Kelly Corn
Wow! I have finally finished listening to this book. It is my “walking book” and guess what I've not been doing much of during the pandemic? That's right, taking care of my health. But now I'm back to my mostly daily walks and getting more books in for the year.
Harlan Coben can do suspense. I'm not a fan of the Myron Bolitar books (only read 3 but they didn't pull me in like his standalones). Lots of exciting big reveals in the end - and that's what I need in a exercise audiobook.
I do believe I enjoyed this book better than Children of Time, which is quite a surprise since I loved that one so much. This one had a whole new depth to it, and it was also very unsettling, and who doesn't like being unsettled by science fiction. It's hard to review this book without spoilers, but I want to keep adventuring in Tchaikovsky's incredibly constructed future.
Well I'm having a good old social distancing time reading cozy mysteries! I like this Library Lover's Series a lot, I've read 3 of them so far. In this one, we get to experience the arrival of Heathcliff the dog and I just loved reading about Lindsay growing fond of him and deciding to keep him. And now at this point I know the characters of Lindsay, Sully, Beth, Nancy et al pretty well and like keeping up with their goings on. As with most (honestly) cozies, the mystery story is kind of far-fetched and wasn't too hard to guess, but that's fine. These books to me are like comfort food for my brain and soul during these tough times.
As far as mysteries go, this book has it all. I loved the two main characters, I am not a fan of romances but I was totally shipping them the whole time. The mystery plot was great. The setting came alive with all the great descriptions of the snow and cold in upstate New York. I'm really looking forward to digging in to more of this series.
Started off strong and intriguing - I can easily believe that the existence and popularity of findtheone.com could happen. I liked the character development of Kelly Swift.
Unfortunately the denouement with reveal of the of the mastermind was not even remotely believable. I mean, I give some leeway to thrillers for plausibility but this was just ridiculous.
I have found a new series that I love. Now the first book in the series, although I enjoyed it, wasn't as good as this one. Also, I think the big difference between the two for me is that I listened to the audiobook for the second one, and wow that reader is absolutely amazing!
Maisie Dobbs is just such a wonderful character and I am enjoying the setting more and more.
5 Stars for all the great work the author has done in this country. 4 Stars for the book itself, it wasn't quite perfectly done - a lot of statistics dumps which is fine, but I was left wanting to know so much more. At some recommendations below, I'm going to read [b:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness 6792458 The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328751532l/6792458.SX50.jpg 6996712] next, maybe get some questions answered there.Definitely more a memoir than a “this is how we got here” style of nonfiction.
Well, I flew through this book over the holidays. Not my favorite Mrs Murphy book because there are some truly insufferable characters and in my opinion, justice was not server, HOWEVER the antics of Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and newly-added Pewter were just so funny, they had me laughing out loud! 2 stars for the plot but 4 for the animals.
I almost feel like “abstaining” a star review of this book. So I'll be in the middle.So many books out there today with the recently-made-classic unreliable female narrator (who tends to be alcoholic too, I guess that contributes to the unreliable part). This one is truly better than most though (I'm looking at you [b:The Girl on the Train 22557272 The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1574805682l/22557272.SX50.jpg 41107568] or [b:The Woman in Cabin 10 28187230 The Woman in Cabin 10 Ruth Ware https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1465878007l/28187230.SY75.jpg 48209164]). Our main character suffers from extreme alcoholism, agoraphobia, and a host of other problems stemming from these (anxiety, hallucinations, depression). The author did a nice job of immersing the reader into Anna Fox's head and all of her mental illnesses.The writer has some promise, but overall the story is lacking. It's rather typical, and pretty easy to guess. I did not “figure it out” before the end, but the path getting there was pretty predictable. And none of the characters except Anna is in any way fleshed out - but I suppose that's to be expected since the narrator herself comes into contact only briefly with just a few people throughout the whole novel.Not great, but not as bad as I expected.
All around enjoyable book about music and American history and how they influenced each other. I was afraid it would both be primarily about country music (what I think of today when I think of patriotic music unfortunately) and also right-leaning (again, because of the unfortunate implications of the word patriotism today and also country music), but it was neither! Honestly Tim McGraw was such a side note (literally, he contributed a few side notes in each chapter) and there wasn't much about country music specifically. I've got nothing against country music, but I don't want to read a whole book about the history of it :)
A whole gamut of music genres are explored during their respective beginnings in American history, from the Revolutionary War to today. I enjoyed learning the history of our national anthem, the history of American folk music, and so much more.
I am not typically a reader of nonfiction and I'm trying to change that. This is an excellent book to start that journey - it was never dry, never preachy, and moved at a great pace.
Many reviewers have echoed my thoughts on this book. It has such a fun premise, Lee takes over a job as a fake psychic on TV only to find out she might actually have real psychic tendencies. There's a cat who is a witch's familiar. There's the great setting of Salem MA and all of its history. Crystal balls, tarot, fortune telling... all gave me delight in the first half of the book. But oh boy, the second half is just not good. As I've said before, I'm really a gullible fool when it comes to mysteries and I like it that way. I fall for all the herrings. But I never figure it out so completely and so quickly. And then I was just bored waiting for Lee to figure it out too. I did like the beginning so much I'll probably give another in the series a shot, but this was not a great cozy in the end.