75 Books...More or Less! discussion
Archive (2019 GR Completed)
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Elyse's 300-Book Challenge!
Elyse wrote: "I'm going big in 2019. I managed 300 in 2018 so I'm going to attempt to do it again. No adjustments, just strive for the top!"You've got this! Can't wait to see what your selections are!
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The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1) - Melissa Albert 3/5Overdrive Audio.
"Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.�
Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong."
First book of 2019 and it was so-so. Better than my first book of 2018 though! (Lincoln in the Bardo)
I'm so conflicted with this book. I wanted to love it, it's exactly the kind of book I'd get lost in and re-read many times. It wants to be Holly Black. But it doesn't quite capture fairy tales like Holly Black does. I do LOVE that Alice is a bookworm and many favorite books are mentioned! I really enjoyed the first half of the book but I feel like it fell apart, ran away from Albert, in the second half. One line that really bugged me "My mouth tasted like dead coffee." That doesn't make any sense. Old coffee or burnt coffee but not dead coffee. I'm curious enough to read the sequel, if it's a direct sequel or a spin-off sequel. And to read the final versions of the Tales from the Hinterland because they seem really interesting and dark, like the original fairy tales are!
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The Lost Sisters (The Folk of the Air novella) - Holly Black 4/5Kindle Purchase.
"Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . .
While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke.
Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal."
I've been re-reading The Cruel Prince in anticipation of The Wicked King (1.8.19) and decided to also read this novella. It was actually good to read together, certain events happening from Jude's POV in CP and then in Taryn's POV in LS. I liked it. Can't wait to read The Wicked King!!
Elyse wrote: "My mouth tasted like dead coffee."..."And I knew exactly what she meant here; my reaction was so visceral that my mind helpfully supplied the taste, lol! I've actually picked up the use of "dead (insert consumable)" from coworkers when referring to something that has gone from 'fresh', through 'old' and 'bad', all the way to 'will make you throw up if you consume this'.
I'm always amused when I am reminded that language I take for granted is exotic (or downright bizarre) to someone else.
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The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black 5/5Home Library Hardcover.
"Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself."
Second time reading, still 5 stars. Love this book and can't wait to start reading The Wicked King on Tuesday!!
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Originally Read February 28, 2018 - March 12, 2018
I LOVE Holly Black's faerie books. She should only write about faeries because she is amazing at it. The names in this book were beautiful!! First thing I loved about this book. And thennn I loved practically everything else. There were a few things that I really did not like. The way Jude was treated was awwwwful. And I know from the beginning what was going to happen with Cardan. Grr. I wasn't -crazy- about how that played out. The faerie court was amazing and truly brutal and Black did a fantastic job with the faerie realm, as usual. I liked Jude but there were things about her I didn't like. Which was good because no one is perfect and I don't have to love the MC for it to still be a great story. But this book was truly magical and I cannot wait for the second boo
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And I knew exactly what she meant here; my reaction was so visceral that my mind helpfully supplied the taste, lol! I've actually picked up the..."
So funny how people react to different ways of saying things. lol
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The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1) - Melissa Albert 3/5Overdrive Audio.
"Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the roa..."
Every time I see this book in the store, I want to buy it. Every time I don't because I've heard such mixed reviews.
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The Cruel Prince (Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black 5/5Home Library Hardcover.
"Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters..."
I think I am going to jump on the bandwagon for this series. Everyone is raving about the books.
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It's definitely a borrow instead of buy.
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Have you read some Holly Black before? Are you a faerie fan? Then you'll love it. lol
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Have you read some Holly Black before? Are you a faerie fan? Then you'll love it. lol"
I have not read anything by her but I love, love, love faeries!
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I loved her Tithe series when I was a teen, not sure how they've held up since then. But I loved The Darkest Part of the Forest and I'm loving the Folk of the Air series so far!
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An Anonymous Girl - Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen 4/5NetGalley ARC.
"When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking…and what she’s hiding. As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields� manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly."
This was a twisty book! I haven't read The Wife Between Us but it's now on my 2019 list to read! I didn't know who to believe but I needed to know. The first half of the book dragged a little but once it hit a certain point, I couldn't put it down! Everyone was suspicious in my mind and they all had ulterior motives. I liked and disliked the POV switches. Some were too fast. I liked Dr. Shields' POVs where she never spoke in first person. It was never "I said," it was all "you were told." That made it very clinical but also kind of eerie. She was the conductor. And you, the reader, felt like she was talking directly to YOU and about YOU. This was a darker book that showed the vulnerabilities of every character. I really enjoyed it and especially liked the ending. You were literally guessing what would happen until the very. last. page.
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The Ripper's Shadow (Victorian Mystery #1) - Laura Joh Rowland 3.5/5Audible Audio.
"The year is 1888 and Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror.
Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer in Whitechapel, is an independent woman with dark secrets. In the privacy of her studio, she supplements her meager income by taking illicit “boudoir photographs� of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.
Teamed with a motley crew of friends--including a street urchin, a gay aristocrat, a Jewish butcher and his wife, and a beautiful young actress--Sarah delves into the crime of the century. But just as she starts unlocking the Ripper's secrets, she catches the attention of the local police, who believe she knows more than she's revealing, as well as from the Ripper himself, now bent on silencing her and her friends for good.
Caught in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer, Sarah races through Whitechapel's darkest alleys to find the truth...until she makes a shocking discovery that challenges everything she thought she knew about the case."
3.5 stars raised to 4 stars. I got an ARC of third book of this series and had a few Audible credits so I picked up this one and the second one. I really liked the narrator which always helps an audiobook. I liked that the MC was a woman and very independent. I liked that she was a photographer. I really liked Mick and Hugh as well. They are a fun, good team. There were some gruesome parts, it is Jack the Ripper after all, but they didn't put me off the book. Some improbable parts/people/actions but still an enjoyable read. Everything fell together too nicely but I didn't inspect that too much. I quickly started listening to the second one.
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The Ripper's Shadow (Victorian Mystery #2) - Laura Joh Rowland 4/5Audible Audio.
"A photographer in Whitechapel, London, Sarah Bain is also a private detective—skilled at capturing others� dark secrets, and expert at keeping her own. When a wealthy banker, Sir Gerald Mariner, posts a handsome reward for finding his missing infant, all of London joins in, hoping to win that money for themselves. Usually discouraged by a saturated market, Sarah is instead curiously allured as she realizes the case hits much closer to home than she first thought.
As she dives in, she discovers a photograph of baby Robin Mariner and his mother. But it eerily resembles the post-mortem photographs Sarah, herself, takes of deceased children posed to look as if they were alive. Now it’s unclear whether the kidnapping is a cover-up to hide the reality of his disappearance, or if it’s truly a cry for help."
As soon as I finished the first book I started this one. And I ended up liking it a little more than the first one but the narrator changed her voice of Inspector Reed and I did not like it at all. It was very grating. He also had a bigger role in this book so maybe I just noticed it more. Jack the Ripper has been done so many times but at least it was just a jumping off point for this series. Sarah, Hugh, and Mick have started an amateur private detective business and they've had a few small clients. Then Hugh's father gets them in with Gerald Mariner, whose 20-month-old son has gone missing. Sarah uses her photographer's eye to find things the police have missed but the trio have also put themselves in imminent danger. They've walked right into it! Same vein of not 100% plausible/believable but still enjoyable. I'm now ready to read my ARC of the third book, The Hangman's Secret.
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Glitter and Doom (The Masque of the Red Death novella) - Bethany Griffin 3/5Home Library Kindle.
"When a rich teenage girl who spends her nights in the most desirable club and a smart, young inventor meet, they might have more in common than they know.
April, niece to the dying city's cruel dictator, is Araby Worth's glittery and frivolous best friend. But she's more than she appears. And when she disappeared in Masque of the Red Death, where did she go? This short novella answers that question, taking us deep underneath the crumbling city, where April crosses paths with Kent, the serious young inventor who is key to rebellion. Glitter & Doom is a story of chilling action, of spies, and of surprising love. Can love be anything but doomed is a city that's burning down around its survivors?"
I read Masque of the Red Death back in 2012 and I'm finally getting around to reading the novella and sequel! lol. This novella didn't do a whole lot for me. It was a little informational. It gives answers to where April was and some knowledge on Malcontent. I feel I will be able to navigate my way through Dance of the Red Death.
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Six Days Earlier (Every Day novella) - David Levithan 4/5Home Library Kindle.
"In Every Day, New York Times bestselling author David Levithan presented readers with his most ambitious novel to date: Every morning, A wakes up in a different body and leads a different life. A must never get too attached, must never be noticed, must never interfere.
The novel Every Day starts on Day 5994 of A’s life. In this digital-only collection Six Earlier Days, Levithan gives readers a glimpse at a handful of the other 5993 stories yet to be told that inform how A navigates the complexities of a life lived anew each day.
In Every Day, readers discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day. In Six Earlier Days, readers will discover a little bit more about how A became that someone."
This is not a necessary read for the Every Day trilogy. But it's a fun little glimpse into some of A's previous days. They're different people but A is the same and brings himself into each person. I'm ready to read Someday!
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The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black 4/5Home Library Hardcover.
"You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.
The first lesson is to make yourself strong.
After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.
When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world."
Uhhh. I'm a little dumbfounded. And I don't know how to feel. HOLLY!!
5 minutes later...
I kind of loved it even though I also hated it. (view spoiler) And TARYN! OMG. (view spoiler)
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Beauty (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novella) - Laurell K. Hamilton 1/5Overdrive E-Book.
"With a vampire like Jean Claude around, it’s far too easy for Anita Blake to doubt her own appearance—and the hold it has on those who love her. But one hot tub and two incredibly sexy men—Jean Claude and Asher—will make her feel like the most lusted-after woman alive…or undead. Not bad for a mere human..."
Ummmm why? No point to this at all. A rehash of things not needing rehashing because this is an outtake and then a sex scene which we already see frequently since Micah came out. This could've been a 5-page outtake.
11.
Dancing (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novella) - Laurell K. Hamilton 4/5Overdrive E-Book.
"For most people, summer barbecues are nothing to be afraid of. But Anita isn’t exactly plain vanilla—and neither is her love life. So it takes a special kind of courage to attend a barbecue thrown by her friend Sergeant Zerbrowski. Walking into a backyard full of cops and their families with wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel both looking gorgeous on her arm won’t be easy, even with almost-four-year-old Matthew Vespucci to break the ice�
Anita is determined to have a good time with her family, just like everyone else. But it doesn’t take long for tensions to rise among the adults and kids. And Anita will learn that gossip and innuendo can be just as dangerous as anything the undead can throw at her�"
This was a sweet little snippet of as normal a life as Anita and her boyfriends can get. No vamps in this one. A nice little cop cookout. I pulled a lot of good quotes from this short story. But I do feel like it was unnecessary to go through minutiae that is already repeated in every regular novel. It doesn't need to be reiterated in the short stories because no one is going to start the Anita Blake series with novella #21.5!
Anita Blake is on my list for 2019 Series to Finish Challenge, even though it's not done being written. I have 2 anthologies to read, 3 books, and 1 novella to be caught up.
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The Golden Tresses of the Dead (Flavia de Luce #10) - Alan Bradley 4/5NetGalley ARC.
"Flavia de Luce, the twelve-year-old chemist and amateur detective, is eager to turn professional. She and her father's valet, Dogger, have founded a detective agency, Arthur Dogger & Associates, and unexpectedly cut into their first case during the revelry at her sister Ophelia's wedding reception. After an eventful ceremony with a missing best man and spontaneous ventriloquist act, spirits are high as Feely and her new husband head for the towering and beautifully iced wedding cake. But as Feely slices into the first piece, a scream rings out--the bridal cake contains a severed human finger. Delighted, Flavia wraps the finger in a napkin and whisks it away to her chemical laboratory. By studying the embalmed skin, the indentation of a ring and the slope of the fingernail, she'll not only be able to determine the identity of the victim--but also point a finger at a killer."
Word is that this will NOT be Flavia's last adventure!!! *phew*
Now that that is out of the way! I haven't listened to a Flavia audiobook since Speaking from Among the Bones but I still have Jayne Entwhistle's charming Flavia voice in my head. :) She's delightful, listen to the audiobooks!
Arthur W. Dogger & Associates. *swoon* I LOVE Dogger and Flavia so so much. Everyone seems to have moved on fairly well from the traumatic events of Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd. Feely's getting married, Daffy's working on her "memoirs," and Flavia, along with Dogger, has opened an amateur investigative firm! Oh and Undine is still hanging around. But she may have potential... There was a whole lot of sleuthing going on in this book! I didn't know which end was up, it was very convoluted. There are some beautiful quotes that I will share on pub day, from my uncorrected proof. I hope they still made it into the finished product!
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Cosmos - Carl Sagan 4/5Audible Audio.
"Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Featuring a new Introduction by Sagan's collaborator, Ann Druyan, and a new Foreword by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science."
This audiobook needs your undivided attention or you will miss something and be utterly confused. I'm not sure how much I actually retained but it was a fascinating book! There was a LOT of information! I had no idea the Milky Way was named after breast milk! *the more you know* Narrated by LeVar Burton of my Reading Rainbow childhood, huzzah!! With cameos from Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth McFarlane, and Sagan's widow and partner in science crime, Ann Druyan.
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Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (Funny in Farsi #1) - Firoozeh Dumas 4/5Audible Audio.
"In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas's wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.
In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi)."
I'm getting through my backlog of Audible audiobooks and forgot I bought this one when it was a Daily Deal. It was a good, funny memoir of a woman growing up Iranian in 1970's America and the hardships her family went through being Iranian in America. I plan on listening to the sequel!
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The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1) - Roshani Chokshi 4/5Won paperback ARC from BookishFirst.com!
"Set in a darkly glamorous Paris, the book follows a charismatic but cursed heir of a massive fortune as he plots to steal one of three ancient and powerful artifacts of fate. He and his crew will navigate the elite gatherings of secret occult societies, traveling through Paris' catacombs where they must confront their worst secrets as well as a destiny they never imagined."
First of all, the cover is breathtaking! Do not buy the e-book, buy the gorgeous hardcover edition! It's one of the prettiest I've ever seen. This was my first Chokshi novel, I'm ashamed to say. I own her Star-Touched Queen duet but I have not read it yet. I will be putting it at the top of my TBR list now! Even those covers are beautiful!
The magic in this book was very unique and interesting. Also a little confusing. Something about Babel Fragments and Forged items and mind vs matter affinities. It was explained at the very early stages of the book, which was good but then I kind of forgot how the magic worked by the time I awas halfway through. It was all just magic to me! I sped through this book once I started reading it! I liked all of the characters, even the bad ones. They were very well fleshed out and I think Zofia is my favorite. And the romance was swoon-worthy.
Some not so great things. Zofia is Jewish. Yay diversity but that's it. She's Jewish. Whoop-de-doo. Enrique battles himself with being half-Filipino/half-Spanish and how he doesn't fit into either one but so wants to be accepted. Laila is Indian and things are brought up from her past to solidify that ethnicity with her dancing and other things. But Zofia is just Jewish. No reason, no history, no religious talk, no traditions. It's just stated several times. Unnecessary. Also, without a VERY few French words (mon cher, ma cher, majnun) and a few mentions of the Eiffel Tower and Exposition Universelle, I would not have know it was set in Paris. Or France. ALSO, how and why does Severin own a hotel? Where did he get his money? His House was disbanded and he was disinherited and disowned.
BUT put the sequel in my grubby hands NOW! I cannot even wait to see the sequel's cover!!
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The Bette Davis Club - Jane Lotte 2/5Audible Audio.
"From humor writer Jane Lotter, comes this laugh-out-loud first novel. The Bette Davis Club is the hilarious chronicle of fifty-something Margo Just, her dysfunctional Hollywood-film-industry family, and Margo's battle to deal with both her drinking and an unsuccessful love affair. There's also a runaway bride, a missing-but very valuable-screenplay, and a cross-country chase in a gorgeous 1955 red MG. Along the way, Margo begins to find that what she's really chasing is her heart's own truth. And none of what she discovers will be quite what she expected."
This book was published posthumously which is sad. There was a sweet Foreword by her daughter. Hilarious is not a word I would use to describe this book. Some funny parts but hilarious it is not. I couldn't really get into it. And I thought it would be about worshiping cinema of the 50s and 60s, the Bette Davis era. Watching the movies, discussing them. And there was some of that. But you learn what the title means more than halfway through the book. Then it's kind of funny.
One reason I couldn't quite get into this book was because the narrator was British and did not do good American accents. So it didn't sound as authentic as it could've been. Might've been better off reading this one!
I also wasn't crazy about the storyline in general. It wasn't entirely plausible. This intelligent, sometimes TOO intelligent, 40-something marrying an immature 20-something? Ugly rich men do it all the time but attractive intelligent men don't generally.
And I didn't like how long it took to find out about Finn. You're jarringly thrown into the past around three quarters through the book. You'd think this woman was abused in some way but that's not it at all.
I did find it funny that she mentioned Colleen Moore (silent film actress, dollhouse maker) and how A Star is Born was possibly her and John McCormick's story. And that A Star was made in 1937, then 1954, 1976, and now it's in its fourth iteration in 2018 but Lotter did not know.
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Sebastian and the Troll - Fredrik Backman 5/5Gah, so short but packs such an emotional punch!! This man! What a writer! I will forever be a fan.
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Hahaha, you're killing me :)
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I can't handle myself. lol. Oh and my Book Outlet order came yesterday! 🤣
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The Black Country (Scotland Yard's Murder Squad #2) - Alex Grecian 3.5/5Audible Audio.
"The British Midlands. It's called the "Black Country" for a reason. Bad things happen there.
When members of a prominent family disappear from a coal-mining village - and a human eyeball is discovered in a bird's nest - the local constable sends for help from Scotland Yard's new Murder Squad. Fresh off the grisly 1889 murders of The Yard, Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith respond, but they have no idea what they're about to get into. The villagers have intense, intertwined histories. Everybody bears a secret. Superstitions abound. And the village itself is slowly sinking into the mines beneath it.
Not even the arrival of forensics pioneer Dr. Bernard Kingsley seems to help. In fact, the more the three of them investigate, the more they realize they may never be allowed to leave..."
I liked this book a little less than #1 and #3 but it was a lot less gruesome than the two I've read. That I DID like. There was a lot of jumping around in this one, that I don't remember happening so much in the other two. It was more confusing. Thus the bit lower rating but I still gave it 4 GR stars for the series as a whole.
Toby Leonard Moore is a GREAT narrator though. I just finished an audiobook with a British narrator who did terrible American accents and Moore is AUSTRALIAN and does amazing accents; Irish, American, British, seamlessly and beautifully. I just looked him up and he's an actor I've seen in movies/TV before! I had no idea! Annnd I'm sad to see that he does not narrate the next 2 SYMS books! John Curless had better be good!
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The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly 5/5Audible Audio.
"High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own -- populatedby heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things."
I was going to give this book 4 stars before I finished reading it. Jumping the gun. But when it all falls into place at the end, it is absolutely 5 stars.
This book came out in 2008 but I've just now read it. So it reminded me of A Monster Calls (2011), what The Hazel Wood (2018) tried to be, The Neverending Story (1979), and even parts of Labyrinth (1986). It was MAGICAL. Fantasical! Chock full of twisted fairy tales, stories within stories, and lessons to learn from!
I listened to the audiobook but I definitely plan on coming back to this and *reading* it, savoring it. This was my second Connolly book and there is not an end in sight! Why did it take me so long to read his books?!
Elyse wrote: "18. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly 5/5 I loved that book!
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The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly 5/5 I loved that book!"
It was so good!
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The Death of Mrs. Westaway - Ruth Ware 3.5/5Overdrive E-Book.
"On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.
Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it."
3.5 stars
Ugh this book dragged! The first third is very slow, then it picks up a *little*. It doesn't get really good and going till 75% through! Then it's a mad race to finish. I guessed some of what was happening early-ish on, when I cared enough to pay attention. But some of it was still a surprise, it's a huge web!
I liked Hal, broken as she was. I liked the tarot aspects of the book. I don't anything about tarot cards or reading so I learned some things.
The Woman in Cabin 10 was my first Ware book and I liked it a lot more than this one. I'm on hold for The Lying Game on Overdrive and I own and plan to read In a Dark, Dark Wood soon.
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Red Clocks - Leni Zumas 2.5/5Audible Audio.
"Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.
Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own while also writing a biography of Eivør, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender", who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt."
2.5 stars
It's ridiculous how close to home this book was to the past 2-3 years of my life. Having done IVF 3 times, I was very familiar with everything in this book; FSH, follicles, PCOS, oh so many doctor visits and hormone shots. Even down to the stupid little superstitions and traditions to "help" conceive; moxa sticks, pineapple chunks, green tea, not to mention acupuncture, pomegranate juice, legs up, etc. Those things that a woman tried that ONE time and that just happened to be the time she got pregnant. Stupid things to keep hope.
Maybe that's why I didn't like it so much. Because it was TOO familiar. But also I didn't like the third person view for every character. It's so impersonal and clinical. And the writing is very blunt. Not vulgar or offensive, well at times a little vulgar. Not used to that. Kind of off-putting. And the POV changes are very abrupt. I definitely felt like you're supposed to be uncomfortable reading this book. I also didn't like the structure. I didn't feel like I got to know any of the characters very well. The women were called only by what they were in their own POV chapters and were called their names in the other POV chapters. Which I did like because it showed how they felt about themselves, I think, how inconsequential they felt as their role; the wife, the daughter, the biographer, the mender, the explorer.
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Red Clocks - Leni Zumas 2.5/5Audible Audio.
"Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again ill..."
I enjoyed the book for all the reasons you didn't :) .... I also think it's nice to know that the author did her research for the IVF sections :)
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Red Clocks - Leni Zumas 2.5/5Audible Audio.
"Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is ..."
I'm wondering if she has first-hand experience, actually!
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Red Clocks - Leni Zumas 2.5/5Audible Audio.
"Five women. One question. What is a woman for?
In this ferociously imaginative novel,..."
I was wondering the same!
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The Red Fox Clan (Ranger's Apprentice: The Royal Ranger #2) - John Flanagan 4/5Library Hardcover.
"Picking up where The Royal Ranger: A New Beginning left off, this next installment continues the story arc featuring young apprentice, Maddie, and the student-turned-master, Will Treaty. The time has come for the next generation to assume the mantle and become protectors of the kingdom of Araluen.
After passing her third-year assessment as a ranger's apprentice, Maddie is called home to Castle Araluen. Forced to keep her ranger training a secret, Maddie feels trapped by the monotony of castle life and longs to find a way out. But there are whisperings of a new threat to the kingdom. The mysterious Red Fox Clan, a group of anarchists all donning fox masks, have threatened Castle Araluen and question Princess Cassandra and Madelyn's succession to the throne. Will they succeed in unseating Cassandra and Madelyn and take the throne for themselves?"
When The Royal Ranger was considered #12 of the Ranger's Apprentice series, it felt weird and out of place. Now that it's The Royal Ranger spin-off series, I can look at it differently and accept A New Beginning much better and get into this new series!
I really enjoyed this one, seeing some familiar faces and also getting to know Maddie, royalty and our new Ranger's apprentice. And Bumper! Love the relationship between Ranger and horse that Flanagan develops! Maddie learns a skill that she fails at initially and that comes in very handy later on.
Annnd the next book, the second half to this one, is out in Australia but will not be out till May in the US! Argh! Holy cliffhanger, Batman!
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Wayfarer (Passenger #2) - Alexandra Bracken 4/5Audible Audio.
"Etta Spencer didn't know she was a traveler until the day she emerged both miles and years from her home. Now, robbed of the powerful object that was her only hope of saving her mother, Etta finds herself stranded once more, cut off from Nicholas - the eighteenth century privateer she loves - and her natural time.
When Etta inadvertently stumbles into the heart of the Thorns, the renegade travelers who stole the astrolabe from her, she vows to finish what she started and destroy the astrolabe once and for all. Instead, she's blindsided by a bombshell revelation from their leader, Henry Hemlock: he is her father. Suddenly questioning everything she's been fighting for, Etta must choose a path, one that could transform her future.
Still devastated by Etta's disappearance, Nicholas has enlisted the unlikely help of Sophia Ironwood and a cheeky mercenary-for-hire to track both her and the missing astrolabe down. But as the tremors of change to the timeline grow stronger and the stakes for recovering the astrolabe mount, they discover an ancient power far more frightening than the rival travelers currently locked in a battle for control...a power that threatens to eradicate the timeline altogether."
I have a lot to say about this book and most of it is spoilers! I liked it, it was a good conclusion to the duet. It could've been a trilogy, the size of these books! I was a little lost when I started this because I read Passenger almost 2 years ago but I did read the Wiki so that refreshed some of my mind.
I didn't like that Nicholas and Etta were separated for most of the book. I felt like the initial conflict of finding the astrolabe and defeating Cyrus Ironwood were good enough and they didn't need a third problem! I wanted them to tagteam it instead of them making their own tagteams. lol.
I'm still not a huge fan of how Bracken handled time travel. It's a very wishy-washy thing to take on in general and it wasn't executed 100% perfectly in this series. I wanted more concrete rules. (view spoiler)
Series Complete!
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Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) - Charlaine Harris 3/5Audible Audio.
"There is no such thing as bad publicity, except in Midnight, Texas, where the residents like to keep to themselves. Even in a town full of secretive people, Olivia Charity is an enigma. She lives with the vampire Lemuel, but no one knows what she does; they only know that she’s beautiful and dangerous.
Psychic Manfred Bernardo finds out just how dangerous when he goes on a working weekend to Dallas and sees Olivia there with a couple who are both found dead the next day. To make matters worse, one of Manfred’s regular—and very wealthy—clients dies during a reading.
Manfred returns from Dallas embroiled in scandal and hounded by the press. He turns to Olivia for help; somehow he knows that the mysterious Olivia can get things back to normal. As normal as things get in Midnight�"
Knocking off series I've started but haven't finished yet. Glad I got these last 2 on audio instead of reading them because it would've taken me ages, like the first book did. I just don't feel any connection to this trilogy like I had with Harris's previous series. The characters are mediocre and the storylines are mediocre. So they get a mediocre 3.
25.
Night Shift (Midnight, Texas #3) - Charlaine Harris 3/5Audible Audio.
"At Midnight's local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves - only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town. Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is? There's a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place. And now they must come together to stop the bloodshed in the heart of Midnight. For if all hell breaks loose - which just might happen - it will put the secretive town on the map, where no one wants it to be..."
Welp, this was a very mediocre trilogy. Glad it's over. (view spoiler) What was the finale in this series ended up being the "finale" of the first season. So after that, the show went out on its own. The show wasn't very good either and that got cancelled after 2 seasons. Now Sookie is my only Harris series left to read (besides Gunnie Rose), I've only read the first one.
Series Complete!
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Ashes to Ashes (Burn for Burn #3) - Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian 4/5Home Library Paperback.
"They only meant to right the wrongs. It was about getting even. Burn for burn.
But the fire they lit kept raging…Reeve ended up hurt, then Rennie ended up dead.
Everything will turn to ash if they don’t stop what they started. But now that Mary knows the truth about what happened to her, will she want to?
Secrets drew Lillia, Kat, and Mary together. The truth might tear them apart."
Though it's been since 2013 and 2014 that I read Burn for Burn and Fire with Fire, I enjoyed the end of this trilogy a lot. I did need a refresher of what happened at the end of Fire with Fire (and my review was not helpful lol) but after that, I was sucked back into this twisted world! It DID get more supernatural, like I predicted when I finished Fire with Fire and I wasn't sure which way it would go! I plowed through it because I needed answers and answers I got! Really like this author duo! I don't think I've read any solo Siobhan Vivian yet but I recently purchased Stay Sweet.
Series Complete!
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The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides 4/5Book of the Month January 2019 Hardcover.
"Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him..."
“Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband."
Love the first line. Immediate hook! This book was a quick read. The narrator is immediately unlikable. And he takes you on a ride. He's arrogant and obsessive about becoming Alicia Berenson's psychotherapist. And Alicia has been silent since she was found standing over her husband's tied up dead body. So there's much mystery! (view spoiler) Minor thing, I didn't like that every chapter started on the right page and if a chapter ended on the right page, the next page, left page, was blank. So basically this book is 15-20 pages shorter than advertised. But I really liked this debut! I look forward to Michaelides next book!
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The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides 4/5Book of the Month January 2019 Hardcover.
"Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter marr..."
I noticed the chapter thing too. Also found it weird.
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The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides 4/5Book of the Month January 2019 Hardcover.
"Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famou..."
Yeah I'd never seen that oddity before! lol
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The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides 4/5Book of the Month January 2019 Hardcover.
"Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly per..."
I can't think of one reason why that is a thing .... Is that common for Greek literature? The author is Greek.
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The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides 4/5Book of the Month January 2019 Hardcover.
"Alicia Berenson’s life is..."
I don't know! I don't think I've read a current Greek author before this one.
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Fury (Menagerie #3) - Rachel Vincent 4/5Audible Audio.
"1986: Rebecca Essig leaves a slumber party early but comes home to a massacre—committed by her own parents. Only one of her siblings has survived. But as the tragic event unfolds, she begins to realize that other than a small army of six-year-olds, she is among very few survivors of a nationwide slaughter.
The Reaping has begun.
Present day: Pregnant and on the run with a small band of compatriots, Delilah Marlow is determined to bring her baby into the world safely and secretly. But she isn’t used to sitting back while others suffer, and she’s desperate to reunite Zyanya, the cheetah shifter, with her brother and children. To find a way for Lenore the siren to see her husband. To find Rommily’s missing Oracle sisters. To unify this adopted family of fellow cryptids she came to love and rely on in captivity.
But Delilah is about to discover that her role in the human versus cryptid war is destined to be much larger—and more dangerous—than she ever could have imagined."
There are too many questions left about the Surrogates to give this a 5. I did like how much information we finally got about the Reaping but (view spoiler) But I really enjoyed this book and the trilogy overall. Except for the one thing in the second book that I was very disappointed by. But this was a great fantasy series and very creative. I understand why it ended the way it did and I don't feel like it's the same reason as other books (view spoiler) There was a strong reason for it to end the way it did. The ending was beautifully and tragically done. So tragic. I cried.
Series Complete!
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A Spark of Light - Jodi Picoult 3.5/5Overdrive E-Book.
"The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.
After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.
But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard."
I feel like everyone is prefacing their so-so reviews with "First off I love Jodi Picoult!" And I do too! I've loved most of her books; her realness, her ability to tackle the harsh, unspoken topics in a delicate, beautiful way. Buuuut this book comes along. I gave it 4 stars because Jodi Picoult! But it's 3.5 stars.
I appreciate the new way of telling a story but I did not like being told the story backwards. It was annoying and confusing to try and match up events that happened first and then going back. Also, the chapters or sections are each a one-hour time block so they're very long and I myself like shorter chapters! I wouldn't have minded the sections/parts for each hour but a new chapter when we bounce around to each POV.
There is a lot of good in this book. I highlighted a LOT of passages that resonated with me. There will always be abortions and there will always be women carrying to term and giving up their babies for adoption. Those will never change, no matter the legality. We will never run out of children to adopt!! Abortions will not prevent women who cannot get pregnant from adopting! Let's let abortion be a safe process and not the risk of the woman's life!! I'm sorry but to me the woman's life is more important than a potential baby's life. I'm desperate for a baby but my want does not trump another woman's choice. I could go on and on about being pro-choice, about giving contraception away for free to underprivileged communities, etc. But I won't. I will continue to talk about the book.
I liked that Picoult pulled from so many perspectives because you really got a feel for how differently people think and feel about reproductive centers, no they are not ABORTION CENTERS. That is not all they provide!!! It's a very small percentage! Like 3%, I think.
I do feel like she shat on pro-lifers in this book. She literally said in her afterward that most of the pro-lifers she spoke with were NOT religious zealots or harassers. Yes, some are hypocrites and have gotten abortions because it was convenient and then changed their stance. You're allowed to change your opinion. Where a woman is in life right now is not where she was when she was 16. But these are the only pro-lifers she portrayed in the book. So I feel like she wasn't fair to their voice. I loved the character of Dr. Louis Ward who was based on the real-life Dr. Willie Parker. We need more men like this.
I didn't see either of the twists coming. I was too enveloped in their stories to think of other people involved in their lives. I did think the ending was far too abrupt! We learn so much of the past of these characters and then their present but we don't get a peek at their futures or the aftermath.
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We'll Always Have Summer (Summer Trilogy #3) - Jenny Han 4/5Home Library Paperback.
"Belly has only ever been in love with two boys, both with the last name Fisher. And after being with Jeremiah for the last two years, she's almost positive he is her soul mate. Almost. Conrad has not gotten over the mistake he made when he let Belly go even as Jeremiah has always known that Belly is the girl for him. So when Belly and Jeremiah decide to make things forever, Conrad realizes that it's now or never--tell Belly he loves her, or lose her for good. Belly will have to confront her feelings for Jeremiah and Conrad and face a truth she has possibly always known: she will have to break one of their hearts."
I read The Summer I Turned Pretty in 2014 and then read It's Not Summer Without You in 2018. Now I'm finally finishing the trilogy! I actually liked this book a lot more than the first two. Maybe because I knew it was the end, maybe because it was a little more mature now that the characters are all sufficiently out of high school. There was still a lot of teen angst! lol. I do like how it ended up, I really wasn't sure which way she was going to go. I would have rather she met someone else though! lol.
Series Complete!
75 Books...More or Less!
Books mentioned in this topic
The Quiet Boy (other topics)The Winter of the Witch (other topics)
Bunnicula Strikes Again! (other topics)
Return to Howliday Inn (other topics)
The Queen of Nothing (other topics)
More...
RAISED GOAL TO 365 4/10/19
LOWERED GOAL TO 350 9/23/19
LOWERED GOAL TO 300 11/17/19
Okay I want to write out some goals I want to achieve this year:
đź“š Finish some series I've started and are done being written: Series to Finish Challenge
đź“š Read as many pre-owned books as possible! Between Read Your Shelves, NetGalley Challenge, and Mount TBR Challenge, I'm confident I can do well!
đź“š Keep up on ARCs with NetGalley ARCs Challenge. Limit ARC requests on NetGalley to only read authors and anticipated books.
đź“š Keep up on reviews! Write review next day!