Yvonne

There is no question that Diana Athill is an exceptional writer for somebody in their late 90's. But I couldn't really relate to her and skipped over a lot. The one chapter I did find of interest was about her thoughts on going into an old people's home. Otherwise I thought it was a bit boring for somebody who has lived through so many interesting times and is obviously still very mentally “with it”.

I read this book because I have a particular interest in the history of China. Although it didn't add much to my knowledge of the subject, and the story of Mao's lost son didn't amount to much, it is still a thoroughly enjoyable travel book.

An interesting story but I got a bit bogged down in the middle and skipped pages.

Of course I fell in love with Sherman from the start but having done that I found the book wandered off down too many side trails that I wasn't really interested in and I skipped over much of it.

I was reading this at the time of the Charlottesville protest which made it very real. I didn't find it an easy read and had to walk away from it a couple of times. I thought it was excellent except for the last couple of chapters which were too well rounded off to be realistic. I would rather it had finished at the end of the trial.

unable to read because of small print

I enjoy Peter Lovesey's writing, the characters are good, the plot OK, but it is slower than most of his books and at about 2/3 of the way through I skipped a couple of chapters to find out who the culprit was because it seemed that Superintendent Diamond was never going to get there.

I enjoyed the reading of this book as I was hooked by the mystery from the start and wanted to know more. But I didn't really get to know any of the suspects and by the end I didn't really care which one of them turned out to be the villain.

Not quite so difficult to read as “It”, but still painful and bound to bring tears, it is nevertheless a story of a triumphant spirit. My five stars are not so much for the book as they are for Dave himself.

I know I am in the minority group here but this book didn't enthrall me at all. The “octopus” idea very quickly became irritating, the dog talking in capitals with exclamation marks was also irritating, and Ted drove me nuts. The last section improved a little but not enough to save it.

I have several favorite Australian authors and now I have another one. I very much enjoyed this book.

This book gets off to a slow start. By about a third of the way through I was about to give up on it but as I didn't have another book to hand I carried on. Then I suddenly found that I was enjoying it and liked it more and more as the story unfolded.

I enjoyed the reading of this book but unlike all the other reviews I have read, I hated the ending. I found it beyond belief for several reasons that I cannot elaborate on without giving away spoilers but it left me with a sour aftertaste.

If a book is entertaining and also has me looking up people and places in Google to learn more sometimes that is all I ask from a book. This one qualified as an enjoyable undemanding read which left me with an interest in researching more about Botswana.

Apart from the U-turn in the middle which took me by surprise and revived my flagging interest for a short while, I found this cliched and predictable.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book and thought it showed a lot of promise but as Ruby's story progressed it became so improbable that I lost interest.

This book is well written but I could not read past the first few chapters. I found it totally depressing. I am surprised that nobody else seems to have felt the same. Perhaps it was just the wrong time in my life to read it.

The reason I rated this book so low is probably because of my age. I just don't relate to twenty~somethings who drink a lot and smoke dope. I could not summon much interest in what seemed like a very average story of loss, grief, and new love.

I enjoyed the first half of this book which dwelt with the authors experiences in Shanghai but it lost me in the second half as it talked about people I didn't know and experiences that didn't interest me.

I am probably Caroline Overington's biggest fan and this book didn't disappoint. Very real characters, a plot that gives a lot of pause for thought about big questions, and her easy to read style made it a winner for me.

Although I enjoyed reading this book all the way through I was left feeling disappointed. The instant cure of PND was not believable and I kept expecting there to be something at the end that would make sense of it but it didn't happen.