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Showing posts from December, 2012

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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Happy Blogaversary to me...

I just accidentally discovered that as of today, I have been blogging for three years! Wow, time flies! When I started my blog, I was filled with so many opinions, thoughts and ideas about books that I couldn't wait to just put them into words. Since then, my whole focus and intention of blogging have changed many times. I've also changed blog styles, post styles and post topics countless times. For the first year since I began blogging, I believe I blogged almost every day. Then it tapered down to a few posts a week, but this year, it has been much less frequent, understandably because of how many changes there have been in my life this year. Some stats, because we all love stats, don't we? (Format borrowed from Kim @ Sophisticated Dorkiness ) 581 posts published 8068 comments written and received 174 reviews posted, of which 147 are about fiction books 201 = Books read 60,621 = Visits since I started tracking with Google Analytics in August 2010 201 = Most v

The Sunday Salon: (Lack of) Plans for 2013

I'm typing up this post late Saturday night because the rest of the family (read husband, his brother and our fathers) are busy drilling holes in the house to set up our home theater system. Since I can be prone to the enlarged-eyeball-sickness and panicky-heartbeat-syndrome when I see things like holes in the wall and hear loud sounds, I am staying in the home office reading books and blog posts. I've been reading quite a bit and trying to write reviews which I plan to post only in the new year. My current read is Brain on Fire , about a woman who had a mystery brain illness and whose experiences are quite similar to what my brother went through couple of years ago (making this read a very personal experience for me). I also went and got my new library card from the county that I now reside in and immediately left with a book - Reamde by Neal Stephenson. My new library has a four-week withdrawal period as opposed to three in my previous library - how awesome is that?

The Sunday Salon: Escapes and Frauds

My last Sunday Salon was posted about three months ago. No wonder I don't remember much about what I used to post. Life's slowly getting into a routine over here - we have family staying with us right now, so it's pretty much a full house - which makes me thankful for all the extra space and rooms we have here. Rue, our dog, is also very thankful for the extra space and most importantly, all the extra doors, which means more ways for her to run out of the house. She has already run out about 6-8 times in two weeks, and if you know anything about Jack Russells, you know how hard it is to catch them once they decide running is more fun than strolling. Thank goodness she's got a white coat, or else we would be looking at every dark mound that we see on the way, trying to figure out which one of those is an excited furry thing having the time of her life. These dogs, ~shaking my head~. This past week, I found out that two of my cards had been defrauded. I was shock

Unwholly (Unwind #2) by Neal Shusterman

The sad truth about humanity, Risa was quick to realize, is that people believe what they're told. Maybe not the first time, but by the hundredth time, the craziest of ideas just becomes a given. Unwholly starts about a year after Unwind . We have our same three protagonists from Unwind , tasking themselves with some crucial responsibilities this time, in their continuing fight against the practice of unwinding (whereby parents opt to donate their child's body parts - alive, so that other people can benefit from them). Connor is in charge of a salvaged aircraft yard where hundreds of teenagers are kept safe from the juvenile authority. Risa, crippled in an accident at the end of  Unwind   takes care of medical matters, while Lev is on probation and is being monitored 24x7 by the authorities. In addition to the three, we have three new interesting characters. Starkey is a stork (his biological mother abandoned him at someone's doorstep who would become his foster

A late Monday Salon: Three weeks of madness and excitement

Hello readers and bloggers! It sure has been a long time since I posted something. Anything. I'd been feeling pretty bad about neglecting my blog but it has been a hectic few weeks over here. The husband and I moved a week ago to our new place, following days of packing, sorting, tossing and more packing. While we managed to unpack most of the boxes, there's still the last few left - they usually turn out to be the boxes whose items I don't know what to do with yet or don't want to deal with yet. So much for a structured packing this time. There's still a ton to do around here, but we've mostly settled down and are trying to enjoy the new feeling of having our own digs. I'd been thinking of slowly easing back into blogging, but if I'm lucky, I may just barge right back in. It sure feels wonderful to be able to catch up on my "other" life after such a long time. Although I haven't made any huge dent in my reading pile, I did manage to