2012 nook Books

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I can not afford my reading habit.  I make frequent visits to my local library for books, cds and dvds.  That's not to say that I don't purchase plenty of all of those, because I do.  Seriously, a lot of them.  I have bookshelves filled with books in almost every room in my house. I think I'd like to collect pretty bookends, but all of my shelves are so packed with books that there is no room for a bookend.

I have three nooks.  The first one I pre-ordered when the original nook was first announced.  I got my second, the nook tablet when it came out, for Christmas 2011 and I don't like to be separated from it for long. I use that thing every single day for so much. I check email, read books, play games, surf the internet, watch movies, etc.   This year for Christmas I got the nook HD+.  Ebooks, which started at under $10 can go for quite a bit more than that. I still buy print books and read them. At any given time I am reading 4 or more books.  One on each of the two nooks I have on hand. I've permanently lent my sister-in-law the original.  Then I have one regular, old-school print book and one that comes to me via e-mail from Daily Lit. 

Currently, I have close to 1000 books in my nook account.  Of course, I'm partial to bargains when I can find them.  I get emails from BookBub, highlighting deals for nook books, as well as emails from Barnes and Noble with the nook book selection of the day and I live for the Free Friday selections, as well all the other bargains they frequently offer.  However, there is a reason for the saying, "you get what you pay for". And, with this, I bring you the books I read because I found them on the B&N nook book section.

This was free... and I totally got what I paid for. Linda wakes up dead and can't move on until she finds her body and what happened to it, so she goes out to haunt the information out of her boyfriend, gay neighbors and a private investigator.   This book was just plain not good. Thank goodness it was a freebie!







Then there was Life, Love and a Polar Bear Tattoo.  Yeesh, so much nothing that went on and on and on, seemingly forever. This book made Dead(ish) look good in comparison. At least it was bad and short.








This book actually got some buzz and people were reading it, so when it was offered at a reduced price, I snapped it up.  And, while this was a much better book than the two above, and certainly worth what I paid for it, it wasn't really for me.  Ellie is living in China, after serving in Iraq as a medic and seeing some pretty bad things.  She  was wounded and sent home to her mother in Texas, and then married a guy responsible for the bad things, who followed her there.

Then Ellie followed him to China, where they separated and she was forced to survive on her own in a foreign land.  Her life is China detours into the surreal when her artist lover disappears, her estranged husband is putting very nasty men on her trail and she falls into a very weird race for her life.  The pace was fast, which tends to make a book popular, because it is easier to gloss over the plot holes.  In the case of Rock Paper Tiger, I mostly didn't care.  I didn't particularly like Ellie and I couldn't get invested in her story.  I wouldn't say don't waste your time, but I'm not giving it my seal of approval, either.

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick and Hush, Hush, the book that came before it in the series were deeply discounted.  I think they were a dollar or two each.  They did have a lot of stars, too.  The books are about Nora and Patch, the guardian angel she is drawn to.   These are books with lots of manufactured melodrama and so difficult to believe.  Most of the time, if the characters are likable, I can suspend belief and just go along for the ride.  Nora is okay, but not a very compelling character.  Patch!??!! What the hell kind of name is Patch for a romantic lead.  What kind of girl falls for a guy named Patch?  Unless you are a freshman at clown college, the idea is absolutely laughable.

I'm someone who finishes a series, often against my better judgment and without much enjoyment. It is a rare occasion when I absolutely refuse to continue.  After reading Hush, Hush and Crescendo, I couldn't bring myself to go on with this series.  There are plenty of great supernatural YA series out there.  If you feel like you need to check this one out, then save it for last.


This is also the first in a series and a bargain book  from B&N.  It was much better than I expected.  I don't know whether I have any interest in the rest of the  series and I'm pretty sure I will steer clear of the musical theater version.


So, that's about all that I have to say about the books I only read because they were free or really really cheap for my nook.  Next up, my thoughts on the Daily Lit selections  read in 2012.   Until then, Happy Reading!