Having started this year’s TBR Challenge quite late, I now have to put in a bit of extra effort  -in order to catch up. Read this in about a week, which is quite a feat -believe me. So, here goes my first 2010 TBR book review: Having loved the “Twilight Saga” books, I have to admit it was more a matter of when, than of if I was gonna give “The Host” a spin… Ms. Meyer’s latest effort features a compelling story line (sure to appeal to most people, but especially sci-fi buffs), presented from a personal point of view -much in the style she used for the Twilight series. All in all, you’ll be dealing with a relatively long book (600+) pages with a bit of a slow start that, however, evolves into a much more interesting read -should you manage to stick with it (and yes, I do know of many who didn’t). The characters are intriguing enough (despite the fact that they could certainly have afforded a bit more “depth”) and the …

After reading Sarah Waters’ “The Night Watch”, the “Customers who bought this, also bought…” feature on Amazon recommended this. The Synopsis intrigued me (I love me a good mystery/ghost story), so I decided I’d give it a try… I waited for what seemed like ages for the book to make its way to one of my local bookstores and -failing that- I eventually went ahead and ordered it online. Maybe it was all the wait, or the brilliant 4 and 5 star reviews it got from other readers but I, somehow, expected more… It took me forever to get into this -despite the funny and original narrative- and, once I did (after about the 1st half of the story had painstakingly gone by), it was only to be let down by a largely anti-climactic (in my humbe opinion) finale. Maybe it’s just me but a book shouldn’t require such an effort to enthrall you in the first place, only to come to such an abrupt and minimalistic end 😦 That said, “The Observations” wasn’t an …