Well. I'm never visiting a health resort. EVER. I'm just going to start this review by saying that Nine Perfect Strangers did not go at all where I thought it would. A lot of people said they had a hard time getting through this entire book, and I didn't quite understand what they meant until about halfway through -- which is about halfway through the titular "nine perfect strangers'" experience at a luxury spa and health resort called...
Goodreads and some other book bloggers tell me I’m in the minority on this one – but I just don’t care. The Last Romantics was a DNF for me. I requested the ARC of author Tara Conklin’s newest novel in a moment of optimism. I hadn’t been able to finish her debut novel, The House Girl; the premise had interested me, but the writing fell flat and refused to suck me into its story. Still, I had hoped that my encounter with The Last...
As so often happens, I started reading The Endless Beach on a grey, rainy, Saturday morning, snuggled up in bed between a husband and a cat. I had only gotten a little into the book when I had to wrench myself away in order to find some breakfast. Seriously, the only thing that could have made me stop reading this book at that moment was hunger. I was only about 15 pages in, and I was already lost in another world from which I didn’t want to...
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...
