In the Belly of the Bloodhound : Being an Account of a Particularly Peculiar Adventure in the Life of Jacky Faber by L.A. Meyer

Returning to the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in order to avoid piracy charges, Jacky Faber finds herself in another problematic situation.  Most of the girls from the school including Jacky herself are kidnapped by slavers and are trapped in the belly of the slaver's ship.  Jacky must use her cunning to get the girls out of their terrible situation.  

Another adventure for Jacky "Mary" Faber!  This one was sadder since it explored what slaves endured on their passages from Africa to the New World.  It was heartbreaking listening to it.  The girls are in a similar situation though they aren't chained up and seem to have more freedom than the black slaves that are usually in the hold.  I guess because they are "well born" and are going to be sold to harems and not as field hands.  I kind of thought that kidnapping well to do young ladies for a social slight on the parent of one of their parents was a shaky reason to kidnap and enslave anyone, but it made for a good story and showed that Jacky is capable of handling any situation.

I think that Jaimey underestimates Jacky too much.  He refers to her often as a silly girl and doesn't seem to realize how clever she really is.  Higgins has more faith in her and isn't surprised in the least when she manages to rescue all the girls while Jaimey really is surprised.  I don't think he is good enough for Jacky and doubt he could keep her tied down. 

15 hours

As always, Katherine Kellgren is the narrator of this book and does a fine job.  She is a good voice actress and I enjoy listening to her.

Hogwarts: Charms
Bloody Jack
Whisper in my Ear

Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Molly Dix is in shock.  Her mother revealed to her that her father is Brick Berlin, famous movie star, right before she died.  Now Molly is moving to L.A. to get to know her father at last.  But Brick's other daughter, Brooke, is none too happy and out to make Molly's life miserable.

I'll try not to let my love of Go Fug Yourself get in my way of any objective review, but it's hard since the authors of Spoiled are the authors of that website.  I love those ladies and that is one of the funniest websites I've ever read.  Seriously check it out.  The best thing is that they have taken that same sense of humor and written a YA book so score for me!  It is definitely an over-the-top, fluffy, hilarious beach read.  The plot is a little predicable.  Good girl finds out about famous dad, half-sister is not happy, makes her miserable, etc.  There wasn't anything really surprising about it.  But the fun is in the details.  And the details were fun!  So many pop culture jokes and fashion statements in one book.  I adored this book. 

Brooke and Molly were everything you'd expect, though there were a few surprises here and there.  I love a mean girl in a story and Brooke was definitely all mean girl.  But Molly had some backbone in her too and that was great to see.  I hate it when the nice girl just lays down and takes it.  And Brick was crazy over-the-top with his random sayings and his trying to parent trap the girls into being friends.  The rest of the characters were funny too and there was a nice little romance in the story to spice it up.  It concluded hilariously and there will be a second book next summer.

Hogwarts: Muggle Studies

Weekly Round-Up 6/20

Weekly Round-Up is my wrap-up of last week's activities and includes what I'm reading this week, reviews I've posted, books in the mail and anything else of interest plus From the Library, my weekly listing of what I've checked out from the library.

This week I'm reading Imaginary Girls (Suma) and Betsy in Spite of Herself (Lovelace) and I'm listening to Mississippi Jack (Meyer) and Glee: The Beginning (Lowell).

Since the last time I posted, I've read Spoiled (Cocks and Morgan), Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (Lovelace), Heaven to Betsy (Lovelace) and Red Glove (Black).

The wedding, for those of you who are interested, was lovely and we all had a good time.

Ruby Red Winner!

Congrats to Christina T at Reading Extensively on being the winner of Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier!!