Saturday, August 20, 2011

Review: Airframe by Micheal Crichton

Title: Airframe
Author: Micheal Crichton
Release Date: 1996
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Inc
Pages: 352
Source: Used Book Sale
Genre: Adult Adventure/ Suspense
Famous For???: Author wrote Jurassic Park, and created TV series ER




Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane. . . .

At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies is paramount in the public mind, a lethal midair disaster aboard a commercial twin-jet airliner bound from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation.


AIRFRAME is nonstop reading: the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that has been a Crichton landmark since The Andromeda Strain. 
(Description taken from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Airframe-Michael-Crichton/dp/0963192574/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313866412&sr=1-1)


So, for my first review I went with a classic. Well, not quite a classic, but a classic author. Micheal Crichton is one of my favorites, and since the last books of his that I read were Time Line and The Andromeda Strain, I was expecting a lot.

To say the least, I shouldn't have built up my hopes so high, at least not to start. This book had a good hook, starting with a crash scene, but from there I just got kind of...well bored. There was a lot of in-depth mechanics talk (any one who is into specifics about airplanes would probably really like this book) that filled up pretty much the entire book. Luckily, even from the beginning there were hints of suspense and seriously shady business that kept me reading, just to see how it ended.

Even if some of the content was boring, being a Micheal Crichton book, it was written great, in laymans terms even I could understand (and that's saying a lot). There was great character development, with an awesome strong female lead, and written so that you felt as if you connected with even the minor characters.

I know I mentioned that I was kind of bored by the first, say, 240 pages of the book, but the ending completely blew me away. I hadn't expected much, so it was great to finally be thrilled my this book.  

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to just anyone, but if you're either a Crichton fan, or someone with a love for planes, this is a great book, though it does take some patience.


Soooo, now that I've blabbed about what I've been reading, Crichton-wise, what's your favorite Micheal Crichton book? Or, if he isn't your style, which sci-fi writer is?

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Welcome to the blog!

Well, as the heading already told you, I'm Mia, and this (gestures with hand, Vanna White style, to blog) is my book blog! I'm what you may call "totally booksessed", or a "bookaholic", maybe even "insane reader with no life", whatever word choice you prefer, but whatever way you put it, I love books, reading, writing, reading about people writing books, books about reading, all of it. So, hence the word "book" in the term "book blog", this blog should end up as the perfect outlet for me to talk about all the bookish things my heart desires. And, the public will also have a chance to hear (er, read about) all of it!

About the public reading all of this, I should add that as a first time blogger and book reviewer, I'm not exactly sure what the rules are on copyrights, and quotes, and if there are limits on what books you can review and such, but I promise to learn them quickly so that I don't like accidentally break the law or anything. Also, I will just apologize now for my awful typing. Sorry for the many typing and spelling mistakes you will no doubt see.

Now that some formalities are out of the way, I suppose I should explain why exactly I called my blog 249 Books And Counting. No, 249 is not the total number of books I have read (that number would be well into at least the 500's, if I knew what it was), nor the number of books I plan to review. 249 is the number of books that I own. or at least the number of books I owned on the first of August, I've gotten a couple since (hence the "And Counting" part of the title). Most of the books I review will be coming out of those 249 books that I own, which I should say now that I read a lot of varied stuff, from young adult fiction, to classic sci-fi, to behavioral economics and trivia books.

So that's about it, watch out for reviews, polls, and sometimes just me talking about stuff in future weeks! As a side note, I am starting school soon, so I may be a little bit too busy to post, but I'll try to post something every two or three days. Sorry this post doesn't contain much about me (I'm not very good at talking about my self) but hey, the best way to get to know someone is through their books!