J by Howard Jacobson

Great Idea, but can be hard to follow. The overall story follows two people who meet, maybe not by accident in a world that forgets the past of something that maybe happened, that people only half remember. The letter J is also very little used, while not illegal it is rarely used. The story is great in its scale, but it may get lost in its own story sometimes. While this makes it hard to read at times, the story is fantastic.

The characters are well thought out, the plot has surprises, which can make it easy to follow. You come to love the characters and engaged to their outcome. I would recommend this book to everyone, and suggest they go pick it up.

4 out of 5.

More about the author.
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/14271/howard-jacobson/

I did receive this book from Blogging for Books in return for this review, it did not have any affect on my review.

The Marauders by Tom Cooper

After the BP oil spill life in a small town shrimping town drastically change. We follow the lives of different people affected. Each character is unique and engaging in their own way. The story is very well written, and this novel is one in which it is hard to put down. Once I began to read I just wanted to keep reading. I would strongly recommend this novel to anyone who loves fiction novels, or anyone who is capable of reading.

I received this book from Blogging for Book in exchange for a review.

Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

If you loved Shovel Ready, you will love this novel. Spademen is back one year later and things are just as dicey and riveting as before. A caring hit-man, who finds out the truth, come it this is awesome. To put it simply, I loved this novel just as much as the first and could not put it down. If you loved Shovel Ready, read this, if you haven't, read Shovel Ready now and then get to this book as soon as possible.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/225885/near-enemy-by-adam-sternbergh

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/170649/adam-sternbergh?sort=best_13wk_3month

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett

We are taken to a breathtakingly original world in which the "family" rules and the world is dark, sometimes dark dark or even dark dark dark. The only light comes from the local fauna which inhabits the Circle Valley, in which the children are batfaced and clawfooted due to inbreeding, as they are all descendants of Tommy and Angela, the two who decided to stay behind on Eden. But everything is not going well for John Redlatern. After 163 years and now over 500 people the food is running out, space is limited and John decides to press out into the Dark. 

The originality of the world is what first drew me into the fantastic novel which won the Arthur C. Clark Award and has been praised by many. The novel was a little slow to start as we grow accustomed to the world of Eden and our main characters. John Redlatern is brave, his cousin Gerry will follow him off a cliff, Jeff who is Gerry little clawfooted brother and Tina who is smitten for John. But once this was out of the way the story begins to pick up as we relate to John and the questions that he raises about the world in which he grew up and the customs that go along with it.

I like to think of John as a anti-hero, since he has his flaws and he fully admits them, but he still pushes on with his goal because he knows that it is the right thing to do. On top of that there are times when you almost hate John for the way he thinks and acts, but it is all to achieve something greater. John is an everyman who wants to change the world.

I would recommend this novel over and over again. Some people may object to it saying it is dirty and obscene, but through some of these scenes we better understand the culture and the hardships of our characters lives. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story by Chris Beckett and couldn't put it down once I got into it.

Overall: 4/5

Book Press Release

http://crownpublishing.com/news/arthur-c-clarke-award-winning-author-chris-becketts-brilliant-us-debut-dark-eden/#.U2ghVoFdV8E

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review

The Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price

I absolutely loved this, while it was an easy read, it still captivated me and I couldn't put down the book, especially the last third. I have to agree with the way the author described himself as being more Joss Whedon than Ray Bradbury. It is an easily accessible sci-fi novel. The size may be intimidating to some, but the easy of reading easily makes up for this. Basically the entire novel takes place in a parallel universe, which split from our own during an event which forever made the two almost unrecognizable from the other. They use something called tempis, more or less a force which they can control, for just about everything, from running faster to creating barriers to flying cars. The group with we follow were all in the same general area when they passed to the other universe and form a group and develop their talents, in order to eventually, hopefully save this universe. Their talents range from running faster, turning their body into tempis, passing notes through time, aging or de-aging objects and things, projecting things from the past, or lastly being able to follow strings and see the future. All of these are very well depicted in the novel and I won't explain them here.

I would suggest this to anyone who is not well versed in science fiction or are new to the genre as a whole. This is also going to become a series of novels, with the second one being written currently, something I can't wait for.

Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

This is Adam Sternbergh and it is a fantastic one. I picked this one up because it was in Barnes and Nobles authors you should check out section and boy were they write. We follow our main character of Spademan, a hit man, or how he describes himself, a garbageman. I don't know if it is right to call it a dystopian future novel, but at the same time I feel that it is fitting. Since most of the world is still the same-ish, but New York is now a wasteland. Spademan is given a job to find a girl, the daughter of a famous "evangelical" and "throw her away", he finds her and sees that she is not one to mess with, she has a little bit of mean streak, and when he finally catches up to her, he finds she has a few secrets to hide. Spademan must then navigate throw the real world and the fantasy world which most now escape all hours of the day and ensure he doesn't end up the one dead.

The grit all throughout is truly stunning. This is a short read, but one that is worth it. It is also regarded as good enough that supposedly they are creating a movie based on it with Denzel Washington attached to it.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

I honestly don't made me want to read this novel. The title alone would normally turn me away, but again very intriguing. This novel is the work of Gary Shteyngart, who has done various novels but they all typically satirical, but I would also classify this as a near-dystopian future as well. To give a little back ground, basically the USA has gone to shit, we owe way too much money and all of the companies have merged and basically all the girls are sluts, by today's standards (I don't like using the word slut but I can't think of a better word to describe the situation). The girls basically have all of their sexual escapades posted online and are more or less proud of them. Lenny, our main character, has been in Europe for a while and is now forced to come back to the States to work at for his friends company aimed at creating eternal life, something Lenny desperately wants, he is afraid of death, but then he meets Eunice, who turns everything in Lenny's life on its head. He no longer strives for eternal life or thinks about it as often. I won't go any further to avoid spoiling anything, but in the end it isn't necessarily happy or sad.

I can't stress how important I think Gary Shteyngart's novel is. It deals with people who are constantly glued to their electronic devices and many don't know how to get away from it. On top of that, everyone is constantly being rated on their looks (or fuckability in the novel) and personality and it is something you can't escape. Everywhere people walk their credit scores are shown and then typically encouraged to spend their money. Our main character is thought of an outsider since he owns a few "doorstops" or in our terms books, and Eunice states that she doesn't know how to read, but only scan to look for information see will need (this is something I think is incredibly true in our current world). Then on top of it all we almost have a "Big Brother" type government which invades peoples lives to encourage them to spend and stamps out dissidents with violence.

I think this book is a must read for everyone of my generation, I'm 23, and a interesting read for everyone else. It takes a look at our world and moves about 15 years into the future. The only people who shouldn't read this are people who have problems with some explicit sex scenes in novels. They are very detailed and while not degrading, they do clearly explain the interactions our characters are having.