Stephanie

I listened to this book on audiobook which dramatically improved my rating for this book. Ordinarily, I think these crime series are pretty formulaic and once you've read one, you have pretty much read them all. The performance for this book was so well done that it elevated the story. The story is what you might expect: Jack is a older, non nonsense female cop. She gets on the trail of a serial killer and begins to question everything about her career choice in the process.

There were dual narrators in Jack and the perp she was after, and the voices for the other characters were so distinct. I'm not sure if I'll tune into another one, simply because these books do become so routine, but listening to this one on the way to work over the course of a week was a good use of my time.

Honestly, I thought this book was overhyped. At times Eggers is clever, but mainly this memoir is filled with his rambling and stream of consciousness style of writing that became annoying since it amounted to nothing. Aside from listing every tragedy he or his friends experienced I'm not sure why he even needed a memoir. Was I supposed to learn something from this? I didn't.

As in my opinion of the first book I went into this series knowing that I was not giving it a fair shot. I already had a bias against Twilight because I know without a doubt this story has been told dozens of times and Meyer certaintly is not bringing anything new to the table.

What got me about New Moon is that she introduces Jacob (well, re-introduces) and I like him. I really like him. That in itself is a problem because Meyer obviously only created Jacob to create more angst in Bella's angst filled existence. She continually forgets that Jacob is even a character which goes beyond pissing me off and she makes Bella treat him like complete and utter shit. Frankly, it made me want to toss the book across the room every time Bella said another stupid, self-centered, selfish thing about her and Jacob.

Without listing everything that I hated I'll just say this: It was a vast improvement over the first books. I'm hoping that Meyer just didn't know what monster she created and needed to settle in to writing young adult and that is her excuse for the first book.

I didn't expect this to be a quick read, but it ended up being something I sped through. There was more world building than character development in this first installment which was a little annoying to me. Also the almost instantaneous connection between Merit and Ethan and Merit and Morgan were both a little shaky to me. I could quite get a feel for the timeline the author was trying to present. Overall though I had a good time reading this. I was entertained pretty thoroughly and I'm giving it an extra star for being set in Chicago.

This was pretty painful to read for me. I was not amused by the length of time it took me to read this novel, was barely interested, and the plot was unnecessarily complicated with too many moving pieces and players. Although it's nice to see some movement in Alan's life, Lauren was more decoration than an integral part of the story. Absolutely not one of my favorites in this series.

By far my favorite of all the books so far. In this one Meyer has finally learned the voices of her characters and although Bella is still probably the worst character ever created she shows some sorrow and takes some responsibility for her actions. My favorite character is Jacob and he has a large role in this book, and hearing it on audiobook it was a pleasant surprise to hear a different narrator for the beginning letter and the epilogue at the end.

I can readily admit that I'm not a fan of Stephenie Meyer. Before going into this book I was already dead set against liking it because of all the hype surrounding it. Then, having had a bad experience with the movie (I walked out of it) and hearing my sister gush about it I was just about sick of hearing about Twilight. But then The Host came out and I gave Stephenie Meyer's first adult novel a chance and it was actually pretty decent so here I am giving Twilight a try because the author who wrote The Host couldn't have made a completely ridiculous young adult series.

Well, the fact of the matter is that this book is not very good for a young adult novel. I've read better books with better story lines that don't expound for 50 pages about how much she hates one person and then a page letter completely changes her mind and loves him. This book is not the next great american novel. She's definitely overrated but the book was not as god awful terrible as some made it out to be. In the end, it's readable if you can ignore how horrendous of a character Bella is and how annoying her voice is in the book.

I'm going to read the series because I'm dedicated enough to not want to see the story end and I think if an author can get me interested in her characters despite a barrage of other mistakes and annoyances then they've done their job with their book.

The audiobook was a great way to read this book. The narrator does a good job between the two main characters: the silent patient and her therapist. It's a solidly good book, and I enjoyed the experience of it, but even with the shocking ending that didn't make up for the pretty mediocre beginning and middle.

Evermore is the story of Ever, a 17 year old girl who can see peoples auras and read their thoughts. Then Damen shows up at her school looking all hot and tempting and pretty much throws her world into a tailspin.

I really liked Evermore because of how its written. Ever is an angry girl who has just lost her parents and it shows. In how she speaks, how she dresses, and how she reacts to situations. Noel's characters are bizzare and likeable at the same time. In a short 300 page book she's managed to introduce a whole world and keep us begging for more.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of this series.

This was an interesting, although cliche book. As the first book in a series I can give it the benefit of the doubt that Alex Kava is just honing her craft and there are bound to be some things that will be improved upon during the run of the series.

Her heroine is a jaded FBI agent with 8 years of experience and a chip on her shoulder from the last case she worked on. She stumbles onto a case in Nebraska dealing with small town mentalities, the church, and little boys being kidnapped. This novel suffered from a villain who was too easy to figure out, a love story that seemed a bit too rushed, and an ending that leaves you disappointed with the outcome (even if they're prepping for the next book).

Overall it was an average thriller but I think I still might give the next book a try because I believe it has so much possibility to be something great.

Well Read Black Girl is a collection of essays from various Black women in the arts who describe what representation in literature did for them. After every essay is a list of recommendations from Black women authors clustered around the genre of the essayist or the genre they spoke about in their essay. I though that Well Read Black Girl was a decent read. I thought that the women picked were a decent mix of well known people and some women that I was surprised by. The real bread and butter though, is the recommendations provided. I know that I've been an avid reader my entire life, but a lot of that reading was centered on the dominant culture, white culture, so to have an easy reference to some of the seminal works by Black women is a treasure trove and my “want to read” list is thankful that I got this book. If you're a minority women or looking to add some diversity to your reading, this book will get you started down the right path. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book to review.

Although this was a masterfully written story about the fanaticism of religion, I wasn't convinced about its placement within this series. I especially wasn't a fan of Lauren's neuroses carrying the plot of a whole book. I was kind of underwhelmed by the conclusion of the story as well. I'm still quite a fan of Stephen White's ability to weave a tale.