Kathrine
This was actually really cute. I mean, I knew how it was going to end, but sometimes you need that kind of story. My one major complaint was all the red herrings, obtuse-ness and confusion the author threw at the reader. Lina was sometimes the dumbest person in the room - like I figured out really early on that X and Howard were not the same person just from the journal entries. Since Both the reader and Lina were supposedly reading the same thing, Lina should have been able to see that too. But the author wanted to draw out the suspense, so Lina had to be dumb. Dumb is never a good look on a main character.
While I think I prefer Baldacci's Will Robie series, this wasn't bad. I liked the complexities of Amos Decker and I liked the supporting characters. Parts of the plot seemed a little too convenient and a little too thin. Still not sure I actually believed the killer's motive, but okay. Occassionally the writing felt repetitive (I'm hoping that changes with future books because then the main characters would already know about Amos's condition). But I'll probably end up picking up Book 2 at some point.
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett do not disappoint. It's a buddy road trip combined with absurd satire combined with an apocalyptic caper combined with social and religious commentary.
Footnote: I will never not hear David Tennant's and Michael Sheen's voices when reading Crowley and Aziraphale. One of the best adaptations ever.
Not terrible, but that long road was a meandering one. The first couple of chapters had tension and intrigue and then things got simplistically messy - both plot and writing wise. The revealed conspiracy was a bit too over the top for my liking, but at least it was wrapped up. I did like Atlee and I adored Bloom so I'm willing to pick up the next book in the series.
The Cape Bay Cafe series is what it is - cozy, quiet, pleasant. Francesca, our amateur detective/cafe owner/ heroine is a sweet and polite and honestly a little over the top in her internal monologues. And some...maybe a lot of what she does is eye-roll worthy. But she's never in your face. And I appreciate that the mystery itself isn't full of padding and misdirections just to add another 50 or 60 pages. I could have done without all the “how to make tea” padding (as a tea drinker, it was ridiculous the amount of babbling Fran did concerning black tea. Just steep it for 3 minutes already. Yet she never mentioned herbals or matcha or chai). I also could have done without the attempted but never quite got all the angles connected love triangle.
A beautiful, charming, sweet, heartfelt book with beautiful illustrations. Maybe a little cloying and simplistic at moments, but sometimes “that's what you need.
Mole may be my spirit animal. “If at first you don't succeed, have some cake.”
And I feel like i need to repeat that the drawings are gorgeous. So if you get a chance to even just glance through this one, do so.
Not quite sure how I feel about this one. It had its moments. Cute, sweet, funny moments. There were even a couple of moments that made me get a little bit sniffle-y. And I actually liked Laurie and Sarah and Jack. Oscar not so much, but whatever. My biggest problem was that it dragged on for way too many pages. Like say 75 pages too many. This should have been 300 (give or take 10 pages) page count book. Because you get to the point that Sara figures out the bus boy mystery and you know exactly what is going happen. (Which is fine, I knew going in what this book was.) But then the story time line sloooooowwwwwsssss to an absolute crawl. The reader is left to turn pages, hoping that the two daft idiots with the encouragement of their mutual friend will suddenly be sharing the same space just so the reader can stop turning pages. Yep, less pages would have been fantastic.
Other than that, it wasn't bad. But it wasn't yell about it from the rooftops great either. I'd be willing to give another book by this author a chance.
Picked this up at the library because I have this weird holiday themed masochistic side that comes out to play at the end of every year. It's like my subconscious purposely looks for the most trope-tastic, ridiculous stories it can find. It's also why I get sucked into the black hole of TV otherwise known as the Hallmark channel (at least there there's an opportunity for an actor to save a role, a plot or even a whole movie).
I have to wonder if this book would have been better had it been told from the point of view of the dog. Because for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why or even how the two stereotypical characters managed to fall in love in less than 48 hours. Not just lust but absolute love. Then later, another 48 hours around Thanksgiving. Which of course leads to an argument and someone looking for excuses and then running away. Basically what happens in every Hallmark movie when there's about 20 minutes left. Maybe Hennessy the dog (who I chose to believe was named after a brand of cognac, not some family member) could have given us some insight into it all. If I had been given that, I might have given this more stars.
So I um, read this in the bookstore...while shopping for my nephew and niece. But I'm counting it toward my books read for the year, as I did read it cover to cover (which I don't always do when shopping in the children's section).
I've always liked Pete the Cat and this visit to his world was really cute. Read to the same cadence as Twas the Night Before Christmas, it's fun and has great illustrations
It's been a minute since the last Fox and O'Hare novel I read. I thought maybe a little distance would give me a new look at it. But nope. 3 Stars seems to be my go to for these books (except apparently #2? I don't really remember that one, but after glancing through my review, I liked this one better). They're kinda the literary equivalent of a powered sugar donut: sweet, early chewed, and likable but pretty basic without a lot of depth. Not that I read them for their literary power. Mostly they're an escape for me. Plus I enjoy Scott Brick's narration with the audio book.
Most of the story was typical - scams, undercover hi-jinks, fake shootouts and flirting. Nothing new to see here. I did however like the end. It's not the typical, mostly tied bow that wants you to go buy the next book just because. Definitely more of a cliffhanger that for now offers the possibility of a payoff (though I'm not holding my breath)
I went into this book hoping it would be good (because I've read a lot of positive reviews) but prepared to not be impressed at all (that seems to be an issue with large percentage of books for me lately). With all that, my immediate inclination to give this 4 stars was a bit of a surprise.
This is not a fast moving story. Instead it smolders (pun intended), occasionally ignites and then dies back down. It's about characters and emotion. It's not only about how we see ourselves but how others change and color how we see ourselves. There isn't one character who doesn't color themselves in varying forms of grey through out this story, even Elena who like to think in terms of black and white and flawless, perfectly planned outward appearances.
While the overarching story is that of Elena and Mia and their children and what happens to all of them, the secondary story of Bebe and her daughter is really what drives the narrative forward. It's the lit match ready to set so many fires flaring.
If you're looking for high drama and outbursts and racing toward a finish line, you won't find it here. But if you want well written, deep character studies with emotion and true to real life messiness, then give this one a chance.
You'd think with only 100 pages there would be a limit to the number the plots and locations the James Patterson writing Factory would attempt to shove into a story. Apparently not. Granted, this one stuck mostly to 2 plots - one involving the murders of socialites and the other with horse racing and the shady side of gambling - so not as bad as it could have been. But in all of that we traveled to Kentucky, Baltimore, New York and Paris. Moncrief is certainly racking up those frequent flier miles.
James DiLallo did a pretty good job of keeping the plots separate (the only connection was Moncrief) while staying on pace with both. I wasn't particularly thrilled with how either plot ended but you can't expect big explanations with only a small amount of paper real estate. I do wish they'd tone down Moncrief and his over the top knows all personality. Does he ever actually investigate anything? Not that it matters at this point, as I believe this book to be the end of the series/trilogy.
Well then. That only took 2 library renewals (with a few weeks wait in between because borrowing ebooks is like that) and a lot of sighs and eye rolls to get through. At least with this one, the not-in-the-least-bit-subtle foreshadowing was less. Only slightly less, but still an improvement. The bigger problem this time is the insipid, naive main character - Girl/Daughter/Millie/Emalyn or whatever she's going by this week. PICK. A. NAME. (rant: this author seems to love naming characters what she thinks are romantic, fairy tale-esque exceptionally purple sobriquets. After 2 books of this, it's bordering on overindulgent).
In the beginning, I liked Merlin and Millie's friendship. Even if I didn't like all the blinking neon signs that Merlin is supposed to be THE Merlin (stop trying to squash fairy tales and legends together. They are different.), at least this sole friendship was decent basis for story and gave a way to fill time pre-straw to gold tasks. I liked Merlin so of course he was banished from the story for a good number of pages. When he returned, Millie was already fully into her my normal life sucks so I want to be princess state and therefore became the unrequited love portion of the story. I also liked Kirkin, the guard, even if he seemed like the unknown twin brother of Matteus from End of Ever After. Liking those two as much as I did, left me rather disappointed with Rainn. He was vague and flat as Millie's love interest. Of course by that time, I was becoming bored with Millie, herself. She had no purpose, no life, aside from fretting about an imp and missing her bestest friend in the world (and then stomping on his heart). So really her and Rainn were probably perfect for each other - both being able to fade into the background. Fading into the background is the best way to describe the ending. Once the big what's my name mystery was solved and Merlin finally decided he deserved more and left, the story fizzled on for too many pages. A quick couple of paragraphs epilogue could easily have filled in for those last 30 pages that I think were only there to link this book to the first one.
Side note: I narrowed my eyes at the whole name the children Jacob and Wilhelm thing (apparently someone is unaware that the Grimm brother's name was Jakob with a K. He was German after all). I guess when you're already squeezing more than 3 fairy tales into one book, there's more than enough room to include the men who actually collected some of those original tales.
As much as I love a fairy tale retelling, I had told myself I was done with this series with this book. And then I saw that the preview is for her version of The Little Mermaid. Sigh. That particular story has always fascinated me because people never seem to actually know how Hans Christian Andersen actually ended it. But now? I kinda what to see how Disney-fied PLUS (she even used the Disney name) Tenenbaum's version is.
I adored Garden Spells and so was curious find out what the Waverlys had been up to since then. Sadly, this one didn't quite hit all the same/right notes that its predecessor did. I liked the family isn't just blood, sometimes it's found theme and that Claire, always the level headed one was questioning her place with her loved ones, with her life, with everything. My problem was the way Claire's questioning was instigated - Russell and his grey shyster suit and gone in the blink of an eye abilities felt weak and wispy. Like there wasn't anything there but smoke, the non-magical kind. On top of that, Sydney's desperate for another child story felt predictable and repetitive. Haven't made up my mind where Bay and her story is concerned. I liked her magical OCD but the whole note to Josh and then sitting on the school steps every. day. felt, well, a little bit creepy.
Still I there wasn't anything to make me put the book down and walk away for good. I enjoyed the writing and as always Evanelle is a fantastic character (love Fred too).
I should have read a few reviews before I opened this one....Logically, you would think you should start with book 1 in a long series. I have a habit of accidentally picking up say book 4 in a series, liking it, and then having to go back and start at the beginning. So here I was thinking starting with book 1 was a good thing. Should have read the reviews because then I would have known NOT to start with book 1. Skip it. For now. Read a few others and then come back. Because this one? Was kinda boring. And it didn't do the best job at world building. There were characters that flit through a few pages and then disappear. I assume in a later book they'll be important but not this one. I did like the characters, (well most of them). Rincewind too a little bit to get used to and Twoflower seesawed back and forth between idiocy and haplessness. So I'm willing to try another Discworld book....I just need to read a few more reviews to figure out which one.
Oh wait. That's the end. Really? There's not another 5 pages of middling nothingness to tie up everything in a cute, scrapbook worthy bow? Just a sentence fragment? Um, okay then. I guess grammar skills aren't for everyone.
For the life of me, I can't figure out the why of this book. Why did Lara Jean even write those letters to begin with? Was her life so boring that....wait. Don't answer that And then why/how did she even have a couple of those addresses (like the kid from camp)? So not only did she write the letters, she addressed envelopes - including the return address. (Did she put stamps on them too?) On top of that why isn't she more concerned than she is that someone found those letters and MAILED them. Maybe she should have invested in a diary or journal or whatever instead of envelopes. I mean the girl lives to scrapbook, but never considers a pink, glittery diary with one of those silly little locks. There's a quick, minuscule explanation for how those pages ended up with the USPS, but it feels like the author went with it because it was easy and didn't particularly care about the how or even that the letters existed by the time we got to the end. Side note: Why doesn't this over-privileged teen see being obsessed with her sister's boyfriend as weird?
And then there's the main character - Lara Jean - herself. I had to keep reminding myself that she's supposed to be 16. Why? Because everytime she said/thought/dreamed anything she sounded like a whiney, spoiled, immature 12 year old. While I could empathize with the general premises like teen crushes and sibling rivalries, I could not sympathize with Lara Jean herself. I'm pretty sure 9 year old Kitty has a higher maturity level than her sister.
I'm starting to realize that a major reason I like dystopian YA is because stuff actually HAPPENS and the characters are required to react. (Until book 3 in a trilogy when the lead is reduced to crying all. the. time.) With this, Lara Jean learns nothing, she barely does anything and by the end not much has changed. Basically, NOTHING happens.
I should have just watched the Netflix movie.
Really this is 4.5 stars for me...I just can't decide whether to round up or down at this point.
I read a couple of reviews going in so I knew this wasn't going to be the usual whimsical work that I love from this author. And yet, it wasn't at all what I was expecting it to be. The teaser description makes it sound like this is a story about an underdog hockey team and the people and town who breathe, sleep and eat the sport. In reality it's a coming of age story about people who happen to have hockey as part of their lives.
One of those middle of the road, neither really great or really awful stories but most likely one I won't remember much about in a couple of months. Suspense/thriller tends to be my go to genre and this book sits firmly in that category. Puller is cut from the same cloth as Jack Reacher - both are some form of military law enforcement (one current, one former), both have/had older brothers, both had military fathers, etc. If Puller were a gangly 6'6”, I'd probably wonder if they were twins separated at birth. That's not a bad thing. I like Reacher and I liked Puller. It's just something to be aware of. One main difference: whereas Reacher regularly only carries his toothbrush and wallet, apparently Puller and Mary Poppins shop at the same luggage/bag store. For the amount of stuff Puller pulled out of his rucksack, it has to be manufactured by the same magicians who created Mary's carpet bag.
As for the plot, there wasn't anything that stood out or any big twist that completely blindsided me. Again it was pretty much typical, middle of the road story telling. There were some taut, suspenseful moments that helped move the end along. Though honestly, knowing this is book 1 in a series meant I never worried about Puller's continued existence. Everyone else I was pretty much 50/50 on whether they'd survive though I was a little sad about Sam Cole. I liked her.
I'm not against reading another in the Puller series, but it's not at the top of my list either. This book wouldn't be one I'd recommend to someone looking at reading their first Baldacci story. (I much prefer Robie or King and Maxwell). But it's decent enough if you're looking for something you don't mind if you forget.