Adrienne's review of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

After Jeff and I saw the play I really wanted to read the original book. It was a pretty easy read and one that I quickly got into. (Sometimes a concern for me with the "classics".) The book starts off at about halfway through the movie, with Marguerite and Percy already married and estranged from each other and you find out why as you read the book. It has a different story line and ending than the movie and the play. It is just the first in a series of books that Baroness Orczy wrote about The Scarlet Pimpernel and think that they might have mixed parts of different books together for the play and movie. I would give it 3.5 stars.

Adrienne's review of "Love Comes Softly"

This is actually an eight book series written by Janette Oke that I stumbled upon at my library in the DVD section. Michael Landon, Jr. has directed a movie series based on the books and I started checking them out for something to watch while I worked on sewing and ended up checking out the books.

The first book is about 19 year old Marty Claridge, who just after arriving in the west with her husband Clem is left alone when he is killed in an accident. Marty has no money to get back home and doesn't know anyone. After her husband's funeral she is approached by Clark Davis. He's a young widower with a small daughter. He proposes a marriage of convenience. She would be a mother to his little Missy and he would give her a place to live. If she wanted to still go back home in the Spring he would pay her way if she would take Missy with her. Seeing no other way to survive she accepts his offer.

These books have a very similar feel to Little House on The Prairie (the show, I haven't read the books). It's set on the frontier and while it's about Marty and Clark, the story is also about those in their community.

I've only read the first two books in the series, Love Comes Softly and Loves Enduring Promise, but I really enjoyed both of them. I actually enjoyed the second book a little bit more than the first.

(Just an FYI, Janette Oke is a Christian author so there is a strong Christian influence to the books, which I really enjoyed.)

Adrienne's review of "Freckles"

This was a book recommended to me by Mom's friend Lee when we were driving to the put-in for Cat. It is written by Gene Stratton-Porter in 1904. Apparently Stratton-Porter was a pretty big author around the turn of the century and has written quite a list of books. She grew up in Indiana next to some woods called the Limberlost (which have long since disappeared) and became a lover of nature and was a pretty influential environmentalist for her day. Many of her books are about nature and most of the fiction books have a very strong nature theme in them as well.

Freckles is about a one-armed orphan who becomes the limber guard for the Limberlost. He is a wonderful character, full of courage and integrity. Because of the kind of person he is, those around him are drawn to him and grow to love him. While guarding the Limberlost he falls in love with a beautiful girl he calls the Swamp Angel.

This book took me a long time to get into, mostly due to the language and writing style that I'm sure was common for the time it was written. The ending didn't seem to really fit with the rest of the book. I found out later it was not the original ending, but her publisher made her change it to appeal more to the audience.

I give it 3 stars. I loved the story, but the style and language are a little difficult for me to get into. Enough so that I can't decide whether or not to start one of the other 2 books of her's that I have sitting on my desk waiting for me to read.

Adrienne's review of "Confessions of a Shopoholic"

We read this book for my book club last month, and I thought it was a fun and quick read. There is some language and sex, but I don't remember it being very bad. (The other ladies at book club seemed to remember more than I did.) The thing that I had the hardest time with in this book was the out of control shopping. It was making me a little stressed out at first.

Still, I thought it was a cute story and although Becky Bloomwood (the main character) is selfish and lies all the time, she's kind of endearing in a way and the situations that her lying puts her in are very humorous. The story line is completely different from the movie, so don't let that stop you from reading the book.

I give it 3 stars. - written by Sophie Kinsella

Adrienne's review of "I am a Mother" by Jane Clayson Johnson

I've had this book on my to read list for a while and was thinking it was time I checked it off that list. I've also been trying really hard to be a more patient mother and to enjoy motherhood more. I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick, easy read. I didn't necessarily feel like I gained any great insights, but it touched my heart and helped inspire me to be a better mother and also helped me put into better prospective how important being a mother is. I would definitely recommend it and would give it 4 stars.

Adrienne's review of "Eat, Pray, Love"

This book is written by Elizabeth Gilbert and is her memoir of the year she spent living in Italy, India, and Indonesia. She goes on this journey as a kind of search for healing after a messy divorce followed by a period of deep depression. She spent four months in each country and splits the books up into the three parts, one for each of the countries she visited. She goes to Italy first to study the art of pleasure through food and the Italian language. Then she goes to India to spend four months in her Guru's Ashram to study the art of devotion. Lastly, she goes to Indonesia to find out how to balance pleasure and devotion in her life with the help of a local medicine man.

While I enjoyed reading this book I did not feel that it was life changing in any way, which I think is supposed to be the point of the book. I had a hard time with how hard it seemed for Gilbert to let go of things and be happy with her life and herself. I personally don't feel like life should be this much work. I also didn't agree with a lot of her opinions on religion and God, but that is not really that surprising. I would recommend it if you are just going into it for a fun read, but don't expect it to have much substance to it. I would give this book 3 stars.

Adrienne's review of "The Only Alien on the Planet"

This is a young adult book written by Kristin D. Randle. It's about a girl, Ginny, whose parents decide to move their family across the country right before her senior year of high school. Ginny is less than thrilled about this move, especially since she is already having a hard time with her older brother being gone away to college. In her new town she ends up becoming friends with a boy called Smitty, who doesn't speak. No one is really sure what is wrong with Smitty, since he was a normal little boy until he almost drowned when he was two. He doesn't talk or look at anyone, but is brilliant in school. The other kids at school refer to him as The Alien. Ginny decided to become friends with Smitty, along with her good friend Caulder, but having friends might be more than Smitty can handle.

This book was an easy read and was pretty enjoyable. I loved the people in Ginny's life. She has great friends and a close, loving family which I really enjoyed given the way teen life is portrayed in the media these days. I would give it 3.5 stars.

Adrienne's review of "Magic Hour"

We read the book "Magic Hour" by Kristin Hannah a couple of months ago for my book club and I loved it. It's the story of Dr. Julia Cates who has been forced out of her practice working with troubled children in California after one of her patients goes on a killing spree and then kills herself. Shortly after this happens, an abandoned, mute girl is found in her small hometown in Washington State by her sister, who is the town sheriff. Julia goes back to her hometown to work with this young girl and to try and help her sister figure out who she is and where she came from.

One of the things I loved about this book was the subject matter. The young girl has been living in the woods for several years and is what is referred to as a feral child. It isn't a subject that you really come across very often and it was very interesting to learn about these children and how living in the wild without other humans affects them. I give it 4.5 stars.

Adrienne's review of "Me and Mr. Darcy"

I had heard about this book from several people and it sounded like a cute, easy read. The story is about a girl who has decided she's through dating because all the guys she goes out with are jerks. She wishes she could find someone like Mr. Darcy from "Pride and Prejudice". She ends up going on a Jane Austin tour for a vacation with a group of older ladies and one guy who is going on the tour to write a story. While she is on her vacation she ends up meeting the real Mr. Darcy through some weird twist of fate, and he falls in love with her but she finds out in the end that Mr. Darcy isn't really as perfect as most women think. The story follows the same basic storyline as "Pride and Prejudice".

I have to say that I found this book very predictable given that it had the same plot line as "Pride and Prejudice". I also felt that having Mr. Darcy fall in love with the main character was very unbelievable. She is a modern day girl, who dresses in clothes that were considered very immodest in the time of Mr. Darcy and she swears several times when they're together. It made me wonder if the author had even read "Pride and Prejudice" because Mr. Darcy would never have even been attracted to someone like that, especially since he felt like proper Elizabeth Bennett was not high bred enough for him . The rest of the story, although predictable, was a cute little love story and I enjoyed it okay. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend this book and would give it only 2 stars.

The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff

This story is about a young woman, Emma, who married just three weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland during WWII. Her husband, Jacob is involved with the resistance to the Nazi's and ends up disappearing in the middle of the night. She goes back to her parent's and ends up in the Jewish ghetto but then is smuggled out in the middle of the night by the resistance. She is taken to live with Jacob's catholic aunt and takes on a new identity as a gentile. Her situation becomes even more dangerous when she catches the eyes of Kommandant Richwalder, who is a high ranking Nazi official. He offer's her a job working for him and Emma is urged by the resistance to accept the job so that she can use her position to find information to help the resistance. Emma ends up having to compromise her safety and her marriage vows in order to help those that oppose the Nazi's.
While I enjoyed this book the story line didn't always feel believable to me. I think I wanted it to have a deeper message to it than it did. Because of this I would only give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Adrienne's Review of "Plain Truth"

After reading the "Heritage of Lancaster" series I was really interested in reading a book that would give me a better glimpse into the Amish world. I wanted a book that would really make me get interested in the characters, which I didn't really feel like I got with Beverly Lewis' books. I have read a couple of books by Jodi Picoult before and have always really gotten into her books so when I saw she had written a book set in an Amish community I thought that would be a good place to look.

I really enjoyed this book and got very caught up in the characters and the story. I really like the way Picoult writes, even though you do have to watch out for some language. The language in this book wasn't as bad as some of her other books I've read, probably due to the fact of where the setting of the book was. (At least I think it wasn't. It's been a few weeks since I read it. I'm a little behind on book reviews!) :)

The book begins with a young Amish teen giving birth alone to a baby who is later found dead. She had hid her pregnancy and keeps denying that she ever was pregnant, even though all the evidence says otherwise. The lawyer that ends up defending her finds herself immersed in the Amish world and trying to find out what really happened.

I do have to say that I didn't love the way that the book ended, which seems to be common when I read a book by Picoult. I would give this book 4 stars.

Adrienne's Review of "The Heritage of Lancaster County" Serries

This is a series of three books written by Beverly Lewis. (The Shunning, The Confession, and The Reckoning) The main character in the book, Katie, is an Amish girl who finds out that she was adopted. Her birth mom is looking for her and this leads her to become torn between her Amish world and her desire to live in a modern world and get to know her birth mother.

I thought that these books were okay, but they were very predictable and I didn't really like the way that adoption was portrayed in these books. I guess I'm a little prejudice about the language, terminology, and viewpoints that are expressed when it comes to adoption. The one thing I really enjoyed was getting a glimpse into the Amish culture. I'm always very fascinated by religious groups that also have a very strong cultural element to them.

I enjoyed the first book enough to read the rest of the series, but I don't know that I'd really recommend it. I would give it 2.5 or 3 stars.

(I've decided to give my books a rating based on 5 stars because I think it helps to classify what books we really like. What do you guys think? I don't think we need to list them on the side bar, just when we write a review.)

Adrienne's review of "The Nanny Diaries"

To be honest, I wasn't planning on doing a review of this book because I wasn't sure if I wanted to admit to reading it. This is one of those books that I really enjoyed and hated all at the same time. I have to admit that I couldn't put it down and read it in under two days, which is pretty quick when you're a SAHM and can't read all day long ANY day. (This is one thing that I miss about having my time be my own - being able to curl up with a good book all day long.) On the other hand it was a little depressing and the f-word appeared more than I would like, which is not at all if I had my way. I just hate that word!

The book is about a nanny, who incidentally is named Nanny, who gets hired to work for the X's. Mrs. X is a very passive aggressive, self-centered, manipulative, etc. New York socialite who basically can't handle being alone with her four year old son, Grayer, for even an hour. (Think Emily Gilmore without any of her redeeming qualities, if you can imagine that. Sorry for the reference to those who don't know Gilmore Girls.) Nanny stays on as the nanny even though she is treated awfully by Mrs. X because she loves little Grayer and knows that she is really the only person in his life who really cares about him. Mr. X is basically absent from the family, and when he is there you wish he was absent again. It just broke my heart to imagine a little boy growing up with parents that only see him as another possession and are too selfish to give him any genuine love and attention.

Even though it was written really well and I couldn't put it down I would probably not recommend this book to anyone because it just really wasn't uplifting and because of the language issue. (Written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus)

Adrienne's review of "The Enchanted Forest Chronicles"

I just finished this young adult series for my book club. There are four books in the series, "Dealing with Dragons", "Searching for Dragons", "Calling on Dragons" and "Talking to Dragons". I wouldn't say that these were my favorite young adult books I've read, but I thought they were really cute and easy to read. One thing I liked about them was that the main character, Cimorene, is a princess who is very un-princesslike. I love any book that teaches kids to not just go with the crowd. I'm all about nonconformity. Cimorene decides that being a princess is boring since it involves needlework and being prim and proper. She wants to fence and learn latin and basically do all kinds of things that aren't "proper" for a princess to do. To break away from this life she decides to go live with a dragon, which is considered respectable for a princess and will allow her to not get married to someone she doesn't like and give her the freedom to study and learn things that aren't considered proper for a princess to know. This puts her right in the middle of all kinds of trouble. The author, Patricia C. Wrede, creates a world that is very unique while pulling in a lot of traditional fantasy and fairy tale elements. The last book was my favorite in the series. It's actually about Cimorene's son and I felt like it had a little more depth and story line to it. These books are definitely a fun, easy read or something good to read with your kids since they're pretty light and don't really have a lot of romance or tragedy in them.