Lindsey Ziegler
Definitely not the book I was expecting.
It was much more sad and the romance was not the main relationship at all.
Very strange idea, but interesting plot and characters. It felt a little rushed at points and a little predictable with the ending.
My favorite Harry Potter book. The characters are well-rounded and believable at this stage of their development.
A bunch of collected stories, centered around food. The stories were compelling and moving and the recipes were intriguing.
Sad and depressing, yet a bit of hope at the same time. A nuanced look at teens during WWII and living in the internment camps.
Couldn't get into it. Also, the sex scenes before I'd even met the characters felt rushed and also, not safe for work.
3.5 stars. Pacing was a little weird and the characters were a little too stock, but otherwise, very good.
Okay, pretty sad to read after her death.
Mostly stream of consciousness and without a good timeline, which made it difficult to know if she was talking about her childhood or her adulthood.
3.5 stars. A great look at the breadth of the Bible and a little bit of the history/philosophy of some of the weirder laws.
It took a while to get into, as the story meanders into the plot in the first half. The three main characters are pretty good, but for all that I got the twists beforehand, I still wasn't exactly sure about their past.
3.5 stars
My favorite character just disappeared. Then... the other main character died.
Mostly well developed characters, but the background characters were just kind of there. And the timeline seemed a bit contrived.
I just couldn't get into this one. It was slow and the characters didn't interest me.
It felt very rushed at the end. Like the whole book was about the journey and then it was just over.
4.5 stars
Interesting characters and interesting plot. Each character had a nice arc and developed over the story.
Very funny and clever.
DNF
I just couldn't get into this one. The main character wasn't as clever as he thought he was and that annoyed me. But mostly, I quit at 1/4 through, because everything seemed like it was almost over.
Very strong violent descriptions, just within the first pages, of sex and disease. I just didn't like the feel.
And then, there was the use of transsexual. I know that the word is used by some people, in an affirming manner, but it kept bringing me out of the narrative.
It was fine. I read this as a young girl and found Anne rather unrealistic. What 13 year-old is always happy? Where is the angst?
Somehow, both a great mystery and a great fantasy. It wasn't predictable and the characters developed strongly.
Couldn't get through the whole thing. It was a lot of the same, with no growth and too much self-hatred.
A much better book than I expected. From the reviews I had read, it seemed as if it would be just another one of those how the white man(or in this case, woman) saved those poor African-Americans. This would be true were it not for the characters of Minny and Aibileen. They are the true strength of this book, the backbone and the heart. Miss Skeeter is just a vessel, who's character doesn't develop much over the course of the book. But Minny and Aibileen are fullly-developed women who have a strength that cannot be denied.
However, the book does come off as heavy-handed and the patois used by Minny and Aibileen is disappointing, especially because there are sections highlighting how proper Minny is supposed to speak, yet Stockett seems to forget that a page later.
Overall, many have said that it is about white women and men. It's not, it is about three women, one white, two black.
Jonathan Tropper is really good at strong, flawed, yet believable and likeable characters. Even the “villains” are sympathetic.
2.5 stars. Some interesting narratives, but it didn't go as much into the science as it did into the man. And it kept mentioning Oscar's mistakes, but covered them in about ten pages, as if they were unimportant, instead of setting up forensic science for failure.