Kathrine
It was a nice story but after hearing/reading so much praise for Hosseini's books I have to say I was disappointed. Instead of being immersed in the story, I found myself accurately predicting what was going to happen 50 pages later. Maybe I've read too many books like this one. Maybe I've watched too many soaps. Either way, for awhile I thought I'd read the book before - just change the names. I kept thinking Laila's parents were too perfect. Something had to happen to them; Something had to create drama in her life. Sure enough. Drama provided via death. The moment the man showed up to tell Laila that Tariq was dead all while making a big production of his illness, I practically said out loud “Nope, not dead” and knew that Rasheed had something to do with all of it. Pages later, my prediction was correct.
Also found many of the characters to be rather flimsy and underdeveloped. The big bad of the story was literally big and bad. The damaged but can't go wrong hero was just that. The women were either young and headstrong or old and complacent. No shades of grey.
On the plus side, the story moved rather quickly and did give the reader a glimpse into the culture and war torn world.
Normally I like Sandra Brown's books. They're a little fluffy, but have their thriller/mystery elements. Charade is one of the few exceptions. Cat Delaney is obnoxious, screechy, and irritating. The so called “hero” has his issues, but I never really got a hero vibe from him. Probably didn't help that I had the big bad figured out way before the halfway point of the book.
This book really wasn't good. I've only watched a couple episodes of the tv show, but this is definitely one of those times when the tv/movie adaption is better (though apparently it is a very loose adaption). Elena, the main character (can't say heroine - she does absolutely nothing heroic)is snotty, shallow and arrogant. As is just about every other character in her little clique. The two brothers are stereotypical arrogant, dark brooding vampires. The plot rambles and drags and covers all the cliched “heroic” vampire plot points possible. Cliches+cheese+boring does not make for a good read.
Good thing the WMC books are fast reads.
The good: this one is better than The 5th Horseman, but I'm still only giving it 2 stars
The bad: once again, too many plots circling around and never really finding a good place to land. Insane killer with mommy/sister issues, dead nannies, missing children, Club members' lives being in danger, Lindsay being insecure (Joe is a saint for dealing with her issues), etc. None of those plot lines had any depth. They just skipped over the pages of the book like a stone skipping over a lake. What happened to the women working together? Or at least talking things through? Cindy was practically non-existent through most of the story - even the one that concerned her apartment building. Claire just sat in the hospital after being shot in the opening scene(and she never did chew Lindsay out for the whole Joe thing). Still getting used to Yuki, who had a larger role than the others, but she still didn't have much to do with the others.
Being an eternal optimist when it comes to series I start out liking, here's hoping 7 is better.
No matter how hard I try, I've never been a big Jane Austen fan. I enjoy the movies (well, most of them) based on her work, but the books themselves? Not so much. I figured at less than 300 pages I'd see if this one could change my mind. Unfortunately no. Still not an Austen fan. I liked the idea of the premise. I liked the fact that her main characters were older (I don't know about more mature. Holding a grudge for 8 yrs isn't at the top of my maturity list). I liked the last 20 pages though the end felt rushed. The rest of the book felt like it took forever to get through. There was way too much exposition - too much summarizing of character thoughts and actions and not enough showing the reader what was happening. In other words a little more actual dialogue would have done wonders to keep boredom from setting in.
I really wanted to like this book. It's been on my tbr list since it came out. I'd heard so many positive reviews and knew that it had been nominated for numerous awards including the Booker Prize. Sadly, by page 20 I wanted to slap a piece of duct tape over the narrator's mouth. That doesn't leave much room for “liking” a story.
Using a 5 year old as the narrator was a unique but ultimately unwise choice. Jack wasn't precocious, he was over-indulged and annoying. His voice wasn't believable or consistent. Sometimes it seemed like he was 5, other times 25 and still other times maybe 2 ½ at most. Jack knows words like hippopotami but not oven (refers to it as stove's tummy). He can sing along with Lady Gaga and Chumbawumba, talk about the Picasso's Guernica and the fall of the Berlin Wall but doesn't know that you say you turn up the thermostat or cook food? Seriously? Ma created a game where he mimics what he hears on tv so he knows proper speech and Ma corrects him every time he says “brung” instead of brought. Yet he's saying thing like “waterfall the milk” or “hot up the room”. Was that supposed to be cute? It wasn't.
Getting past the inconsistent narrative voice was difficult enough, but then I had to stop nitpicking at the details the author didn't quite get right. I can only assume some of these things were because Donaghue set the story in the US but hasn't spent any amount of time here herself - things like Jack watching Dora the Explorer daily when they only got broadcast stations (Dora is a Nickelodeon show, thus requiring access to cable or a satellite service).
The second half of the book was better, but not by much. It's obvious that Jack has some psychological issues to deal with – at the very least he has OCD tendencies (the constant counting of things, especially his teeth) yet that is never really brought up even though Jack is telling everything that happened to him. The one plus was that we got to meet Steppa, easily my favorite character.
Emma Donoghue deserves credit for attempting to tackle such a difficult, repulsive subject. To get inside the idea of being held captive, of not knowing anything beyond an 11x11 space, of being suddenly thrust into the big, scary world etc, is a huge challenge - a challenge, that in the end the author didn't really succeed at completing. I'm still debating between 1 and 2 stars. For now I'll go with 2, but that could change.
Liked this one well enough, but it never really grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the over abundance of pop culture references. Annette, Ranger Andy, The Bake Off, etc., plus the where are they now epilogue. Too much for a less than 300 page book. I've read more entertaining Christmas pageant stories.
A little different than Child's usual Reacher plot as this one flashes back to his military career. Nice to get a little more background on our hero through his brother and his mother. On par with Persuader and 100x better than Echo Burning (my least favorite Reacher book thus far). Do wish Leon played a little bit bigger part.
Enjoyable, fast read. The ending was a bit abrupt - not sure if that was because I was enjoying the characters enough not to notice the build up or because there wasn't much of a build up. Either way I liked this one enough to want to read more in the series.
On a side note - nice to read something set on the shores of Lake Erie.
Not one of my usual genres, but thought I'd give it a try. Just told myself to think of it more as a mystery than a ghost story. Started out a little slow, but once I got in to it, it moved along. That is until the last 75 pages or so. When authors put questions out there, I like there to be answers. Waters didn't provide any. It was like she got sidetracked by the irritating doctor and forgot to write the payoff to the story.
As for Dr. Faraday, I don't think he was ever in love with Caroline. He was in love with that house - both the house itself and it's connection to his childhood/parents. That's why he was eager to go there that first time and why he continued to wander around the place as it crumbled around him
I honestly kept waiting to read that Susan died as a result of some horrible accident or mistake. Why else would every mention of the ghost/spirit seem to point back to her? The nursery, the scribbles, Mrs Ayers delusions. But nope, just plain old diphtheria. Why would she need to haunt the place then? And if it wasn't Susan, then what was it? I really would have liked some kind of answer - even just a slight nod in one direction of the other.
Once the story got moving, I think I liked it better than The Whole Truth. Enough that I'll probably pick up the next Shaw book when it comes out. Shaw and Frank (who's my favorite character) seemed more fleshed out. I was disappointed that Katie James barely made an appearance until near the end, though I did enjoy Baldacci's wink at the Reacher comparisons many have made with Shaw. I could have done without Reggie. I'm sure she'll be back, if only to annoy me.
I started out wanting to like this book, but the longer it went on the less I enjoyed it. All Ayla needed was a cape, some tights and a giant yellow A stuck to her chest to complete her superhero status. All of that was over the top. Though not as over the top as her mustache twirling evil nemesis, Broud. His reactions were incredibly predictable and eye roll worthy.
As many other reviews have mentioned, it's obvious that the author did her research (at least the research available when the book was written). And apparently she felt the need to share all of that research with the reader. To the point that it only served to drag out the story more than it needed to be. By the time I got about 1/3 of the way through the book, I was skipping large amounts of prose.
On the plus side I did like Creb (though the whole drug induced telepathy thing was silly)and Iza.
Enjoyable enough - lots of action, non-stop plot, likeable characters (except of course the ones you're supposed to hate). Had to suspend my disbelief in places but I kinda expect to do that with Baldacci's thrillers. I liked Shaw well enough to want to read the next book but I had a hard time not comparing him to Lee Child's Jack Reacher. Shaw is definitely not Reacher.
A book aimed squarely at the Twilight niche. And it pretty much hits his target (especially for anyone who is Team Jacob), though it's not as addictive as that series (I actually didn't think Twilight was all that addictive either). The beginning and the end are beautifully written - it was nice to read a YA novel where the teens don't whine about living in the snowy tundra, erm I mean Upper Midwest all while wishing to move to anywhere south of Orlando. The middle however drifts along in a sleepy trance never really building to much of anything. Ok, there was that tense moment in the clinic, but really it wasn't any bigger than say the car accident.
A main reason I gave this 3 stars instead of 2...it didn't shove pages and pages of fawning god-like descriptions of a particular character down my throat.
