Stephanie

This book is rife with too many literary and pop culture references, a lead that is too self aware, and a supporting cast of adolescents and adults who cannot get their life together. At times it's almost a chore to read and other times I believe I'm reading some of the greatest prose ever written. What this novel has going for it, and what ultimately garnered it 4 stars was a payoff that you never saw coming and the ability to tie up loose ends with a fancy now. Even the questions you're left wondering about (provided so cleverly by the author) are gratifying enough that the answers don't even matter. Overall, a great read if you can survive the name dropping of every author known to man.

Like Never and Always begins abruptly and is disorienting to both the main character and the reader. Olivia, Liv to her friends, is riding in a car with her best friend Morgan and their boyfriends when suddenly there is a car accident. Olivia wakes up in the hospital and discovers that she's been pronounced dead and she now inhabits the body of her best friend. Now that is a killer of a summary isn't it? I had high expectations with as complicated of an idea that was. However, like I found most of Ann Aguirre's books to be, she pulls it off and turns it into quite the meaningful read. The story went by quickly for me because it was interesting and the writing was well done. I really felt for Olivia who was wrestling with a lot of different emotions: a dead best friend, being in someone else's body, and trying to come to terms with what that means moving forward. While I didn't necesssarily need to know a how or a why for the switching bodies, Aguirre does attempt to provide some type of explanation—whether it was satisfying or not, I'll leave that to the individual read to decide. I didn't really care, so I wasn't focused on that element. I think what made this story shine was the handling of Olivia understanding that you can never truly know someone, even if that person has been your best friend since childhood, and also getting to know herself better through the eyes of her boyfriend who grieves for her and her understanding of herself in comparison to how her best friend leads her life. The other standout was Clay, who is one of the romantic interests. He is the epitome of the type of boyfriend YA lovers are looking for: a misunderstood bad boy who is loving, sweet, kind, understanding, and supportive? Yes, please! All in all, if you can suspend your judgment over some of the weirder moments (there's a moment with Morgan's father that's kind of like...,what?) and judge it for it's handling of love and friendship? It's a great read.

Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for providing this book for an honest review.

I started listening to The Party after I surprisingly enjoyed Robyn Harding's novel The Swap. However, this was a let down. All of the characters were vapid and unlikable. I know that's the point, but their flaws were so ridiculous, it was laughable. The central premise that the story is focused on, in itself, wasn't believable, so the fact that the entire book was about the ramifications of a party gone wrong was also unbelievable. There are so many other domestic thrillers that are much more nuanced than this one. While I started listening to the audiobook, I ended up switching to the ebook so I could get through the story faster.

Honestly, I thought overall this book was pretty entertaining. I'm not expecting it to be the next great american novel but for a mobster/medical comedic drama it was very well written. At times I didn't know where the author was taking me on his long winded side stories, but in the end it all made perfect sense and I don't think I would change anything about the book. Even the foot notes, which irked me at first, made sense to do in the end.

I doubt this book will be for everyone. It is very profane and graphic at times, but if you're looking for a light, quick read (I read it at work over a span of about 4 hours) then this is for you!

A very quick read. This book has a cast of a crazy, quirky, unforgettable characters similar to the Ivy League novels by Diana Peterfreund. Where Peterfreund excels at story telling and writing, I was left underwhelmed by Kunze's childish writing. At times it was amusing and absolutely fit the scene and at other times I had to remind myself that these characters were supposed to be college students and not extras from Pretty Little Liars. With all those critiques I was still amused by the story and loved how out of control her characters were. I'm hoping in the next book (because apparently I'll be reading it) that the characters not only find their voice, but they begin to act their age too.

I continue to love this series too much for words. The fleshed out world is fantastic, but so are the small details. Things such as Mercy's ever faithful fae stick that not only follows her around because it likes her, but becomes a weapon to save her at the most opportune moments. It's that attention to detail that makes stories like this transcend the genre that it's placed in. I've read reviews where people didn't think the handling of Mercy's trauma was realistic, but I think it was handled masterfully and the way in which it was hypothesized to become better, with the use of pack magic makes sense not only in respect to clinically that being the sense of support survivors need...but also in respect to Mercy's own past where she wants to be accepted. Also, I can't forget Stefan who I come to love more and more as the series progresses enough so that I hope the author introduces a love interest for him because he deserves it. He's so unfailingly loyal to both Mercy and Marsilia in a very admirable way. There's so many other things I can mention about how great this series continues to be, but I'll leave those as my stand out comments.

If this had been a stand alone book, I don't think I would have rated it so high. However, Leah on the Offbeat is the sequel to Simon vs. The Homo Sapien Agenda a book and movie (Love, Simon) that I loved. Therefore, it gets 3 stars just for being related. The 4th star is because despite, in my opinion, Leah not being my favorite character, Albertalli does a great job of normalizing teen, LGBT relationships. She moved the story forward for all of the characters, while still focusing on Leah, which was satisfying enough in itself. Leah is snarky, sarcastic, anxious, and pessimistic. Honestly, her inner voice got annoying. She's a perpetual naysayer who wants a fairy tale ending while doing everything she can do to get in her own way. It was annoying for 60% of the book. However, the last 30% or so was a lot smoother and I really enjoyed the last few chapters in particular. There's a great pay off, which after all that whining the majority of the book, was great to hear. Oh and another thing, as an audio book? I wouldn't recommend it. The narrator is great, don't get me wrong, but again Leah is so WHINY that I think it might not have been so potent if I had just been reading it rather than listening to it.

While not the worst book I've read, it certainly wasn't the best. The characters and plot are likable enough but this book fails where Stephenie Meyer usually fails: the insane amounts of fluff she uses between bits of action. Sometimes I lost the point of the chapter because she's busy describing every aspect of a gun the character is holding. The narration for the book was well done though, and at times made up for a lot of the pitfalls that faced this book.

Sophie Katz is a mystery writer that gets thrown into a situation where someone is trying to kill her by emulating the deaths in her own books.

Much along the lines of other popular female kick ass leads like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum (which is my favorite book series) Kyra Davis gives us a character with a unique take on the world with her cynical commentary.

On audiobook, it was a fun read. The narrator's voice was pleasant enough as were her takes on Russian and Italian accents.

I read this book a while ago and liked it then, but I never finished the series. I'm rereading it because I intend to read the entire series. This was a decent debut novel. If you like Charlaine Harris and Laurell K. Hamilton, this book is of a similar vein, but maybe a little less raunchy. Rachel Morgan is an exciting and funny character who gives us a crash course into an alternative Ohio where every version of supernatural lives alongside humans. With alternative versions of the FBI and colleges teaching witchcraft, the world making seems to be top-notch. I believe book number 14 was just recently released, so I have many books ahead of me.

This book has so much potential. I think the story is fascinating, but the writing leaves so much to be desired. When I got to the end of the book, the author's bio says that she used to write manuals for computer programs, and it dawned on me that maybe that was the problem. The story was SO boring despite there being quite a bit of action. There are 2 different time streams going, one where Tea, the main character is retelling her own story of becoming a bone witch, which is essentially a necromancer. The other time stream is the present, in which we know Tea has been banished from her land and her duties, and she's on a quest to raise daeva (Monsters) to avenge herself. Unfortunately, I just wish the author had chosen to go with one time stream or the other. The breaks in chapters when we are confronted with the present take away from the overall story. There is already so many things to keep track of: magic, runes, characters, heart glass meanings, etc. without also trying to track time. Also the past storyline was so detailed that it felt like I was pursuing a story that would never end. I admit, I ended up skimming through a vast majority of the chapters. I still don't think I missed anything really relevant having done that. I swear the only time the story got a little bit interesting was the “twist” in the romantic angle toward the end. I'll also give it some credit that unlike most YA books that focus a lot on the romantic element of the book, there was much more of a focus on Tea rather that Tea's crush. I also like the way the author set it up for Tea to be much smarter that YA heroines usually are when it comes to the love interest by giving her a mentor who was totally screwed (pun intended) by the love game. Her mentor serves a cautionary tale, but she also makes it so that Tea naturally would be less focus on that aspect of her life considering she was 11 to 15 the majority of the past story line. Anyway, I say all this to say that I like the story enough to pursue the next book, but I definitely need a break before I attempt to dive into the abyss that is this book again.

The 4th book in the Dexter Morgan series and certain things are starting to become old such as the fact that every nemesis that Dexter comes to face that might be able to expose him gets so nightly tied up by being killed off. It's starting to become cliche when 4 books in I can predict how the story is going to go. Granted, I know series are tough because it's hard to present essentially the same information in a new & exciting way. The thing is Lindsay brought enough things to the table to actually branch out from the cut & dry formula of Dexter has foe, foe gets the upper half for about 100 pages, Dexter prevails in the end and anyone that was opposing him is killed off or rendered quiet (ahem, Sgt. Doakes?). Now he has two “monsters-in-training,” a wife, his sister is in crisis, and he knows some more information about his dark passenger. Why weren't any of these things explored in this book? Instead I get a plot line that feels like a 300 page filler episode!

This book gets a 3 because overall the novel is decent. And after all, maybe I'm asking too much of Lindsey to actually develop Dexter's life a little more besides throwing at him every bump in the road on the Life game w/o any exposition. Lindsey's dialogue is still spot on, Dexter's inner monologue can still make me laugh out loud. I just expected too much from the book and it fell significantly short.

What a crazy book. All of the vignettes throughout the book got a little boring after a while. It made me yearn for an actual plot than just a glimpse into the mind of a scary, rich psycho. I don't know if this book lived up to all the hype surrounding it. Yes, it was unnecessarily gory and demeaning towards women...but does being a sensationalist make you cult material? I'm not convinced.

Having read both Glamorama and The Rules of Attraction, I have to say Ellis does have the gift of throwing the reader off balance and keeping the reader thinking. I applaud him for not dumbing down his material for the layman. But I'm just not a fan of this book. Next time I need a dose of crazy I'll turn on my TV and leave this book alone.