Wine to Water: Review and Giveaway

Wine to Water is the true story of Doc Hendley (pictured to the left) and his journey to help solve the water crisis.  Doc has a humble beginning as an ordinary bartender, but he has an energetic personality and love of people that soon fuels his mission to make a difference.

When Doc learns about the world’s freshwater crisis he is shocked by the severity, much as I was while reading the book.  However, while most of us would be saddened and surprised to learn the great suffering of people without water, we would stop there.  Doc is compelled to do something about it.  He begins by starting a non-profit organization, Wine to Water, and before he even knows how best to make an impact, he is raising funds through wine-tasting events and gatherings in his hometown.  To his surprise, the organization starts spreading like wildfire as friends of friends become interested in spreading the word and donating money to help the crisis.

Soon Doc realizes that it is time to find a way to use the money to directly help the crisis.  He joins Samaritan’s Purse and is told that he should experience the crisis firsthand to decide where to invest the money.  Suddenly Doc is volunteering to go to whichever country needs him most, so the place with the worst conditions and most danger.  He gets his wish and ends up in Darfur, Sudan.  There he experiences the harsh conditions with few resources and a hostile environment.  Janjaweed terrorists are everywhere and Doc experiences the impact of the devastating genocide.  Doc himself is shot at multiple times by the Janjaweed and is in serious danger during his time there.  Although he is afraid and angry at times, he is able to channel his fury of the situation to make a difference.  His main effort to help the water crisis involves traveling to various towns and repairing water wells, which saves the children from walking 4-5 hours daily to fetch buckets of water.

The most striking part of the book is that Doc is a regular, rough around the edges, easygoing Southern man who loves alcohol and music.  In between escaping from the Janjaweed’s bullets and repairing wells he finds time to play loud music, box with his co-workers, and show his sense of humor.  Doc proves that it doesn’t take a hero to make a difference and that with willpower and support of friends anyone can change this world for the better.

Wine to Water was published on January 5, 2012, and is available in stores or online to purchase.  You can find Wine to Water’s website here, follow Doc on twitter here, and the Facebook page here.  I received a free Advanced Review Copy of this book from the publisher through TLC Book Tours.

There is one free copy of this book to give a lucky commenter.  The giveaway will go until the end of the day on January 31, 2012.  At that time I will randomly select the winner (using Random.org) and email the winner to get their address.  The address will be forwarded on to the publisher, who will mail the book.  The giveaway is available to US/Canada participants only, and no P.O. boxes please.

Follow Doc for the rest of his book blog tour this month:

Thursday, January 26th:  Helen’s Book Blog
Monday, January 30th:  Broken Teepee

For a full list of the blogs that featured Doc’s book this month, check here.

Review: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

Facts
563 pages
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Series: Millennium Trilogy #3

Summary
This book follows The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (#1) and The Girl Who Played With Fire (#2) of the Millenium series.  It picks up where The Girl Who Played With Fire left off and Lisbeth Salander is in intensive care in the hospital with a bullet in her head following a confrontation with her father.  She faces trial for murder if she recovers and risks being sentenced to jail time or worse – a lifelong sentence to a psychiatric ward.  This book follows Salander as she fights for her life and innocence and as the people around her – Blomkvist, Armansky, and Holmgren – all team up to unravel the secrets surrounding the Zalachenko affair.  However, when they discover each new part of the mystery they put themselves and Lisbeth into more danger, as a secret group of government officials will do anything to keep their existence secret.

Overall Impression
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest really wrapped up a lot of the mystery that that Larsson built throughout the trilogy, especially surrounding Lisbeth’s identity.  I read that Stieg Larsson actually left behind an unfinished manuscript for a fourth book in the series, but I was pleased with how this one left off.  Overall, this book in the trilogy was much more complex and interesting as it tied together a lot of loose ends.  The mystery was captivating and surprising at every turn.  However, he did not take care of all pieces of the puzzle well.  Without giving too much away, a main character was murdered and the detectives spent the better part of the book searching for the murderer who went into hiding.  Yet, while Larsson spends a good amount of time addressing the rest of the plot, this crucial part is forgotten about until almost the end of the book when the killer is very abruptly confronted.  I was very pleased with how Larsson developed most the plot and how he solved it, but this last piece of the puzzle seemed extremely rushed and out of place.

Critique of the trilogy
I mentioned in my review of The Girl Who Played With Fire that Blomkvist’s playboy attitude annoyed me, since he lacks any strictly platonic female friends.  Sure enough, this continued in The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.  At least his character was consistent?  It mostly annoyed me because it seems so unrealistic and absurd, especially when a strong female detective becomes his latest conquest.  Regardless of Blomkvist’s appeal, I find it difficult to believe that he consistently can make conquests out of every female he becomes friends with, especially since they occur in professional settings. 

My largest critique of the trilogy concerns Larsson’s portrayal of women.  He writes the trilogy under the premise that violence against women is wrong, women should have rights, and women can be strong people.  I see how Larsson tries to make this point by having very strong, successful, and independent female characters – such as Berger, Figuerola, and of course Lisbeth Salander.  However, while strong and intelligent, all of his female characters are extremely cold and calculating.  They very rarely, if ever, show emotion and this is the quality that puts them on an “equal” level with men, not their intelligence or strength of character.  He has taken the very things that make people human away from women in order for them to be perceived as strong.  While I understand the importance of not using weak, sniveling characters or pathetic damsels in distress, I think he should have been able to show that women can indeed have emotions and operate as real human beings while still maintaining successful lives on the same level as men.  Lisbeth is an exception to this, since due to trauma and apparent psychological differences she cannot experience emotion normally, but the other women are not exceptions. 

Quote

“When it comes down to it, this story is not primarily about spies and secret government agencies, it’s about violence against women, and the men who enable it.” – Mikael Blomkvist

Rating
9/10

Giveaway Winner And Two Blog Awards!

My book giveaway has officially ended. Yesterday I used Random.org and selected the winner of a book of their choice from The Book Depository.

Congratulations to Robin Blankenship!

I notified Robin via email and she responded very quickly with her book choice and shipping address.  Congrats Robin, your book is on the way!

I’m so grateful for the big response that my giveaway received.  I’m sorry if you didn’t win, but many thanks for participating.  A special thanks to Pooks who mentioned my giveaway on her new blog.  If you haven’t checked out her giveaway yet, do so before it ends on January 6th.  Again, many thanks to everyone who has found my blog over the past couple weeks.  My follower count is now at 68 followers, WOW.

Now, on to the blog awards! I have been nominated for both the Versatile Blogger Award and the Liebster Blog Award again.

Thank you to twomuffinsinanoven for my second Versatile Blogger Award nomination.  Since I have already received the award previously, I am not going to create a separate post, but I will direct you here to my previous post with nominations and fun facts about me.

Thank you to Becky for my second Liebster Blog Award nomination.  Again, I am going to direct you all to my previous post here.  I greatly appreciate receiving these nominations and I know of many amazing blogs that I’m sure would be happy to receive nominations as well, but I simply don’t have the time to create individual posts when I receive multiple nominations for the same award.  Plus, it gets a bit confusing keeping track of what blogs I have already nominated.

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season and has all their gifts purchased and wrapped already (unlike me).  Coming up: Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, reviews of 2 movie adaptations of books I have reviewed, and updates about 2012 challenges I’m participating in (and what books I’ll be reading)!

If you haven’t followed my twitter account yet, check me out here at booksandboston. 

I have recently created a goodreads account as well, but I’m still figuring out how to use it, so stay tuned for more on that in the future

3 hours left to enter to win a free book!

My giveaway ends in 3 hours at 11:59pm EST. You can find full details of the giveaway here.

Make sure you subscribe & comment on that post for a chance to win a free book from The Book Depository. I’ll announce the winner tomorrow! =)

P.S. Posts will be more regular now that I’ve survived finals week

Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Facts
630 pages
Author: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Mystery
Series: Millennium Trilogy #2

Summary
This story is the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which I reviewed here.   In this book, Blomkvist decides to use his magazine, the Millenium, not only to expose corrupt financial leaders, but this time to expose an extensive web of officials involved in a sex trafficking scandal.  However, right before the magazine planned to publish this controversial exposé, the two journalists working with the Millenium on the issue are found dead in their apartment.  The police arrive at the scene and find the murder weapon — with Lisbeth Salander’s fingerprints on it.  The police are initially confident of her guilt and issue a nationwide search for Lisbeth, but she uses her cunning resources to disappear into hiding.  Blomkvist refuses to believe Lisbeth might be guilty and tries to defend her innocence by doing some detective work of his own and searching for the real killer.  The story gets more complex the deeper Blomkvist digs and the book leaves off with a shocking cliffhanger.

Lisbeth Salander
Lisbeth plays a larger role in this novel than her character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  She mainly lingers in the background for the first half of the book, but we learn a lot about her childhood and background from other sources.  This novel goes into detail about Lisbeth’s family and shows that her reasons for being so abnormal are very complex.  Finally, we learn about what Lisbeth refers to as “All The Evil” that caused her to be committed to a psychiatric ward when she was 12.

Overall Thoughts
I liked this book more than the first.  The characters, especially Lisbeth, became much more complex and it was very interesting to learn more about her background.  The story is also more compelling since the case directly relates to Lisbeth’s character and makes you anxious to find out more.  Blomkvist’s character irritates me a bit sometimes though.  He is often selfish and egotistic.  Although he has very good hunches and follows them through, he survives off of sheer luck and is careless.  Also, he has yet to have a serious friendship with a woman without having sex with her, which bothers me. 

Rating
9/10

While some parts were very thrilling, there was no overall “pull” of the book that kept me reading throughout it.  It took me a while to finish because I had no regrets about setting it down and not picking it up for a while.  Even though I enjoyed the story and wanted to find out what happened, I never was so interested that I had to keep reading.

If you do decide to read this book, make sure you have the next in the series – The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest – nearby.  This book leaves off on a huge cliffhanger and I ended up rushing to Walmart to buy the next in the series to find out what happened.  Once I finish The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest I’ll be posting a review here as well.

Check out my review of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo here.

Don’t forget to check out my book giveaway here.  It goes until December 17th, so make sure you enter before it ends!