Megan

Evil Has A Name is a very immersive podcast that apparently I get to log as a book. No complaints here, but there's no denying that this is not really a book. Keep that in mind if you don't usually enjoy podcasts.

It's fascinating to hear the stories in the investigators' and victims' own voices, and the level of emotion you feel through their words is more than you'll ever get from reading them on a page. Some reviewers mention that there isn't really any new information that you can't find by scouring the internet forums and news articles. I mostly agree with that, but the collection of all these stories and perspectives into one cohesive listen is perfect. The pacing and flow of events is well done and makes you want to keep listening. I think the most interesting part for me was the amount of time and effort that went into creating the family trees to search for the GSK. I don't feel any article I read up until now truly conveyed the gravity of the work that was done and how incredible it is. I honestly wish they went into more detail about it.

The only major complaint I have is about the audio, and since it only exists in audio form I feel it's necessary to address it in my review. The audio levels vary from interview to interview, with some being much poorer quality than others. The background noise is sometimes purposeful and atmospheric (the sounds of driving on Russell Blvd in Davis, CA), while other times it clouded the speaker's voice (echoing rooms/bad recordings).

The overall storyline of this book was not what I was expecting, and I didn't find it very interesting (though I see how it gets the characters in a lot of different situations and drives the plot forward). I find the idea of a zombie apocalypse that isn't actually the apocalypse intriguing. I really enjoyed the main character too. Overall this was a fun book with some boring bits and obvious parts, though 3 or so chapters near the end are 5-star-worthy all by themselves. I just didn't realize I was going to read a book about a presidential election, and that whole premise was a snooze, mainly because I'm in full-swing political fatigue in my real life. I wish there would've been more info about the reveal and follow-up with all of the accusations, but at least the character aspect was handled extremely well. An obituary that was written by the main character was also incredibly well done. The author writes very compelling emotions.

In my opinion, The Good Nurse is one of those thriller-style true crime books. Perhaps that's because I listened to the audiobook, and this was while I was also reading a huge stack of children's and middle grade books for Believathon. Honestly, I understand the comparison to Truman Capote's writing style. It's clear the author's writing was heavily influenced by In Cold Blood. Now I loved In Cold Blood, so this didn't quite measure up to the bar Capote set in my mind. However, I still think the author accomplished something similar, at least when you listen to the book. I couldn't stop listening and finished it in less than two days. I found it gripping and chilling. I really appreciated the additional perspectives too. Truthfully, there could have been more analysis, but overall it was worth the read. I'll probably read it physically in the future to see if I have the same problems other reviewers had with the writing and grammar. It's definitely a different experience when you listen to a true crime story, and I'm curious if I would rate it the same.

I honestly don't get the love for this series. It's super repetitive and the only character with any actual personality is the narrator. The Baudelaire children's dialogue is exclusively exposition. We're told everything about them. It's just boring. And the vocabulary lessons! The constant inclusion of definitions is grating. Given the mature themes of the story, this is a serious disconnect. The author seems to both think that children don't know much and need to be spoon fed and that they can handle death, abuse, and neglect. Maybe I give kids more credit than most adults, but I believe most kids don't need the definitions. I understand it's kind of a joke, but if that's the main purpose of the definitions then it's far too repetitive. However, definitions done like the one on page 74 are great. And finally, the poor communication trope is frustrating. I understand the charm in this series, and I plan to finish it out, but it really does it's best to irritate me.

Talk about a creepy and atmospheric read. I highly recommend if you're looking for a book about a descent into madness.

I think this would've been much better as an essay, or at least cut down by 150-200 pages. Some parts were definitely repetitive either in the message she was trying to convey or in actual wording. The first half and last quarter were incredibly boring. I'm very thankful for 2x audio. At the core, it's a very average person's memoir, written exactly as you'd expect an average person to write. Her descriptions of people were written in a very strange, contrived way (Ex: “we girls who shared the same color hair and eyes”). It's fairly easy, most of the time, to skip over all the religious bits or to see how those help her on her journey, though the end was a bit heavy-handed. She says, “God?” really often and writes out his “responses,” which was pretty bizarre. The overall writing voice seemed incredibly juvenile to me, made worse by a narrator who sounded like she was reading a children's book.

I was annoyed by how Kerri always referred to the female victims by what role they filled to someone else (mother, daughter, sister, grandmother). Those women didn't deserve to die simply because they were people, but Kerri seemed to mostly not understand how her dad could kill a mother with kids. I felt the way she included quick sentences of her father's crimes while recounting her childhood wasn't the best. I believe the victims deserved a little more than, “In x year, my dad killed x, a mother to 3 children,” and then abruptly moving on to a story about camping or her grandpa.

I struggled to feel sorry for her when the last straw for her for keeping in touch with her dad wasn't learning the details of the heinous crimes he committed or lack of remorse he showed. No. It was that he referred to her and the family as social contacts and pawns. To be fair though, my dad isn't a serial killer, so who knows where I'd draw the line myself.

I'm happy she found peace somehow, but this book just didn't work for me.

Very straight forward writing, feeling a little formulaic and slightly amateur at times. I think it suffered from “too many cooks” with four authors. Overall I was intrigued by the detail about the relationship between the media and the police, and how the events were placed in whatever the current crime environment was in Kansas. I think it painted a fairly complete picture and provided an interesting perspective. I feel more focus could have been placed on bringing the victims to life, but I think the lack of that is simply due to the writing being very “this happened then this happened.” I really liked the detail that went into how they communicated with BTK via press conferences and how they planned his arrest. I believe this was the strongest part of the book. It really picked up and created a feeling of tension, stress, triumph, and relief leading up to, during, and after the arrest.

Removing my reviews cause this series isn't even good and JKR can suck it.

Nimona was both very cute and very sad. I wasn't expecting to feel so many things at the end. I really enjoy Noelle Stevenson's humor and the characters she creates. I think Nimona's story is particularly interesting because of the many possibilities and layers of her origin. I think the only major critique I have is one Stevenson herself shares, and that is the romantic relationship was far too subtle and easy missed by some people. It definitely should have been brought to the foreground of the story in many instances.

The writing style of Room is very hard to get through, and I highly recommend the audiobook which is actually narrated by a kid and feels much less awkward. The story is difficult and heartbreaking.

This is a very well researched memoir by someone trying to make sense of how his friend from high school became a serial killer. It provides a level of insight that other true crime novels often lack, especially considering the amount of misinformation this particular case has floating around out there.

I think Backderf could've been as critical of his own behavior, and that of the “Dahmer Fan Club,” as he was of all the adults in Dahmer's past. At times it felt more like Backderf was trying to show his distance from Dahmer but ended up showing how he and his friends behaved cruelly and treated Dahmer like an object. This likely had as much of an impact on him as many other anecdotes that were included from other parts of Dahmer's life, and it would've been very interesting to see Backderf acknowledge it and dissect the effects of damaging teenage relationships.

I could've done without Backderf's monologue about Dahmer's mother in the back of the book. It came across very asshole-y and felt unnecessary. Perhaps he was trying to justify portraying her a specific way that she adamantly disagreed with, but it didn't sit well with me.

The art is fantastic, the pacing is perfect, and the chosen anecdotes paint a vivid picture of a tortured teen heading down a dangerous and depraved path.

This is a sequel that didn't need to exist in any way. I had low expectations, and it didn't even meet those! Kepnes made Joe such a comedic villain in my eyes. The body count is absurd. Absurd is actually a good word for the whole book. I don't know how Joe expected to make it big time while still maintaining anonymity either... Like I said, absurd.

The Fellowship of the Ring is a classic epic fantasy that made the genre what it is. You'll see elements of it in pretty much every fantasy book that was published after. The most unexpected thing for me when I first read it was just how much humor there was.

Frostheart was a really fun read. Going into it, I had no idea it was going to be a series, and I'm really excited to pick up the next book. Normally I find books that have a strong musical theme to be quite boring, but Jamie Littler did an excellent job of conveying the emotion behind Ash's singing. The descriptions as a whole were great. The characters were well developed and distinct. Even though I predicted most things, I still enjoyed the journey. I found myself calling this “Tremors, but with snow” at first, but it's much deeper than that. I can't wait to learn more about the characters and world.

I liked this more than the first volume, probably because of the addition of such positive and strong female characters. I'll probably reread this around Christmas every year now.

It's been a decade since I first read this, and I liked Katniss a lot more this time around. I really enjoyed the whole book a lot more than expected, so I bumped up my star rating. It's a solid YA dystopian. Suzanne Collins isn't the most skilled writer, but she gets the emotions across well despite the simplicity of her words.

And a note on the new audiobook narrator... she pronounces “against” in the strangest way: aGAYnst............. and of course it's written 60 times. It's terrible.

Malerman mastered the atmosphere here and really had me nervous at times. I sort of wish there had been more of a conclusion, but I also believe that would've made this book lose rereadability for me. As it stands, I think I could reread it and still feel unnerved.

My review is just going to be my reading update from about the 3/4 mark:

“Kind of the same as the first one. Almost nothing is happening, only a lot of waiting for something to happen. And Alina is just so confused why all the boys are so interested in her when she's so very plain.”

That pretty much sums it up.

I thought this book had so much potential at the beginning, but then basically nothing happened and I didn't care about the characters. Love triangle? No. Boring triangle. All three of them. Boring.

While this didn't introduce anything new on this subject to me, I feel it's a perfectly concise introduction to feminism that everyone should read, particularly those who think all feminists hate men.

The artwork is outstanding, and the story is quite engaging. The pacing was a bit off, and I have a few hang ups about the dialogue in general. Overall a good read.

I wasn't expecting the DRAMA but I loved it. There were elements of almost every genre that were cleverly interwoven. I wish the end hadn't been spoiled for me, but I still thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this.

Honestly, I expected to absolutely hate this, but I didn't! Was it good? Nope, but it was action-packed enough that I can say I had an okay time flying through it. Obviously it's cheesy and derivative (I think if you squint at the cover you can see Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker on the rough of middle building). The amount of girl hate is appalling. The MC is a bland, cardboard cutout and clearly written so the reader can insert themselves into the story. There's nothing wrong with those kinds of stories though if that's the kind of escapism you're looking for. Overall, not my cuppa but an easy read.

This book needed so much help. I've never read a memoir that told the same story more than once using the exact same language, and yet somehow this book did that so many times! It's like the ghost writer expected the reader to forget the previous time he told it to us and was so in love with his clever (not) wording that he had to use it again. He also used so many cliché phrases that I could have filled in 40% of the words if they had been blacked out. The tone is quite arrogant at times and occasionally deaf to the horrors that are being described. It wasn't completely awful and even had my attention a few times, but the bad seriously outweighed the good. I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

This was a super cute read. I recommend it for anyone who won't dwell on clichés. I don't think it'll change your life, but it was quite enjoyable and sweet. I saw the twists almost from the start, but that didn't take away from the story in my opinion.