I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell By: Tucker Max

Stories about one boy's college frat life. Amusing in his retrospective writing, he is uncouth and uncaring, but at some point in the book you think enough is enough. He is too old for this behavior and realize he must know he lives a sad pathetic life when he has to bare all to get attention. By the end you (are not only embarrassed that you were caught reading the book) feel bad for the guy. He is in his prime now, I don't think it will get any better for him. He is a clever writer, but could he write on anything else? When he matures and sits around with the guys telling stories, will they still have the same amusing quality? He is one of those people you find funny from a distance, but wouldn't want to be friends with because he is also embarrassing. he definitely has a target age group for his popularity. Yet I still enjoyed reading his book.

My Name is Memory By: Ann Brashares

Author of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, this book was written for adults. Very powerful, had me crying several times...yeah yeah, sappy girl, I know. A man remembers his lives for over a thousand years to finally be with the woman he burned alive in the first life he remembers. Very powerful as he describes the years they met, but were in incompatible age groups and then the times they could have been together, but things didn't work out. You want them to be together so badly, but like she ends up saying...maybe they weren't meant to be together.

Hell Gate By: Linda Fairstein

Very interesting and complex read. Fairstein has a lot going on in her novel , but it is very concise and impossible to predict. intermingled with the story are interesting tidbits on New York's history. I really enjoyed this story and it was obvious she is an experienced writer. I just couldn't help thinking towards the end...Why does the murderer always confess his crimes to the girl before he kills her and then something goes wrong!

Ransom By: Lois Duncan

A cute book for kids, I enjoyed the childlike romance parts that I would have related to at the proper age. It was a very nostalgic sort of book to what I would have read when I was younger. A happy ending and characters are exposed for who they really are at the end.

The Keep By: Jennifer Egan

Interesting book, It started off at a castle and the characters were introduced and you think you know what is going to happen. Then the story changes and the protagonist is telling the story from jail making you change everything you thought was being foreshadowed and you can't figure out how he came to be in jail. Then you find out he left home due to some "trouble" with some guys. The book had me until the "twist" (to not give it away). I had to read the page twice since I was thinking "what just happened...huh?". I liked what she was trying to do, but then felt like it wasn't very effective. I sort of lost interest after that. The beginning was much better than the ending.

The Seven Story Mountain By: Thomas Merton

A very humble story without being preachy , it is solely about his search for self-completion. Merton credits becoming a monk on having " the mentality of a medieval serf when I was barely out of the cradle". He is very opinionated though, which seems funny, he says "Thousands of Catholics everywhere, have the consummate audacity to weep and complain because God does not hear their prayers for peace, when they have neglected not only His will, but the ordinary dictates of natural reason and prudence, and let their children grow up according to the standards of a civilization of hyenas. He had a very interesting and painful life. His mother dies when he is six, his father when he was still a child, and both grandparents while he was in college. Then his brother is killed in World War II when Thomas is in his twenties, leaving him with no family. After his father's death his grandparents give him his inheritance (while they are still alive) in allotments so he can live and he pretty much raises himself, travelling the world as a teenager. He didn't tell his story with any hints of bitterness, simply stated what happened. It was humbling to know Merton did a lot of soul searching before he knew what he needed in his life, which he found as a monk.

The Lost Conspiracy By: Frances Hardinge

This was a science fiction sort of book for children. It was a "Harry Potter" for girls and very cleverly written. The last 40 pages or so seemed to drag, but I still enjoyed it for entertainment purposes. A tribal girl has been raised to be the keeper of her sister, who the tribe is not sure if she is handicapped or special where her spirit can leave her body. The tribal term for this "soul flyer" is "LOST". Mysteriously all of the LOST in this culture are found dead. The protagonist is then not only responsible for her and her sisters safety, but also for unraveling the mystery.