February ended in a flash! Maybe its being super busy and I looked forward to reading on my bus ride early in the morning and after work because this was my mind-clearing time to submerge into another world not filled with deadlines and numbers. Some days it was even hard to even stay awake on the bus but still, I kept at it as much as I could 🙂 Lets see what books I got through! Continuing on from last month which you could find HERE if you missed it!
4) The Disciple of Las Vegas (Ava Lee#2) by Ian Hamilton
This is the second book in the Ava Lee series. You can check out my review of the first book, The Water rat of Wanchai HERE!
The Disciple of Las Vegas follows right after Ava Lee arrives back in Toronto and with a rather pushy, demanding and controlling Chinese/Filipino client who has been lead to believe that his brother in Toronto has conned money from his business operations for his gambling addiction. She ends up following the paper trail and not only building relationships but also breaking a few as well to track down the significant amount of money and defend the parties while trying to keep her name clean and surviving this ordeal. While, at the same time, a former client has sent for killers to take revenge on her and they could be ready to attack her at any moment.
The intensity of this second one is almost as good as the first one. The case itself is rather intriguing and the turn of events show a different side of Ava and also allowing us to shine a bit of light into her personal life more. At the same time, we can see that she’s not the, as I mentioned in the first book, overbearing feminist but rather she’s human like us, except you don’t test her limits because she could also be very deadly. There are very blurry limits to how far she’d go to get the information she needed and to complete the task. At the same time, in this one, we get to see her losing a bit of the normal control she would have because of a more dominant figure as the client. The only thing I found unnecessary for this novel was the constant product placement. Descriptions of her clothes being from Giordano or her Cartier watch or her Brooks Brothers shirt. Once or twice is understandable but it repeats itself quite a bit, but then, maybe I’m being slightly picky. Still, this is a great read and for the adventure and mystery, its well worth your time 🙂
5) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I’ve been wanting to read the Book Thief for a really long time but never got around to picking up the book at the bookstore. However, a while back, I did, especially after all the reviews on how great the movie is. I still have to give that a shot.
The Book Thief is about an orphan Liesel who ends up with foster parents and finds joy in her books and reading during the WWII in Germany when Hitler was in power. The everyday life and how she grew up with her friend Rudy and eventually their family keeping the secret of hiding a fugitive. It was about the poverty and how lives were and how the Book Thief became the Book Thief all in the eyes of our narrator, Death.
That was probably the most unique part of the story, being narrated and witnessed by Death. The story ended up being moving back and forth with little inserts of notes from Death. Whats also refreshing is that its in short chapters to document different things happening while being separated into 10 different sections containing different phases and events that come up. As much as its about Liesel’s life, its also about her foster family and her friends and the effect that war had on them, the choices they made, etc.
The Book Thief starts off slowly as we learn about the little girl that Death encountered the first time when he went to take away her brother’s soul and then we follow everything else bit by bit afterwards. As much as its slow, it never feels like it drags on but does it very efficiently. Its a fantastic (and unique) reading experience 🙂
OVERALL…
I have one more novel but I had read it in anticipation for Recommendation Month as its written by a fellow blogger. That will go up next week 🙂
Its been a good month for reading yet again. This time, I enjoyed all of the novels quite a bit and I especially look forward to the next novel in the Ava Lee series.
Have you read these novels before? What are you reading now? What are your favorite mystery thriller or young adult/historical fiction? I’m not much of a historical fiction person but this one has me intrigued 🙂
Just a note, since next month, I’m going to be focusing on fellow bloggers and their novels, although I still need to seek out one or two more, I’d love to hear some suggestions. Also, chances are if I’m doing full reviews, there won’t be a March recap 😉
Tranquil Dreams 