AtomicKnits

Dragon Avenger

As promised, I did keep reading this series!  I just finished Dragon Avenger by E. E. Knight, the second installment in the Age of Fire series.  I liked this book MUCH better than the first one.  There were way more story elements, and that kept things moving a *little* more quickly.  So, it's looking like each book is told in parallel to the first one, instead of what happens after.  At first, I was like "what? eff this!" but, I think it will be ok.  Each book tells the individual story of each dragon in the clutch and how they go about their lives after the initial attack on their family.  But, there are only three of these dragons, and there are four books out right now and a fifth is slated to be released in December (for the love of god), so I'm assuming that we learn what happens when all of these dragons are grown up.  I will read all of the books, but I only want to know what happens.  The author doesn't write in such a way that I can get attached or really care about any of them. My favorite character in the series BY FAR is Stog the mule.  He's the best!  I found myself only caring about what happened to Stog.  I hope there are more characters like him in the next books.  I guess I would recommend these books to probably kids who like to read about dragons and battles.  I am taking a break from these series for a little bit, I will come back to it before too long!

Dragon Champion

Beth and I are doing a trade.  She is reading all of the Twilight books, and I am reading E. E. Knight's Age of Fire series, starting with Dragon Champion.  I guess I liked this book. It was OK. It was interesting to read a story from the perspective of a dragon set in a world not centered on the existence of humans.  I will give the author that - the world he created with all of the races and their relationship to one another is really cool.  However, I found that this book read kind of slow, and I thought that the descriptive parts and character development were kind of weak in general.  For a while I thought this book was just going to be about AuRon, the main character dragon dude, being shot at by arrows of various sizes and points.  Arrows and eating children.  It did get better toward the end, where you learn more about the history of the dragons and the more complicated relationships between the different races.  I did start the second book, and it is holding my interest a little better, so I'm going to push forward.

77. Go on a weekend trip with just Santina. - Complete!

This weekend, Santina and I went to Lewes, Delaware to spend a fun weekend at the beach!  It POURED on Friday and Sunday, but we had an awesome sunny day on Saturday.

We spent most of the day at the beach swimming and laying in the sun at Cape Henlopen State Park.  We got there pretty early in the morning, so it wasn't crowded for a good amount of our time there. We even saw some dolphins swimming about.

By the afternoon, it was getting pretty crowded, so we packed it in and went back to our awesome bed and breakfast!

We stayed at the Savannah Inn for both nights and it was awesome!  Our room was so nice, especially the shower, and the living room and common areas are all gorgeous as well.

We did get to go to a yarn store while we were in Lewes.  We went to Ginger Moon Yarn.  This store was pretty boutique-ey and had a lot of high end yarns.  We both splurged and bought this crazy yarn that changed fibers along the way and huge needles, so we could knit our scarves that night.  I will post more about this knitting project tomorrow.

The next day we went to Rehobeth Beach, and we took some pictures of our awesome scarves during a break in the EPIC DOWNPOUR.  I had such a good time this weekend!  The Delaware beaches are so nice and it was nice to spend that time with Santina.  I'm glad we got to do this.  I wish we could have stayed for longer!  You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Lady of Avalon

After reading two super depressing books, I was really eager to read Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.  This is the book that ties together the stories in The Forest House and Mists of Avalon.  I really liked it a lot.  This story is broken up into three parts, each telling of the lives of three different High Priestesses of Avalon.  I think my favorites were the first and third parts.  The first part begins right after The Forest House ends, and the third part is all about Viviane - the Lady in Mists of Avalon - and her upbringing.  The second part was kind of slow for me I think because there were too many battle scenes.  Another thing that was cool about this book was that there was a lot of mystical pagan stuff in it, which helped to explain why certain rituals were performed and some of the history behind them.  I would recommend this book to anyone to has already read any of the Avalon books, or anyone who is way into historical fantasy.  I will definitely be reading the rest of the Avalon books.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

I was never forced to read Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell in high school, so I went this long without reading it.  I usually like novels set in terrible future worlds, so I wanted to give this a try.  I have to say that I'm glad I never had to read it in high school, because I think it would have scared the crap out of me, especially with some teacher saying things like "This is how it could be if YOU children don't fix it!" Scary things happen in this book! I personally don't think the future will ever be like 1984 unless some crazy global event happens that changes people and allows them to have their rights taken away out of fear or some "greater cause."  I don't know what that event would be. I think he did get it right where the future would not be an entire collective society, but really a dictatorship trying to disguise itself as a collective similar to what we've seen happen in certain countries already. I would recommend this book to people who like reading about what the future might be like, and who like suspenseful stories.

Revolutionary Road

During my last trip to the library, I picked up Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.  I have been wanting to see the movie, but since I haven't yet, I decided to read the book first.  It was really good!  It's about a typical suburban American couple in the 50's (?) whose lives spiral out of control for no reason really.  Both Frank and April Wheeler make bad decisions, because they are frightened to pursue what they really want.  All of this builds up and explodes and finally comes to a really sad conclusion.  One of the most interesting things to me was that the character with the most insight into what's really going on is the one who's in the mental institution.  I really liked how this story was written.  It was really easy to read while being really interesting and meaningful. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes reading dramatic stories about American families.

Breaking Dawn

Ok, I just finished Breaking Dawn, the 4th and final installment of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga.  I have a lot to say about this book and the series as a whole, but I don't want to write any spoilers here.  I can say that I was pretty disappointed.  The book is split up into three sections, and after I was finished with the second section I was really pissed off and didn't really want to read the rest.  The story gets SO RIDICULOUS.  I did come back and finish it, but it felt kind of like a chore.  There was hardly any sexual tension in this book, and without that to distract me, I had to focus on how much the characters sucked.  The only character that doesn't such AS MUCH is Jacob, and that is mostly because he is hot and tan and buff.  I don't think they are bad people, but none of them have any real wants or goals for themselves.  They are all about serving others exclusively and that is something I do not like.  All of the romance was gone by the time this book started, and it was replaced by half-assed backstory with a ton of build up and way anti-climactic conclusions.  Also, the writing style actually tried to be something more than just story telling in this book.  It ended up sounding really pretentious and annoying, and it was like 'you are here to tell me this story and NOTHING MORE. just tell the story so I can be done.' I feel like this story had a lot of potential to have a really cool ending, but I was just really disappointed.

(I will still see all of the movies.)

Eclipse

I finally bought the 3rd and 4th installments of Stephenie Meyer's The Twilight Saga.  Eclipse is the 3rd installment, and I read it so fast!  The story is kind of stupid, I will admit, but I can't put it down. It totally plays to the same part of me that wants to watch all three High School Musicals in a row in a rainy day or when I'm sick. It is full of all of the stuff you agonized over between the ages of 13 and 17 when you didn't have to worry about getting a job and making money.  A lot of the reason I love reading this so much is the simple fact that both vampires and werewolves are wicked hot.  I mean HOT!  You got the vampire - all cold and lanky and gothy and serious and pale and stuff.  Then, you have the werewolf - all warm and buff and tan and playful. I have no idea what Bella is complaining about all the time. Just be in the middle of those two and live it up! My head would explode.  I'm starting the 4th installment tonight and I can't wait.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

It took me a while to read The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, but I loved every page!  I vaguely remember when the movie came out, and after reading I Am Charlotte Simmons, I was eager to get my hands on this book.  This is a courtroom drama set in New York in the 80's.  What I liked best about the story was how influential the media was, especially this one reporter from a tabloid-style newspaper.  This story raises a lot of questions having to do with race and wealth especially as well as how invasive the media should be.  The character development in this book is outstanding, and you can really feel what how each character feels about the events that unfold. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves character development and also mystery/courtroom stories.

In other news, I know I haven't been posting as much lately.  I have been really busy and stressed out due to a medical issue (that's been taken care of! :) ), and moving out of my apartment.  I plan to post a lot more after this weekend when my move is complete!

Brisingr

Brisingr, the 3rd book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle was my least favorite in this series so far.  I thought Eragon and Eldest were really fast-paced and fun to read but with also a lot of detail about the characters and setting.  I feel like Brisingr was ALL setup for the 4th and final book.  I also feel like he could have totally done without this installment and just haev written the concluding book and call it a trilogy.  NOTHING HAPPENED in this book.  I mean, yes, we got a lot more character development, which is cool, and a couple important things happened and, of course, a sad goodbye, but all of this stuff could have happened either at the end of the 3rd book or the beginning of the 4th book.  I'm hoping since I did my time reading this book, the 4th book will be really exciting and awesome!