Neverwhere: Neil Gaiman

Title: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Jacket Cover-
Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job, and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Than one night he stumbled across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk, He stops to help her --and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too. By the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his landlord rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness-to a city of monsters and saints, murders and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sever canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. With nowhere else to turn Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Doors's entourage in their determined and possibly fatal quest.

My Take:
It was not his best work to be honest. The book was dark and held my attention. Some of the characters seemed two-dimensional. They were not developed enough before they were killed off or written out of the book yet Gaiman tried to pass them off as meaningful parts of the story. So far Stardust is still my favorite of this spooky author's works.

Time- Once I got started it took about a week to read.
Rating- 3.5/5 stars

Where the Heart Is- Billie Letts

Title: Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

Jacket Summary:
Novalee Nation has always been unlucky with sevens. She's seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty seven pounds overweight- and now she finds herself stranded at a Wal*Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, holding just $7.77 in change. An hour ago, she was on her way from Tennessee to a new life in Bakersfield, California. Suddenly, with all those sevens stairing her in the face, she is forced to accept the scary truth: her no-good boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens has left her with empty pockets and empty dreams.
But Novalee is about to discover treasures hidden in Sequoyah--a group of disparate and deeply caring people, among them blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband, who hands out advice and photocopied books of the Bible..Moses Whitecotton, the wise, soft-spoken, elderly black photographer eager to teach Novalee all he knows..and Forney Hull, the eccentric town librarian who hides his secrets--and his feelings--behind his world of books.
Nocalee may be homeless and jobless, living secretly in a Wal*Mart, but she's beginning to believe she may have a future. Through all the touching and suprising adventures that lie ahead, she's going in the right direction.


My opinion

This was an amazing book. I really did not expect much from it at first but it sucked me in. I remember there being a big deal about it when I was younger but I was not really paying attention to books back then. It was a quick read too. I was left crying during several parts. If you are in the mood for a feel good tale this is definatly the book to pick up.

RATING
4.5 out of 5
TIME?
Three days

What I Did For Love- Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Title: What I Did For Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Summary:: (Source http://www.susanephillips.com/what_i_did_for_love.html ))

It's not easy being famous when your life is falling apart... Georgie York has been dumped by her movie star husband, her own film career is tanking, and her public image as a spunky romantic heroine is taking a serious beating.

What should a down-on-her-luck actress do? NOT go to Vegas...NOT run into her detestable former co-star—dreamboat-from-hell Bramwell Shepard...and NOT get caught up in a ridiculous incident that leads to a calamitous elopement. Before she knows it, Georgie has a fake marriage, fake husband, and maybe (or not) a fake sex life.

It's a paparazzi free-for-all, and Georgie's non-supporting cast doesn't help. There's Bram's punk-nightmare housekeeper; Georgie's pushy parent; a suck-up agent; an icy studio head; and her ex-husband's new wife, an international do-gooder who just might win the stupid Nobel Peace Prize!

As for Georgie's leading man... Bram, with his angel blue eyes and twisted black heart, has never cared about anyone but himself. Still, he's giving the performance of his life as man in love—thanks to the half a million dollars she's paying him. It was official. She'd married the devil. Or had she?

Two enemies find themselves working without a script in a town where the spotlight shines bright...and where the strongest emotions can wear startling disguises.

My Take:
This was a cute book. It was well written and amusing but more or less unrealistic. The formula of fake-marriage-turns-to-real-love has been used time and time again but Ms. Phillips has some how written a book that makes the well warn formula new and entertaining.

SCORE: 4.5/5 stars