Book Review I: Cloud of Sparrows

Since this is my first book review, let me just explain a few things. I will not give away spoilers or plot lines, I am simply going to give my likes and dislikes in vague descriptions. You can look up more info on the book online if you want to, I'm just giving my opinion of it. This is not Operas book club. Also I wont be giving star, scale, or any other rating system. My rating style is stating whether or not the book will be staying on my shelf or not (this is very literal too, I have a bookshelf that holds all of the books I cant bare to part with, I think I'm going to need a bigger one soon). I hope you enjoy!

I just recently finished one of the books recommended to me by my boyfriend. Granted, this is the first book for me to finish that he has recommended, two others I have yet to finish. It's not that they are boring, I just had too much reading for my classes to even hope to finish one at a reasonable time.

On a better note, I finally finished one and am very pleased with myself as well as it. Set in Japan during the Samurai era, it was an obvious interest for me. The characters Matsuoka created were very developed and had deep personalities. Each had an enticing background story and seemed to create a personal attachment to the reader. I get lost in all of the names quickly but by creating a reference list with a short description of all major players it became much easier to keep track of everyone. Towards the end of the book I found myself skimming slightly. This is a horrible habit I picked up while reading Huckleberry Finn and the Twilight Saga (mock me, but I needed to see what all of the hype was about). I continued to force my self to read each word for the last 30 pages and was glad I did.

All in all I really enjoyed this book and recommend that if you have not already read it, then you should. It's staying on my bookshelf.

Poor Old Johnny Ray

I was driving home from yet another long shift, feeling like crap and smelling strongly of coffee. My car was warming up finally and the frost on my windshield had decided to melt. I was flipping through my iPod, this reminded me that I needed to delete some of the shit off of it when I got home. I gave up and dropped it into the cup holder which caused it to shuffle. What the hell was Apple thinking when they made this model? "When people actually want to shuffle it, it wont work! But if they set it down too hard, oh well!" Ass holes.

To my surprise a good song actually came on and it brought a smile to my exhausted face. It was the type of song that makes you think of morning sequences. You know the kind, it's usually is in a movie and follows the actor as they are just waking up and getting their day going. In a completely "dork that I am" way, my morning sequence started running through my head filled with sunshine, spinning, and skipping which is a huge stretch for me. I am not a morning person. Still, the ridiculousness of the thought made me laugh and kinda want to make my own personal morning sequence. I would have to change my name to Eileen in order for the song to work.

I love songs like that, ones that make you want to kick up your heels and skip gayly through a field of flowers. It's refreshing, especially after a long shift and sore feet.