Kelly Corn
It was good enough to finish, but not much more than that. I did want to see how it wrapped up, but getting there was painful. The story is a fictionalized account of real events - in other words, the orphanage existed, but these particular orphans are not real themselves.
Enough other reviewers have shown quotes of some of the dialogue that is both unnatural and unbelievable - and not written in a way that people actually talk. Some dialogue is jarringly obvious to be intended as the voice of the omniscient narrator, and this really takes me out of the story personally.
So many works of fiction for reading and TV today explore the duality of seemingly “evil” characters - they are often no longer portrayed as evil antagonists simply for the sake of having a conflict. Instead we are given more opportunity to see why these people end up so, what makes them tick, what motivates them. And yeah, they often make good decisions along with their bad / amoral / unethical ones. But not these orphanage owners. Unfortunately the reader is given all the bad and none of the reasoning. Sure money is an obvious motivator, but there was not nearly enough exploration of how a person or persons decide to treat children like chattel solely for the purposes of making money. I would have loved more of an exploration of this. I suppose these were real people and in fact many died before being able to testify their motivations, reasoning, turning points, and the author chose not to guess.
The story was OK - the children's story was melodramatic, predictable, gut-wrenchingly sad to the point I felt manipulated. The “present” day story was just not good - mainly characters that did things for the purpose of telling the story the author wanted to tell, NOT characters with their own motivations and lives. And to me, that's an uninteresting, uninspiring way to tell a story.
** Edit ** Added later that I have given higher ratings to books both less believable and with worse dialogue. The trouble with this book is that it is so highly rated on Goodreads! And winner of Best Historical Fiction in 2017, which is why I'm so much more critical. This is not good historical fiction. **
Horror is not my usual genre, but it is Halloween season and I do like to pick up a scary book or 2 every October. I listened to this audio book, and first and foremost I think the narrator is amazing, he really made the story. His accents were great and definitely made me feel as if I was in 1920s Georgia where the novel takes place. I really wonder how much I would have liked the book if I had read it vs listened to it - I bet less honestly.
Because otherwise it was pretty gross. But I guess that's not uncommon in horror - and it is a story about werewolves and yeah they do eat people. But apparently they are also rape-y, which is unfortunate. I liked the way the story of the main character's ancestors was woven in and also WWI. A lot going on made for a compelling listen.
It was definitely spooky and good for this time of year!
It's hard for me to pinpoint why I didn't love this book - and it's probably closer to 3.5 stars, almost 4 just based on my book club discussion (I love these discussions because people point out things I may have missed, book clubs are the best). There was a lot going on with this book, and maybe that's why I didn't love it. Lillian goes on a walk on New Year's Eve in NYC, 1985. And basically the book flips back and forth between her walk and little snippets of her life that have led to her choices today.
This book meanders, but so do walks I suppose. But I didn't see a large theme or even smaller themes, there was too much going on. There was some reference to working on Madison Avenue in the 1930s - but not enough exploration of the sexism and how it affected Lillian.
There was a suicide attempt - but not enough exploration of what leads to the suicide attempt and frankly it seemed very out of character for Lillian.
There was some reference to the crime that was rampant in NYC in the 70s and 80s - but not enough exploration of how it came to be and how it affected Lillian.
A lot of things Lillian did later in life didn't seem to follow logically from the character the author introduced. But maybe that's part of the appeal - you can't put Lillian Boxfish in a box, which is probably more true to real life than most book characters.
3 1/2 rounded up. Fairly predictable plot, some one dimensional characters (besides Cassie and March), and a lot more violent than my usual reads, but Michael Connelly sure knows how to tell a story. I listened to the audiobook and the time just flew by! Very entertaining despite the flaws mentioned above. Maybe because I'm going to Vegas next week myself...
I look back on some of the books I've given 4 or 5 starts to, and they aren't great works of fiction like this one. But this book really dragged in the middle for me, I just didn't care as much as I wanted to about Evelyn. I did like the various themes about love, marriage, divorce, families, and celebrity life, but I just never felt compelled to pick this book back up. If I didn't have to read it by a certain time for my book club, it would've taken me a month or so to finish just because I wanted to always read something else... But I can still appreciate that there is a unique literary skill at work in Ms. Reid.
Cute cute cozy mystery. I love the library setting – and having served on a small town library Board myself, found it at times very relatable. Also since living in the harsh Arizona desert, I enjoy escaping the summer by reading about other places with more pleasant summers!! The author currently lives in Scottsdale, and I have a soft spot for local authors. A few sections of dialogue were a little cringeworthy (Lindsay uses the term “baby-momma” where it didn't really fit), and definitely some holes to the mystery, but the setting and characters make up for it. Hey, it's a fun cozy, I'm not going over it with a fine-toothed comb.
I read the 7th book in the series first for a local book club, and decided to give the whole series a try.
First Patterson book I've dared to read (this and the Mary Higgins Clark attempt this week have had ... interesting results). These characters: shockingly cliché. The plot: mostly cliché. The number of chapters: annoyingly many, and so short. The book is very average for the most part EXCEPT I really enjoyed the whole concept of the computer virus. It was code named Dark Ages and I really got a kick out of imagining the US without internet. It's science fiction really, I don't believe the technology exists, and I certainly love science fiction. A lot of hand waving regarding this virus because it is so far fetched, but such an interesting concept to imagine. Also enjoyed the discussion about how reliant we are on the internet. And the politics were fun too. Mostly not great plot, stereotyped characters to the max, but a few interesting ideas meet in the middle at a 3 star rating.
This book surprised me, I didn't expect it to be this good (I think it was a Kindle deal some time ago). I like the hard-boiled genre, but it can be so difficult to ignore the rampant sexism. This book definitely has a hard-boiled feel to it, but no shallow broads. The mystery was great, it kept unfolding slowly and I love that, I love clever red herrings! And finally Chicago is one of my favorite cities, so I certainly enjoyed the setting and the authors descriptions of places I have visited. Excellent read.
Very creative novel. I don't know how many works of fiction use this interview/documentary style, not many that's for sure! But Daisy Jones and The Six pulls it off well. It really seemed to fit the story - these older folks reminiscing about their days in a band full of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. The thing is I really didn't care much for the plot, the story of this band by itself is kind of dull and predictable, but this book really brings the story to a new level with its structure and all the little things the author included like song lyrics. It's an odd mix, I didn't care for the characters or what was happening to them but I still wanted to finish the book to see where it was headed.
The major plots of this novel are great. I liked Oskar's adventures around New York, I liked the interesting relationship between his grandparents. But oh I didn't like the writing technique at all. It quickly became annoying with the stream of consciousness-style writing and the gimmicky pictures. But the plots saved it, and I wanted to read to the end to see how things would wrap up.
