50 Book Challenge

Book #35 was "Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World" by Vicki Myron. I got this book used and for free and I wasn't sure if I would like it because it seemed really sentimental. However, the subject matter was hard to resist, since I like cats -- especially orange boy cats since I have one of my own! -- and libraries. The book IS sentimental but it's not just cutesy stories about a cat but rather a portrait of a Middle America town that's going through tough times, and a library director who is going through her own tough times when someone drops a kitten through the book return chute at the library. The cat, Dewey, goes on to be a big part of the library and the the entire town, eventually garnering fans from all over the world and being included in a documentary made in Japan. There's a photo of Dewey at the start of each chapter, getting into some kind of mischief or sleeping somewhere inappropriate, usually. I enjoyed the book a lot more than I expected to and recommend it to cat lovers, especially.

Book #36 was "Blood Work: An Original Hollows Graphic Novel" by Kim Harrison (author), Pedro Maia, and Gemma Magno (illustrators). My husband and I have been working our way through Harrison's "Hollows" series, usually listening to them while we're on road trips. He recently checked out a couple of the original Hollows graphic novels, and I decided to read this one, since it's a "prequel" that tells the story of how witch Rachel Morgan partners with vampire Ivy Tamwood, as they work as "runners" for Inderland Security. The two women butt heads at first, but soon learn to appreciate each others' strengths and learn to watch each others backs as they take on case involving conspiracy and black magic. I think anyone who tries to draw characters from a popular novel that readers have been imagining for years is going to run into some criticisms, and several characters weren't portrayed as I imagined them, but overall, I really liked the book. I especially liked that you got more of Ivy's back story from Ivy's viewpoint, since the novels are told from Rachel's viewpoint. Recommended to anyone who has enjoyed the Hollows series.

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Book 167: A Modern Witch (Modern Witch #1).
Author: Debora Geary, 2011
Genre: Chick-Lit. Witchcraft.
Other Details: ebook. 420 pages.

Can you live 28 years without discovering you’re a witch? Lauren is downtown Chicago’s youngest elite realtor. She’s also a witch. She must be - the fetching spell for Witches’ Chat isn’t supposed to make mistakes. So says the woman who coded the spell, at least. The tall, dark, and handsome guy sent to assess her is a witch too (and no, that doesn’t end the way you might think). What he finds in Lauren will change lives, mess with a perfectly good career, and require lots of ice cream therapy. - synopsis from author's website.

I quite enjoyed the initial part of this novel finding it charming but soon this changed as the narrative became increasingly cloyingly and rather twee. Much more a light-weight slice of chick-lit than a work of fantasy. The characters spend a lot of time cooking and eating and being very New Age. I'm also not a fan of precocious overly cute children in novels and here thee was one four-year-old witchling who was so powerful at that age that he could teleport himself and furniture across the country. Just too too much.

Then when one witch began to talk about the Salem witch hunts and people being burned at the stake I was ready to throw the book at the wall - except it was on my Kindle so didn't. For the record there were no witches burned at the stake in Salem. Really if the author had any knowledge of witchcraft history she would have realised this.

The sugary nature of the novel had me almost longing for the witch wars of the last century or anything with a little drama or at least one character who had a touch of darkness about them. Nothing really happens in the novel apart from people buying real estate, doing yoga, eating a lot especially ice cream and one couple falling in love. There was no tension and the romance didn't even work for me.

So a real disappointment. I don't plan on reading any more in the series and was glad that I had borrowed it from the Kindle lending library rather than purchase it.