Mrs. B's Book Reviews 2008 Part One

This will be the third year that I've shared with my readers the books I read/listened to the prior year and my (humble) opinion of them. I've learned, though, that this particular series takes forever to write; and, I read/listened to 35 books last year! So, in consideration of getting this done in a more timely manner, I'm no longer going to review the books that I thought stank and almost stank (Ho Hum and Throw It Away). I'll just let you know which ones they were so you can either avoid them or read them and challenge me. The rest I'll assign a rating and provide a brief review.

As a reminder, here is my rating system:

Mrs. B’s Rating System

*****Absolutely Fantastic; one that I looked forward to reading and found every opportunity to do so. Was almost depressed when I finished it; I think most people I know would enjoy it.

****Really Good; but might have had some sort of disappointment to it (flat ending or cliché), or, the topic might not be universally appealing, that kept it from being Absolutely Fantastic.

***Interesting Enough; a good “vacation read” but not something I’d go out of my way to recommend; sometimes a “What was all the fuss about?” book will get this rating.

**Ho Hum; nothing great, nothing bad. Yawn.

*Throw it Away; made me want to scream and throw it across the room, it was that awful; one of those books that you get mad at yourself for wasting your time reading it when there are so many other books out there to read.

Here are the ** and * star books:

**

Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman. I usually like her books but this one did not grab me at all. In fact, I can't even remember what it was about; something about a murdered girl's diary, I think.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis. Lame horse!

*

Roses are Red and Violets are Blue by James Patterson. Two separate books. Two separate journeys into literary hell. What was I thinking?

So, this leaves thirty-one books to review. I will say the majority of them are *** so I'll be able to keep it short and sweet on those!

Mrs. B