Ghost Cadet - Elaine Marie Alphin

This is a children's book. I was home and wondered how astute my taste for literature was when I was a child. This is one of the books I remembered reading when I was.... 10? 11 max.  I read Ender's Game when I was 12 and have clear memories of what I thought about it. When I re-read that book at 23, I understood more of the motivation and actually liked it more, but many of the emotions and logical analysis of the story were still spot-on. So, I thought I'd try that with this book. It is a small, child-sized book so I was ok with the idea that it would likely suck and be childish.  (I did not remember the story at all beyond kid meets civil war ghost and they do something, along with the vague memory that the boy was whiny.)
Well, the book didn't suck! And the end is the best part because you read this whole fictional story only for the author to tell you that the entire story set-up is true. I did, and still do, love stories started with a grain of truth. It's why I like historical fiction and Clive Cussler's books.
It does spend a lot of time on the lead character's issues with self-worth and confidence (where my memories of the character being whiny came from) but it is very appropriate for the target audience.  I didn't like that when I was younger (the age it should have had an impact on) but now as an adult, I would leave it in because I think most kids would benefit from watching the growth of the character. I did not need that as a kid, thus my dislike of it. Today, I'm still less interested about the "personal journey" than the action but I did enjoy watching a kid mature.
Now that the internet exists, I was looking up the author's name for this and saw that this book has very high reviews across the board, so I'm not alone.
In conclusion, I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone in the age range plus a few year. As for adults, if you're a fast reader it's a one-night read and therefore worth it.

The Stand - Stephen King

It took me a LONG time to get through this book, granted it's huge, but it still took much longer than I thought it would have!
That being said, I REALLY enjoyed this book. It was a little awkward at the beginning because there were so many story lines and they were all over the place.  But once it really got rolling, and by that I mean everyone on the planet dying, it was real good.
I liked how this was a book I could recommend to someone in my family. Instead of some unknown/unexplained evil, there's a very plainly stated God v. Satan explanation for the evil in this book. I know King was on a boatload of drugs when he wrote this, but I liked having an actual explanation for why/where something comes from, even if it is as old as time.
OH, and my favorite character is the dog! King doesn't often have animals in his books (unless they are coming back to life or killing people) but when he writes good pets, he does it very well, endearingly so.

Beware the Babysitter - Francine Pascal (Sweet Valley High, Bk 99)

I'm going back and re-reading a lot of books from when I was younger. This is one I remember kind of enjoying, but not getting into hard, it never made my heart beat faster. Seems the same is still true today. There's a lot of fluff, and pointless banter in this book while the actual story is being set up. It's like the first book with all the boring crap has continued for 4 books by this point. Pascal was never my favorite author, but I can certainly see the appeal for early teen girls (and pre-teens) based on the subject matter.  As an aspiring author, however, I cannot fathom taking the time to WRITE this drivel!

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

This was not a book I picked out, it was recommended by two friends who had already passed the book between themselves.  They both said it was ok, but nothing special.  I completely agree with their assessment.
The book jumps back and forth between two opposing characters, a blind French girl and a radio genius German boy, both in their mid-teens.  The French story line is exceedingly slow to take off. The German story line begins strong and then looses a little momentum. But together they make a pretty good balance, as one goes down, the other goes up.
The day after finishing this book, I saw that it was #6 on the Top Sellers List. I can't really think of anyone I would recommend this book to.

Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice (Vampire Chronicles, Bk 3)

I liked the resolution of this book, and the ancient story was very interesting.  I wish there was more real history from this time that I could find easily.
I love the idea put forward in this book: If all the men in the world were gone, would there still be mass violence?  I think there would not be, and I must agree with both sides put forward in the book.  If most men were removed from the population, humanity would instantly have less violence, but we are slowly working our way there already.
It did take an unnecessarily long time to get to these points though. As much as I love a good, long book, I think there could have been a solid 50 pages cut out of this and it wouldn't have lost any of its power.

Rework - Jason Fried

A short book, good for motivating, but sparse on details because it's written as a generic text.  If you need motivation or a good kick in the ass to get started or are feeling pressured to do things a certain way because that's how "everybody" does them, it's great. But that's about all it's good for.

Running Blind - Lee Child (Jack Reacher Series, Bk 4)

Yep, still like these books, though of the three I've read since starting this blog, this is my least favorite. There's a lot of running around and nice detail, but not enough killing compared to previous books. I'll continue with the series for sure, but I'm hoping the next one is better.