psst...wanna hear a secret?...looking at other reviews, it's not going to be a popular response...I kinda hate Evie. As a posthumous narrator, she's the chipper-est (I'm making that a word for this review), full of sunshine and sparkly champagne, limp noodle of a character. Which also makes her the most boring, naive, dumber than a rock narrator to grace the books I read this year. Which was incredibly disappointing given how much I was looking forward to reading this book.
See, I adore epistolary fiction. It's fun. Chapters are short. You get multiple view points. In this one, Evie was supposed to be this great writer and yet all her letters felt simple and naive, even as the war drug on. And then there were her columns, which at best were contradictory. One moment she's bemoaning about not really knowing what the boys were in France fighting for in her letters to Tom (ya know, because the rich little girl can't get her way travel right then) and the next she's going on in her column about all the things they were fighting for and how the rest of the population should support them. At least I think they did - I admit to mostly skimming through the included columns after I realized that had no impact on the plot whatsoever. Mostly they were just another way for dear little Evie to make herself feel important (which ended up being a theme, whether intended or not). Throughout the whole thing Evie acted/wrote like war was some kind of grand adventure. Even when she joined the WAACs, she still acted like it was some great adventure. War is not.
I couldn't help but wish that Alice had been the central character in this book.
The premise of Flashforward in intriguing and thought provoking. Fate versus free will with a cast of characters trying to make sense of it from a scientific and emotional perspective. Sadly though, I found the execution of the story lacking. There were two many heavy handed scientific conversations - both between characters and with only themselves - that left my brain wandering, wishing the book was more like the television show.
The second half the book moved faster and made the characters more three dimensional, more emotional. And while not the best climatic chase scene I've ever read, the hovercraft scenes were what what finally pushed Theo into a likable lead character. It was those scenes that took the story from 2 to 3 stars for me.
It took way too long to get to the mystery portion of the story and recipes took up like a third of the pages, leaving something to be desired as mysteries (even cozy-mysteries) go. Hannah and her sisters spent most of that remaining page real estate running around like chickens in a snow storm (sorry/not sorry...the setting is Minnesota and there is a blizzard in the story) and the resolution fell flat.
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.
Enjoyed the book for the most part, but it was easy to tell that this was Connelly's first book. The writing seemed rather heavy at times and even a bit formulaic. Loner cop who's better than good at his job but has issues in his past. Good guys who turnout to be bad guys. Slightly more defined than cardboard female character (at least until the last 30 pages or so). I spent a good part of the book wanting to know more about the case that laned Bosch in so much trouble than caring about tunnels and bank heists. I did like Bosch and am curious now to see where the author takes the character.
While the story felt a bit dated - written almost 20 years ago - it was fun to be a bit nostalgic about a time before we were all attached to our cell phones and other smart devices and actually had to make the effort to talk to people.
Nice little prequel to book 2 (which comes out in a couple of weeks). Probably not the author's best writing, but I still wished it was longer. Evan Smoak was very much in character, though I didn't like the constant references to him as “the watcher”. Still, I'm looking forward to more of the Nowhere Man.
Enjoyable, fast, easy read. Very much a typical Grisham story. More of a teaser for The Whistler than a novella or short story. It made me want to read that novel sooner rather than later, so this one did what it was supposed to do.
Good thing the WMC books are fast reads.
The good: this one is better than The 5th Horseman, but I'm still only giving it 2 stars
The bad: once again, too many plots circling around and never really finding a good place to land. Insane killer with mommy/sister issues, dead nannies, missing children, Club members' lives being in danger, Lindsay being insecure (Joe is a saint for dealing with her issues), etc. None of those plot lines had any depth. They just skipped over the pages of the book like a stone skipping over a lake. What happened to the women working together? Or at least talking things through? Cindy was practically non-existent through most of the story - even the one that concerned her apartment building. Claire just sat in the hospital after being shot in the opening scene(and she never did chew Lindsay out for the whole Joe thing). Still getting used to Yuki, who had a larger role than the others, but she still didn't have much to do with the others.
Being an eternal optimist when it comes to series I start out liking, here's hoping 7 is better.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this one up. I'd seen numerous great reviews, a lot of “you've got to read this” and it kept making book club lists. Most everywhere, people were raving about it. And what do you know, they were right. Full of charm, humor and a bit of sadness. Well paced and well drawn characters. Bonus points to the author because I didn't quite catch the big twist until a comment Raymond made after Eleanor started therapy.
This one should come with a warning sticker: tissues may be needed. Beautiful and heartbreaking, full of heart and oddly enough, math. I don't know how Fredrik Backman does it, but he has a way of translating humanity and emotion into the written word.
This is what happens when you're trying to meet your books read goal before the end of the year and you find a short holiday themed story offer on your Nook for free . Sigh. Characters are crazy over the top and the basic plot is a typical cliche for this type of book. My first story by this offer, but I suspect she wouldn't fit in among my usual picks. Didn't all out hate it but I don't think I'll be searching for more.
The was one of those books where there was nothing terrible about the story (other than it got really slow about 2/3 of the way through), but there wasn't anything exciting either. It was just there.
Though it did feel like a fall Hallmark Channel movie waiting to happen.
Fun, though very, very dated read. Lots of wry wit and sarcasm. Though at times it felt a bit more like a sort of autobiographical stream of consciousness than an actual character driven story (because this was always more about Suzanne Vale than it was about anything she did).
And just an fyi, the book really is nothing like the movie. Both are worth checking out but I think this is one of the few times where I prefer the movie.
bleh. This book should have come with a better warning: Beware. Extremely old school, highly predictable, eye roll worthy, very cheesy, romance novel. It's books like these that remind me why I tend to skip the romance section. Much prefer Sandra Brown's suspense novels.
Normally I like Sandra Brown's books. They're a little fluffy, but have their thriller/mystery elements. Charade is one of the few exceptions. Cat Delaney is obnoxious, screechy, and irritating. The so called “hero” has his issues, but I never really got a hero vibe from him. Probably didn't help that I had the big bad figured out way before the halfway point of the book.
meh. So full of ridiculous cliches and over the top characters (even for a Sandra Brown book) that I spent most of the book rolling my eyes.
Apparently I like to torture myself with James Patterson books. I see them in the bookstore, I read the back synopsis and think this sounds interesting. There's a voice in the back of my head that starts whispering “Wait. What? Patterson? No. Don't do this to yourself. Put it back.” And then I ignore that voice. Often to my own regret.
Not that this book was bad, even though the writing was rather plain. It was short - just over 100 pages, so there was no way they (and by they I mean James O. Born and the notes/story outline from Patterson) could cram in 10 additional non-related plots involving 4 other residents of the small New York town where it was set. The characters have potential - especially Mitchum, if they'd lay off the constant mentioning of his almost being a Navy SEAL. The plot however was pretty much a paint-by-numbers, cram it all in at the end suspense trope.
Read this way out of order, but it's only a novella and it's a Patterson so I figured it wouldn't much matter. I was right. I haven't read anything else in the Michael Bennett series, but I don't think that had any effect. We meet up with Bennett in between major cases and he does his thing to solve the crime. Like he's supposed do. It's his job after all as both a police detective and the main character of a series of thiller/suspense books. There really wasn't anything to endear me to the character and at less than 150 pages, there really wasn't much to endear me to the actual murder case either. It wasn't terrible, but it's nothing I won't forget in a week or two.
The mystery was adequate. The characters, while not very deep were adequate. The writing was simplistic and adequate. Basically the best word to describe this book: Adequate.
Huh? I know I haven't read the first book in the series, but this is only book 2. One whould be able to figure out the generalities easily enough.
That was a whole lot of shopping (and useless banal facts) for a mystery. Normally I like the book shots, but this one doesn't make me want to go back and find book #1.
I liked this one well enough, but there was just something about it that left me meh. Maybe it was the ending with Jane, you know the part where suddenly she seemed all calculating and cold where Edward was concerned. Maybe it was the first time Emma called Edward ‘Daddy'. Which, ewww. (Dear authors, There are LOTS of names out there. Can we please stop naming everyone Edward? I blame Twilight for this.) Maybe it was because I never trusted Simon, mostly because I could never figure out why he was hanging around the story so much, unless to end up being the bad guy. Mostly though I think it was because Emma and Jane sounded almost identical in their POVs. I don't know how many times I had to flip back to double check who's name was at the beginning of the chapter. I know they author was trying to convey the idea that Edward was trying to make them into the same person or at least the newest version of his ideal woman, but the women in their own heads were different people. Their outlooks and experiences were different and should have been shown, even if only in the little things like tone or word choice, as such.
The story veered a little too much in the Christian Grey direction (I'm going with what I've heard about those books, as I couldn't bring myself to get to the halfway point of the first book, the writing was so bad). It would have made a better psychological thriller if the author not made it all about Edward setting up the same sexual situations with different women.
Why does it seem like every Brit authored mystery/suspense novel to come out lately is full, from page one to the author's picture on the back cover, with crazy people? Because holy cow were all of these characters immensely unlikable and mentally unstable. Except maybe the neighbor with all the kids. In that way this book reminded me of The Girl on the Train (not only are these books full of crazy, they have ‘Girl' in the title).
Started out pretty good, but lost something towards the end. Maybe it was that more of the focus went to Kristi - not a favorite character of mine. Would have been happy without the epilogue.
Fast paced, exciting plot, strong heroine. I was honestly surprised at how fast of a read it was. There were often moments where I told myself just one more page - so that I'd know what happened. There were moments that brought me near tears. Always give credit when an author gets me to care about characters enough to make me emotional over what happens to them. So in that sense, this book was excellent.
So why not 5 stars? Well...because. Because Collins has a way of telegraphing when the big “moments” are going to happen. You can see when the action and/or emotion starts to increase story-wise in preparation for that event that is supposed to make you gasp.
Because most of the minor characters were so shallowly drawn that they might as well have been posters tacked to the walls of the Hob or trees in the arena. Would it have harmed the story to know Foxface's real name? We know more about Buttercup the Cat than we do about most everyone else.
And because of the world building. Really, I need to learn that when my brain starts nagging me to look up something, I need to tell it to hush. I try, but then my mind picks up on some small-ish detail that I already know to be not quite right and it's off to figure out why. So Panem is supposedly what was once North America? That's a pretty big place. Canada is the second largest country by area in the world. The US is 4th. Mexico is top 20. District 12 is in what was referred to as Appalachia, an area that stretches from southwestern New York to northern Alabama. And yet, there's only like 8,000 people there. Now I'm assuming from the coal mine descriptions and the seasons, Collins is referring to somewhere in Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Still a big area, and yet there's only 8,000 people. Really? That's less than the small town I work in. And all of that supplies enough coal for everyone, everywhere? mmkay. Sure. And I have a bridge in District 13 that I'd like to sell (probably either the Mackinac or the Ambassador. I figure both are the closest to Canada where graphite is mined and the large amount of water needed for anything nuclear, putting them in what is probably 13). Yes, the map of Panem that I was trying to visualize was driving me nuts.
But other than that, I liked it.
This was your average cozy mystery. Not terrible but also not anything to cheer gush about. Matt was still the best guy around I found Fran to be a little less annoying this go round, so there's that.