and then there were three.

SPOILER ALERT! (do not read if you haven’t finished Flowers in the Attic)

I know you all have been waiting patiently for me to finish the second installment of the Dollanganger Series, Petals on the Wind by V. C. Andrews, and lucky for you, I did so a few days ago. It was better than the first book, in my opinion. The Dresdsen Dolls picked up right where they left off on their escape to the south. After realizing their mother had begun poisoning them little by little with arsenic, killing their beloved brother, Cory, they got the hellllll out of Foxworth Hall. Cathy is still our narrator and the three Dolls finally see a light at the end of the tunnel when Carrie gets sick on the bus and the children are saved by a mute housekeeper named Henny who brings them to her “doctor-son” or boss Paul Sheffield to take care of little Carrie. Paul ends up taking them in and giving each the opportunity to follow their dreams. Chris to be a doctor, Cathy to become a prima ballerina, and Carrie to try to find her way in the world without her twin brother by her side. I don’t want to get into too many details, as a lot happens to the children during this novel. They all grow to their twenties (although Carrie doesn’t grow much at all), and Chris to thirty, and it doesn’t seem that Cathy will ever stop planning revenge on their mother who is now married to the handsome Bart Winslow who’s family lives only a town away from them in South Carolina. Cathy’s obsession with payback ultimately causes ruin to much of her own life. Leaving us to wonder if forgiving and forgetting really IS the best course of action. Because revenge doesn’t taste quite as sweet as Cathy thought it would.

the arizona wilderness.

If you’re planning a hiking trip in Arizona, anywhere in Arizona really, then Matthew J Nelson’s Your Complete Guide to the Arizona National Scenic Trail is an absolute necessity. The guide is packed into 43 pages, making it easy to carry along on any trip, and those 43 pages are jam packed let me tell ya. And I will.

Nelson has included all sections worth exploring in the Arizona National Scenic Trail and divided them into appropriate sections. This includes Central, North to South trails, backcountry safety and other advice so that you can have an enjoyable experience and still live to tell the tale. Each section also includes what you can find in said area, for example, plants, bodies of water, rock classifications, and alternate routes. Also where to mountain bike and where not to mountain bike. I personally thought the overviews of each area were extremely useful, as they included level of difficulty, distance, maps and photos. It’s never bad to be overly prepared for anything!

real talk.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills drama queen Brandi Glanville is quite the comedian in her hilarious tell all titled Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders. I know her best from the tabloids when her hubby Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes had a secret affair that wasn’t so secret. Brandi leaves nothing out about that awful time in her life let me tell you, she gets right down to the nitty gritty of being royally effed, and not in a good way. I love her candidness, this woman scorned means business. She’s all eff this and eff that, saying whatever she feels. Whenever I do that, I lose my job. This chick becomes an author. What is my life?

Anyways, some of you may find this book to be a tad redundant if you have watched Brandi’s show and know all about her breakup with Eddie. I don’t watch the show, so her feelings and personality were all news to me. She’s a little nutty and needs all sorts of therapy, but who doesn’t? Drinking and Tweeting was a super entertaining read in this crazy girl’s opinion.

grade 3-7 suspense series.

The Wavering Werewolf is the latest installment in David Lubar's Monsterrific Tales series. I haven't read the previous books, but the premise is pretty easy to follow. In each book a kid is accidentally turned into a monster and must choose whether to remain a monster or turn back into a human. You know, typically decisions kids have to make these days.

This particular story is narrated by Norman, who is attacked in the woods and turns into a werewolf. Now our friend Norman has a pretty big decision to make. Spend the rest of his days hollowing at the full moon, or change back into a regular kid. The werewolf hunter who is making his way through the area should make Norman’s decision pretty easy, unless he doesn’t change back before he gets hunted down!

nothing like a catholic YA novel to make you feel romantic.

Gloria Jean has a lot going on for a fourteen year old girl. She’s facing the normal adolescent stuff like being curious about boys and dating, and being exposed to Sex Ed which is super confusing. She’s also beginning Confirmation classes like many do her age and then on top of all of her growing pains she’s diagnosed celiac disease, which causes her to totally revamp her diet, making it impossible for her to take Communion at her Catholic Church. Gloria Jean also has to delay her search for the perfect first kiss, because with celiac disease you have to stay away from germs. Which leads us to the title of Britt Leigh’s debut novel, Ten Commandments for Kissing Gloria Jean, she’s already smarter than I was at her age, I didn’t even have one commandment. Ultimately this is a charming story of a girl who is trying to understand God, herself, and where everything else in her teenage world fits in.

 

 

Win a FREE copy of Ten Commandments for Kissing Gloria Jean!

Contest Rules:

1. Follow this blog :)

2. E-mail your name and this book title to: jenileerose@yahoo.com to enter!

3. Contest ends 3/10

  

dollanganger series.

Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 novel by V.C. Andrews, and I am totally freaking out about it. Both my mother and grandmother read this first installment of the series years ago, and for some reason my grandmother decided to randomly begin the second book, Petals on the Wind, and when they were talking about it, I felt like I was missing out, so here we are.

Two beautiful blonde parents fell in love, got married, and had four beautiful blonde children. Their lives were pretty blissful; there was so much love and plenty to go around for everyone. Until the unthinkable happened. Chris, the father, got into a horrific car accident and died, leaving behind his extremely unprepared wife, Corrine, adolescents Christopher and Cathy and four-year-old twins Carrie and Cory. They had a lot of debt, so Corrine was forced to contact her parents who lived in Virginia whom she had a major falling out with when she married Chris. When she finally heard back from her mother, she told the children that their lives were going to change for the better under the current circumstances. For her parents were filthy rich and lived in a huge house. And Corrine had every intention of winning back her ill father’s affections so that she could inherit everything. So that THEY could inherit everything. The children believed in their mother, they trusted her to make the right decision, and off they went. Things started getting stranger and stranger as Cathy narrated their journey to Virginia, and how they were ushered in the grand mansion in the middle of the night, given one room with a bathroom attached, where they were expected to stay, and not come out. Their mother assured them that everything would be fine, but the next morning their evil grandmother came in with a basket full of food, a long list of rules, and locking the door behind her, giving the four children the impression that they wouldn’t be leaving that small room, for a long, long time.

This novel is very much a psychological thriller, although the author did allude to some of the awfulness that came about, I never actually expected it to happen! I never dreamed that…okay wait; I’m going to stop talking now.

if you’re fat, if you’re sick, if you’re fat AND sick.

I never really looked past the calorie count on nutrition labels until I started dating manfriend. He is pretty psychotic about all things sugar, carb and honestly believes that high fructose corn syrup is the devil. We even buy a special kind of ketchup. He would be best buds with Doctor Robert H. Lustig who came out with a health resource titled Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease.

Dr. Lustig explains how different types of dietary fats/fatty acids affect the human body. Apparently, the energy metabolism of modern man is driven into imbalance through high levels of fructose, a double-sugar that is EVERYWHERE. In your fast food, in your soft drinks, even in your ketchup because it’s cheap! The doc also provides scientific evidence explaining the who, what, where, why, and how’s of the ever increasing obesity epidemic and its associated chronic diseases.

My mom recently started removing all processed food from her diet. She’s 51, so it’s not as easy for her to drop the pounds as it used to be, but just cutting out processed food alone helped her drop like 6 pounds so far, and she just started this as a New Year kind of thing. It’s pretty amazing what cutting out the crap can do. And if you’re looking to be more knowledgeable on the subject, then Fat Chance is absolutely the resource for