Review Me Twice - The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought by David Adam

One of the best things about this blog, I think, is that it has expanded my non-fiction horizons SO MUCH.  As in, I used to never read non-fiction and now I pick up a lot of it.  OCD is one of those things that, in reality, I don't know a lot about.  There are a lot of stereotypes surrounding it, one being that OCD means insane cleaning.

But I think the best thing about Adam's book is that he showed his reader that OCD isn't about being clean.  It's about something small, something negligent in our lives, becoming something all-consuming in his.  For him it was AIDS.  He would obsess about ways that he might contract the AIDS virus, and the ways he thought he could were insane, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it over and over, from it stopping him from living his life.

I like the fact that it was written more like a biography than like a "let me tell you about OCD" book.  I mean, he did tell me about OCD, but by telling HIS story, Adam's made it so much easier to really learn about the disease, to get that it's not just this weird things where you wash your hands to much, and I think that was really great.  If you're making a list of non-fiction this year, pick this one up.

Local Authors

Local authors can be really cool things because, well, they're people you recognize and support your community and basically you're really proud of them for being published.

What's more, a lot of local authors can actually be WAY more famous than you think that they are.  Our author this week, Randall Munroe, is actually a local author for Alex and I.  He went to college with both of us, and Alex actually knew him (he was the roommate of a boyfriend of one of our friends.)  Though he no longer lives in the area, Christopher Newport is where he got his start.

David Baldacci has written a ton of books that pretty much always land on the NYTimes best seller list.  He writes about a book a year and he lives in Northern, VA!  Which is why, every time he has a new book out, my Barnes & Noble is the first stop on his signing tour!  He's been in the store a bunch of times and is very active in the community.

Kwame Alexander is a local author.  Who is Kwame Alexander you might ask?  Well, he is this year's Newbery Award winner!  And he lives just a hop skip and a jump away from the Barnes & Noble store.  The name of his book is The Crossover, a basketball book written in verse.  He is currently residing in the Reston, VA area.

Who are some local authors in your area?

Favorite Sex Scene

So we're getting a little steamy this week but what the heck, it's February and Valentine's day and were reading romance novels so favorite sex scenes it is.

Jean Auel usually pops up when we do these posts, mostly because there it's so much sex in her books so you shouldn't be surprised that she wrote my favorite one. Book for of the Earth's Children series they're traveling across the continent and Jondalar is adamant about pressing on but Ayla needs a day off. So, they stop at a river and she decided right there that she's basically going to use sex to distract him.

I like it because it's not a malicious use of sex and the scene is fun and Ayla is just trying to get him to remember that sometimes, you need a day to relax.

Well, this is one of those times when Cassy and I have the same favorite! Actually, I was trying to remember which of David Levithan's books (Boy Meets Boy or Wide Awake) had the scene I was thinking of, and I decided that if I couldn't remember, it probably wasn't really my favorite. So I fell back on the scenes to which I compare all other sex scenes, even if not on purpose: the first ones I read, which were in Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series.

Well-Researched Fiction

As a librarian, I appreciate a good bout of research. Research is awesome. It's basically what my job revolves around. (People think it's the books, but really it's all about the research.)

So I get really excited when I discover that someone did a ton of research in order to write a novel, which is fiction. It gives the fiction a little more real-world weight, like it's more likely to actually happen, or it's more likely that it really did happen that way or could have happened that way.

Jean M. Auel is known for the crazy amounts of research that goes into her Earth's Children series. She studies the details of everything we could possibly know or guess about early humans. Food, hunting, social systems, medicine, hygiene, sexual habits, art, story-telling, travel patterns, sleep habits, furniture and tools... absolutely every detail that goes into her books, she researched until she found an answer or could make the best possible guess.

Any good author of fiction or non-fiction does research. If I were writing a novel set today, about a topic I know plenty about, but it took place in Mexico, I would need to do research, because I've never been to Mexico. Historical fiction requires knowing about the context of the time and place you're setting the story in. Science fiction, if you want it to be realistic at all, needs to be informed by current research.

     

Which brings me to the tie-in to this week's book. Daniel Wilson, author of Robopocalypse and Robogenesis, has a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. In other words, he clearly decided to write what he knew. If you want a more immersive experience with these books, finish reading them and then go look into the current research on AI and robotics. You will run back home and start lining the walls with foil and ordering giant electromagnets on Amazon in hopes that you can fight the robots with them at some point. In other words, the events of these books may seem far-fetched... until you realize that they aren't.

I Like Big Books and I Can Not Lie

So this week we're reading Gone With The Wind, which, if you've never seen a copy, is a pretty hefty book.  I know a lot of people who have looked at large, intimidating books and thought, "no way!" but I'm going to give you a list of some of my favorite large books.

Earth's Children by Jean Auel

While the first one isn't especially long, the series quickly picks up and by book three, each one is a beast.  But each one has a spectacular story line, a ridiculous amount of research and always keeps me incredibly interested.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Probably one of the shortest books on this list, it's still pretty hefty (especially if it's part of an anthology of her books.)  But the poetry of the language and the romance of the characters gets me every time and makes me come back to this book about once a year.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

This book is pretty recent to popularity (mainly because of the television show) and each book ranges from 700 - 1200 pages.  But the characters are engaging, the plot incredibly tangled and wonderful and you can't help but get lost in the imagery.  It's really a book that you don't even notice that it's almost 1000 pages long.

What book do you love that's really long, but you have read it over and over?

Favorite Travel Books

It never ceases to amaze me, in the course of writing this blog, when I run across an entire genre or subgenre of books I am shockingly unfamiliar with. You'd think, out of all the books I've read in my life, I would have read a few enjoyable books categorized in "travel." But despite all my searching and list-reading and remembering, I don't recall reading very many, and the few I have read, I didn't really like. (See exhibit A, The Museum of Intangible Things, the first one that came to mind.)

But I saw that Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See was on a Goodreads list of "travel books" so I'll roll with that. I haven't finished the book - I picked it up out of curiosity years ago and got really busy so I never got back to it - but I really liked what I did read.

Douglas Adams went to Madagascar with a zoologist to write about what he saw there. He wrote about how beautiful and unique it was, but also how we shouldn't be flocking there to gawp at it because we won't be doing it any favors, because humans are pretty destructive, if you haven't noticed. (Go ask the Galapagos... actually, don't, because you'll be doing more damage than good if you go there, too.) It's classic Adams funny, but also really serious and important.

So is it technically a traveling book?  Well, three out of our four main characters travel.  And the pants themselves, which are also kind of a character too, travel, so I'm going with yes, this is a travel book, if not one in the most traditional sense of the word.

It's a book about four friends who get separated for the first summer in sixteen years.  And not just a little separated: one goes to mexico, one goes to Greece, one goes to North Carolina and the last stays home.  So the pants (that mysteriously perfectly fit these four girls with DRASTICALLY different body types) are mailed from friend to friend, connecting them and keeping a hold on their friendship and making them realize what their friendship is about.  They go through really hard times, and made some huge mistakes, and all four of them do a whole lot of traveling that summer, but inevitably, the pants bring them through it.

The book, really, is about friendship, but it's also about learning how to be a friend when you're not together, and there is a lot of traveling, so it's my favorite travel book.  (Plus the word TRAVELING is right there in the title.)

Reivew Me Twice - The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

It should not be that hard to get through a book that short. Granted, I don't have much interest in the Romanovs, and I don't have much background information on them, so it's just not my topic. But I felt like it should have been more driving.

Then again, it is November. Which means novel writing, Halloween recuperation, Christmas preparation, and I had some personal stuff going on this week. So maybe I wouldn't have been able to get into any book we read this week.

I would give this book the benefit of the doubt and give it another shot at another time, but this week, it just didn't do it for me.

I can understand Alex's frustration.  I picked the book because it's short and, well, to be frank, the Romanovs are one of my favorite parts of history.  And the best parts of the story are at the end...

Which I didn't get to either this week.  And while I have an advantage over Alex in the fact that I have already read this book, I'm with her that this is a TOUGH month for us.  (NaNo is KICKING OUR BUTTS!!)  So I will at least give you the benefit of my 'I have already read this book' experience.  The ending is the best part.

The thing about this book though is that it was written before the last two Romanov bodies were found a few years ago, so it's a fictional interpretation of what could have happened.  Now, it's a little less so because we KNOW what happened.  It takes a little of the love and mystery out of the book.

Review me Twice - Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout

I have to give Armentrout her due on the aliens thing.  You don't see a whole lot of alien books these days.  It's all about the vampires and zombies or vampire zombies and the few books not about those two things are about pirates.  So I do like that she says, "hey, remember when we liked aliens?"

And I like that it throws back to Superman.  They have awesome powers and come from a far away exploded planet and they're just trying to make it work here on Earth.  Awesome concept, awesome ideas, and to be honest, the execution wasn't even that terrible.  There was a huge focus on friendship.  Dee and Katy are good friends and a lot of the story focuses on them.  Katy has NON alien friends that have their own personalities separate from aliens (who... just all happen to be perfect, which is a little irksome, but ok.)  So score one for people having descriptions and personalities.

However, it is a little... Twilight-esque.  Super hot aliens, specifically a super hot alien GUY telling human girl who, for some reason, he can't seem to stay away from, that she has to stay away from him and his family because they're no good for her.  Sound a little familiar?

There are some twists though.  For one, even though Katy likes Daemon (lead sexy alien male) she has a backbone and is not falling all over him ever second.  Armentrout WRITES pretty decently.  I won't say well, but enough that I don't hate it.  And the book ended in a little bit of suspense.  Enough that I might, one day, pick up the second book.

I love that sometimes Cassy and I share a brain. This book is Twilight with aliens. For those of you who actually read/watched Twilight, remember how Edward is a complete jerk to begin with? (Presumably in the name of protecting the weak squishy human female from his big scary life.) That's the entire beginning of Obsidian. But Cassy's right... Katy holds her own (though she's kind of a jerk in return) so it's a little better. I just feel like the first couple chapters are a thesaurus exercise, finding as many ways to call him a jerk without swearing.

I made the mistake of leaving town without bringing the book with me, so I couldn't finish it, so I can't speak to a large part of the book, but after you muddle through the beginning, the pace picks up a little and it's much easier to read. I probably won't pick up the next book unless Cassy tells me we're reviewing it, but I have a solid idea of the kind of library patron I might want to recommend the series to.

Aliens in Literature

These days, it's all about the zombies and the vamps.  We a culture obsessed with disease and how it's going to, inevitably, bring us down.  And while that obsession makes sense, because it seems like the most realistic way that we're all going to die as a race, it means that some other ideas get neglected in literature.

Mainly the extraterrestrials.

Aliens, though, have been permeating our literature for years, probably without us even realizing that they've been doing it (which makes it all the creepier because then, potentially, couldn't they also be inching into our society without us ever realizing it?)

One of Alex's favorite books is about nothing but alien's.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a multitude of aliens in it.  In fact, our main character, Arthur Dent, has been best friends with an alien for years and not even known it.  Planet earth gets destroyed because they're making an interplanetary highway, and Earth is in the way, but none of us know about aliens, so we can't go anywhere to fight it.

A Wrinkle in Time is a book that most of us have read as kids, and it centers around three kids, who are brought to another planet by three aliens, to fight off an alien and save their father.  It's really about Meg's personal journey, but the entire book centers around alien worlds and beings and protecting the earth.

Probably one of the most influential books of all time involved aliens.  War of the Worlds was a book about an alien invasion.  In 1938, it was broadcast on air.  Due to the nature of the radio show, vocal
performances and no commercial interruptions, many tuned in after the program had already started.  It caused wide spread panic because the populace thought that we were actually being invaded by aliens.  There was rioting and police inquiries and people out on the streets in fear because of the show.  It wasn't until morning that the truth of the matter came out.

Aliens have been a huge part of our culture, and while they may not be as prevalent as some other trends right now, they have certainly made their impact on history.

Author Bio - Jennifer Armentrout

So there were a few surprises this week when I was looking up stuff about our author, Jennifer Armentrout.  One, she has actually signed on with a number of publishers and still actually self-publishes, despite being a well known author.  Her best known book is probably the one were reading this week, which is the Lux series, the first one being Obsidian.

The other surprising thing is that she lives in Martinsburg, WV, which is really close to me.  I used to go see movies there because they had the better movie theatre.  I just always think it's interesting when authors are so close to home.

She started writing short stories during algebra class while in school, which she says is the reason she is so bad at math.  She is married, and enjoys reading and bad zombie movies.  She has a website, which you can visit here and seems to be kept well up to date, including the fact that the Lux series is being turned into a movie.

She, of course, also has a Twitter and Facebook that you can check out.

Review Me Twice: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

This week's review book, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, was number three on the ALA's list of most frequently banned/challenged books in 2012 (out of 464 challenges reported). The reasons given for its challenges were drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group. (You'll notice that the first two reasons wouldn't be relevant if it weren't for the fourth reason.)

Let's address the "reasons why" (ha, see what I did there?) this book was banned/challenged first. I'm a little offended that the sexual assault wasn't mentioned, but "sexually explicit" was. That bothers me. But that's not the book's fault; that's the fault of someone who didn't want other people to read this book because they're afraid of it.

I really like this book. I like the way it's set up. Clay gets a box of cassette tapes in the mail and they were made by the girl at school who killed herself. They're being sent to all thirteen people she deems - in some part - responsible for her suicide. It's different and interesting (and it knows that cassettes are outdated... it's kind of a plot point that he needs to find a way to listen to the tapes.)

I'm about to get hypocritical here, so get ready. Remember how, with The Fault in Our Stars, I didn't like the characters because I thought they were smug and self-centered and that sort of ruined the book for me? Well, I don't really like Hannah in this book. At first, you think, "Oh, poor girl, she was bullied and assaulted and used and she reached a breaking point and saw no other way out." But later, I can't help but be a little mad at her. Some of her "reasons" are a little tenuous and the tapes seem to be more like her playing with flies in a web than anything else. The difference, though? I don't believe that Jay Asher idolizes her like John Green idolizes his characters.

Another weird comparison to The Fault in Our Stars that I noticed? I cry at this book (same place, every time) but not TFioS. But as we know from that review, I might be the only person in the world who doesn't.

I really disliked Hannah in the book.  She gives these tapes to all these people, blaming them for her suicide, for what happened to her, and never once takes responsibility for what she has done in her own life.  She never once takes responsibility for what's going on in school and around her and with her friends and family.  She claims that no one cares about her, no one wants to reach out and help her, but when Clay tries, she pushes him away as hard as she possibly can.

And I think Hannah kind of ruined the book for me.  Because I really did like Clay and the fact that he had to listen to these tapes and share her journey.  I really like that Asher opens your eyes about all the things that are going on in this high school, and they're all real, scary things that happen in the real world.  Rape, and ruined reputations, and bullying.  It all happens, every day, in high school and more often than not gets swept under the rug.

But I think I just got so annoyed and put off by Hannah, it distracted me from how good the rest of the book was.

The Top Ten

Just like last year, I'm going to give you the top ten books that have been challeged/banned in the last year (since it's 2014, this is the list for 2013.)  There are a lot of repeats (Captain Underpants is number one again!  Really!?)  But there are some newbies to the list too.

The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

Reasons: Offensive Language, Unsuited for Age Group, Violence

The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison

Reasons: Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit,  Unsuited for Age Group, Violence

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking, Offensive Language, Racism, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited for Age Group

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Reasons: Nudity, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited for Age Group (which is just silly, because it's an adult novel, so you're basically telling me either A. it's appropriate for people YOUNGER than an adult or B. it's inappropriate for everyone.  Everywhere.)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Reasons: Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited for Age Group

A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone

Reasons: Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking, Nudity, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Reasons: Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited for Age Group

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group

Bless me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Reasons: Occult/Satanism, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Sexually Explicit

Bone by Jeff Smith

Reasons: Political Viewpoint, Racism, Violence

A good list this year (especially because we don't usually see graphic novels, so good for you, Jeff Smith.)  The usual reasons for banning book, sex, drugs and inappropriate topics, though I will admit, this is the first time I've seen Occult/Satanism on the list (though, I'm sure not the first time that it's been on there.)

What are your favorite banned books?  We would love to hear and tell us why they've been banned.  What "reasons" were given for the challenge?  

Author Bio - Jay Asher

Our book this week, for BANNED BOOKS WEEK (holla!) is Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.  Asher actually went to school to become a school teacher (and enjoyed writing kids book) but in his senior year, dropped out to persue his writing more seriously.

Since he's only had two published books, Thirteen Reasons Why, which we'll be reviewing on Friday and landed itself on the top ten banned books list back in 2012, and The Future of Us.

He's got a blog that you can follow (along with any other information that you want on him), along with a Facebook and a Twitter account.

We'll be doing all sorts of stuff with banned books this week because, let's face it, it's our most favorite week of the year.

Review Me Twice - Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini

So, kind of an exciting book this week because... IT ISN'T OUT YET.  I know, how did we manage this?!  Well, because I work at a bookstore, publishers send us copies of books that haven't been released yet so that we will, potentially, read them and then tell the customers about them.

So this week's read, Trial by Fire, came in this epic looking box.  I mean, this think was tripped out in all of its marketing glory, and the summary looked marginally good, so I decided to grab it and then thought it would really be cool for Alex and I to read it for the blog before it came out.

I actually liked this book WAY more than I thought.  The thing about the Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) that we get at work is that about 85% of them are absolute crap.  And Trial by Fire looked like it could really go either way (the packaging really made it seem like it was overcompensating for something.)

But the world building was amazing.  Angelini really drew you in and created this great new place that was magical and wonderful.  She created a character that you loved.  Lily had the potential to be REALLY annoying, but she wasn't.  Her relationship with Rowan had the potential to be really annoying... but it wasn't (though, a little stereotypical I will admit.)  I like that for once it was free of love triangles.  I love that there was a legitimate REASON that Lily came incredibly quickly into her powers.  I like that there weren't big gaping plot holes.

And I liked that there was still a little bit of mystery left to the book.

Now, I'm not going to say everything was perfect.  There were still a lot of the same old tropes (IE the everyone loves the main character trope), but even they weren't so bad as they could have been.  Angelini seems to integrate them with her story very well so they don't stand out so much as to distract from the story.

This is definitely one to pick up when it comes out on September 3rd!

When Cassy told me we were going to read a book that wasn't even out yet, I was curious. I don't read a lot of ARCs, because I don't typically read books without knowing anything about them. ARCs usually don't even have a summary on the back, so all you have to go on is visual cues from the packaging and whatever the author has put up on their blog.

But like she said, this one was a really pleasant surprise. The world (both worlds, actually) is great. The characters act like real people, which is something that kept occurring to me throughout the story over and over.

One thing that worried me was the world switching. You start in present-ish-day here-and-now, and after less than 50 pages, you're in a totally new world with different characters, different rules, and when I realized this, I inwardly groaned. I gave it a chance: I thought maybe we'd be going back and forth between the worlds, and that's an excellent place to introduce the alternate one. But once it looked like we were stuck there for the duration, I rolled my eyes. I just figured out what was going on here in world number one! Now I have to start over? I've been reading for a few dozen pages; I don't want to feel like I've picked up another book. BUT! It actually picked up really quickly and didn't really feel that way. It worked perfectly.

I also cringed when I finished the book, put it down, and thought, "Oh. I guess that's going to be a trilogy." Then I put the book back in its pretty packaging and realized that the side of the packaging had said "Worldwalker Trilogy" the whole time, so I'm just not super observant sometimes. But even without that glaringly obvious indication that this will be a trilogy, the ending makes it very clear that you aren't done here and there will be more books. Which, once I reflected on it, will be kind of awesome. There are some aspects of both worlds that I would really like to hear more about. Bummer is, since we read it early, we have to wait even longer for the sequel.



HEY GUYS!  If you life in the DC Metro Area, Cassy is going to be writing book trivia for 94.7 Fresh FM. 

On Sept. 2, tune in at 7:30 AM for Can't Beat Kelly and you can hear some book trivia questions that she wrote!!  So tune into The Tommy Show.  You can also listen to it here!

Author Bio: Josephine Angelini

If you have your finger on the pulse of new YA fiction, you might be a little taken aback by the name you see in the title of today's post. "But wait," you might be saying to yourself, "Josephine Angelini's newest book comes out soon. Are you reviewing one of her older books?" No, friends, Cassy is just cool enough to have had access to an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of Trial by Fire, the new Angelini book, which will be available next Tuesday!

(Photo from http://www.josephineangelini.com/about/)

That beautiful lady up there is Josephine Angelini. She's already published a very successful YA trilogy called Starcrossed, about a girl with powers she didn't know she had until she met someone who could help her work it out. To oversimplify, that's also what the Worldwalker series (the one starting with this week's review book) is about.

Her website doesn't go into much detail about her personal life, and there is yet to be a Wikipedia page about her, so that's about all I can tell you. She's on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube, and she has a blog (there's a book trailer for Trial by Fire posted there today!).

Review Me Twice: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

I like Laurie Halse Anderson. I liked Speak. I liked Fever 1793. I haven't read Wintergirls yet, but I bet I would like it. I also liked The Impossible Knife of Memory. I wrote all those redundant sentences for a reason: to emphasize the word "like." I don't love any of it, but I like it.

I was excited about this one... It's dark and scary in the "this happens to real people all the time" kind of way like Speak is. It calls attention to something I think is important and under-discussed (PTSD in veterans and how it affects them and their families).

I was totally with you, Laurie. I was. We were going great... and then the romantic plot (I can't decide if it's a "subplot" or not because it sort of takes over the whole book) started to feel way more girly than your protagonist has acted. Which I was cool with, in the sense that people change, especially when they're caught up in their first romantic relationship. And then... happy ending? What was that? I expected heart-wrenching and devastating. But maybe I just miss Game of Thrones. Still... what a weirdly misplaced-feeling happy ending.

Laurie Halse Anderson is an incredible writer.  Speak probably makes the top 10 of my favorite books because it was so well done (though, I admit, does hit you over the head a little with the tree symbolysm.)  Wintergirls was also incredibly well done.

And while I did LIKE The Impossible Knife of Memory, it just wasn't up to parr with her other works.  The characters were interesting, and I like that she isn't afraid to take PTSD on (because, let me tell you, I don't think we do NEARLY enough for our Vets and PTSD frequently isn't taken seriously and said Vets are referred to as sissies, or less tough because they're traumatized by their experiences.  Which is DUMB.)

I agree with Alex about the miss-placed ending and the romance though.  It kind of throws the book on a weird track and I'm not really sure if that's where I wanted to go.  There were some great moments with Hayley and her father, though.  Both scary and heart-stopping, and some incredibly wonderful.

Over all, I enjoyed it, because Anderson is just plain a good writer, but it certainly wasn't my favorite book by her.

Author Bio: Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson writes YA and youth fiction about hard-hitting issues. She is celebrated for her ability to face sensitive topics head-on without sounding preachy, didactic, or awkward. She accomplishes this real, honest voice by responding to every single message she gets from a teen (email, letter, whatever) and listening to what they tell her.

Speak (1999) (which you may recognize from the Kristen Stewart movie if not from the book) touches on several difficult topics, but centrally, rape. Wintergirls (2009) focuses on anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Even in her books that aren't problem novels, like her historical fiction novel Fever 1793 (2000) the protagonist has to deal with death and other issues.

This week's review book, The Impossible Knife of Memory (2014), deals with a parent who has post-traumatic stress disorder.

Favorite Sci-Fi Book

Since we're reading a sci-fi book this week, Timeline by Crichton, we're telling you our favorite sci-fi book.

Mine is really a sci-fi series that I like, but with sci-fi, that's not uncommon.  The very first book in the series is called Stardoc.  Cherijo is a doctor, who, throughout the series spends time traveling the galaxy, healing people.  She also happens to be a clone with a super immune system and is running from her father/creator.

There's a lot of adventures and twists and turns and secrets revealed, and while each book COULD be read alone (I started on book three inadvertently and got through it without much problem), they really should be read in the series that they are.

That's a photo from my wedding, y'all. I think that demonstrates that yes, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy qualifies as my favorite sci-fi book. (This particular copy was mutilated in the name of holding our rings... totally worth the sacrifice.)

Beyond the usability as a prop in my nuptials, it's a great series. If you like British humour and non sequiturs and weird little side plots and you have an open mind about the state of things in the universe, it's perfect for you.

Some of the Best Time Travel

You should be warned now:  I'm 26 days out from my wedding, so probably a lot of my posts are going to be like today's.  Fun, easy, lists.

That being said, our favorites this week have nothing to do with time travel, and I know we both have favorite time travel books, so I'm just going to list a few of the best right here.

The Time Traveler's Wife

This story is so wonderful and heartbreaking and, despite the fact that time travel is a fantastical thing, it wasn't a fantastical book.  Niffenegger makes it seem like anyone could be a time traveler, could pop in and out of your life just like that.  Henry and Clare's love and their story is just so incredible, you can't help but love this book.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Ok, so the first one isn't really about time travel, but the subsequent stories are.  The third book has the most, where they travel back in time to help with a war, though that wasn't their original intent.  The whole "Trilogy" (it has six books) is fun and sarcastic and very dry humor.  It's a great series, and pretty much loved by Alex.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

This book was recently thrown onto my radar, and my little sister actually gave it to me.  It's a fun story about a kid who grew up listening to stories about fantastical children who could do things like fly and life thousands of pounds with one hand.  His grandfather even showed him pictures.  Despite eventually disbelieving these things, our main character ends up stepping through a portal and FINDING these children.  It's a fun mix of time travel, real life, and fantasy with some old fashioned photos thrown in.

Kindred

I read this book in a class about Octavia Butler.  That's pretty much where I learned to love her.  Kindred was the first I read, about a woman who was constantly sent back in time, to try and make sure that everything went smoothly and she was, well, born.  It's an amazing story about life and family and slavery.  Definitely something I would recommend.

What are some of your favorite time travel books?

Favorite Book With Sex in It

Such scandalous topics, today here on Review Me Twice!!  Really, with a romance novel being the book we review this week, the whole week is turning out a little risqué.  So today, we're telling you our favorite book where our characters get hot and heavy.

I actually like this entire series.  Auel just does an amazing job with describing the world that she's created and bringing these characters to life and showing us a world where things that are natural are celebrated (sex, for instance.  They're not much for monogamy in this series and even have entire festivals dedicated to having sex.)

The Mammoth Hunters is probably my favorite book of the series, though, because there's a lot more CONFLICT.  And she keeps you in suspense up until the very last moment.  And while, yes, there's sex in the book, it's not quite as prevalent as in the other books (like Valley of the Horses, for instance, where they have sex about every three pages.)  I also love that females are in charge in this series.  Men respect them and their culture worships a mother goddess, which is pretty much just awesome, but Auel still manages to show you how that can be taken too far (In The Plains of Passage, they come upon a man hating tribe that basically only reproduces because women sneak in to have sex with their men.)

It's wonderfully written, so amazingly researched and, oh yeah, there's a whole lot of sex in it. ;)

Actually, the first book I thought of for this favorites post was the Clan of the Cave Bear series, too... but in the interest of diversifying your experience here at Review Me Twice, I made a different selection: Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan. We've talked about it before, but never really discussed the fact that it has a sex scene. It was - I'm pretty sure - the first one I had read with two young men in it, and after I read that chapter, I remember thinking, "That was just like reading any other sex scene I've read before. Cool." (Actually, it wasn't like all others, because there's a whole emotional turmoil thing going on that puts it all in a different light, but you know what I mean.)