Book 9 - Believe It, Be It

Synopsis: (Borrowed from Barnes and Noble)

When Ali Vincent became a contestant on the hit NBC show The Biggest Loser, her weight was at an all-time high, and she was at an all-time high, and she was at an all-time low. Like millions of Americans, Ali struggled for years with poor eating habits, stress, and low self-esteem. After years of feeling afraid, ashamed, and unworthy, she resolved to change her life, once and for all.

In Believe It, Be It Ali reveals the intimate details of her inner and outer transformation and provides a rare glimpse inside life at the famous Biggest Loser ranch. She also shares the weight-loss strategies, eating habits, and workout tips that have helped her lose-and keep off-more than 100 pounds. The road to a happier, healthier, fuller life starts with the belief that you deserve it. Believe it-and be it.

My thoughts: I found the book to be very inspirational. She spends a lot of time on learning to accept yourself for who you are, and that happiness can't exist until you are happy with yourself. The book was well written and an enjoyable read. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. 

Book 7 & 8 - Witch & Wizard/The Gift

Synopsis: (Borrowed from Barnes and Noble) I'm reviewing the first two books in the series together.

Witch and Wizard
The world is changing: the government has seized control of every aspect of society, and now, kids are disappearing. For 15-year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside down when they are torn from their parents one night and slammed into a secret prison for no reason they can comprehend. The New Order, as it is known, is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Being a Normal Teenager. But while trapped in this totalitarian nightmare, Wisty and Whit discover they have incredible powers they'd never dreamed of.

The Gift
When they were imprisoned by the new, brutal government, Whit and Whisty were barely able to escape with their lives. Discovering a hidden community of children like themselves--hunted by the state and with varying degrees of special talents--they have taken refuge underground. But the New Order is rapidly pushing in on them from all sides, and the pressure to stop the regime is mounting.

One day, as they rush to save another group of kids who are about to be captured by police, Whit and Whisty discover not only their own faces plastered to buildings on wanted posters, but also their parents'. When the hunting party sent out after the siblings always seems to be one step ahead of them, they begin to fear that it is controlled by a very, very powerful force. They are in much more danger than they feared...

My thoughts: I really wanted to like this series, which is why I read the second one after the first one being a disappointment. But, sadly, the second one didn't save the series for me. They were easy reads, but James Patterson didn't do anything to build up the characters. By the end of the first book, I didn't care if the main characters died or not. By the end of the second book I was rooting for the bad guys. It's a good concept for a story, but it was poorly executed.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars. :(

Book 6 - 11/22/63

Synopsis:(I borrowed this from Barnes and Noble)

In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.

My thoughts: I am a big Stephen King fan, so I went in with high hopes, and was not let down. He does a great job making you think about how some small, (and some large) actions can change the course of history. I think that he could have edited out about 200 pages of redundancy and fluff, but other than that, I think it was a great read!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!