#362 The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

I enjoyed Anne Hathaway's audio version of this book.  A girl didn't know she was a princess until her father found out he couldn't have anymore children (heirs) so they decided to tell her she was a princess.  The drama unfolds of a teenager finding out she is a princess.  It's a cute book for tweens.

#220 Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffin

This is the first of Karen's books I couldn't finish.  It was just so bad.  And I began this project saying no matter what I would finish the books for her, and I plan to try and keep that promise, but I guess there will have to be some exceptions.  If anyone wants to pick this one up and finish the last quarter of the book, please do so.

Anyhow, we have three main characters.  The bored housewife, her husband which happens to be a very successful plastic surgeon and Valerie, a single-mom who's son was severally burned and is a patient of the plastic surgeons.  The plastic surgeon and Valerie end up having an affair.  The bored housewife questions her choice of staying at home and how she feels different than all the other stay at home parents and perhaps if she didn't stay at home her husband would not have had an affair.  Gah.  I can't even take it.  It was a self indulgent soap opera.  I wonder if this book would be one left on Karen's nightstand with a bookmark in it with intentions of getting back to it....never. 

#74 The Kill Order by James Dashner

When I started reading the book, I kept waiting for the characters from the original trilogy to show up. Who are these people, Mark and Trina? Where's Thomas and the other Gladers? Of course, if I'd just read the book jacket, I'd have realized that this is a prequel; all the events in this book happen long before the Maze Runner events.

I really enjoyed the original trilogy, but didn't care for this one as much. It seems like Dashner's whole plan for this book was to throw Mark and the others into crisis scenario after crisis scenario. And so much violence, especially after the virus starts making everyone go crazy. So, not just protecting-our-territory violence, but crazy, smashing-someone's-head-into-a-wall-because-why-not violence. Over and over again.
The book does have some redeeming qualities: we get to find out what happened right after the solar flares that started the whole thing, for instance. And Mark and Trina's kinda sorta romance is sweet.

Kris