that dictates their lives?  As Gemma points out as a glimpse of hope, "Beyond that, Buckingham Palace stands, governed by a woman."

Happy reading everyone!  And as always, please feel free to comment on your thoughts of the books or join us in reading them as well!

~Sarah

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Last night I finished reading the first installment of the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty while waiting in line for the midnight showing of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince premier.  I was even photographed reading it by a local newspaper!  I was sad when it was over, mostly because of the story but also because I knew I still had 3 hours until midnight and because the sequel was waiting at home on my shelf.

The story surrounds young Gemma Doyle, an English girl raised by her British family in India during the late 1800's who longs to return to England and soon gets her wish after her mother's mysterious death and the devastation of her father.  Along with the mystery of her mother's death, there is the added mystery of the strange visions that seem to over power her.  Sent off to boarding school, Spence's Academy for Young Girls, she makes friends who at times can be more like adversaries than friends and realizes the struggles of fitting in while also finding that even the most popular girls have their secrets and fears to hide as well.  In one of her visions, she is lead to a cave where she finds the secret diary of mysterious Mary Dowd, a girl who she discovers experienced the same type of visions she does and also attended her school.  With the diary in hand, she sets out to learn what is happening to her, how to control it,  what this mysterious Order is about and more importantly who she is in a society that dictates how a lady should be.

As Christine said, there are the evident themes of friendship, trust, love, acceptance and power each pertaining to Gemma or one of her friends, Ann, Felicity and Pippa who in the end need to come to terms with their circumstance, even if it is a tragic, terrible beauty.

I'm excited for the next book, Rebel Angels; to find out what Gemma does next and what journeys her and her friends will embark upon.  If you've read or are reading this book, please feel free to comment with your thoughts on the story.  If you have never read it, please do and join our book club's journey with Gemma Doyle.

Happy reading!

~Sarah

The Great and Terrible Beauty

I finished the book The Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray today. I enjoyed the book very much. The plot of the book is that the heroine of the book is Gemma Doyle, has visions of things and she is seeking to find out who she is and why these things happen to her.

This book has a bit of mystery, romance and fantasy all rolled into one. It is funny, tragic and even has a moral at the end. This is a story of family, friendship and love; there is a measure of shame of ones self, learning to trust others with the truth of who you are and belief in hope that you can live up to your dreams or at least not be the mediocre that hunts us everyday. 

 I will end with a bit of a quote from the book about friendship, "That's why it's the most terrifying thing in the world, really- taking someone on faith, hoping they'll take you on faith too. It's such a precarious balance, it's a wonder we do it at all. And yet..."

Christine

PS if you have anything you would like to say about the book or would like to discuss anything just post a comment. 

  

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy

  

The first official series that this book club is recommending is the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray.  This series as well as other series we have read in the past couple of months was recommended to me by a friend at my old job, Breezy.  If one good thing came out of that job, it was the 4 series that she introduced to us including, The Luxe by Anna Godbersen, The Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz and Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr.  As we both like those three series, when Christine asked me what we should read next, I told her of the last series that Breezy recommended and here we are!  We also thought it would be a great way to kick off our book club! 

The first book is A Great and Terrible Beauty, the second Rebel Angels and the final one, The Sweet Far Thing.  It is the story of young Gemma, an English girl in the late 1880's who just moves to England from India after her mother dies.  What is also interesting about this series is that they are planning on releasing a movie based on the books next year!  So that is very exciting!

Stay tuned for our reviews as we will be posting them accordingly!  Please feel free to read the series along with us and share your comments and thoughts or to let us know what you thought of the series if you have already read them!  But no spoilers please!  Thanks so much and happy reading!

~Sarah

Welcome!!!

The Reading is my Hobby book club was founded by two sisters who love to read but also love to read the same books and discuss them.  Since Christine lives in Hawaii and Sarah lives in California, club meetings were bound to be difficult, so the idea of an online club was born.  During a recent visit, the girls decided to solidify the club by coming up with a name and figuring out how the club would work as they hoped others would join as well.  One night over dinner, the discussion turned to hobbies and how people use them to occupy their free time.  Trying to figure out what constituted a hobby, they decided that it was a pastime that one would get something out of.  Both the sisters felt like they didn’t have a hobby, as they like to spend their free time reading.  Sarah’s husband was adamant that reading wasn’t a hobby, but the sisters referred back to the definition that they had just discussed, something to pass time with but also obtain some sort of satisfaction in the end result.  The girls stated that 1) they spend time reading and 2) they obtain a story to savor in their memory and to enrich their minds.  They decided right then that reading was a hobby, but more importantly, their hobby!

Further more, according to dictionary.com, a hobby is an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.  Also, Complete Lists, by Wikipedia lists reading books in ninth place on the List of Popular Hobbies.

This blog is the online meeting place for the Reading is my Hobby book club.  It is operated by both of us sisters.  We will be adding reading shelves for both of us as well as listing links to book reviews we have posted on other blogs.  The posts will be on books the club has chosen to highlight, read and discuss.

This book club is open to any reader who feels the same way we do about reading but most importantly, all readers are welcome to join!  If you want to join, please comment with your name and blog site so we can add you to our list of members and please feel free to comment on any blog postings as to further any book discussions!  Thanks for looking and happy reading!

 ~Christine & Sarah

List of Members

* Christine (founder)

* Sarah (founder)

* Irene