Royal Assassin Information

Here is a little information on the author:

Robin Hobb's website

Royal Assassin Quotations

Stop thinking of what you intend to do. Stop thinking of what you have just done. Then, stop thinking that you have stopped thinking of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is.

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Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad.

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No man is so dangerous as the man who cannot decide what he fears.

Royal Assassin Review

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am greatly enjoying the Farseer Trilogy. This book kept me in suspense throughout the almost 800 pages. I did figure some stuff out on my own (which is saying something, because I usually let the plot wash over me and rarely try to figure it out on my own...I enjoy the surprise), but it was still very exciting. I was a bit annoyed by the length of the book. The second book in the trilogy is about twice the length of the first book. I like my book series to maintain a certain page length. The Parasol Protectorate series books by Gail Carriger were 400 pages (give or take) each. I like consistency. :) If you are considering this book, keep in mind that this book ends on much more of a cliffhanger than the first book. I am hoping that the final book will wrap everything up, because there are two more trilogies that are written in this world, and I am a bit concerned about how everything will work out.

A Game of Thrones Information

Game of Thrones wiki

Making of Game of Thrones (tv series)

George RR Martin's website

Westeros (fansite)

Westeros map

A Game of Thrones Quotations

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

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Winter is coming.

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When you play the game of thrones you win or you die.

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There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today."

A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book the way one makes a patchwork quilt. I started the book simply as an audio book. Towards the end, I was able to get my hands on the eBook version and read along as I listened to the audio book. Finally, I just read the last 60 pages without the aid of the audio book.

Before I discuss the book, I just want to touch on the audio book. The normal speed for this book is impossibly slow. I would recommend listening to the book at 1.2x speed. Even at this speed, there seemed to be impossibly long pauses between words and sentences at times. If you are going to listen very carefully or follow along with the eBook version, I would recommend increasing the speed to the next level.

In regards to the book, I greatly enjoyed it. I have seen the first two seasons of Game of Thrones and was pleasantly surprised by how (reasonably) true the writers were to the first book. Also, I was pleased that I was motivated to keep reading the book even though I knew what all the twists and turns were going to be. I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Information

So, there isn't any deep discussion on this book that I could immediately find on Google. Therefore, I give you an audio clip of the book and a promotional ad. :)

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Quotations

Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I’ve noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it’s so wonderfully fair.

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This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It’s mostly pink. If you’re reading this book every night for months, something is not right.

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I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. Then I just lap it up. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character. They're all participating in the same level of made-up awesomeness, and I enjoy every second of it.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Review

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a quick but fun read. The book consists of amusing anecdotes from Mindy Kaling's life. She discusses how she got to where she is today. The book wasn't as laugh out loud funny as I thought it would be, but it was amusing. I think I would have liked it more, if the short stories were a bit more consistent in their length. Some stories were several pages, while others were just a paragraph. I don't think I would have minded, if the "meatier" stories were always the long ones but that wasn't always the case. The book was very stream of consciousness. It seems like when she got tired of a topic, she just moved on. I wonder how many drafts the book went through.

One thing that was a bit weird was the mixture of name dropping and using fake names. I understand that the fake names was to "protect the innocent;" however, Mindy Kaling is a public figure and a little googling will probably get you the information. If she didn't want to go into detail about certain things, I feel that she shouldn't have gone into as much detail as she did. On the flip side, The Office name drops got a little tiring. I get it that this show is her bread and butter, but the way it was done was obnoxious. It shouldn't be obnoxious, since The Office is a big part of her life, but it was.

Information on The Imperfectionists

Here is information on The Imperfectionists:

Sunday Book Review
author's website
New Yorker Book Club

Quotations from The Imperfectionists

You can’t dread what you can’t experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. That’s as bad as it gets. And that’s bad enough, surely.

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So why do you kiss someone?" she asks. "To give pleasure or to take it?

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Good reporting and good behavior are mutually exclusive.

Review of The Imperfectionists

I must admit that I bought this book, because I liked the cover. Also, it had apparently gotten some good reviews. I don't feel the same way that the reviewers did. The book was fine; however, I kept expecting the book to go somewhere. In a nutshell, the book is about a newspaper in Italy. Each chapter is a story about a different staff member. Sometimes staff members appear in other staff member stories. However, there doesn't seem to be an overarching story to any of this. Plus, on the whole the characters aren't very likeable and we don't spend enough time with any one to grow to like them. I finished the book thinking thank goodness it is over.

Information on Cirque du Freak

I didn't find too much info on the series on the internet; however, I did find a wiki! :) Enjoy

Cirque du Freak wiki