Lori

I kept thinking about the stories from the first book (Before the Coffee Gets Cold) and decided to pick this one up.

As I was reading this book, I kept wishing I hadn’t picked it up. The repetition of the rules is too much, and the stories aren’t as good as the first. The stories in tis one wasn’t bad, but they don’t hold the same quality or impact I felt form the first. I think I am done with this series for now.

This was a book club pick, and it was ok in the end.

What stops this book from being good is that the characters make such stupid decisions to the point of making every situation worse. It could have been a better book as the reimagining of so many characters is well done. I also liked that it was placed in a more modern setting.

This was supposed to be a dark romance but its really about people with daddy issues getting together with some BDSM type (but not really) thing going on. Its much softer than I thought it was going to be with the description of how dark and tormented the main male lead is.

This book brought back the spark from the first book in the series (Howl’s Moving Castle). It was so fun, and magical to read. Everything I needed after the last book I read.

If you haven’t read the first book it would be harder to envision the setting in this book. There are parts of the setting described in detail but most of the main location (the house) is not given enough of a description. Which is sad as the house was really interesting.

The characters are for the most part fun to go along with. It was so great to see Sophie and Howl again as well. The main character though was a little too spoiled. She does grow though out the book, but the development is slow and it’s a little hard to like her at first.

This was fairly good and an enjoyable way to end the series.

I need to start seriously asking why I am continuing to read this series. I would say this is the worst book of the series. Having read the book this was based on, this was just a terrible version of it. I have to admit I never thought there would be a dark romance reimagining of the book in the first place.

Most of the story takes place from the priest’s point of view and he is an awfully written character. There is nothing to really like about him. Most of the book is him calling himself a monster then punishing himself in a really descriptive way. As well as wanting to kill the female lead for reasons that are not explained very well. Part way though the story he then changes his mind about killing her. There is nothing romantic about the way this character is written, and he mostly just stalks her.

The female lead is tepid at best. She lacks personality, is helpless though most of the book, and I simply don’t like her. The smut that we are here for is little to none and boring. There is nothing to recommend in this book.

This one was darker then the last in the series and a bit better. Again, the reimagining of the characters is well done and this time its in a fantasy setting.

There was more to like in this book but again you had characters making the most stupid decisions. The male lead in this one was at least better at following though with some of his darker personality but not by much. The female lead was supposed to be some bad ass who will take down the crown, but what we got instead was a weak girl who couldn’t keep up. Verry disappointing.

There as some good moments in this book that made me like it a little better then the last but not by much.

This may be my favorite of the series, but I sadly must report that it contains the least amount of smut in the series.

The writing in this one seemed to be better the last few books. The plot made sense, the characters were better written, and I didn’t mind the relationship. What didn’t work for me was the romance went from incredibly slow burn to it’s happened. Then wasn’t much of a connection between enemies to lovers. As well this author doesn’t seem to write strong female characters very well. They all feel so passive. Which in this case is a crime as the female lead was reimagined from a character that had a much stronger will.

This was more enjoyable to read then the others possibly because of its simplicity. Some of the other stories had crazy and often stupid actions that made it hard to get into. On the other hand, this story is pretty vanilla for a dark romance.

It was nice to see a female villain, but it was like the author couldn’t decide to go all bad or have some good. This wishy-washiness was what held the story back for me. If she’s truly bad then let her be bad, if she’s not then the author either shouldn’t had gone so hard on the terrible acts though out the book or created a better redemption arc. Since neither is chosen, we are left with a mess of character developments.

I will say the smut part of the book was better then the last few along with a better written chemistry between the leads. There is more to like in this book, but the gun scene just reminded me of a similar scene in The Stand. Although with completely different vibes.

It does seem like the author has gotten a bit better with each book. We’ll see.

This was an AI recommendation for a reading challenge. It sounded great but it was such a let down for me.

The start was great. It was atmospheric to a government science experiment being unleashed on an unsuspecting group of people. The detail was great and really put you in the mood for the horror that is to come. Then that’s it. The rest of the book was draining to read. The atmosphere was quickly striped away for long and mostly unnecessary backgrounds of each character.

I was looking forward to a book that would really scare me but instead of frights we get gore. I will say that the author does an excellent job at describing gore. Sadly, though most of the gory scenes felt cheap and forced. They weren’t needed and the characters had to make some stupid decisions to receive these outcomes.

Once you find out that the “monster” is tape worms and all you must do is not touch them the fear factor is lost. The very first gore scene involves the only adult on the island making the stupidest decision in a horror book with absolutely no reasoning. There isn’t even a paranormal side of the story to draw the characters into making these decisions.

Through out the rest of the book you are handed gore with no substance to appease us for the lack of horror the book was supposed to contain. The turtle scene was the worst. I get killing the turtle but the way it was done and the amount of time spent on it was terrible.

This author could have done better, and I truly can’t understand the choices made for this book. There were moments especially at the beginning where I genuinely thought that this would be a horror story. I would recommend not reading this.

This was a hard book to review because its both great and good to ok.

The writing is as great as ever, the problem lies with the story and new characters. In this book we don’t get to see the three characters introduced in the last book. Which is a major let down since they were so well done. Instead, we get three new characters who for the most part are quite bland.

Melba is the exception for me. Her arc is done quite well, and I loved the peaches moment at the end of the book. Her perspective is not like able at first but getting to know her and seeing how her perspective and thoughts of revenge are slowly changed was great. It is one of the more stand out parts of the book for me. On the other side of things, the preacher was so boring to learn about and I really hated her penchant of I’m not going to preach while doing exactly that. The last new character barely deserves a mention which is sad as he is one of the few reasonable characters. Bull was a boring old cop and didn’t have the same pull as Miller did.

As for the story it is a huge slow down from the last book. There is not as much action in this book with more of a focus on humanities. This could have been good, but it was hard to get into it with mostly unlikeable new characters and a plot that leaves behind more questions than answers. We do get to see some of the Roci’s crew but not enough and their absence is greatly felt.

All this is not to say that the book is bad. Really, I liked a good part of the book, and the writing was as great as ever. It is just a little bit of a let down from how great the last book was.

I enjoyed this book. Like the first book is it not that great of a mystery but it’s the rest of the book that makes it good.

The mystery is not what I come for in these books, instead it’s the stories about personal connections and building confidence in yourself worth. It was nice to see the characters from the first book and Vera is always a great character herself. We even get more development of Vera’s frenemy neighbor as a little side plot.

This book is another series of good stories with new characters. I really enjoyed the discussion about social media and what we really know about the people we see. It didn’t feel forced but had a natural storyline that worked well with our traditional main character. Vera getting really into social media in this book was fun to read.

I liked this book even more then the last and would love to see another story in the series.

This was not a bad book but felt like one of many magical self-healing books.

It was an interesting idea, and the writing was well done but the book fell flat for me. Not bad but not anything new. There are some good parts like the food eating contest but each section for retrieving a new orb felt like a repetitive task. Slowly the orb acquisitions start to slightly blend together. As soon as you find out what orb will be looked at next you know it will not be the one for her.

There are many non-subtle hints that there is something more going on and that our main character will become the center of it all. Part way though this book I couldn’t help but think this could have made a great horror story. When the big reveal happens, there are no surprises and of course all the items she has acquired comes in handy.

Its not bad and there is good writing within this story, but it wasn’t as good as some of the similar books I have read lately.

I have always liked the movie so I thought the book would be as good or better then the film, as with most books, but this was the exception.

The story and themes in both the book and film are fairly close. What the film does better is that it doesn’t over preach. This felt like a book that you would have to read in high school but when a teacher asks you what the book was really about its hard to say. Most of the book’s writing didn’t seem to go any where. We got these over done sentences that sounded very descriptive, but it had no substance. Then on the points the book was trying to make it over did showing the issues. We didn’t need so much time with some characters or scenes to understand the author’s point.

When I think about the overall plot, the book is good, but I can’t think of one section I really enjoyed reading. Most of my experience was waiting and hoping the story would get moving. I would watch the film again but not read this book again.

This book was good, but I felt like it brought up a lot of serious subjects that it failed to discuss.

The book starts of well and has a good cozy feel to it but not much happens. Then in the second half of the book it went into more serious matters and had too many plot points. This is where the book doesn’t do was well as the author glosses over the darker subjects and sweeps some story lines under the rug. There was so much left untouched that I was surprised when the book ended that there wasn’t more.

There are a lot of parts that I liked in the book but there wasn’t much balance with them. It goes from to mundane then to too serious. With a better balance this would have been a great story, as is it was ok.

Overall, the writing isn’t bad, but the book itself is a confusing mess. It seemed to have a lot of mood shifts with multiple plots all shoved into one idea. There are parts of this book I liked but they are almost better as separate stories. The is another book by King (11/22/63) that has a slightly similar idea of preventing a disaster but was done much better.

This book cold really be cut down to more then half of its size. The beginning is interesting but at the same time it’s too drawn out. Then you have to suffer though the middle of the book that doesn’t add enough conflict of the main charters burden or duty to see these things to make it interesting. The end of the book is good and has a quick pace.

If it were shorter this could have been a better book.

I had heard good things about this book and decided to pick it up and it was not exactly what I thought it would be.

Much of the book was funnier than I was expecting. The small-town drama was fun to hear about, especially in the interviews. The was a good amount of wit and snark to keep me entertained. On the other hand, the main character could at times be too snarky that she became annoying.

The book for me was mostly positive as it was an interesting and enjoyable read but the mystery was not that great. The amnesia plot point was not done well enough in this story and was quite the drag at the end of the book. It pulled you out of the intrigue when the main character doesn’t try anything to get her memories back but then they just come back so conveniently. As well something I didn’t like and that truly felt out of place was the romance in the book. This wasn’t needed and was annoying to read.

I wasn’t happy with the end. Conveniently regaining her memories, everyone trying to cover things up to help but making it worse, and that everyone believed a person with an obviously washy story over their own daughter/spouse.

This was an enjoyable read but not a good mystery. I would be interested to see what else the author has written.

This seems to be the year of not that great King books and this one is not worth the effort.

As always, the idea is there but the execution of this book is terrible. The beginning and the end are both good its just the 80% left of the book that’s hard to sit though.

Throughout the book we get the stories of the residents in the town but most of the stories felt like filler we didn’t need. A lot of time is spent or random rants, thoughts of sex, and menial tasks. I feel like I didn’t get the chance to like any of the characters. There wasn’t enough time before the changes in the residents started.

Sadly, there is not much I liked about this book. It was not worth the effort to read it.

I loved this book. It’s slightly weird and you never really get a full understanding how things work but I could not get enough of it.

There are three points of views in this book and each character we follow is well defined and interesting. It would be hard to pick a favorite. The switches are slow at first allowing readers to get a good hold on the set up but once you get into things there are more switches. This could be annoying, but it really helped set the atmosphere of confusion and claustrophobia. All three main characters are all driven, one by the exploration of wild magic, one by revenge, and one by protection. I really enjoyed each of their personalities and the arcs they took.

I had read another book by this author (The Luminous Dead) which I would recommend reading but it also had some great scenes of claustrophobia and mental confusion. This just shows how good the author is at passing on the feelings of situations to readers. In this new book we also got an almost heady exploration of power and magic woven throughout. Its hard to explain, I was driven to read on like one of the characters was driven to explore a wild type of magic.

This book is going to be one I would read again and recommend to others.

It started off good and the story was set up quickly but from there the story and romance were all over the place. Parts of the romance are done well but with such a messy plot its hard to get into.

This author can’t write good female leads. The female is someone who is supposed to be independent and strong, but she folds so quickly under every character in this book. As well she seems so blind to everything around her. This may be because the author needed this plot device to make sense of the “twists” that she has added.

Even with a messy plot and another disappointing female lead this wasn’t the worst book. For myself I would say this is in the top three books in this series. Which really doesn’t say much about the series.

My first thought was that I was reading the wrong book. I really thought I was reading Aladdin, which this book sort of is. It was such a jump from the first story (Howl’s Moving Castle) that I could not think of how they would connect. They do connect but it’s not revealed till close to the end of the story.

This story on its own I didn’t find as magical or endearing as the first. It not that it’s a bad story, it’s quite good. Its just missing that spark from the first book. I wish that the book was from the point of view the princesses as they were more interesting. They were funny, strong willed, and capable. Sort of what made Sophie so great in the first book.

This is still a good book to read and one that you could recommend to kids. Hopefully, the next book brings back that spark.

I really liked the stories in this book although it might have been a bad idea to listen to the book at work as one of the stories had me in tears.

When I think about the about book the individual stories really stand out to me. They are interesting and had well done endings. On the flip side it’s everything else that is a little hard to take. The repetition of the rules, the café staff that lack standout personalities, and the blocky dialog.

I did get though this book and liked the stories, but the repetition of information and weak dialog would make me hesitant to read this again. Which is sad as the idea of the book and the individual stories were great.

This was a nice book to listen to as it’s fairly light and has an uplifting feel to it.

I will say that it is a slow book, sometimes too slow. The book brings up a lot of good discussions but has them in a way that can sometimes be to long or over reinforce the ideas. I was in just the right mood for this book when I was listening to it but when I think about the book it leads me to thinking about other healing fiction that I have read. There is something missing to add that extra wow factor to.

It’s a good book but not a strong one at the same time. But if you are looking for a healing fiction book and something to slow down with, this is a good book to read.

This book was a good read but wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

I thought this book would be about her medical education, but the book mainly focuses on life during the time period and on female relationships. That isn’t a bad thing, but it was her medical journey that had interested me in the description. The focus on the female journey and relationships was very well done and really is what made this book so good. The strength, bonding, and trauma of all the women in the book came though to build most of the story.

The writing was well done and was good at pulling me into the story, but I did find that the author spent a lot of time describing elements of the time period more then the story. It was nice at first to get these descriptions and really helped set the scene. After a while though these long descriptions took away from the storyline.

It was worth the read and will be a book that I could recommend to others. I think I would like to try another book by this author. I really did like the writing and the relationship driven plot.

This was a great read. Now that we have gone though all the set up in the last book, we really get to enjoy the story this time round.

The authors are great at creating engaging characters. The main cast are all interesting on their own but there are stand outside characters. Millier was fantastic in the first book and now we have a great line up of Avasarala, Bobbie, and Prax. This line up is used to great advantage as now we get multiple POVs.

With so many POVs the grasp of each character having defined personalities is commendable. You don’t feel frustrated with the switching POVs instead they are used to advance the story while maintaining a steady stream of information.

The expanse of the world and characters is perfectly done. There is a great balancing act though out this book in order to provide readers with information about the universe and progressing the story.

I can not wait for the next book.

This was not as good as the last book.

The main cast of characters is pushed aside for a story focused on Zaphod. This could have been interesting but in this book the author turned Zaphod into a petulant man-child. I did miss the other characters as they were better to follow along with. At least we get some Marvin.

This book had no plot, and I know that this series is supposed to be a bit unpredictable, but this one was so pointless. It felt like a filler book in the series. The wit and silliness of the first book is dampened in this one. There are elements of the original book that are still enjoyable but not enough.

Its not so bad that I wanted to put it down, but I just wanted to get though it. Hopefully, the next book is better.

This book starts out well. You are quickly taken into this weird and colourful community.

There was something so captivating about the messed-up community members, dark subject matters, and the weird girl atmosphere that just works. The book is not a laugh out loud one but was still pretty funny. As the book goes on the situation with, the main character gets more messed up and I could not help but want to see this though with her.

The last part of the book is where it starts to drop a little. The things that first made the book great start to get annoying and at this point I genuinely wanted things to end between the main character and Big Swiss. Both become harder to like. The ending isn’t bad but it’s a little over the top and somehow slightly underwhelming.

The book was entertaining and at the end I feel mostly positive about it.