99 - Once upon a time in the north

I love Phillip Pullman - it's such a nice change to read something well-written! This is a kind of pre-quel to His Dark Materials. It's mainly about Lee Scoresby and his daemon Hester.
About half the size of the other books & very easy to read:)I'm taking a point off because there were only 2 human female characters & one was vapid & the other was hardly in it.
****

98 - Girls' Night In

I finished this book ages ago...but it was so mundane that I couldn't be bothered adding it to the list.
It's a compilation of short stories, chick-lit if you will. Some are tolerable, but the majority are eye-rollingly bad.
i'll give it 1 star because all profits go to charity.
*

97 - Blair Underwood?/!!!

Whilst I was in the library trying to find Slaughterhouse Five which wasn't where it was supposed to be:( I came across a book by Blair Underwood - one of the hottest guys ever. True he co-wrote it, but it was pretty good. It was about an actor (ex gigolo) who hooks up with an old acquaintance then she turns up dead. The cops suspect him, so he sets out to find the real killer.
I think he puts its in the genre of erotic-mystery....weird. Very different from things I usually read, it gave a pretty good (i assume) insight into the african-american rapper's world.
AND it wasn't too violent, like the normal who-dun-its.
***

oops the title - Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel

96 - Ashling by Isobelle Carmody

Before I started reading this book (which is the 3rd in the Obernewtyn series) I was determined it was gonna be my last fantasy for awhile. I've had my fill of trying to remember all the weirdo names & places. AND the romance that I was reading it for was still miles away from happening - the 2 involved barely saw eachother! But it sucked me in & now i wanna read the 4th:( The animals are probably still my favourite characters & Elspeth's perfection & ability to be fantastic at everything she does is getting a little old. She's also one of those characters that everyone appears to fall in love with - yawn. I probably liked this one best of the series so far, though.
***1/2

Tara Road - Maeve Binchy

This was my first Maeve. Meh.....it was supposedly set in the '90s, but it felt more like the '50s. It's mainly about an irish girl who falls in love and gets married to a go-getter. It has a few too many characters, there's the colleagues and the neighbours and the mum and the sister and the kids and their friends, and then the sam for the american broad.
when it ended the characters were in a much better headspace, but there were still a few details i wanted to find out...but it was a pretty big book, so i guess maeve was over it by that stage.
i don't think i laughed at all - her son was amusing. defo didn't cry - but did get shocked at one point - the other million pages were pretty predictable.
**

Ever - Gail Carson Levine

Meh - interesting idea, but this is probably my least fave of Gail's books (that I've read). I like my literature nice & light - so human sacrifice doesn't really do it for me.
Interesting characters - but left a few unanswered questions.
She could have been a bit more explicit in her descriptions, because I can't really remember what the places looked like. And the GODS and their powers could have been more impressive (like in Percy Jackson - the movie).
After Ashling (which I'm currently reading) - I think I'll go back to contemporary adult fiction for a couple of books.
**1/2

93 - The last battle

I've finally finished narnia! (Except I haven't bothered with Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but if I see it in the library I will.) I was pretty over the series by this point. This last one had a couple of new characters & schemes that were interesting, but it didn't delve deep enough into anything. I know it's a kid's book, but you're talking about God and Heaven - it's not all black & white Clive!
***Spoiler alert following: plus he wrote Susan out of it! She was too busy with nylons & lipsticks! Sexist alert! I guess it's good he didn't kill her off like everyone else!***

Anyway, I'm glad I've read it - but it's not something I'll be in a hurry to read again.
**