Elizabeth Dean

Love Elizabeth George, but absolutely can't stand one of her recurring characters, Deborah St James. She is such a ninny. So this book goes in the pile of least-admired George books, due to the heavy focus on Deborah. Other than that, I enjoyed all the other characters & plot twists.

This one was very good. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because with so little Algaliarept, it just doesn't quite make the 5-star level in my rating system. I liked the traditional bad-guy hunting/mystery this novel contained & I like the directions the main characters seem to be going in. Ready for 2013 & the next!

Fantastic!

I am just not up for this right now . . . no desire to read about violence against women & children + mass suicide.

Best of the series so far.

I liked this, but not enough Algaliarept for my taste. More demons, please!

This book was charming, fun & even a little insightful about our human tendency to to disengage with the real world in favor of a more attractive virtual alternative. Try it!

Excellent!

Huh. Was this the inverse of Atonement? I liked it, I suppose.

For a pulpy/action/romance writer, Kim Harrison's books can drag a bit. This one was an example. But it's a small price to pay for getting to live in her crazy vampire-ruled world filled with witches, pixies, elves, weres and regular old humans.

I want Jenks to get big & live forever.

Hallelujah, I am finished with this book. I liked it a lot, but the last chapter (there were 4 chapters total) was less witty and dragged out so I docked it a star. This is my first Updike and I enjoyed the “it is what it is” tone that permeated.

It was worth reading this book just to turn the page to Quentin Blake's hilarious illustration of the Empire State Building with the peach stuck to the very top. Perfect for my skyscraper & big city-obsessed kid.

This was not as good as the previous ones. I'll keep reading & still love the characters. But it was a chore to get through this story.

This book is like The Velveteen Rabbit on steroids. It's very good, very sweet and very emotional. I think it's essentially too advanced for a read-aloud to a five-year-old, but Charlie was drawn to the cover, begged for the book at the bookstore, and I gave in, not really knowing what it was about. It is all about Edward's learning to love and appreciate everyone who loves him (Edward is a unique and beautiful toy rabbit) over the years. Though Charlie really seemed to like it and wanted to know what was happening next, he did keep asking me why I was crying, and the flux of characters in and out of the book may have been hard for him to follow. His favorite character was the hobo, and really, he (“Bull”) was the best character in the book. Charlie also thought it was very cool that Bull called Edward “Malone” and he said he would like to be named “Malone.”

Hooray for Faith & Giles! This does it for me. Who needs TV/movies when you have comic books?

First time! This book was so good! I truly missed out by not reading this as a kid. The inner workings of the chocolate factory are just so perfect for inspiring a child's imagination. Charlie loved this book too. I think he related to the obsession with candy, and the drama involved with the kids getting into trouble was a perfect level of intensity (strangely violent, but not cruelly so) for a 5 year old. The routine of each child getting picked off one by one was also predictable/satisfying for Charlie. This has been the best chapter book read-aloud experience yet. Most nights, it was me proposing to read “just one more” extra chapter, and not him!

This was my least favorite of the trilogy, because it just wasn't as funny as the first, and didn't have the feeling of adventure of the second. This was Charlie's favorite of the trilogy “because it had all the dragons in it.”

Charlie, of course, loved it. But I just can't get into this mouse & his motorcycle. Nowhere near as good as the Ramona books.

Good follow-up.

Holy hell. What a trainwreck, soap opera, tragedy, melodrama. The fact is, once you get attached to characters in serial fiction, an author has to be brutal to them to allow them to grow and change - and to keep the story going. Julia Spencer-Fleming delivers.

OK, any book that encourages Charlie to snuggle up to me and then talk excitedly about the plot and characters gets high ratings. But it's really cute, especially the illustrations. (My favorite is one that's also on the cover of of the lion, with his mane combed out, braided and tied in bows.) Charlie and I both enjoyed Elmer Elevator's adventures searching for the dragon on Wild Island.

What a disappointment! This book was cute, and Stuart was amusing, but the story really petered out at the end.

Beautiful novel. Not so much the prose, which was nice, but the depiction of a breathtakingly beautiful Manhattan. It reminds me of Whit Stillman movies. Loved the female characters. While this was written by a man, it struck me that the women in this book were so much more assertive participants in their destinies than the women in books by contemporary first time female writers like Curtis Sittenfeld & Marisha Pessl. (It may have something to do with the fact that Towles is older than these women were when they published their first novels.) I recommend this to everyone and would love to loan you my copy!

These books keep getting better. The characters and relationships within the small town of Millers Kill are evolving and growing more interconnected. The way the minor/supporting characters maintain their relationships despite conflicts is interesting to me. And the main character, Reverend Clare, I just love her attempts to stay clearheaded and make fair and kind choices, despite being crazy in love with a married man. The everyday morality of this series really shone in this novel, with a deep investigation of the guilty parties' (including Clare & Russ as well as the “bad guys”) rationales and decisions. Spencer-Fleming is like George Eliot light. Less taxing and less rewarding, but so very tender with human failings.