The Perfect Nanny would not exist if Myriam and Paul Massé had just bought themselves some nanny cams from the French Home Depot. I'm serious, though I didn't have this realization until I was more than halfway done with the book. I So much trauma could have been prevented in this psychological thriller if these parents had been a little more invested in their children’s safety, But, that's part of the problem in The Perfect Nanny, The...
Well, the holidays are over. Enter the looooooong winter months of January, February, and March, when it's freakishly cold outside and successive snowstorms foil your plans way too often. I used to dread this time of year. Once Christmas was over, my seasonal depression would kick in big time, and I would spend these next few, miserable months counting the days until the robins returned and brought springtime with them. Yeah, notice that I'm...
I think I seriously missed out on a life experience by not rushing a Southern sorority. That's something I never thought I would say, since I pretty much mocked sororities every chance I got back in college. And, for a good halfway through Rush, I was feeling pretty darn smug about my decision to eschew all Greek life when I had the chance. By the end of this amazing book, though, author Lisa Patton had completely sold me on Southern sorority...
Another DNF. *sigh* This one pained me. To add yet another title to my Did Not Finish tally, and to have it be the third time I've had to do this in about a month. On the plus side, that TBR pile that looked so intimidating just a week ago is now looking pretty darn manageable. But, I mean...BARBARA KINGSOLVER. She's a legend who writes some damn fine novels. The Bean Trees was eye-opening for me when I read it the summer before high school....
This novel was like a breath of fresh air. I love discovering wonderful books by debut authors. I may be slightly biased toward them, as I hope to be a debut author sooner rather than later, but I really feel like you’re unearthing a hidden treasure when you find such a gem from a previously unknown writer. I mean, you didn’t find that gem. The publisher did. Well, really, the agent did. BUT STILL. You took a chance on reading a new book by...
You guys. This is the second book that I’ve added to my DNF pile in one month. I am not liking this trend. I am sorry to tell you that The Witch Elm by Tana French has the dubious honor of being another book that I will never finish. Which is incredibly disappointing because I had heard such good things about it. There are rave reviews about her previous work, In the Woods, which is part of a series, and The Witch Elm (I believe) is her first...
Sometimes, the books we look forward to the most leave us the most disappointed. *cries* I’m sure I’m in the minority on this, but Melmoth has been put on my DNF list. You all know about my 50-page rule: the book has 50 pages to suck me in, or I drop it. Melmoth was kind of a backwards read for me. I started off really into this book. It’s very atmospheric, and I flew past the first 50 pages without even realizing it. I have no...
I’ve been trying to write my review of Two Steps Forward since June. Yup, June. That’s how long ago I read this book. I usually read and prep my reviews a few weeks in advance, but six months is really stretching it. It's hard to see a story for what it actually is and not the hopes you were pinning on it. I first fell in love with author Graeme Simsion's writing with The Rosie Project, which took the world by storm and, if you remember,...
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo wins the award for the best last sentence of a book, ever. No, don’t go look at it! Do not flip to the back of the book to read it, or search for it on Google books, or anything like that. You have to read the entire book in order to fully appreciate – and understand – that last line. Just know that it made me cackle happily, close the book with a great big grin on my face, and say, “Oh, Evelyn.”...
I read All We Ever Wanted the weekend I wasn’t supposed to read a book. I had decided to take about a week off from my TBR list in order to concentrate on revising my query letter. However, in true CJ fashion, I woke up super early on Saturday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t think that editing my query letter at 5:30am was a stupendous idea, so I grabbed my copy of All We Ever Wanted, climbed back into bed, and began...
