Katie Morlock
The only thing I didn't like about this book was that there aren't always images for the correct way to do something to balance out the images for common errors. Other than that, it's great!
This is short. Ridiculously short. But it did have a number of things that I realized I needed to think more deeply about with my adult son being at home again. I also bought the add-on pack with the household budget and contract but I haven't finished customizing or discussing it with him yet so I can't comment on how that worked out. They've been good for me though to REALLY see how much this is affecting my budget (and retirement savings) and to get an idea about the type of things that need to be discussed so everyone's expectations match up.
Terrible
Flipped through this book to find the most basic vegetarian recipes you can find in any vegetarian cookbook (veggie breakfast burrito, hummus, mushroom and barley soup, etc.). In addition to these full recipes there are some recipe “ideas” in each section that describe, briefly, how to prepare a recipe but no amounts or cooking temperatures are included. What?? For a cookbook?? Also, no pictures of any of the recipes. Waste of money.
It's young adult fiction so I don't feel like I can be too harsh but holy crap this book was terrible. Predictable as hell and all the “Alex, Alex, oh my dear beloved Alex, how can I ever go on without him” made me wanna puke. Can we have some more strong female leads in young adult fiction that don't need dudes to be strong and carry on?
After the snoozer of Ender in Exile I wasn't expecting this book to knock my socks off but wow, I really loved it! I'm going back and forth between 4 and 5 stars so I'd say it's a solid 4.5 but Ender's Game was a full 5.
I disliked this book so much that I don't want to spend very much time on a review so it'll be short. My biggest gripe was how stereotypically annoying the 2 (yes, only 2) women were. One finally stands up for herself and then immediately draws a bubble bath?? Really?? The author did manage to get me to care about the characters though so I gave it 2 stars instead of 1.
What a melodramatic piece of tripe. I love Stephen King and his worlds but even the brief mentions of the Tower couldn't get me to care about these characters or the story.
I liked the idea of this book more than I liked the book itself, but I can't put my finger on exactly why that is. It was an interesting take on the multiverse that I mostly enjoyed. However, the main character seemed whiny and helpless for much of the book and the audiobook reader was maybe too good at portraying that. That the MC's whininess bugged me is not the author's fault but it did affect how much I liked the book. I did really enjoy the idea that people started forgetting about the missing baby and that the forgetting seemed to be contagious, even affecting his father. I think what put me over the edge into 3 star territory (would have done 2.5 if I could) was how many times she described her baby's smell as “bready”. We get it, he smells like bread holy crap please stop.
I'm not normally a fan of alternate histories, but this piqued my interest. It was a bit slow in the first half and the narrator's ego is annoying, but the last half felt like sliding down a hill into a dystopian creepy forest. In a good way if you're a fan of that sort of thing. When the title to the book is finally explained... goosebumps. Loved this one.
Not sure it was worth powering through
I loved the other Bobiverse books. So fun, so interesting, so goofy. This one bored the crap out me until about three-quarters of the way through. Then it got better but, ultimately, maybe wasn't worth the time it took to read.
Good, but annoying
This was a fun and interesting story but 1) I think my excitement for only-I-can-save-the-day gamer stories started and ended with Ready Player One and 2) too. many. details. Stop with all the adjectives and brand names of the cassette tape players everyone has and name dropping. It's just distracting and annoying. Ready Player One suffered from this too but at least when I read that it was a little more novel.
There was so much I hated about this book, but the last third was good. A lot of it just felt like David Mitchell's wet dream of what it would be like to be in the music scene in the late 1960s, but maybe some ppl have the same dream and it was fun for them instead of sounding incredibly pretentious and name-droppy. I finished it only because of Jasper de Zoet's storyline and was not disappointed. I might even go back and read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet again.
Likable at times but, overall, boring. I did appreciate that the realities of academia were portrayed pretty well and the science was interesting (I have no idea how much is real though).
Has some interesting backstory...
...but holy crap was it slow to get going. I almost quit I was so bored, but I'm glad I persevered because I liked the backstory and there was the usual fun back-and-forth dialogue between characters.
Boring. It was so boring. Maybe because I read it immediately after Ender's Game, which I loved so much, but I'm not going to reread it to find out.
I liked this book way more than I thought I would. I haven't laughed out loud so much from a book in awhile, which, ok, might be because I tend to read a lot of dystopian sci fi, but it really was funny.
I've been an atheist since my early 20s but I spent my childhood in a Pentecostal household terrified that the Rapture would happen at any second (but most likely when I was home alone). This is basically a YA novel about a religion based on America and capitalism and what happens after the Rapture occurs, and I thought it was delightful. It was fun, sarcastic, interesting, and full of swears with a standard YA love story weaved in. (Side note: can this whole “HE makes me brave” BS in YA novels just be done now? YOU make yourself brave, ladies! Even if it is nice to have someone at your side when you do it.)
Will I be reading the next book in the series even with all the YA cheesiness? Yes, yes I will.
Spike on a spaceship with giant talking bugs? This is ridiculous. Sure, it's cool to see things from Spike's perspective but this was just too far from Buffy the TV show for me.
Fantastic. I laughed, I almost cried on the bus, my heart was broken. On top of a well written book that hits all the feels, the use of atypical text really worked well.
Wow, what a thoroughly engaging book. I went from not surprised (who out there hasn't heard that L. Ron Hubbard had crazy ideas?) to shocked (the abuse!) to completely creeped out (the IRS stuff, Lisa McPherson, harassing critics).
Once I finally got to the meat of the story (about halfway through the book), I liked the story. I hated all the goofy inside-joke words and phrases. I normally like a little of that but this was over the top. I hope I never read “smucked” or “smucking” one more fucking time in my life.