Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

Women's Fiction

Shandi and her little boy Natty are moving to Atlanta, after her father offers up his condo so she can be closer to college. Her best friend Walcott is helping with the move and the three stop at a Circle K on the way. Shandi and Natty go inside to get some drinks where a cute man looks lost looking at laundry detergent. Coming up with a thousand ways to approach him, she doesn't really notice another man enter the shop with a gun. He charges the cash register and robs the store but before leaving, a police officer enters the store and the robber shoots her. Realizing he can't leave, the robber takes everyone in to the back and both Shandi and the cute man, William, relive past events in the fear of not having any future ones.

Shandi gave birth to Natty a virgin. She has chosen to forget the day Natty was conceived but in the back of the Circle K, she starts to remember being drugged that night. William lost both his wife and kid in a car crash exactly a year ago. He forbid anyone from mentioning his wife's name infront of him shortly thereafter but starts to relive courting her during high school and remembering how much love they had for each other.

Having read quite a few of Jackson's books in the past I was looking forward to this one. She does a fantastic job of writing imperfect southern women. Shandi isn't the best character Jackson has written but she is typical to Jackson's writing. She's southern, she makes the reader like her, and she has many flaws that she acknowledges and tries to sort out. I think this is part of the reason why I like Jackson's books so much. The characters know they aren't perfect and they usually try to sort things out.

Also typical to Jackson books, this one was very easy to get in to. I started reading and felt like I couldn't stop. I needed to find out what these characters were hiding from themselves and how they were going to get past their issues.

Despite all this, by the time I completed the book and put it down, I felt a little bit let down. There were two reasons for this. The first was that the ending was crammed with revelations. In about 20 pages, there were two plot twists which made me feel like there wasn't enough time to digest what was happening and get resolution out of it. The second was the story of rape that seemed to get played down as not being a big deal. It's not surprising that the rapist himself tried not to make a big deal out of the rape, but when other characters started going along with it, it bothered me. Rape is rape, regardless of the back story that goes along with it.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this book tour.
Buy the book here.

First Line: "I fell in love with William Ashe at gunpoint, in a Circle K."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

On the Beach by Nevil Shute

Fiction

Everyone in the northern hemisphere is believed to be dead, following WWIII and the thousands of nuclear bombs dropped on the USA, China, Russia, and many other countries. The radioactive cloud is slowly making its way south, killing those in its path. An American Navy Captain is docking his submarine in Melbourne, Australia, one of the most southern major cities in the world. Captain Towers and his men were not able to return home after their last excursion and they believe that their families are now all dead. The Australians ask them to take one more trip up to Seattle where they are getting radio signals from. Australian Peter Holmes goes with the team and watches them pull close to the shore and call out for survivors, never seeing anyone.

Those in Melbourne must come to grips with their impending death. It is only a few months until the radioactive cloud is expected. Some do every day lasts like planting a garden, some take up car racing, some try to fall in love.

I picked up this book because I very much enjoyed Shute's A Town Like Alice. This one has the same gentle and fluid writing style though it's quite a different subject matter. The denial by characters and then their slow or fast acceptance was rather interesting. It makes you wonder how you would come to grips that your time on earth is ending soon. It also makes you question how you would spend your remaining time. It was surprising that so many people were working up to almost the end. Why bother? Wouldn't you want to make the most of your time left?

This book was utterly depressing and at times I felt let down because just when you think something is going to happen, nothing really does and it's steady as she goes for the entire novel.

First Line: "Lieutenant-Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy woke soon after dawn."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction

In the previous novel, Ender's Game, the buggers are no longer threatening earth and Ender has become the Speaker for the dead for the buggers. As Ender and his sister Valerie travel the worlds, their names live on in infamy. Valerie continues to write, Ender continues to speak. When a speaker is requested on Lusitania when a xenologer is killed by a new race of species, the piggies, Ender knows he must travel to speak the death and find out what the piggies were malicious in their murder or whether it is a misunderstood custom. When Ender arrives, 22 years later, there has been an additional death and Ender knows he must save the piggies before yet another race is destroyed.

Where Ender's Game was about war, tactics, and gaming this book was about society, guilt, and races living together. Despite characters being the same through both books, it was a completely different dynamic. But it completely worked. This novel was eloquent (though a bit preachy at times) and captivating.

I would have liked for Card to explore some of the characters a bit further, such as Jane who is a computer persona, but I suspect we'll learn more about her in future books. I will definitely be continuing on to the third book in the series, though I've heard it isn't as good as the first two.

First Line: "In the year 1830, after the formation of Starways Congress, a robot scout ship sent a report by ansible: The planet it was investigating was well within the parameters for human life."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares

Teen

The third book in this series shows the four girls, Carmen, Tibby, Lena, and Bridget, as they have just finished high school and are in the summer before going to university. Carmen finds out that her mom is having a baby with David, her recently married husband, and questions her decision to leave home for school. Tibby's younger sister falls out a window which makes Tibby question how good of a sister she is. Hanging around the hospital so much, she meets a cute intern. Lena is taking art classes when her dad learns that she's drawing nudes in class and pulls his financial support for art school. This forces Lena to figure out how to win a scholarship to still be able to go to art school. And finally Bridget is back at soccer camp where Eric is also a coach. Everything comes full circle for her in this third summer.

These girls are a lot of fun and very supportive of each other, which is so nice to read. I enjoyed this book more than the second book. The girls seemed to learn a lot about themselves and it was much happier than the previous book.

First Line: "'Ok, Bee with Greta and Valia and Lena,' Carmen ordered, shepherding a wandering grandmother with her hand."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Death Cure by James Dashner

Teen

Before The Maze Runner movie comes out, I figured that I should finish up the trilogy and read The Death Cure (see my reviews of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials). As you can see, I wasn't too big a fan of book 2 which is why it took me so long to get to book 3. However a colleague at work picked it up and reminded me that I really should finish this series. I won't give a plot summary here because it would be spoilers for anyone that hasn't read the first two books. Suffice to say, it's fewer games and trials and more "real world".

I had much the same problem with this book that I had with book two. These kids are put in so many awful situations and in the first two books I had hoped so much for their survival but became so used to everything going to shit that I stopped hoping because it was pointless. There is absolutely no positive situation for these Gladers. I'm not sure I've ever read a book before where I've just given up on hoping for the best. But in this case, why bother wasting energy. Everything goes wrong and everyone almost dies. Yes, it happens again.

By the end of this book, I had more questions than I had answers. Why did Theresa flip-flop in her decisions? Who the heck was Chancellor Paige? Was Brenda just another variable to get them to their final destination? In terms of wrapping up the series, the ending was a bit weak but not entirely unsatisfying. Though I wasn't surprise as the series went downhill from the first book.

Rating:
(3/5)

Don't Try to Find Me by Holly Brown

Don't Try To Find Me by Holly Brown
Fiction

Rachel comes home from work to find a note in her kitchen from 14 year-old daughter Marley: don't try to find me. Rachel dropped Marley off at school in the morning but no one has seen her since. She calls her husband, Paul, and the two start making calls including the police. With a history of high anxiety, Rachel doesn't handle this too well and the cops suspect she may have something to do with Marley missing. Paul decides to go to social media and start a massive online campaign to find Marley. Told from the perspective of both Rachel and Marley, we get both sides of the story.

There are many pieces to this book that makes it an interesting read. For me, I was surprised at how little I cared for the characters though I still felt somewhat sympathetic to them because of the tension Brown created with what may have driven Marley away. Rachel was annoying and a little hard to believe due to her inaction. For someone that has an anxiety problem, she was very perceptive about her relationship but completely oblivious in other areas. Without spoiling anything, we learn of one item about Rachel that drove Marley away and it was a complete shocker. There was very little in the book, until about 50 pages before revealed, that even hinted at this being a problem. Despite these annoyances, Rachel was a great medium for walking the reader through what a parent may think when their kid runs away. The other main character is Marley. Again, I wasn't her biggest fan because it felt like she may have run away for very little reason and I don't have patience for that. Despite this, she came off as rather mature for a 14 year old and able to handle herself in adverse situations.

What this book really excelled at was making the reader's mind work in overdrive to figure out why Marley ran away. With each revelation I was wondering who could have done what to whom and what the final reason for the family abandonment was. That said, once the real reason was finally provided, because my mind had been working so hard to come up with all of these reason, I felt like it was a bit of a let down. I expected the reason to be larger than it was.

This book was a page-turner and had interesting character narration. I just would have liked the author to push the envelope a bit more on the conclusion because the journey didn't equate to the end result.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this tour!

First Line: "Don't try to find me."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters

Thriller

Connie Burns is a foreign correspondent that has worked in war zones and high stress situations. After tracking some unusual rape and murders in Sierra Leone, Connie thinks she knows who is responsible but can't do much about it. Years later, she finds herself in Iraq, looking at the same man from Sierra Leone that she thinks caused these crimes. He knows that Connie is on to her and doesn't hide his anger. She is kidnapped and released 3 days after the kidnapping but refuses to say anything about the kidnapping.

Back in London, she hides in a hotel until the media frenzy dies down and then finds a remote cottage to hide in and write a book. She makes friends quickly with the local doctor Peter and the person that lives in the farm close by Jess. Soon, Connie learns about who her cottage belongs to and the neglect that has occurred in that cottage. This helps Connie take her mind off the kidnapping and worrying that the kidnapper is going to find her.

For a thriller, this book was rather slow in parts. It's rare that the major events of a book don't actually occur within the novel. In this book both the kidnapping and the resulting confrontation were completely skipped. Instead, the reader learns about these events through conversations that happen. I can't say I was a big fan of this approach. It may have made things a bit more suspenseful but it resulted in a slower paced book that made me feel like I was missing something.

Despite reading the entire book, I felt like it wasn't really about much and the characters were rather annoying.

First Line: "I don't know if that story was picked up in the West."

Rating:
(3/5)

Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo

Children's

When Charlie Bone discovers accidentally that he can hear people in photographs speak, his dad's side of the family takes over. They give him tests and poke and prod him to determine if this is a legitimate gift and whether he should be sent to special school. Charlie tries to deny it but can't because the pictures are so loud. He is sent to Bloor's Academy, away from his best friend and his mom. He learns about secrets that he shouldn't and meets others like him: both nice and mean. With cats that can set fire to things and a box that is trying to open itself, Charlie isn't at school long before he gets wrapped up in a variety of different schemes.

This book has lots of comparisons to Harry Potter but it really is a weak substitute. There isn't "magic" per say, but a few of the characters have unique abilities. That said, these abilities are hardly explored at all in the book and take a back seat once they are announced. I'm not sure I understand what the point is of having a character that can hear people within photographs if he only uses it a couple of times throughout the book.

Not much happens in this book, not much is required to fix the problems, and not much is described of the characters. All in all, it's a pretty shallow book, though I'm sure it would have a good audience of young kids - maybe 6-8 years old.

First Line: "Long, long ago a king arrived in the north."

Rating:
(2.5/5)

The Madmen of Benghazi by Gérard de Villiers

Mystery

I received this book from Goodreads as a giveaway.

Malko Linge is an Austrian that contracts with the CIA to complete some rather dicey missions. This time he's called to Egypt after a missile narrowly misses an aircraft containing the future king of Libya. Not knowing that he was the target of a terrorist attack, al-Senussi is bringing his beautiful British girlfriend with him to enjoy Egypt while he does the easy dealings of a future king. Malko is to seduce al-Senussi's girlfriend to gain information about who would want to kill him. True to any CIA contractor, this puts him in danger while he tries to save al-Senussi's life.

There were parts of this book that didn't make much sense. If you're looking to find out about why someone is looking to kill you, I don't think seducing the girlfriend would be high on the list for finding information. Wouldn't searching the person's personal items help more with that? Given that this book is littered with graphic sex scenes, I honestly think this was just a ploy for the author to be able to introduce more sex in to the book. It was a cheap ploy and didn't drive any plot further or make the book any better.

If I hadn't researched this author, I would've assumed he was a debut author. This book reads very simply and seems amateur. I wasn't impressed with this at all and wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

First Line: "Ibrahim al-Senussi was stark naked when he stepped out of the shower, and he stopped dead at his bedroom door."

Rating:
(1/5)

The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

Kathryn is woken in the middle of the night to a knock on the door and her worst nightmare. Her husband Jack is a pilot for an airline jointly owned in the USA and England and his plane has just gone down. They don't believe there are any survivors. Robert from the pilot's union is there to guide Kathryn through the grief and answer the phones for her. Katheryn knows she needs to break the news to her teenage daughter Mattie and knows how much it will hurt her.

The next day, a rumor leaks that there was a bomb on board, and it was in Jack's bag. Suicide is what they are calling it. This destroys Mattie and makes no sense to Katheryn. She starts questioning past interactions she had with Jack to see if there are any clues there. Pulling out receipts from Jack's pants he last wore reveals some vague clues and Katheryn starts piecing them together to learn that there's a lot about Jack that she didn't know.

This book seemed to coast along on a wave of grief and mourning until the last quarter where there were a few plot twists. It seemed a bit unbalanced because of this. The other part of the book that bothered me was Robert. The two seemed to be flirting right after Katheryn found out about Jack and it didn't sit right with me. How many people would act that way after finding out their husband is dead?

This wasn't my favourite book, but it was ok. Better than some other Oprah books I've picked up!

First Line: "She heard a knocking, and then a dog barking."

Rating:
(3/5)

Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben

Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben
Mystery

Myron Bolitar is an ex-pro basketball player, ex-FBI agent, and now a sports agent. His partner Win is the muscle and money behind the operation. Bolitar signs Christian Steele, and up and coming quarterback, and is trying to get him the best deal he can when Steele gets an anonymous letter in the mail with a magazine containing the picture of his girlfriend who had disappeared a few years ago. Bolitar doesn't want this to affect his client, so he starts to investigate but he has some history with the disappearance as well. Bolifar was dating her sister. Though you wouldn't expect a sports agent to make a good investigator, Bolitar is able to figure things out and start piecing together the puzzle.

Bolitar and Win are interesting characters with a dry sense of humor that makes for some entertaining banter. It's not a typical mystery but was fun and kept my attention. There was just one thing that didn't make much sense. How is it possible for a person to go from sports to the FBI back to sports? This seems impossible and not much is explained about Bolitar's FBI background, making it seem like a detail that Coben wanted to prove that Bolitar could investigate, but hadn't put any thought in to how it came to be. This bothered me throughout the book. I think it would have been better to just say he went from sports, back to school for law, and then became an agent.

First Line: "Otto Burke, the Wizard of Schmooze, raised his game another level."

Rating:
(4/5)

The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kiernan

The Curiosity by Stephen P. Kiernan
Fiction

The Lazarus Project is in the Arctic trying to find hard ice and the sea creatures within it to reanimate them and bring them back to life. They're hoping to find larger creatures rather than the small shrimp and sardines they've been working with but they never dreamed they would find a human. This story comes from the perspective of three people: Dr. Kate Philo, a top scientist in charge of the expedition, Daniel Dixon, the journalist along for the ride, Erastus Carthage, the egotist responsible for The Lazarus Project, and Judge Jere­miah Rice, the frozen man.

Not surprisingly, bringing the dead back to life creates a circus. Jeremiah Rice left for an expedition 100 years ago and fell off the ship he was on in to the freezing water. He wakes up, what feels like moments later, but is actually a hundred years later with Dr. Philo by his side. Philo and some of the other scientists try to bring Rice up to speed on what's happened in the last 100 years and his condition but Carthage is busy plotting and scheming which is affecting almost everyone.

The science aspect of this book was well explained and not at all tiring to read like some books can make this subject. This provided an interesting 'what if' scenario to ponder over. If we could be brought back to life after being frozen, would you consider it?

This book grabbed me as soon as I started it because Kiernan does such a great job of writing his characters. The style of his character writing rather reminded me of Jodi Picoult. It helps make for a very easy read. This also helped me get through some of the holes I thought there were in the book. For example, Dr. Philo is supposed to be an incredibly smart scientist but when Carthage cuts her down and puts her on a menial job, she makes one threat then does nothing about it. I feel like the rest of the book she's objectified as the token female scientist even though she's no longer conducting any science. There were also some threads that were never wrapped up by the end of the book. An example of this was Dixon looking in to the background of one of the protesters. Except we never found out who he really was, so what was the point of looking him up?

Despite the few flaws in the book, I still really enjoyed this, mostly due to Kiernan's writing style.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this tour.

First Line: "I was already wide-awake when they came for me."

Rating:
(4/5)