Ella Enchanted by: Gail Carson Levine

This book was one of the major connections I had between my 2 best friends. We all loved this book and loathed the movie. Michelle and Aaryn will always be my sisters. I found this book at a thrift store, laying on top of a pile of books on June 4th. Without my knowledge that day Aaryn's body was found. I think that is more than coincidence. This book helped me through a hard time in my childhood and now again as an adult.
This is one of my favorite books of all time. I must have read this book at least 5 dozen times over the years. Its the perfect Cinderella story. Not only does it have all the facts we all know and love from the classic story, it has an awesome lead character. Ella is witty and hardheaded and is absolutely the coolest chick ever.
She was cursed at birth by Lucinda a fairy, who gives her the "gift" of obedience, so whenever she is given a command, she has no choice but to obey. After her mother's death she meets prince Char who is WONDERFUL and beautiful and oh so cavalier :). (but I don't have a crush or anything :}) and they are all cute together and she is so clumsy and they ride down the stair rails.
Well she gets sent to finishing school (which is a horrible concept) and then escapes and RUNS INTO CHAR!!! and there is a cute romance aspect and adventure and ogres and giants and its just the happiest most wonderful book in the world. Kudos to Gail Carson Levine. Never in my life has a book gotten me this excited, this consistently.

I wish Aaryn could read it just one last time.

A Touch of Dead by: Charlaine Harris

For anyone who has read the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. Stop there. This was such a waste of paper. Yeah, that may be harsh but COME ON!! I don't see why it was even published. (or why I bothered to buy it for that matter.)
The book is compiled of short stories that the author claims would not fit into the flow of the series. (even more reason to not publish it) but they were all ridiculously stupid stories. Like the one where Sookie gets laid for a Christmas present form her Grandfather. Or how the faeries have a killer in their presences and its just silly.
I honestly just have nothing to say about it further. Its a very very short book but it was not worth my time reading and I really do not wish to continue to talk about it now.
For all you fans out there, some things are better left unread.

The Queen's Fool By: Philippa Gregory

I get a huge kick out of historical fiction. In fact its probably in the competition for favorite genre (though how can you really choose right??). Though to be fair, I have only read historical fiction y Philippa Gregory for the last  several years.
Sadly I read the whole Boleyn series completely out of order (though to my credit she wrote the whole damn thing out of order). This novel takes place after Henry VIII dies and the throne passes to his daughter (with his first wife, Katherine), Mary, takes the throne.
It follows her fear in hiding, justifiably fearing her Father's rage and indecision about her rightful heritage and right to live. After his passing she courageously fights for right to the throne and her life. Really, she is straight up a bad-ass woman.
The book follows her fool closely, Hannah that is. She is a Jew fleeing the Spanish inquisition and goes into the court to earn some income to support her father and to offer them some means of protection. Hannah is also cursed with the gift of sight, or a  Through all the turmoil of a country in unrest, Queen Mary and Hannah go through lessons in love and life and the never ending toil of politics.
You really get to know these women and understand all the struggles they had to go through in that time period, but we know nothing about in our day in age. Mary worried endlessly about the fact hat her country needed a king but ho on earth could she choose a man to trust her country and heritage with? the whole while desperately trying to protect her half sister Elizabeth the daughter of Anne Boleyn who set all this turmoil in motion and has to live with the curse of not only her patronage but her mother's name as well. Hannah is stuck in an engagement to be married when she has not yet decided for herself what role her life will take. She fears being tied down by being a wife and mother though acknowledges her duty to her religion and father.
Hannah is loyal to her master (the one in charge of her employment) and loyal to both the Queen Mary and her sister Elizabeth. Her loyalties are tangled within each other and she becomes stressed and runs due to tension from the civil unrest in the country.
Its a beautiful and intriguing story. With all the different tensions and the personal account from each woman's point of view, the reader finds themselves drawn to each person in turn and when politics are involved you don't know who you want to pull through. Each character is so perfectly portrayed and you feel as if you really know them as a person and not just a character in a novel.
I look forward to reading the rest of her novels and strongly recommend her novels. (though please read them in their chronological order. Not the order they were written. It is so much easier to understand).