Reviews by mindweavers

mindweavers says "Twilight is an whole new look at Vampires" about Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

mindweavers — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:10:21 GMT

Let me begin by telling you I scoffed at the idea of yet another vampire book. The fact that this was a teen series didn't help. After much prompting by friends and my son to just read the first one, as the movie was finally being released I broke down and read Twilight.

Twilight begins by tantalizing your senses with the name itself. Then drops you right back into reality for the first few pages of the book. At first Edward seems just a little strange, your curious but not really sure yet what the big deal is at this point. The suspense is just enough to keep you curious but not enough to push you into jumping ahead.
Stephanie Meyers weaves the tale with a delicate hand as she lets it unfold beautifully, and naturally. As an adult reader it took me a little while to get into the teen romance end of things, but it was beautifully done. The ending left me needing more and I found myself in my car headed out to get New Moon.
The Cullens are a new concept and the new ideas of where the myth......

mindweavers says "Don't waste your time or money." about Laurell K. Hamilton - A Lick of Frost

mindweavers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:02:55 GMT

As an avid reader mainly in sci-fi and fantasy fiction I was somewhat disappointed. I wanted to like this book - really I did. This book is boring. I usually devour books. This book I could barely get through one chapter a night, and it's a ridiculously short book. There is so much prose wasted on the characters waxing poetic about life, love, sex and death in the Seelie/Unseelie worlds...and all this seems to happen just before the sex. And there's a lot of sex, so there's a lot of poetic waxing. Not interesting sex, just lots of sex.
Have I mentioned that this book is boring?

I think Hamilton's books have gotten more and more like this over the past couple of years, and it's a real disappointment. I'm hoping she listens to her fans and gets back to the great, supernatural storyteller she used to be. Sex is fine, entertaining certainly, but not when it's the only thing she can write about. Lots of sex doesn't distract from not having a strong storyline, and this book is severely lacking......

mindweavers says "If you liked the first National Treasure you'll enjoy this one." about National Treasure: Book of Secrets

mindweavers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:50:56 GMT

As someone who doesn't spend a lot of time at the movies, I do spend a lot of time doing the family around the dvd player routine. National Treasure:Book of Secrets is good, it has a new plot, and is great for those who want to know what happened next. As far as the movie goes I was a little disappointed. After watching the first movie and spending a lot of time on the edge of my seat, this one had me wondering when the action would begin. Did they cut out too much or just not put it in? It's a good movie, and has some real enjoyable comic moments, but if you watched the first one it's a let down. While the acting was good you get the feeling they spent so much time trying to get the next one out they forgot about the action. In Book of Secrets the mystery may be a bit better, but it just lacked the heart pounding will they make it feel. I recommend watching this movie, but don't waste your money on movie tickets wait for the dvd....

mindweavers says "I enjoyed every moment of The Secret Life of Bees." about The Secret Life of Bees

mindweavers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:40:43 GMT

If you liked Kaye Gibbon's "Ellen Foster" then Lily Owens will capture your heart. When her father, T. Ray, punished her by making her kneel on grits, I immediately knew that she was a survivor and he was a coward. May, June, and August Boatwright, the beekeeping sisters, and their Black Madonna honey were exquisite. May's tortured soul taught me about empathy gone awry. Sue Monk Kidd's strong southern storytelling skills are reminiscent of Reynolds Price and Harper Lee. In this her first novel, the writing isn't perfect but it tugged at my heart. The characters, the time period and the small town setting made it similar to "To Kill a Mockingbird." This novel should be read by parents and teens together. I hope Kidd plans a sequel. I care so much about the characters that I yearn to know about their future lives....

mindweavers says "The Historian will keep you wondering what happens next!" about The Historian

mindweavers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:32:13 GMT

From the outset, a large amount of historical information is laid out for the reader, so that, at times, this novel reads as rather text-bookish, but none of the information is extraneous and every fact presented winds itself into the storyline and makes it all the more interesting. Having read Dracula years ago at school, it was interesting to see how much I remembered and how much of the history was new to me, as well as delving into another culture in a time just slightly before our own.

I found that I occasionally lost track of which character was narrating the tale if I only had short periods of time for reading, but on the whole it was easy to decipher who was narrating after a short while and the threads picked up again. The story was slow-moving at times, with quite a lengthy lull in the middle, after which the pace quickened once more until it felt slightly rushed at the end, but, nevertheless, the closing chapters felt quite satisfying and the ending seemed quite natural.

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mindweavers says "I love this Cannon Powershot, it's so easy to use." about Canon - PowerShot A530 Digital Camera

mindweavers — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:03:00 GMT

The Cannon Powershot A530 takes beautiful photos. It is easy to use, easy to move pictures from the camera to computer, and the software takes the guess work out of how to get it where it needs to go. Even my mother was able to use it successfully which says a lot about how easy it is to use, but it still has those extra features for the more experienced user. You can set it on auto and take your shot with ease, or you can set it any way you like. It is small enough to easily carry with you, but large enough for those people who have larger hands to be able to work it....