who qualified me for this?

i'm always looking for ways to get a book. and a free book is even better. see, there are no public libraries here. nowhere to go to borrow a novel for a few days at no charge, sit down with the kids and read clifford... and i'm sure that even if there were, the english selection would be just as small as the spanish selection in most city public libraries.

so. i found this program through thomas nelson for reviewing books. they send me a book, i write about it here and post it on a consumer site and voila - free book.

unfortunately the first book i've gotten was kind of a dud. i didn't realize it was part of a series when i requested it and it seemed a little more interesting than my other options. so i clicked. it came. i finished it in a few days - it's not a bad book. dreamhouse kings #1, house of dark shadows by robert liparulo might be a good book for a middle schooler who likes mysteries - but i found it predictable, at times boring and while decently written, the writing was choppy, especially during the dialogues.

basically it's about this family that moves into their "dreamhouse" after the father gets a job as a principal in some out of the way, sleepy town. weird things start happening in the house and the kids find a secret room hidden away in the attic filled with doors that take them to other lands. faraway lands. dangerous places. it's actually quite the twist would be okay until the mother gets kidnapped by some mysterious giant and taken into the rooms... and that's where the book stops. just stops. read the next one.

the problem? this book isn't good enough to read the next one. it was kind of a let down and i hope the next book i read is better.

i did a ton of reading over christmas, both obama books, some silly pre-teen novel about amish people, anne lamott, motorcycle diaries, colors of the mountains, some esl textbooks and teaching supplements and of course, trashy tabloids. i brought two books home with me and i'm already done, but i've got a few more lined up. one of my goals this year is to read more intentionally and not just whatever i can get my hands on... and to read more in spanish. we'll see how it goes.