Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a very insightful and useful book in helping me catch the vision of agile and of being a scrum master. So, although my stint as scrum master was short-lived, I am taking away quite a bit about how to make agile work better for me and my teams and how to work on my relationships and attitudes about work.

This was a very “deep” book in that the author gives the reader lots of opportunities to think and reflect on things – therefore, this is not a quick, easy read. But, it is useful, and valuable.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough to anyone who works in an agile environment – whether as a coach or not.

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The Death Cure by James Dashner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought this on Saturday in the late afternoon and, even though I had a ton of grading to do, read it by 8pm that night. I just could not put it down because I really wanted to know how it would end.

I was not disappointed.

Setting: Most of the book happens in Denver where Cranks are taking over. The rest of the setting is the medical/admin building where they start and end the story. It was also very awesome to for James to bring the trilogy full circle by bringing people back to the Glade and the Reavers even.

The Denver setting was very interesting, especially the progress shown into decay and violence.

Plot: This part of the trilogy is about whether Thomas can trust what WICKED is saying and what they really want. There is also the love triangle subplot and Thomas’ struggle with who he is and his past.

This was a very dark book, and there are some sad and dark moments throughout. Luckily, the entire plot ends with a ray of sunshine and hope to take us out of there (perhaps a bit too easily, but not much).

Conflict: Um, yeah, there is a lot of conflict. The book has pretty much non-stop action the entire way through. I didn’t need to exercise when I read this because my heart was beating pretty fast the entire time. 😉

My only disappointment was how the love triangle conflict was resolved. I wanted something more – but then, this is a YA and not an adult novel. It felt too much like Mockingjay on how it was handled, for me.

However, all the other conflict and juicy tidbits about why WICKED was doing this and why the telepathy worked and why this disease happened in the first place and who the Rat Man is and how they really needed to save the world . . . those were all answered – and then some.

Characters: Warning! Several people die or are killed in this story. And it is very sad. But, like I said, this is a dark book and anything less would have felt too PollyAnna. Some people may not like Thomas’ decision about his memories and the past, but I felt like it was true to his character. And some might not like how he mourns or doesn’t for some people, but I thought they were foreshadowed well and I think there are reasons for that too. I’m going to miss learning more about all those characters, but I’m sure James has more awesome stories up his sleeve.

Text: Not much to say here. It was well written and edited. I’m sure there were mistakes, but I flew through this so fast that I didn’t notice.

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Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a fun, fast read. I could not put it down because I was so interested in reading about how Michael was going to get out of the situation. So, I finished this in one sitting, in just a few hours.

I heartily recommend this interesting YA novel, especially if you’ve been reading lots of heady, complex science fiction recently (like I have). It was a good change of pace.

Setting: This is set in present-day America – mostly Idaho and California. I’ve been in Boise and Pasadena, so it was kind of fun to read about them here.

Plot: The story is about a boy coping with his hidden powers and dealing with a supposedly benevolent organization intend on using the “Glows” (those with electrical powers like him) to save the world and create a new evolved species. There are also some subplots involving high school bullying and high school crushes on cheerleaders, as well as the psychological conditioning conducted by the organization.

Conflict: The conflict arises when the organization kidnaps his mom and some friends in order to try to get him to cooperate.

The subplots are also full of conflict.

Character: This is where the story truly shone for me. I grew to really like Michael, Taylor, and Ostin. They each had flaws and yet either used them to their advantage or rose above the flaw to combat the evil organization, making some interesting and even unlikely friends along the way. I thought the Tourette’s thing with Michael was also pretty funny and awesome.

Text: I found it interesting that Richard Paul Evans switched from 1st person POV for Michael to 3rd person for Taylor. That made it easy to figure out who the POV character was, but it also made us identify more with Michael (if Evans had used 3rd person for Michael, that identification would not have been as strong, I think).

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Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This took a little long to get going but once it did, I read through to the end fairly quickly.

Part of the pacing resulted from having two story lines in two different times.

I thought it was a very interesting book, and I was disappointed in the ending because I wanted it to send with some time traveling. Not that the actual ending was bad, though.

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Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This took me awhile to get through because it was so dense, science-wise.

Not that there was anything too unique; it was the terminology and way it was written that made it seem so tough. I felt the entire time I was reading that I should be understanding what was being said, but I was missing something important that made it so I was confused.

The science fiction and ideas were interesting enough, though, to keep me reading.

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New Spring by Robert Jordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought it would be nice to get a little back story before the final books come out.

And this small volume (yes, it is not the huge tome that I had grown accustomed to when reading this series) did a good job of giving some back story on Lan and Moraine and Siuane and the Black Ajah.

I wanted a little more (like a second prequel) but, maybe it will be made known in the final books. Or maybe I need to go check out the online wikis to see what I missed in my reading.

The book did take a long time to actually get going, and then the ending came on very suddenly. However, that just made me more enthusiastic for the next book.

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I Don’t Want to Kill You by Dan Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. This had double the creepy scary coolness of the previous two books. Definitely an awesome way to end the series (or is this just the beginning?).

And I think the series should be made into a movie.

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Don’t Blink by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an exciting read. It was more for pleasure than for analysis, so I shan’t include as much as normal.

This is about a reporter who is trying to find the truth about a murder, and he gets pulled in farther than he wants.

The action is pretty much non-stop and each short chapter seemed to end on a cliffhanger (making it hard to put down – but also frustrating when information was being withheld from me on purpose).

There wasn’t a lot of character development or deep thinking going on here, but then that is not what this book was for.

If you are squirmy about reading about brutal murders involving eyes, then you may want to pass on this one, otherwise I say give it a read!

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Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had already read the Tamir triad/trilogy by Lynn and liked it, so I thought I’d start in on this one since I found it at my awesome library! I didn’t realize that this was set in the same "universe" except hundreds of years later (I think), so I was pleasantly surprised. And apparently, this one was written first even though it is chronologically later. So I found that a bit serendipitous. However, I don’t think that you need to read any other book before starting in on either series. They seem to be fairly well self-contained.

Setting: This is a medieval quest-type book, with some of the standard tropes of journeying from place to place and having a newcomer experience different parts of the world. There was some nice homage to Tolkien and Jordan in the setting and such, which was fun. I thought Lynn did well with depicting locations and telling what the characters saw – I didn’t feel confused or lost at all.

Plot: In some ways this is a boy’s coming of age story. But it is also a mystery, where they are trying to discover who is after them and who is responsible for certain "bad" deeds. There are lots of open plot lines to take us into the next book (I kind of wish it would have had even more of a resolution in this one though).

Conflict: All sorts of conflicts are going on here, from inter-personal to national. I was keep guessing through most of the book on many of the conflicts (and am still guessing on some). There are some moments where the author tries to create suspense when in the viewpoint of a character "in the know" that fell a bit flat for me because it felt like the facts were being hidden (the character knew but we don’t get details).

Character: This is one of the author’s strengths, I believe. I really liked the characters. Many of them felt real to me and acted real – even the psychotic ones.

Text: I could tell this was some of Lynn’s earlier work because the writing wasn’t quite as good as before, however it still held up rather nicely. There were some POV errors and confusion by switching POV within chapters and between paragraphs, but these were few and far between.

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