Rebecca
This was so good! I thought the premise was unique, and the story had so many funny parts – I was laughing out loud multiple times. It's about not giving up when things get tough and learning to still find things to enjoy things in life no matter what is thrown your way.
This follows Sadie, who finds out early on that she needs brain surgery, and after the surgery, she learns that she is having problems with the part of her brain that recognizes faces. I really enjoyed all the characters and what they brought to the story. Sadie was fun to follow. Her stepsister was a great villain character, and I thought the entire plot line with Sadie's family was very well done.
There is also a bit of a love triangle, which I found very comical since Sadie can't see what these men look like. But because of that, I liked this idea of loving someone for who they are and how they treat you, not just by what they look like.
Highly recommend! Also a clean romance.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me an arc in exchange for an honest review.
I loved this book! It was dark, spooky, and very thrilling the entire time. If you're looking for suspense, horror, mystery, and a touch of romance, this is the book for you. It's definitely gory when the murdered bodies are described, but I feel like that's a given for a book based on a serial killer.
There's a serial killer on the loose, and the whole time you are trying to figure out which of the characters is posing as the infamous “Jack the Ripper.” I went back and forth a lot on who I thought did it, which made it even more exciting when the killer was finally revealed at the end. The moments leading up to the reveal all the way through the end of the book had me on the edge of my seat.
Thomas Cresswell. I love him. I'm a sucker for an arrogant flirt, so he was right up my alley. Combined with the fact that he's British – I loved him even more.
3.5 ⭐️
i think this was a metaphor that i only halfway understood but i did enjoy that it was unsettling
3.5⭐️
A pretty good sci-fi thriller. They talk about some more in-depth quantum physics concepts, but you can still enjoy the story without knowing exactly what they are talking about. It was fun and entertaining throughout most of the novel, but there were parts that took me a bit to power through.
3.5⭐️
The excerpts from the travel book made me cringe, and I skipped all of them actually. I thought the storyline was okay. I liked the sibling relationship focus, but I wish there had been more romance. Enjoyed it but not nearly as much as Love & Gelato.
I have mixed feelings about this. It was a great easy to read and cheesy YA romance, but it wasn't really one of my favorites.
Things I Liked:
1. the online chat with unknown person concept & Bailey trying to figure out who he is
2. Porter's flirty personality
3. Bailey's dad's character and Grace's character
4. I thought Bailey's character was relatable in the way that she generally avoided deeper relationships or conversations
5. the beginning and the end (I thought the end was sweet when she learned the true identity of Alex)
Things I Disliked:
1. Bailey and Porter's relationship was a little cringe to me - it was more cringe than sweet sometimes in the middle of the book
2. how Bailey described the way Porter made her feel (also cringe)
3. it felt like the plot was sort of random things throughout the middle just to have something other than the romance
I think I would have liked it more if we as the reader didn't know who the mysterious Alex was the whole time. It was still a fun read, and I would recommend it to anyone who really likes YA contemporary romance!
This might have gotten 5 stars if it hadn't had so much unnecessary language. I was hooked from start to finish.
this is very straightforward and not very twisty. a good, classic domestic thriller. not violent but lots of psychological manipulation
Very weird. Very bizarre. I enjoyed the supernatural aspect to it, but I totally understand why people didn't like it because it is not realistic.
Although not totally sure how I felt about the fact that it was Rob in Adele's body the whole time - uncomfortable but also like whatttttt.
2.5 - 3
i think the concept and the world are so interesting, but i wasn't super into the plot or the characters. i liked the scythe diary entries at the beginning of each chapter and their commentary on mortality and the value of human life; it was really interesting to see the private thoughts of the people whose job it is to kill for population control and to see how they are truly feeling about the things they do or the things the other scythes do. unfortunately, it just fell flat overall. i still think it would be a good book for a younger audience, but it isn't a favorite of mine and i don't have a desire to continue the series.
The concept of this book was very intriguing to me, and it ended up being a major disappointment. I think I wanted it to not be as much of a mind game as it was because I wanted there to truly be something creepy out in the woods that keep getting closer to the house rather than everything being in her head.
I enjoyed the suspense of the novel and parts of the confusion that Silla was going through. However, her confusion made me confused at some points because of the times where we would come around to the same setting as earlier and something totally different would be happening (mainly towards the end of the book when they are at the cave part). I didn't like how she could just “reset” her life in the house and try to make it something new (i think that's what was happening with the cave - i am not totally sure of that).
I also didn't trust Gowan from the beginning. Him coming out of nowhere and just acting like he knew them and was friends with them and loved them (which I guess he actually did in their life) made me very suspicious of him and I really would have rather had him be a bad character and not someone trying to help her.
Overall, I did not like the ending. I thought it was interesting that she had created this place for herself because of her guilt, but I didn't like how she was doing this in her death - I think it would have been more interesting to have her go crazy in real life. I would have also liked it more had the curse been a real curse. It also really bothered me that Silla and Gowan as “ghosts” could just return to the earth at try their hand at life again. I was like “what????”
I absolutely loved this book, and i could not put it down. I love books with fantasy characters, and this was the first vampire book that I have read that didn't have any sort of fun and whimsical-type elements. The vampires were EVIL - there was no part of them that was nice in any way. So, horror/suspense/thriller combined with some fantasy elements; I adored it.
I've heard it's patterned after Dracula, so if you enjoyed that, I'm sure you would enjoy this. I haven't read Dracula, but it is now definitely on my to-read list.
I wish I liked this more than I did. I liked it while I was reading it, but I felt confused for the majority of it, and if someone asked me right now anything that happened in it, I wouldn't know how to answer. This isn't uncommon, given my unfortunate lack of remembering most of the plot of books I like. But still. I remember nothing but there was a fair and there was a boy who I didn't know if I could trust the entire time.
It just seemed so different and magical. Sigh.
I think I will attempt a reread in a few years. Stay tuned.
3ish
was really loving this - it's tense & creepy & i thought had a very interesting premise - until the end. the reveal with the motivation behind everything was just ..... :/
this was gripping from the first chapter - it really draws you in quick and piques your interest. as it went on, i didn't feel like there was really a point to some of the personas she was adopting and things that happened while she was pretending to be certain people. the big secret she was running from was also a real let-down unfortunately
Absolutely loved this book. The story is so sweet, so cute, and it made me so happy throughout the whole thing.
I loved the semi mystery aspect as well - not knowing who SN is. I really enjoyed trying to see if i could determine which of the boy characters it was.
A very quick read but also a very sweet read.
It was very hard for me to get into this book. I was excited to read it because of the unusual way it was written, but because of that, it ended up being very hard for me to follow what was happening pretty much throughout the whole story, but especially at the beginning. I had a harder time following who characters were and what their role was in the story.
The characters also didn't feel like they had much depth, and I didn't ever really feel connected with them and engaged with what was happening in their world.
I think that the romance was a little too lovesick for me. I didn't like that their relationship was only communicated through “texting” because of the text slang and emoticons used. I felt like they didn't have true conversations and instead just talked about how much they missed each other all the time. It just felt too much like middle school / high school drama.
I think the concept of the book was interesting, but I think it would have worked better as a video game than as a book.
Beautiful ending to a heartbreaking story. It took me a good bit to get into, but the story was very well told throughout.
The Nightingale focuses on the women and children who are left behind when their husbands and fathers must go off to war. It follows two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, as they navigate the terrifying ways Germany has taken over France during WWII. Both sisters are a saving grace for many.
In some ways it feels weird to say that you enjoyed a book where the characters must deal with events that truly happened to people who lived during the war. Of course, the circumstances are by no means enjoyable, but seeing the ways they learned to survive, the close and emotional bonds they had with each other, and their dedication to risking their lives to help others and make a difference makes for a very moving story.
I love the strong relationships and the great character development from all the characters over the course of the story. Dealing with loss, fear, hope, courage, and love in a time of war brings everyone together in a way like no other.
Very okay. I couldn't really get into it and I found myself not even really remembering what had happened in the chapter I had just read. :(
I thought the supernatural concept was interesting but so just didn't like it like I thought I might.
This is the story of a dysfunctional family who has gone through a lot. It's about trauma, weird relationships, mental illness, the way family is tied together, & how the actions of one family member affect everyone in the family. I thought each character was well fleshed out, and they all had their own baggage to work through.
As always, I love the way Lisa Jewell writes in multiple timelines and perspectives. We got to follow the thoughts and actions of all family members and see parts of their life for a 20-30 year period.
I think people don't talk about this one that much because it's definitely a family drama & not a thriller like most of Lisa Jewell's more recent & popular books. But it's one you don't want to miss!
I don't know about this. It was dark and disturbing but I liked it? Ummmm I liked the ending but the rest of it was very slow to me, and everyone was drinking and taking drugs way more than they were trying to solve this mystery. I liked the crime case and how that played out but not really much more of it.