Kathrine
Enjoyable read - well written, interesting characters. The ending, however was a bit meh. Too many coincidences and weird timing that allowed the “good guys” to easily win/get ahead. Too Hollywood-esque.
This one was kind of cute but also kind of meh, especially when it came to the mystery wrap up. Well, one of the mystery wrap ups.
A book aimed squarely at the Twilight niche. And it pretty much hits his target (especially for anyone who is Team Jacob), though it's not as addictive as that series (I actually didn't think Twilight was all that addictive either). The beginning and the end are beautifully written - it was nice to read a YA novel where the teens don't whine about living in the snowy tundra, erm I mean Upper Midwest all while wishing to move to anywhere south of Orlando. The middle however drifts along in a sleepy trance never really building to much of anything. Ok, there was that tense moment in the clinic, but really it wasn't any bigger than say the car accident.
A main reason I gave this 3 stars instead of 2...it didn't shove pages and pages of fawning god-like descriptions of a particular character down my throat.
This one met my expectations. Mostly.
Which is a kind way of saying, not bad but it could have been so much better.
Usually I like Ali Hazelwood's books, but as this was her first foray into ya, I was prepared to give it a little grace. It needed that grace and then some. There were times when I struggled to pay attention. It was never difficult to set the book down, except maybe the last 20 pages. Pretty sure that was more about me counting pages and continually reminding myself that the light at the end of the tunnel was glaringly bright.
Mallory is a fairly well written mc. She's got her good points and her flaws. I didn't necassrily like her - her childish bs and self appointed matyrdom grated on my nerves -but character wise she was fleshed out. I liked most of the chess related secondary characters, especially Oz. Who didn't I like? Nolan. The character equivalent of a wet paper towel. There was no depth to him. Chess. His grandfather. (who also played chess). And....he's a 20someyear old guy with no relationship experience who has no idea how to take care of himself when he's sick. That's it. We didn't learn anything about him that was comforting or revolutionary or even suggest that his favorite color was something other than beige. He chemistry with Mallory was miniscule at best. To the point where I didn't feel like there was really a romance at all.
My other issues would have been minor if the main story had held my attention better. But since it didn't...Mallory's mom? She was sick? I think? But no idea how she was sick. At first I thought it was depression. Then maybe recovering from cancer. But maybe it was some other kind of chronic illness? Lupus? Chronic fatigue? Arthritis? Fibromyalgia? No idea. Something was needed to explain why Mallory was playing parent even though her mom was in the other room. Mallory's sisters. Good grief. How does Mallory's 12 year old sister know that much about her sex life? Plus both girls were walking, talking Gen Z encyclopedias, practially just spewing lists of jokes and references to try to make the author appear like she knows what she writes about (Riverdale was not that good, but at least she didn't include the horrible, inexplicable Nancy Drew farce). It was all superficial.
One other point of contention: I think this book is mis-genre'd (is that a word?). Based on the ages of the main characters, where they are in life and the amount of sex talk, this should be New Adult, not YA. I wish publishers would stop trying to say something is YA, even when it's obviously not in an attempt to get those who read YA to look their direction.
Overall, 2.5 stars. I'm not feeling generous enough to round it up to 3
Not one of my usual genres, but thought I'd give it a try. Just told myself to think of it more as a mystery than a ghost story. Started out a little slow, but once I got in to it, it moved along. That is until the last 75 pages or so. When authors put questions out there, I like there to be answers. Waters didn't provide any. It was like she got sidetracked by the irritating doctor and forgot to write the payoff to the story.
As for Dr. Faraday, I don't think he was ever in love with Caroline. He was in love with that house - both the house itself and it's connection to his childhood/parents. That's why he was eager to go there that first time and why he continued to wander around the place as it crumbled around him
I honestly kept waiting to read that Susan died as a result of some horrible accident or mistake. Why else would every mention of the ghost/spirit seem to point back to her? The nursery, the scribbles, Mrs Ayers delusions. But nope, just plain old diphtheria. Why would she need to haunt the place then? And if it wasn't Susan, then what was it? I really would have liked some kind of answer - even just a slight nod in one direction of the other.
Liked this one well enough, though really, really could have done without all the Melusina stuff. Got to the point where just seeing the word caused me to roll my eyes and skim through whatever was italicized. Also not fond of the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” moments every time Henry Tudor and how he would never be king was mentioned. I know Gregory wrote her Tudor series first. I get it. Stop dropping anvils on my head.
I saw this was available through my local library (yay! for libraries and the Libby app) after reading The Love Hypothesis (which I really liked). Ali Hazelwood is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. Cute, fun, fast read. A little on the tropey side and a lot predictable, but sometimes that's exactly what I'm looking to read.
Cute but very predictable. Then again I kind of like my holiday themed stories that way.
More like 2.5 stars, but I'm being generous and rounding up.
I reserved this at my library before Christmas and forgot to remove the hold, so figured I might as well read it. Even though I found it in the “holiday themed” section of book suggestions, it's not really a holiday story. It's more Christmas-adjacent. It takes place in winter, around the holidays, but that's about it. The mystery wasn't terrible, but for me at least it was pretty easy to figure out. Early on I figured out that there were some grand theatrics that would eventually result in a soapy type resurrection of Jennifer (I was correct - almost the whole damn town was in on it). But really that was the not the part that bothered me about this book. I didn't get the purpose in all the psychiatrist scenes. Other than yet again to inform the reader how attractive the narrator was. Because apparently that's the one thing every character needs to tell the reader. Mostly I found him whiny. Whiny about a childhood crush at that. That's what made the grey, melancholy cloud hanging over the whole of this story even darker. And that's why 2.5 stars.
4.5 stars. I rarely give books 5 star ratings, but this one came close. I just couldn't quite bring myself to hand over that extra 1/2 star. Maybe it was too tropey. Or maybe there were a couple of plot points that were a little too convienent. I'm not really sure. But I did enjoy the book and all its inherent sweetness and geekiness over all.
I'm really behind in getting reviews posted...finished this one back at the beginning of February...so this is going to be short and....well....short.
2 stars is probably being generous, but I didn't all out hate every part of this story, so 2 stars. The depiction of CFS was well done - that's the part that allowed for the 2nd star. The rest was meh at best, irritating at worst. I despised what was supposed to be the romantic pairing of the story. While Rachel could be annoying and over the top, what I really didn't get was why she bothered to give pretentious, spoiled jerk Jacob the time of day. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to root for them as a couple, but I spent more time internally screaming at Rachel to leave his immature butt outside on some sidewalk somewhere. never speaking to him again. Honestly there are 6 year old with more maturity than these two characters had when they were together. Made it hard to not throw this one across the room.
So, so, so tropy. And predictable. I even predicted most of the things Penny listed out at the end (definitely not Chase's reason for not liking mice. For which I don't blame him one bit) But it was kind of fun. And exactly what I needed as my break from work was coming to an end.
Only a couple different plot lines so there was little tighter focus this time around with the Women's Murder Club. A definite improvement over the last couple of books in the series.
I do wish Lindsay would stop jumping to conclusions all the time.
This isn't my usual genre of choice and I can't quite give this one just one star because the Deputy with the crush was sweet. But the rest was just meh. And there was crime until the end, where the culprit was promptly arrested. I figured out who Charlotte's secret admirer was extremely early on, so the mystery just wasn't there.
hmmm...I need a half star...While I liked the book for the most part, it was really slow to start. That plus the fact that for a mystery/thriller, it never really left me on the edge of my seat makes me want to give the book 3 and 1/2 stars.
Interesting premise with a fantastic start. Seeing the world through Nina's eyes, even with the trips to the past that slowed the pace was fascinating. Watching a group of cons interact and switch between what was supposed to be a con and what was actually real kept me reading. Where things started to fall apart for me was the introduction of the 2 narrator. Vapid, 2-dimensional, snotty, self-involved with nothing that differentiated her from a half dozen other antagonists in a half dozen other novels. There were a couple of twists that I didn't quite see coming, so I powered through the parts where I wanted to slap a piece of duct tape over Vanessa's mouth (including the long section where Nina was MIA). I actually kind of wish Lachlan had been the second narrator. It would have been an interesting juxtaposition to Nina. Anyway, I had hopes for a powerful final act. Unfortunately, all I got was disappointment. It ended on a whimper that was 1 step removed of sunshine and rainbows.
The stories were uneven and the vast majority weren't memorable. Randy Travis (which was sad) and Chick-a-Chee were the only ones that were memorable. I couldn't remember the rest not even five minutes after reading.
Mixed feelings on this one. On one hand I liked it better than the last Jack Daniels story - at least from what I remember (it's been awhile since I read Rusty Nail). I basically remember being easily distracted while reading it. On the other hand, it feels a bit deja vu-ish to me. Jack, our gruff, sarcastic, fits in with the boys club, female lead character is once again chasing a diabolical criminal mastermind/mass murderer. The absolute constant “smarter than your above average cop until almost the last chapter” thing was getting a bit hard to swallow. At least he had motive other than liking to watch people suffer.
I still can't stand McGlade. Useless and Crude. I keep hoping he'll die. I keep being disappointed.
On the plus side, the humor was enjoyable and it was nice to see the “softer” side of Jack when she found out about her father.
After finishing this, I feel like a need to go find a time machine and go back one of my college English Lit classes and chat about existentialism, narcissism, indifference and depression until we're going in circles.
Overall, an interesting and well written read. I get why it's considered a classic, why it's important in literature and why so many people feel so strongly about it. And yet, I was bored (that is when I wasn't depressed). Books with very little plot, lots of randomness, absurdity and no meaning to life are apparently not my cup of tea.
If the pace had been faster, I probably would have given this 4 stars because the writing was pretty good (terrible descriptor but my brain is fried and I honestly finished this a while ago but didn't update here),
Great mystery with a gothic feel. Lots of twists and turns that left me guessing what would happen next.
6 months. 6 months to finished a book with less than 200 pages. That says a lot. I think I get what the author was trying to do. It. Did. Not. Work. If not for a couple of the chapters near the beginning that I actually liked, this would have only garnered 1 star.
Typical, awesome Reacher book (I'm working on re-reading the early books in the series) though I had figured out who the killer was pretty early on. Would have given it 4 stars if not for the and we had to wave goodbye to Jodie - she's still my favorite love interest.