Gina Parrish

This was my first book of this author, John MacDonald, who is known for writing hard boiled crime fiction. Some classify him as writing “pulp” fiction, though I don't see why, since he won a National Book Award and is recognized as a hero of the genre. In fact, this book was much better written than many of the hard boiled classics I have read, and considerably less graphic. I thought the writing in this book was extremely well-crafted, and the characters well fleshed out.

Also, for a hard boiled novel, I thought it was considerably less misogynistic than others I've read—seeing as the genre contains the problematic “femme fatale” trope and often objectifies women. In fact, while other reviewers called it sexist, I thought this book brought some good concepts to light, like the importance of having a balanced moral view of sex and the importance of consent. The women characters were not just there as sex objects, but as complex human beings with strengths and failings. In fact, you get to read several different points of view on the topic of sex, many of which are from women, and that gave it a balanced feel as opposed to the author shoving one ideology in your face. The only thing I would have put in the sexist category was the over-description of women's bodies and the amount of nudity. To be fair, he is descriptive about men's bodies too but not in a sexualized way like the women he describes.

Overall, I was impressed by this one and would definitely read more of this novels.

I read this book with my book club and it was the perfect book club book. It had lots of topics for discussion. I liked the character development and the focus on friendship and adventure. It was well written and the chapters were just the right length to make it a quick read. It had moments where it was very funny and very sad. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone wanting a quality, lighter read that still has substance and makes you think.

This was a slow burn, which generally I don't mind, and there were moments of great writing, but it let me down as a mystery. The issue was in the plotting. The inciting incident and the climax are so subtle they blend right into the rest of the story. The “big reveal” left me wondering “is that all?” and there weren't really any surprises in the end. It felt particularly pointless afterwards, as there is no meting out of justice, which leaves some dark grey areas not dealt with. I love Ireland and wish the book made me love it more, but it made small town Ireland feel pretty bleak, and the people feel pretty shallow and selfish. Overall, I was in it for the writing but the story didn't leave me with that satisfied feeling I hope to get from mysteries.

I enjoyed this thriller. It was an interesting read and good for my book club. The first fourth of the book had me engrossed and flying through the pages, then it slowed down a bit and I expected it to pick back up again near the end, but it never felt as thrilling as in the beginning. I didn't give it five stars because something about it didn't hit the mark for me... maybe it felt a bit too surface level in the present day sections. Anyway it was worth reading but kind of forgettable.

I've been trying to read more comics and graphic novels lately. I tried this one because it looked funny and entertaining. It was mildly both of those things, though not as fun as I had hoped.

Things moved along awfully quickly, especially the part where she decides to move in with a ton of mysterious ghosts.

Plus I felt a bit confused about the main character's feelings towards her ex-boyfriend. Did she love him? Wouldn't she be more heartbroken, even if she was accepting of his sexuality? Wouldn't she be more angry that she moved out to a place she had never been and chose a college she didn't care about for him? It all seems swiped under the rug with, “Your parents are rich so you'll be fine. Just transfer.” And then they are friends just like that.

Maybe I am just not used to the pace of these kinds of stories. But I want it to go just a little deeper and play with the humor just a little more.

This book has been vastly overrated.

I marked it two stars because it wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it wasn't worth reading for true mystery and suspense fans.

1) Reading the books on the list was a much better experience than reading the book.

Eight Perfect Murders spoils so many classic mysteries that you should read INSTEAD of this book. I knew about the spoilers beforehand and made sure I read all the mysteries listed on the description. Luckily, I had already read some of them, including The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which is not on the list but completely spoiled. They are all better than this book.

2) The narrator, and maybe the author, are not the classic mystery lovers they make themselves out to be.

I already mentioned all the spoilers, which I was prepared for. What really irked me was how the spoilers were not 100% accurate about the books they were describing.

Sure they are small discrepancies... he describes a murder scene as a pond instead of a huge lake, how two murders take place in one of the novels instead of three, that there's a secret passage in one of the novels that leads from the study instead of the library. But having just read many of these books, which the author framed his entire story around, it made me question how carefully the author had read them.

Not to mention the narrator is extremely jaded about the genre. He doesn't like mystery and suspense anymore, so he's kind of a wet blanket when you are reading one...

3) The narrator and the plot line are BORING.

While the earlier offenses I could possibly forgive, the pacing felt all wrong. The narrator reveals himself to be unreliable early on and turns out to be the most boring unreliable narrator I have ever read.

Not much actually happens besides the narrator walking around in the snowy streets and worrying. When “the truth” finally comes out, it is no surprise— especially to lovers of the genre.

It felt like the author was clinging to the twist (if you can call it that) to make it interesting. You know, instead of character and plot development. So the whole thing was decidedly uninteresting for a book about murder.

More problems:

Characters are introduced and fall out of the story. (Uh, Gwen, where did you go?)

The organization that inherently comes with a LIST of eight murders for a serial killer to commit somehow disappears. (Seriously, at the end you can't even remember how many were checked off the list).

And, worst of all, you do not care about anyone in the story. (Except maybe the pets, who really don't seem to care when their owners get murdered.)

Forget this one and just read the classics instead.

I had never heard of the ArtCurious podcast, but I find art history fascinating and hoped to learn a few things from this book. Unfortunately, I would not recommend it. It had lots of potential, particularly with regard to content, but that's about it.

My biggest gripe was with the author's voice and long-windedness. I can't believe her editor let her get away with so much. It feels like reading one long blog post where the writer needs to hit a certain word count for the sake of search engine optimization. She has no concept of being concise and manages to go on and on without adding substance. Honestly, I skimmed parts of it.

With regard to voice, she includes her own plucky commentary alongside the content, but it does not add value to the book. It feels like she is trying to make the content more approachable, or maybe she is insecure about whether or not her readers will really care about what she's writing, but in any case it takes impact away from the actual art history. (Particularly when she ends big revelations with “Gross!” Or “Sorry!” Or “Pun intended!” in parentheses.)

I can see the whole thing working as a podcast, but it needed to be re-envisioned to be a book. It could have worked with more (better quality) pictures, and about half the amount of words. It's too bad because I am the perfect audience for this book as someone who did not study art history but has always found it fascinating.

This book is much better than the last one, even though they build on one another. I read these more for the mystery and spy plots than for the romance plot, though I do find it funny and annoying how everyone is SO in love with Verity and Sidney because they are SO attractive and desirable. I wish there were a few more likable and relevant female characters in the story and that Sidney and Verity were a little less superhuman, but otherwise I find these to be compelling reading.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I agreed with the message. It even made me think about social justice in new ways. I just wasn't a fan of the author's “sanctified imagination” and literary license. It wasn't as academic or as bible-centered as I had hoped for. There are citations, but very little time is spent on the actual biblical text of Exodus or explaining her use of terms like “sacrament” and “oracle” that, even having been raised Catholic, confused me.

This is a weird thing to say, but I finished the book feeling lonely. Like I don't belong. It's something I have felt in various ways throughout my life, so it is nothing new. But her definition of womanhood and the solidarity of women made me feel “other”, even as an egalitarian woman who agrees with her overarching message.

I am not sure I will read another book by this author, though I may read some of her cited books.

I personally loved the characters and thought the kidnapping plot was refreshing. It read almost like a spy novel.

I wanted a Christmas book to read and more or less picked this one at random off of my digital library service.

The book had many elements I hoped to like, but it ultimately it fell flat. My biggest critique is that the author did a lot more telling than showing, particularly with the feelings of the characters. No surprise, it then seemed cheesy and forced. I couldn't count how many times I rolled my eyes. Plus, it turned out to be a “Christian book.” I am Christian, so it wasn't that I disagreed with the sentiments on the whole, but it added to the cheese-factor.

On the (merry and) bright side, I enjoyed reading about English Christmas traditions of the time. Not much of the book felt strictly historically accurate, particularly the dialogue, but you could tell she had researched those traditions.

Plus, it was short, as a novella, so I still finished it in two days.

Unlike some of the other reviews I have seen, I liked this book better than the first one. I thought it flowed better and the dialogue wasn't as clunky. There was banter throughout and I appreciated that the mystery, for the most part, was not about murder. Not sure how I feel about using real people in fictional scenarios but overall it was an interesting plot and I liked seeing the characters develop. The author has a real talent for writing dialogue and most of the book therefore is dialogue, but it is a refreshing change from most mysteries I read.

Judging by the reviews I thought I would like this book much more than I did. I wanted to like it but ultimately it fell flat for me. I liked some elements, a few of the characters and some of the writing, but it was told in a very roundabout way that got frustrating at times and many of the characters seemed static and flat. There was far too much telling and not enough demonstrating in the writing. Plus, it was a bit sentimental in telling you the way the world is. I prefer that kind of thing to be more implied than outright said.

As I have been making my way through Christie's mysteries chronologically, I have found some gems and some duds. This one is somewhere in the middle. It doesn't stand out to me as one of her best, but I truly enjoyed it. It's a solid mystery and does a good job of making you look the other way. Recommend.

Overall I liked it. I particularly liked the characters, though I found the mystery aspect a little lacking. It seemed at the start to be about one thing but then it seemed to totally change gears. I did not guess the ending though.

This book was not what I expected. It fell more in line with historical fiction than mystery. That said, it was very well written and I enjoyed the mystery elements that were there, I just wish it focused more on the mystery elements than on Maisie's past and childhood. The whole book had a very serious and sometimes gloomy feel and could have benefitted from more humor and action and less philosophical musings. I think I will try out the second one, in hopes that it focuses more on the mystery now that we know so much about Maisie's past. Fingers crossed it is also a little more upbeat.

This was a well-plotted, entertaining mystery. I particularly enjoyed the characters in the murder club. I'm not convinced about the structure of the book, which alternated between first person diary entries and third person everything else. I felt like it distracted from the plot. Otherwise, I really enjoyed it and found it cleverly written and entertaining.

The second of the Inheritance Cycle is much better written than the first one, though at times feels like an SAT vocabulary study book.

Unfortunately, in his attempt to come off as a more mature writer in his second novel, Paolini overcompensates with a ton of big, and often unnecessary, words. It was a good refresher in my vocabulary but didn't flow so well.

Other than that, the story is even more engaging than the first, and it starts to become truly addicting.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the culture, time, and place of the Old Testament, and organizing it in a way that is easy to understand “big picture” of the Bible as a whole. I particularly found it useful to learn about typology as a method of interpreting and understanding the Bible.

The writing was easy to understand for such an academic book, and I appreciated the in depth footnotes and references (mostly to secondary sources). I didn't have trouble following along. I also felt she presents certain theological disagreements in a fair way.

The title of this book caught my interest, and while I did enjoy it, I don't think it fully lived up to its promise.

The writing is clear and thoughtful, and I agreed with the author on just about every point, but it felt like the author also held back. The subtitle (“reclaiming virtue in an age of hypocrisy”) made it seem like the book would center on how to reclaim virtues that have gotten lost in the face of hypocrisy in the church at large, across denominations. I expected it to be more pointed, more eye-opening, more heart-examining based on that subtitle. Maybe I expected it to be less individualistic and more communal, targeting us as people of the whole church rather than us as individual Christians, though reclaiming virtue can, and probably needs to, be done on both levels.

My biggest complaint is that the book felt narrow in scope. Typically I don't gravitate towards Christian books where examples for all the points come from the author's own life. I prefer academic examples, historic examples, examples from a variety of people, and particularly examples from the bible. Some of the virtues listed I even questioned as biblical virtues, like authenticity. That isn't to say that authenticity isn't a virtue, just that I don't recall it being mentioned in the bible, and if it was, I would have liked to have seen where. Also, why are these virtues so valuable? Why should they be reclaimed?

The hypocrisy mentioned in the subtitle also didn't get as much attention as I would have liked. If anything she included it in a subtle way, and all focusing on the evangelical church and politics. Her frustration shone forth most in the chapter on lamentation, and mostly revolved around the lack of lamentation in current church practice. And that's true, and fine, but there were many examples of hypocrisy that could have been lamented (with fiery passion) throughout the whole book, but weren't.

Something not mentioned that should have been is the widespread abuse within the church, regardless of denomination. The chapter on purity didn't mention the hypocrisy of church leaders telling young women they are like a dirty cup of spit if they have sex and then forcing sex on them. Or the hypocrisy of Christians “focusing on the family”, when the rates of domestic violence in the church are worse than the rates outside it. Or the hypocrisy of Christian pastors preaching in $1000 sneakers, or living in multi-million dollar mansions bought with church tax-exemptions. How can the virtues of love, purity, and modesty be reclaimed in these instances? And not just on a personal level, in my own heart, but on a church-wide level? That's the book I wanted to read, but not the book I got.

The book I got was good, but forgettable. It was not groundbreaking or bold or daring as I had hoped it would be. It almost felt like the author was afraid of offending the church, or her university, too much.

Overall The Lady and the Highwayman was an enjoyable read with tons of potential, though it did not live up to expectations. I think a skilled editor could have smoothed out some of the story's issues, like the static characters and indistinct plot, and the author could have made some big changes for the better.

What I liked:

The potential of the plot. Secret identities, stories within stories, and romance between two unlikely characters are all things I enjoy. All the elements were there.

The banter. It was fun to read, though I felt like the physical aspects of their romance did not match up very well, especially in Victorian London.

What I didn't like:

Static characters. The characters didn't have any major flaws they had to overcome... which was really a let down. It felt almost as if the author coddled them a bit too much, not wanting to make them struggle or overcome current challenges. Elizabeth could have struggled a lot more with the idea of being courted by someone outside of her class, since so much was at risk. And Fletcher, instead of being self-aware about his status in life, came off as self-deprecating, and his struggle with jealousy over “Mr. King” could have come into play much more clearly, and to great effect.

Indistinct plot line. Since the characters didn't have internal things to overcome, the story relied on external villains, who were also static. They did not seem to personally threaten the characters, just the things they stood for, which is less interesting. I enjoyed the segments of Penny Dreadfuls, but didn't understand why they were included, as they didn't much affect or play into the plot of the main storyline. In fact, I felt some of them were better thought-through than the main story, making it seem more pulpy than the pulp it is referencing.

Telling, not showing. There were a lot of “captain obvious” moments of over-explanation where we as readers are told explicitly how the characters are apprehensive or worried or starting to fall in love. I can't count how many times Elizabeth is described as both beautiful and clever, as if we hadn't picked up on it already. I would have preferred reading between the lines, trying to guess what some of the banter alluded to, seeing tension and jealousy and torn decisions build. The author can let us do some of the work.

Overall great potential but I felt let down in the end.

This was the first Harlan Coben book I've read, though I have seen his various TV mini-series. It was very different than his TV work (and much less British). That said, I enjoyed it in its own right.

Things I liked:

The pace. It was a quick read, typical for a thriller, but the pace felt appropriate for the story.

The conclusion. It didn't rely too much on “the twist”, which drives me crazy in thrillers, and instead the whole story felt like a crumpled paper being ironed out.

The range of characters. Every character that entered the story was different than the others.

Things I didn't like:

The violence. It may be a matter of preference but there it is. I felt like I didn't need to read about it in so much detail, even for the sake of realism.

The lack of information at the start. The beginning felt like a lot of semi-related observations made by Dr. Beck, but as a reader you don't have much to go on until about half way.

Some of it felt a bit cliched. It wasn't too noticeable but it came to mind several times. The lesbians who don't have a perfect relationship. The compassionate wife with a heart of gold. Comments like, “I guess we all have our secrets.” It is what it is.

Overall I found it compelling, but possibly forgettable.

I have really been enjoying this series but this novel has been my least favorite so far. I again enjoyed the blend of mystery and historical fiction, but the plot dragged and was bogged down by redundant character arcs and pointless side plots.

Honestly, the characters seemed so perfect in this one that they came off as unrealistic. They are so mature, thoughtful, caring, attractive, competent, wealthy, and sexually active (at only 24 years old) it's annoying. Sidney is the strong, masculine protector and Verity is the compassionate, feminine supporter. Together they overcome the demons of their pasts to bring justice to a cruel and unfair world. All of their assumptions prove to be correct and they always know the next right step. They're like superheroes, even though, just months previously, their lives were in tatters.

I don't know. I still enjoyed the writing but near the end I was ready for it to be done. Hopefully the next one will be better.

Sad Cypress has a few different layers than the other Poirot books: courtroom drama, a love triangle, bias. It therefore reads a little differently. I have been reading all of Christie's mysteries chronologically and if nothing else I liked this one because it added variety. The ending I somewhat expected—it wasn't as clever as some of her other books. But still I enjoyed the read. They are all good.

I read this as a horror pick for October. It was well-written, though not particularly enjoyable to read because of the subject matter. It was more sad and disturbing to me than scary. I think if the author would’ve emphasized the whispering element more, which was probably the scariest element, it would’ve been a lot creepier. Still a good book though.