Stephanie
I'm so sad to see the end of this book series. Alan, Sam, and Lauren feel like old friends after following them for 20 books. While there were aspects of this two-part conclusion that I didn't love, I think overall the ending did the series justice. I think our characters made a journey, but they also arrived right back where they started. Except Alan and Sam are the ones concerned about their privileged information. It's a testament to how your past influences and guides your future. Of course a psychologist like Stephen White would capture that in a way that was not heavy handed, but communicated the message all the time. I didn't love the side plot line of Lauren and Raoul. I didn't think that it was necessary and it bordered on out of character for both of them. With as much as Alan has grown over the years having his wife cheat on him was a character arc his character didn't have to make, we'd already been down that road. So what purpose did that serve? I felt similarly with Diana, who had been portrayed all throughout the series as such a strong woman and Alan's best female friend relegated to that character who snapped and got sent away. Nonetheless despite some of its pitfalls, this book and it's partner before it showcased what I have always loved best about these books: Alan's thought process, the ever evolving, mature friendship between Alan and Sam, and the art and science of psychology. I haven't read a fiction author yet who can capture the difficult, conflicted, harrowing nature of being a therapist as poignantly as Stephen White can.
While not the worst book I've read, it certainly wasn't the best. The characters and plot are likable enough but this book fails where Stephenie Meyer usually fails: the insane amounts of fluff she uses between bits of action. Sometimes I lost the point of the chapter because she's busy describing every aspect of a gun the character is holding. The narration for the book was well done though, and at times made up for a lot of the pitfalls that faced this book.
Heavy Handed and Awkward
Nothing about this book was useful or necessary. The writing, for the most part, is good. However, the story and characters are woefully lacking. No one is likeable and while that isn't a requirement for a book, it certainly helps. The plot is dense and filled with unnecessary detours that are only meant to be red herrings and add nothing to the overall takeaway of the book. I wouldn't recommend it. There are are several other authors in this genre who do this type of book much better.
While it could be a little heavy handed sometimes with the amount of testimonials, ultimately I believed this book met it's goal which was to proved a textured look at the unique struggles Black women encounter as they navigate racism and sexism as well as the positive and negative aspects of “shifting,” a cognitive and behavioral means of dealing with bigotry.
I don't give a lot of one star reviews, because I can generally find a redeeming characteristic of any book. However, this was such an underwhelming last installment that it pissed me off to have to trudge through it. While the first two books weren't brilliant or original, at least they were readable. This book was long and convoluted. The amount of bad guys and the reason they were bad was unbelievable. Michael's internal thought process just became more and more annoying by the chapter. I just have nothing good to say about this book. I'm not even sure how the same author wrote this pile of crap and The Maze Runner which I adored. Avoid this series so you can avoid reading this crappy last installment.
Wow.
My first five star read of 2016. I absolutely love this trilogy. The problem a lot of authors have is that they don't know how to end a series successfully. They always do something to screw it up. Here we have, what I will say is the perfect mix of action, emotion, politics, and morality to make everyone who reads it pleased with the end result. No wonder this book (and many of Sakey's other booths) have been optioned for movies. He pretty much hands the directors a hit, this one included. So if you know what's good for you, you'll give this trilogy a shot. I promise it won't disappoint.
I really like these books. They're a fun read and Daniel Faust is a great anti-hero. He reminds me of Jeff Lindsey's Dexter in personality. For some reason I was thinking this series was a trilogy, but I'm glad to see there are several more to go. In this installment, another piece of the big bad's puzzle has come to fruition and Faust along with his team of sorcerers and demons have to pull off the ultimate con to save the day. They do it admirably, might I add. I'm ready for their next big adventure!
I've noticed I don't read many books that have a male lead. This one seems like a decent urban fantasy series to add to the collection. Daniel Faust is an interesting character. He reminds me of the character John Constantine, but with a little more bad ass and a dash more recklessness. I also really enjoy when an author interweaves different series together. This seems to be the case since this author also has a series that focused on the Harmony Black character. I'm looking forward to following these characters.
I don't know about books like these because I can't say that I enjoyed it. How could I? The subject matter is so utterly reprehensible that to admit you enjoyed it would make me concerned for your moral character. However, there is so much about this novel that made me not want to put it down. The pacing was slow, but necessary to develop this truly spectacular, far reaching story and these equally amazing characters. The narration made this even more of a treat. One of the best performances I've heard since beginning to listen to audiobooks. Overall, this was a pretty fascinating read but I'm not sure it's a book I would recommend unless this genre is already something you're familiar with and enjoy.
The problem with advertisers, is that they make these sweeping comparisons to other books that give you an unrealistic expectation of the book at hand. The Luckiest Girl Alive suffers from being compared to Gone Girl. There are very few authors, in my opinion, who can write a morally ambiguous woman quite as good as Gillian Flynn. That's not to say that the Luckiest Girl Alive wasn't a good book, because it was in several ways. I think what was done great here was the individual story arc that Tiffany went through and the meandering, disjointed way it took for her to get there. I thought that was realistic in its portrayal because she was seriously messed up, rightly so. I think the portrayal of her fiancé was done well. He wasn't a bad person per se, he was someone who was duped by the image that image that Tiffany had cultivated for herself and became victim to her discovering that the image she had made was not sufficient. Living a lie no longer was benefitting for her.
The reason I think this book fails is because I have a degree in psychology, so I can read between the lines to understand what the bigger picture of all of this might look like. I get the subtle nuances of the trauma she had suffered and the ripples it would obviously make in her current life. But for the uninformed reader, that aspect is woefully absent so instead the reader gets this picture of someone who has all these deficiencies with none of the background story to understand why these deficiencies should make you hurt for her and root for her. Gone Girl never had that problem because those characters were never meant to be liked, but Tiffany needs to be a likable character in order for this story to be redeemable otherwise she's just some broken thing who takes out her brokenness on other people.
But I do like this book and I do think people should give it a chance outside of what they might expect from the likes of Gillian Flynn.
I really enjoyed this book, particularly for the reasons that other people have not. I liked that it was mundane and routine. I think it's silly to think that there are psychopaths among us who live these fantastical lives of murder and mayhem. It's more realistic and honest to understand that most people don't want to end up in jail or prison and so they adapt their behavior to avoid that reality. This different perspective of what a successful psychopath might look like was refreshing, especially since I often work with what it looks like to be an unsuccessful psychopath or have antisocial personality.
This was a fun, quick read. The narrator's voice was a little bit young and naive, which works to the story's advantage because Evie is young and sheltered. I found myself both annoyed and endeared to her simplistic version of the world. If I could give books a 1/2 star, this one would get 3.5 since this was an average book with some pretty fantastic moments sprinkled throughout.
So up until the end I was really skeptical of this book. I was frankly disappointed since I had read the Maze Runner series and had loved it for its innovative plot and interesting characters. Reading the Eye of Minds, I found myself first confused by the simplicity of plot, the straightforward dialogue, and the confusion it brought about that this just seemed like one adventure after the other á la Indiana Jones with no explanation about why any of this was supposed to make sense or matter. I will not spoil the novel, but if you were like me: lost and confused by the lack of a cohesive story, then wait it out. It's coming and the payoff was worth the ride to get there.
Great Follow Up
The thing with these books is that this premise is so interesting, but sometimes the pacing of the story and some of the subplots become boring enough that I'm wanting to skim through just to get to the good parts. Also, things are becoming more confusing in the fight by the second. Nonetheless, I really do like this series, but it certainly takes work in order for me to get through any of the books.
Word to the wise: don't listen to this on audiobook. I made the mistake of listening to the first 60% of this book on audiobook and the narrator drove me nuts. She made Ruby sound like a ditz and the tone made her completely unlikeable. After I read the rest of it, I could actually take Ruby seriously again and with that the rest of the story. Don't get me wrong, Ruby has some extremely unlikeable character traits, but don't most female leads? What Ruby does have going for her is that she's a smart, capable, and formidable opponent to all of the alpha males in her life and she's vulnerable enough to make her plight believable to the reader. It makes for a fun read with enough depth to keep you interested. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the next one in the series.
I listened to this book on audiobook which dramatically improved my rating for this book. Ordinarily, I think these crime series are pretty formulaic and once you've read one, you have pretty much read them all. The performance for this book was so well done that it elevated the story. The story is what you might expect: Jack is a older, non nonsense female cop. She gets on the trail of a serial killer and begins to question everything about her career choice in the process.
There were dual narrators in Jack and the perp she was after, and the voices for the other characters were so distinct. I'm not sure if I'll tune into another one, simply because these books do become so routine, but listening to this one on the way to work over the course of a week was a good use of my time.
Anyone can betray anyone. What a phrase and what story. While Red Queen is not reinventing the wheel when it comes to medieval fantasy, the story told here was well done and entertaining. The characters could certainly do with some development, but for the most part I was with Mare Barrow as she struggled to fit in with this fantastical world she finds herself in. I listened to this on audiobook across several days and the performance was outstanding. Overall well done, I look forward to the next two books in this trilogy.
This was a good one. Essentially taking part in the unreliable narrator trend, this smart family drama had so many strands that tied together so neatly in the end. I imagine it'd be a great book club read since these characters were all hiding their own secrets and dealing with their own trouble in the best way they knew how.
This was not one of my favorites. What I did enjoy: the extremely detailed character study and the interplay between the characters. What I did not enjoy: the disjointed writing style which was supposed to add to the ambiance of how confused and messed up these people are, but instead just made me confused. I wouldn't pick this book for anyone else to read, honestly.
Okay First Book
Although the story was mildly entertaining, the writing style left a lot to be desired. Rather than being shown the story we were just told it, which was less imaginative. The first person narrative for the two different lead characters weren't different enough to distinguish them. There was just nothing unique about their “voice.” It's a shame, because I think the concept of the book is a good idea.