Martha

I liked the story, but by the time I got to the end, all the misplaced modifiers were driving me insane.

Hilariously funny even during the serious parts. Way, way, way too much swearing.

Would have gotten 4 stars without the adult content. Hilariously funny.

DNF. Amarande played the part of both Buttercup and Wesley, which left Luca nothing to do but love horses. And I'm much better at spotting plot twists than Amarande is, which left no surprises for me. Yes, I admit, I read other reviews to see if I was right. I am.

Basically, nothing happened. And there was almost no dialogue between the hero & heroine, yet they still managed to fall in love. And by “almost no dialogue,” I mean I was tempted to count to see if he said more than 100 words in the whole book.

Interesting, but not really what I was hoping it would be.

I was expecting a pleasant, no-regrets 3-star read. Happily got a notch above, with realistic characters who actually talk to each other and start a romance because they're friends (AND attracted).

Not all of it was bad, but some of the stories were less interesting.

Not bad, but a few instances of head-hopping bugged me, and several important points were never explained, like the psycho-ness of the murderer.

Maybe not interesting to the general public, but extremely helpful for a writer. Specific ways to help knock down writer's block, depending on the problem AND the writer's personal strengths and weaknesses. She even explains WHY the tactics work. Love it!

I really liked the first two books, but this one was not so good. The plot jumped around erratically, switching scenes without warning and skipping transitions. Beloved characters behaved in irrational ways that were never explained. Descriptions were inadequate. Basically, I was confused and frustrated for most of the book.

Absolutely fascinating, but much too long. I really wanted the novella version. :)

2.5 stars.

The characters' reasons for not getting together were somewhat believable, so I'll let it keep 3 stars. But nothing was outstanding, and there were a lot of annoying editing goofs. I'm not talking about simple typos, which I understand and don't usually comment on, but commas in the wrong place (not “you shouldn't use a comma here,” but “um, it belongs two words over instead of in the middle of the phrase”) and sentences where the author obviously rewrote it to sound better but didn't get all of the old words deleted.

First, these are not terrifying. They are slightly spooky.
Second, I don't like terrifying, but I can deal with slightly spooky. It wins a point.
Third, even though the stories don't seem related, many of them have a connecting thread. It wins a point.
Fourth, I found it very easy to guess the connecting thread. It would lose a point, except that it didn't bother me to guess it, so I'm calling it even.
Fifth, the writing is good, and the style is good. It wins a point.

It has a narrow focus, but what it does, it does well.

This book talks about how to choose where we spend our time and why (which meshes wonderfully with Overcoming Overwhelm), thinking about what we want long in the future, how to say no to good in favor of best, setting the right goals, leaving time for experimentation and serendipity, working in cycles, being patient, defining success, and learning from failure.

2.5 stars. Nothing was BAD, but nothing was great, either. Every problem was solved too easily, and the romance was too insta for me.

I liked the Patricia Briggs story, which is the reason I picked up this book. I liked a couple of the others. As for the rest of the book... let's just say I wasn't the target audience and leave it at that.

I picked this up thinking, eh, it might be okay. And it was better.

First, the cons. The editing annoyed me. Too many sentence fragments for sure. A few too many technical errors, which I could have ignored better if I wasn't suffering from the fragments. And frankly, the twists didn't surprise me. The only time I was a little surprised was when a pack of wolves showed up out of nowhere. (Cool!)

The good stuff. The prose was written well enough. The characters were fun. The plot, while pretty standard, at least avoided major holes and was assembled in a decently suspenseful order. I'm making this sound more lackluster than it was. Really, about a chapter in, I told myself, “This is better than I expected,” and settled in for the ride.

Will it ever be one of my favorites? No. Do I feel like I wasted my time? Definitely not. It was fun, and really, some days that's all you need.

First, the bad. I was warned this story was very trope-y, and it is. Insta-love in high school, deathly rival, not talking about misunderstandings, blah blah. Truthfully, it cost a star from me, because those aren't the tropes I love. Don't let that stop you if they're your trope of choice.

Also, there's a totally unrealistic coma. Induced comas are never used that way in real life, so it was obviously an author's ploy. (Hint: use sedation next time.)

But the good... Even though it was her first book, Liz's skill as a writer comes through. Smooth prose, good dialogue, mostly realistic characters. Painless to read, even with the tropes.

Final analysis: if these ARE your tropes, this is a great book. ;)

Oops. I recognized the character from the YA series, but um, this one isn't YA. Ahem. Delightfully funny, but adult content.

Good writing, depressing story.

Fairly standard YA romance. It was fine. My biggest problem is that after so many pictures-gone-wrong, I don't understand why she would go anywhere NEAR the ex.

Funny.

I really wanted to like this one, but it just left too many questions unanswered and took the easy/predictable way too often.

I think it's a cheap trick of the author to say “we'll test you during your regular day” and then never say what the tests were.

I thought the overarching dilemma was too one-sided. Of course Logan will make the choices that he did, because his parents' side is never presented as being the right/attractive one. When one side is lying and evil and the other side is misunderstood and noble, there's not much conflict left for a decision.

The chronology was confusing. “We only have a week of school left,” but then they keep going to school and going to school and going to school...

Frankly, Reina is a pain. It's not enough that Logan, new to the whole situation, is doing the right thing, but he has to do it “for the right reasons.” eye roll Give him time, chica! And then abandoning him to the police was cruel.

Every obstacle was overcome so easily, except Jonas. And I'm pretty sure I know what happened to him...

And seriously, hiding in the open because “they won't expect it” is not intelligent. Expected or not, if someone sees them, they're discovered.

And so many questions... If the chipped people are being tracked by their chips, how are the unchipped people tracked? If they can be tracked even without a chip, then why doesn't the army already wipe them out? How can Reina hide her blip from other people, and why does she let Logan see it? Or what allows Logan to see it when other people can't? How can Reina tell what all the stolen medicines are without a label? I mean, have you ever TRIED to identify all the different meds when your elderly parent drops them on the floor?? If Anyone can't even afford food and meds, how did they get a rocket launcher? And then there are questions that might be answered in the next book but really should have been answered here. Like, who keeps waking up Logan??