I Am Number Four or We’re Here, We’re Hot, Get Used to It

Thank you to everyone for positive comments on my cute new house. There have been requests for inside photos as well….they will be forthcoming as we actually finish some rooms. For a little while, I was feeling the book ennui…maybe you have felt this as well. It’s that feeling I get when I keep trying new books and nothing seems all that interesting or new to me and I keep not finishing books(which drives me crazy actually). I call this Book Ennui (mostly because I love using ennui in everyday conversation or blog posts 😉  Then two things happened: 1) I read Gone Girl (and if you still haven’t read it then I suggest you finish this blog post quickly and rush out and get it because it is awesome and amazing but I digress) and 2) my parents bought me a Kindle Fire for my birthday (thanks Mom and Dad!). Both of these things have inspired a new love of reading everything which led me to reading some things I had on my to-read list but just never got around to. Obviously, I am insanely late on the whole Lorien Legacies (the series name for I Am Number Four) deal since there was a movie a couple of years ago and all that going on. It seemed like it would be right up my alley thought with the sci-fi and the YA and so on. And it was…….sort of.

Title : I Am Number Four

Author : Pittacus Lore

Red Flags : Violence

So, we open this book with John Smith, a fifteen year old alien from the planet Lorien and he lives with his guardian, Henri. Not just a guardian in the Earth sense of the word  but what they call a Cepan on his planet, somebody to protect and train him in his special powers called “Legacies.” John is one of originally nine aliens sent to Earth to escape the evil Mogadorians who raided and brought down his whole planet. These nine Loriens are supposed to get all their powers and then go back and kick some Mogadorian booty. In order to protect them, they have been magically gifted with a special charm that only allows them to be killed in numerical order if the nine are not physically around each other. Each time one of them gets killed, they get a crazy tattoo around their ankle that burns into their skin. Now John has three tattoos (a.k.a. 1, 2 and 3 are dead) and John is NUMBER FOUR. (Did  you get the title now? Clever Huh? )

So John and Henri are on the run and they move to a little town called Paradise. He goes to school and meets a pretty girl on the first day. She has an obnoxious ex-boyfriend who hates him and he also makes friends with the nerd from the school. Not suprisingly, John and pretty girl get along REALLY well and now he wants to stay in town. Henri, however, is worried that they are going to get killed. Also, John’s legacies have started kicking in finally and he can do some pretty awesome superhero type things. Can he keep it quiet and stay with pretty girl? Or will the Mogadorians finally track him down and kill him?

So I liked the premise of this book and I got all excited when I first started reading it. But here is where I started to get annoyed. Could this be any more predictable? Boy goes to new high school and on the first day he meets a girl, and you get into a fight with the ex-boyfriend who is a jerk. Also, he is one insanely mature fifteen-year old boy. I understand that he is an alien and maybe this accounts for the behavior but seriously, a fifteen-year old boy who falls in love, handles fights with maturity and makes appropriate decisions. I just didn’t buy it. I kept looking back to the beginning to make sure I hadn’t missed a couple years of growth or something. I liked the parts of the book that were about the homeworld and the relationship between John and Henri was nice (maybe a little too understanding a father figure but whatever). My biggest issue with this book was the predicability. It just felt a little cliche.

Rating : Five shoes – I liked the initial premise and the sci-fi bits but it lost me on some of the plot points. A comfy flip flop, not great but good. In other words – Meh.

The Aviary or Polly Wanna Solve a Murder…

So I’ve obviously been gone for a LONG time. Rather than do the whole long apology/rationalization of why I haven’t written a post in nigh on eight months (HOLY CRAP has it really been eight months???) I’ll just post this :

Isn’t it awesome??? This is our new home! I would never recommend going through the whole selling and buying process because frankly it sucks but I’m so excited to finally be in our new home. So I blame this for my extended abscence.

and Pinterest. (It’s become an obsession.)

On to more important things…namely one book review :

Title :  The Aviary

Author : Kathleen O’Dell

Red Flags : Almost none, some violence

Clara Dooley is a obedient, intelligent, responsible and kind twelve year old girl. She has spent her entire life at Glendoveer Mansion with old Mrs. Glendoveer, the kind, elderly but poor owner of the house. Her mother is the housekeeper and spends most of her time trying to find the money to keep up the house. Due to a heart condition, Clara is not allowed to go to school, to go outside or to have friends. Although lonely at times, Clara is happy and only slightly creeped out by the scary birds in the aviary. One day, when she passes the aviary one of the birds clearly says “Eliott!” to her. She decides to ask Mrs. Glendoveer about the name and learns that she once had six children and the youngest was named Elliott. When Mrs. Glendoveer abruptly dies, Clara begins to learn even more about the tragic happenings at Glendoveer Mansion including the children’s kidnapping and subsequent drownings, the horrible accusations against the Glendoveers and the mystery of the birds in the aviary. Will she solve the long-dead mystery of the children’s kidnapping and murder? What will it reveal about her own strange background?

The Aviary was a strange mix. It really got me hooked in with the whole dark mysterious cover first of all, moving on to dark mysterious house with dark mysterious happenings. Clara is sweet and kind, seemingly intensely naive – a complete innocent. The actual aviary and the birds within definitely give off that Gothic vibe that seems to permeate the book. The characters were enjoyable especially because they were mostly smart girls and women. Clara’s journey throughout the book is fun to follow since it is only when she becomes more bold and brave that her life takes a turn for the better. However, the book takes a sharp turn about three quarters of the way through when it throws in some fantastical elements. I’m not sure if every reader would enjoy that in the middle of their murder mystery. While many parts stretched the limits of imagination I still enjoyed my reading of the book. If you are looking for a fun read, I definitely recommend it. Delightful!

Rating : Six and a half shoes bordering on seven…. a cute flat that occasionally pinches my feet but goes with everything.