Kelly Corn

Lillian Jackson Braun loved cats the same way I love cats. Her descriptions of Koko are so spot on with the things I love the most about my cat. Oh how I wish I could feed my cat the food Qwilleran feeds his cat.

Casual sexism abounds in this book. Obviously it's a product of when the book was written, in the 1960s.

The mystery is not the point of the book. It is wrapped up very quickly at the end. I enjoyed reading about the cats most of all.

I live New Mexico, my city depends on the Ogalalla Aquifer which is being depleted pretty quickly. It is estimated my city may “dry up” in the next 10-20 years. We are building a multi-million dollar pipeline from a lake to provide water once the Aquifer is depleted. Water rights are still a remnant of the frontier days, the idea being if you own the land, you own the water you can drill out of it. The Water Knife is this scenario on a large scale – Phoenix, Las Vegas, cities in Texas, and California all fighting for water. It's a little post-apocalyptic. Most Texans have left Texas. People in Phoenix are trying to escape.

Pacigalupi has penned a scary future without easy access to water.

I am in the minority on this, but Death on the Nile is not one of my favorite Christie mysteries. It's actually my least favorite of all the ones I've read so far. There were a number of things that didn't work well for me.

1) Poirot was especially smart-alecky. I know, I know, the little gray cells are part of his shtick, but at least 3 times he assured his sidekick Colonel Race (I missed Hastings big time too) that he had figured it all out and was just piecing the puzzle together, and that of course Race would know who it was if he just thought about it! Poirot's ego overly seeps through these pages.

2) When I think about Agatha Christie, I think about mysteries that I cannot solve. To me, that's part of what makes her novels so great. All the clues are there, and I am always surprised to learn who the culprit is (or culprits). Unfortunately, I had most of this one figured out solely based on how odd the characters behaved. Their behavior made no sense. I'm not going to spoil anything, like I spoiled the ending of the novel for myself by simply using my “little gray cells”.

3) It was a good deal longer than most of the other Christie mysteries I've read, which is in and of itself not bad; however, there was a lot of filler. I think having so many characters is really confusing. They were interviewed multiple times, and it was too challenging to keep everything straight.

Best Bosch book so far.

This was an unexpected installment in one of my favorite mystery series. It is quite different from the first 10 in that we get very little story centered around the protagonists Lynley and Havers. Instead, the reader is wrapped up in the lives Gideon Davies and his family and friends. There are 2 timelines in the novel as well, although this isn't apparent until close to the end (hence the spoiler tag, although I don't know how much it would have changed my reading of the novel).

The novel has all of the wonderful things I love about George: descriptive and emotional writing that makes me feel as if I'm right there with the characters, a suspense that starts off strong and still continues to grow until the denouement, and a story that is believable. Still, I did miss catching up on Lynley and Havers themselves, and I also think this book was too long. Maybe that's because much of it is about the Davies family.

I'm terrible at guessing mysteries, absolutely terrible. That's why I can read so many and get joy out of even the simplest ones. I knew Exactly where this book was headed about a quarter of the way through. I read suspense / mystery novels for the big reveal at the end - this book did not have that at all for me. So it basically turned into a little soap opera with these characters. I don't think I'm clever for figuring out who the “bad person” was; on the contrary, I should not have been able to figure it out so quickly.

Started out better than it ended. John Corey is a sexist womanizer that I hate to love. So many great one-liners in this novel, and also an suspenseful intensity that I haven't had the joy of experiencing lately. The early 80% of the novel was fantastic, but the ending... well, it just really annoys me when the bad guy is so BAD.

It took me 3 months to read this book. Rothfuss' prose is fun and witty and suspenseful when he wants, and I really dig the layered storytelling. We've got Kote the Innkeeper telling the major story about Kvothe, and Kvothe himself hearing and telling stories within the bigger story. I enjoy the little poems interspersed throughout, and I love the magic school (although I did notice a lack of female professors, I don't usually notice that type of thing, but I did this time). There are several female characters, all of whom have a unique characterization, and that's wonderful.

But overall, the pacing was so ... boring, I just didn't look forward to reading this book during my allotted “reading time”. And it took me 3 months because I would rather read other books. The whole Ferulian and martial arts training sections just absolutely dragged on and on for me. I found Kvothe's time with the Maer to be unintriguing, and mostly pointless. Obviously, there are some very important pieces of the plot happening in these 3 sections, but there was too much fluff and filler.

I'm glad I finished the book, I'll definitely be reading the 3rd installment. The ending leaves me wanting so much more.

I could take it or leave it. It was at the end of the ebook I borrowed, [b:Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley 139177 Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley (Agatha Raisin, #4) M.C. Beaton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1314736726s/139177.jpg 1405838]. Unfortunately it did have a spoiler of the series it because this story was written several years after the novel, so I'm bummed about that. And, it was just a so-so story. But I love Agatha Raisin, so despite this disappointment, I'll read more novels.

I liked this one more than the first in the series.

So. I read suspense / mystery stories while I exercise on a stationary bike. I try to pick books that won't require 100% concentration on my part nor a dictionary close by. However, the books do need to be suspenseful and keep me going through my horrible exercise experience because I hate rigorous exercise.

This book was intense. The author is absolutely masterful at peeling back the layers of the story in a way that makes me look forward to exercise, and that is not easy and not accomplished often by the suspense books I choose to read. 5 stars for that.

3 stars in looking back on the story overall. The ending did not have the oomph I was hoping for, the big crescendo reveal was not as awesome as the leading story would have me believe. Still, I don't read a book solely for the ending, that's silly. The destination is not the main point of the read for me, but it is still important. The main character was very unsympathetic to me, but there were some other fun or intriguing characters to make up for that.

I average to get 4 stars overall. I will be checking out many more of Mr. Coben's standalone suspense novels (I've read one Myron Bolitar book, haven't felt compelled to read another yet). Most of all, I love that I looked forward to exercise because it meant I would get to read another 50 pages of this book.

Perhaps I had my hopes up too much for this novel. I've read such great reviews about it and I love space opera, but unfortunately Ancillary Justice just did not deliver for me.

I can appreciate the creativity and ingenuity in the plot. The idea of sentient AI is certainly not new, but the author takes it several steps past a simple sentient AI. The ships of this empire are individual AIs themselves, but they are also distributed amongst host bodies. Another fun twist is that the AI doesn't differentiate gender, and so the author deftly describes everything as ‘she' or ‘her'. I loved that.

Despite all the coolness in the ideas, I just didn't like the story. I think perhaps I didn't “get it”, I did not know what was going on even as the end was approaching. The story wasn't compelling to me, I did not care what happened to the main character, and that really takes the joy out of reading for me. I didn't care about the empire presented, nor did I care about the other characters.

Part of this is probably that the main POV character is a an AI, and doesn't think and feel exactly like a human. Obviously I'm used to reading the perspective of a “normal” human being. I could definitely sense a coldness in the main character, no sympathy for others from her/it. I didn't understand why she did what she did.

Definitely some great ideas here, but the story was rather confusing for me.

Great book, loved the ending!

Fast fun read about the English countryside, a place in which I imagine I would enjoy living. I love Agatha Raisin and her “big city” ways and attitudes. This is one of the few truly cozy mystery series that I actually enjoy.

Milk and Honey has a large, primary mystery, a medium-sized mystery involving someone from Decker's past, and a little mystery that pops up as a result of the main mystery. The first mystery is a big gory mess: Decker finds a child wandering the streets of a neighborhood, tries to find where this child comes from, and then discovers a mess of bodies covered in bees (hence the title). Additionally, a friend of his whom he served in the Vietnam War with is accused of raping a woman and needs Decker's help; Decker's not convinced his pal is actually innocent.

This was a readable and compelling novel, but one of my favorite aspects of the series as a whole is missing: Rina Lazarus. She's living in NYC, taking a break and probably testing Peter's devotion to his new found religion of Judaism. I like learning about Rina Lazarus, her background, and her family because she's Orthodox Jewish and I love learning about different cultures. I missed her in this book (she's there a little, but not nearly as prominent as in The Ritual Bath, my favorite so far in the series.)

Did not like as much as some of the others in the series. Not much else to say, except I really didn't like any of the characters (except Kinsey and her Santa Teresa “family”).

This installment in The Dagger and the Coin series is almost as good as the first. I think I only just barely preferred the first because it had a little bit more action. The last 100 or so pages of this book seemed a wee slow for my ultimate liking, but still extremely enjoyable overall.

The characters in Abraham's novels really shine! Take the deeply flawed Geder Palliako for instance. The question being asked is “how does one become a true tyrant?”. Geder has all the ingredients for a delicious bully stew: he himself was bullied in the first book, he comes from a home without parental attention or appreciation, he's chubby, and he mostly enjoys the company of a young boy Prince when he's not reading. None of these alone could produce the tyrannical character fully introduced in The King's Blood, but them altogether along with a priest who can tell if a person is lying, and voila, a terror-based dictatorship forms. I found the “judgement chamber” to be particular terrifying.

Cithrin, Marcus, Clara, and Dawson are other POV characters that also get developed intricately. Cithrin is the Doogie Howser of medieval banking, trying to take over her little bank branch officially even though she isn't even old enough. Marcus is still trying to fill the void left by the death of his wife and daughter with Cithrin playing the part of the daughter. Clara is the supportive and loving wife, whose focus in life is her family, and lastly there's Dawson who can see right through Geder to witness the power of the spider goddess and her priesthood.

This addition to the Anna Pigeon series really reminded me of [b:A Superior Death 86492 A Superior Death (Anna Pigeon, #2) Nevada Barr https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388356015s/86492.jpg 1435861], which I thought was disappointing. Beautiful setting with less than inspiring mystery plot and too many characters to keep straight.As with all of Barr's novels that I've read, the setting is the most important character. I always open up a browser and do some research on the parks she chooses to set her stories in. I want to be the nomadic Anna Pigeon and work all over the country in all these different terrains, and that's what I like most about these mysteries.But the mysteries seem to fall short of satisfying for me, except for the very first one [b:Track of the Cat 76706 Track of the Cat (Anna Pigeon, #1) Nevada Barr https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1326365792s/76706.jpg 954916]. They become too convoluted with too many red herrings, too many characters, and too many predicaments for our heroine Anna to escape. I think the red herrings are the biggest problem for me. The author could do with leaving them more simple – not every red herring needs to be explained with so much back story.Most mystery stories require some kind of suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader, and the largest thing we have to accept is that murder follows our amateur sleuths (who have a day job other than detecting) as they work in their bakeries, take jobs at national parks, or just live in a really small town. I have accepted that when Anna Pigeon is working at a national park, someone's going to die, and I'm fine with that. Where the disbelief continues into not only a murder happening, but also stalking, drugs, embezzlement, harassment, and so many other crimes is what I have a problem with. There's not a single character working at Cumberland National Park that's innocent, which takes some of the fun out of the mystery aspect of this novel. Zero likable characters (except for the old ladies and their little fawn).This book makes Cumberland Park seem exquisite and beautiful, sultry, and teeming with amazing wild life, while the people are just evil, obnoxious, and mean. I give 3 stars here, 4 for the setting and 2 for the story, and I still feel too generous. Maybe Barr's overall theme is that the company of Mother Nature is better than the company of people.

Great book, it has forever changed the way I will look at food at the grocery store.

I think my enjoyment of this mystery novel was helped out a lot by reading on Goodreads about it first. Lots of reviewers have said it takes awhile to really get started – no real crime happens until around 40% through the story. Knowing that, I was prepared going in to read lots of character development but little in the way of actual mystery plot. The book was also a chapter too long. Those last 2 chapters can be combined into one easily.

I enjoyed reading about art history, art forgery, and oh my the setting. Mostly I wish I had a yacht of my own to go traveling the Mediterranean Sea.

Better than the first installment in the series, probably because I stopped trying to make this a serious read. It's not that it's funny (it really isn't) but as a heavily plot-driven novel, I just need to kick back and enjoy it instead of analyzing it.

The ending resulted in a audible gasp heard escaping my lips.

Mockingjay was the fastest read for me out of the books in the Hunger Games trilogy. I love the world that Suzanne Collins has created, her dystopian vision is awesome, and made for some great movies. Despite the wonderful setting, there were a few too many plot issues with this book than with the others for me.

For one thing, the Gale / Katniss / Peeta love triangle thingee was so tiring. I was tired of it long before it finally concluded. For another, the ending held no surprise. I don't know if it was really supposed to, but it felt like there might be some big reveal that just didn't happen. And finally, it's really depressing. This is not a happy feel-good ending, and damnit, I wanted one badly.

And I could've done completely without the ridiculous epilogue. I'm glad I read them all, so now I can listen when my friends and family talk about the books.

I was completely immersed in the world of Night Film. It was scary, intense, and wonderful. I see a lot of reviewers comparing this to [b:House of Leaves 24800 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327889035s/24800.jpg 856555] which I was unable to finish after having the book checked out for 2 months. The app was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the multimedia found in the printed novel.

No way would I have guessed that this book is written by the author of the Harry Potter series. I have not finished the Harry Potter series, but I did finish this book, and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's pleasantly surprising to see JK Rowling excel in an entirely new (to her) genre, and I really hope she keeps writing about Cormoran Strike.