We’re all supposed to be reading Oh, The Places You’ll Go! today too, but Anne pretty much wrote the best review ever for that one, so I’m eating a birthday donut in lieu of cake and reviewing my favorite Dr. Seuss book, The Sneetches, instead.
In a world where bullying happens nearly upon birth, this is a story that should be required reading for all. With constant reminding, maybe kids will realize that there is no need to worry about having the hottest new trends . . .
Many thanks to the lovely Kat for bringing this little gem to my attention and to the equally lovely karen for bringing it to Kat’s attention ; ) ...more
THIS is the book that broke the record for highest first-week sales of all-time leaviFind all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
THIS is the book that broke the record for highest first-week sales of all-time leaving Harry Potter in its wake??? Here's what Professor Snape thinks about that . . .
I picked up Girl Online for the simple fact that it was breaking sales records left and right. I had certainly never heard of "Zoella" before. And then???? Then I found out the "author" (maybe, seems she didn't even write this piece of garbage at this point) was someone who became famous via You Tube. No offense to all you YouTubers out there, but someone who became famous for vlogging is not someone I would automatically equate with having the ability to write a novel. Lucky for us all (not) - this is the age where every Joe Blow seems to be getting an automatic extension on their 15 minutes of fame in order to make an extra dollar or twelve.
But like I said, I didn't know anything about this book or the author upon starting. When I read the synopsis, I figured I would at least enjoy this little story. I read (and like) a lot of young adult selections and I'm 100% addicted to a certain program about a girl with a blog . . .
For those of you who (like me) are unfamiliar with this book, the premise is as follows: Penny is your average awkward teenager. She's a little clumsy and a lot unsure about her looks. In order to connect with others like herself, Penny starts a blog called GirlOnline where she can express herself anonymously. All is well until she starts blogging about a mystery man she met and romanced while visiting New York City with her family . . . and it turns out he is not only a little famous but also has a famous girlfriend to boot.
Sounds clichéd, but potentially adorable right? Yeah, notsamuch. While the clichés and overused storyline could have been forgiven, the horrible writing and terrible characters cannot.
Some of my issues were:
1. This "blog" by an anonymous rando goes from zero to 10,715 followers in less than a year. The problem? She writes about NOTHING - just her day-to-day bullshit life.
She's someone who deserves a following. HI. LAR. IOUS.
2. Absentee parents. This time around they are disguised as overworked party planners, but they still let their 15 year old daughter go cavorting with a complete stranger in NYC.
"In a way, it's nice to know that "panic attacks" are an actual thing . . . "
"A really cold faraway land like Russia or Norway (it's cold in Norway, right?)"
"Black-and-white photos are my favorite - they're like little moments of history captured forever." (Uhhhhh, aren't all photos a little moment of history captured forever????)
"I still don't really know very much about Noah, on some deeper level it feels like I've known him forever. Is this what it means when people talk about meeting their soul mate?"
'Zactly. Unfortunately, even he wore thin after awhile.
According to Goodreads I've read 215 books this year. Girl Online will easily make the Top 10 worst of those books. The only thing I can say I truly enjoyed? This line:
"Prince Charming wasn't a cheater and Cinderella wasn't a ho."
Which was probably supposed to make me feel really sorry for Penny, but somehow had me cracking up instead. Whoops. ...more
It seems everyone but me is reading comic books these days. I'm even raising a tiny SheldFind all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
It seems everyone but me is reading comic books these days. I'm even raising a tiny Sheldon Cooper with ginormous boxes full of nearly any superhero my heart could possibly desire and yet I still hesitate when it comes to that genre. Why???? I think it's because of my own personal superhero complex. You see, in my house it goes a little something like this . . .
When I saw Chew hope was restored that I too could learn to love the graphic novel.
Tony Chu lives in a world quite different from ours. After the bird flu struck the country bigtime, people were left with little choice when it came to chicken dinners . . .
The lack of chicken never bothered Tony, though, being as he is cibopathic - a person who receives the life history of anything he eats. Due to this condition, Tony has always tended to stick to the one food that somehow doesn't project psychic imagery to him - the beet . . .
[image]
(Proof that there is a Jeff Goldblum .gif for any occasion. ALL HAIL JEFF GOLDBLUM!)
The general populous doesn't share Tony's issue, however, and chicken has become a hot commodity on the black market so restaurants are willing to do almost anything to get it. It's either get the real deal or be left serving up a fake chicken substitute . . .
As a detective with the Special Crimes Division of the F.D.A., it is Tony's job to track down the chicken smuggling ring as well as solve any other crimes that happen to pop up during the process. He only has to take a little nibble out of the victims in order to figure out whodunit . . .
Obviously I get a kick out of reading weird shit, and Chew is definitely weird. Buuuuuut, I have no clue how to appropriately review a comic, so you get what you get. The story was totally unique, the characters were enjoyable, there was great flow to the action in between the various chapters, and the artwork was quality . . .
Once again I was able to keep the Elf on the Shelf drunk enough that he couldn't report my true behavior to Santa. This year I also made sure to capture photographic evidence of his questionable choices in case I needed some blackmail material . . .
Yay me! (FYI - He also brought me a kid who woke up at 5:00 a.m., so the day hasn't been all sunshine and daisies.) I didn't even know the little book at the bottom of the above photo existed until Jason wrote about it. Please make sure to direct all trollings and hate mail his way since an innocent gal like myself would have never read something like Creative Cursing if it weren't for the bad examples like him in my life; )
This book is exactly what the synopsis says - a flipbook of various words that when parsed together create an entire dictionary of new curses. It's 100% inappropriate. Even Walter White thought so and he cooks f&^%$#g METH . . .
but alas I am stuck in a never-ending loop of putting batteries in new toys, listening to the rapid gunfire coming from the Xbox in the basement, the incessant squeaky feet noise of the basketball game coming from the television in the family room and dealing with the aftermath of the tweaked out cat who somehow scored some catnip in his stocking . . .
Oh, and one final thing in my defense. I strong-armed a poopton of people into reading The Martian so F-off if you don’t think it’s okay that I don’t crap my drawers over this one. ...more
Hey look, it’s a controversial book. Mitchell never decides we should read these, so let’s see what’s up ; )
Okay, there’s obviously a giant pink elephant in the room with respect to Thug Kitchen. I’m going to address it and move on. There are A LOT of social injustices in the world. Issues like racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, etc. still run rampant and that needs to change. Luckily one thing everyone is still allowed is the ability to speak freely. People are entitled to be offended by whatever the f*&^ they choose (especially when it comes to a social media site) and I’m not interested in arguing with others who don’t share my opinion about something as stupid as a cookbook. Don’t like this one? Then don’t buy it. Pretty simple. As for me? I think it classes up my kitchen counter ; )
I’m not offended by much, so I took Thug Kitchen at face value for what it is – a gimmick, plain and simple. There are eleventy billion foodie blogs started each year. In order to get people to look at one over all the others and maybe eventually even turn it into a book, it obviously has to toss something special on the table. In this case it’s a bunch of mother*&^%#s. Yep, if you don’t like swearing, you best just back away from the cookbook immediately.
See? Bad words. This book has them. However, if you can get past the cursing, you’ll find a solid cookbook. Not only does Thug Kitchen contain recipes regular humans who don’t work in Michelin starred restaurants in their spare time can create, it also has helpful hints on pantry staples as well as various utensils and gadgets you actually need in your kitchen when starting out on your own. And it has pretty pictures . . .
Seriously, a cookbook with shitty pictures is a total waste of money.
The only downside? The recipes are all vegetarian, so the über carnivore probably won’t be delighted . . . but you can just tell them to shut the f*&^ up and chug back a delicious beverage instead of bitching about the fact there is no carcass on their plate come dinnertime . . .
"At Auschwitz dying was so easy. Surviving was a fulltime job. We gave them our blood, our bodies, our pride, our dignity, and in turn, they let us live one more day."
Eva and Miriam began their life as normal as you or I . . .
They were born to a middle-income family in Romania and were doted on by all for not only being adorable, but for being a matched set as well. When war broke out, many of Eva's relatives fled to Palestine in order to escape the rumored persecution of the Jews they kept hearing about, but Eva's mother held her ground and refused to move. By refusing to flee she signed the death certificate for nearly their entire family. Portions of Romania were eventually turned over to Hungarian rule and the family was relocated first to one of the many ghettos and eventually onto a train which would transport them to Auschwitz.
It is there the girls were put under the care of Dr. Josef Mengele.
The remainder of the book is Eva and Miriam's remarkable tale of survival. Ms. Kor tells of how she and her sister had to endure illness, starvation and experimentation at the hand of the Nazis. And amazingly, at the end of it all she talks about forgiveness . . .
"I hope, in some small way, to send the world a message of forgiveness; a message of peace, a message of hope, a message of healing. Let there be no more wars, no more experiments without informed consent, no more gas chambers, no more bombs, no more hatred, no more killing, no more Auschwitzes."
This story is such an important one and I applaud Ms. Kor's decision to write it in a style appropriate for children. There are no gory details or any added "shock and awe" factors other than the horrifying reality of life in a concentration camp told. The effect is still chilling. ...more
Like every other snow day, I was woken up this morning AN ENTIRE F-ING HOUR EARLIER than our regular school-day "get up time" by a couple of screaming banshees. The youngest bounded out of his room hollering his plans to build an epic snowman . . . which reminded me of this little story.
"One wintery day I made a snowman very round and tall. The next day when I saw him, he was not the same at all."
Snowmen At Night tells what happens at night (duh) to the snowman you built during the day. The story is adorable, the artwork is quality . . . .
and apparently? It is terrifying. This book scared the crap out of my youngest. When he was just a wee little lad, he had a problem realizing that this:
Boy am I glad that phase is over. Seriously, who's afraid of a little ol' snowman? They're not only friendly, but they offer some sage advice as well . . .
“Then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not eFind all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
“Then like Pandora, opening the great big box of the world and not being afraid, not even caring whether what’s inside is good or bad. Because it’s both. Everything is always both. But you have to open it to find that out.”
Melanie has been a prisoner for a long time. All of her days are the same. Guards come to her cell, strap her securely into a chair and wheel her down the hall . . . . to a classroom? Obviously Melanie isn’t your average student – and neither are any of the others in her class.
Although The Girl With All The Gifts had been on my to-read list for months, I had no intention of reading it anytime soon. I tried requesting an electronic version of this book (a paper version wasn’t available) from the library and waited FOR.EV.ER. When my turn finally came up, guess what? The format wasn’t Kindle friendly, so I decided to say screw it and ease on down the road to the other eleventy billion books on my list. But then Easy E and One Wicked Witch strong-armed me into a buddy read and even offered to supply the damn thing for me. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I knew nothing about this book going in . . . except that it had been nominated as “Best Horror” in the Goodreads awards, that ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE of my friends had already read it, and that the average rating from those friends was 3.94. My thoughts upon starting? “Ruh roh, Shaggy, someone’s gonna hurt me if I don’t like this one.”
My rating wavered at either a 2 or a 4 throughout the entire book. The good stuff was goooooood, but there was quite a bit of “meh” along with it.
I think both Edward and Shelby are going to differ from me on this one, but I seriously dug Melanie’s voice (except I thought it read around the 7-year old age mark rather than 10). Having this story told from the eyes of a small child helped serve up a little of the creepout factor I was craving . . . but then we started getting a military perspective, and a teacher’s perspective and a doctor’s perspective and I was all
I had the same reaction to the science and the world building. The “it’s the end of the world as we know it” vibe was strong and I motored right along through the “prison” and then beyond. And beyond. And beyond. And beyond. By the time these folks got done walking even my feet hurt. This tactic either works or it doesn’t. In this case (for me at least) it was overkill. There’s only so many times a reader should need a description of the landscape – if they still don’t get it after the umpteenth time it’s their problem, not the author’s. Same goes for scientific mumbo-jumbo. 9 times out of 10 some d-bag will pop up crying foul that “science doesn’t work that way.” Sometimes it’s best to just gloss over things and stop with all the talky-talky.
Alright, so there are my complaints. Now on to the good stuff. The bad guys were baaaaaaad. And fast. There were no lumbering halfwits roaming around. They may have been stupid, but they were going to catch you . . .
“The hungries smell you, and then they chase you until they eat you. They can’t stop themselves.”
Yummy.
There was also a grey area. Bad wasn’t exclusively bad and good wasn’t exclusively good. And one of the baddest might just end up being one of the goodest (just go with it) . . .
Inappropriate humor. I love it and this book has it:
“She dodged through all kinds of irrelevant thoughts. A poem in a book: ‘I love little kitty, her coat is so warm. And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm.’ She didn’t love little kitty all that much. Little kitty didn’t taste half as nice as the two men she ate back at the base.”
And finally, if you’ve bothered to glance at any reviews you had to have noticed comments about the ending. While the ending didn’t come as a huge surprise to me, I did still enjoy it and was glad it didn’t end up being a massive cop-out kind of wrap up I feared it would be around the halfway point.
So there you go folks. I’m giving this one a 3 because my opinion was one extreme or the other. However, EVERYONE liked this book so if you’ve been thinking about it, you should definitely give it a go.
EDIT - I forgot to included the best zombie link ever:
Okay, since I’m a robot that’s a bit of a fabrication. I did, however, get a little choked up and that’s pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to me bawling.
Francis has spent his entire life running . . .
“Running bases after the crack of the bat, running from accusation, running from the calumny of men and women, running from family, from bondage, from destitution of spirit through ritualistic straightenings, running, finally, in a quest for pure flight as a fulfilling mannerism of the spirit.”
He finally decided to run for good after the accidental death of his newborn son. Francis hit rock bottom and became a vagrant. He now spends his days doing as little as possible in order to earn enough to buy himself a jug each night in a futile attempt to rid himself of the voices of ghosts from his past.
“I’m sick of you all, [is] his thought. I am sick of imagining what you became, what I might have become if I’d lived among you. I am sick of your melancholy histories, your sentimental pieties, your goddamned unchanging faces. You ain’t nothin’ more than a photograph, you goddamn spooks. You ain’t real and I ain’t gonna be at your beck and call no more. You’re all dead, and if you ain’t, you ought to be.”
I feel more than a little crappy giving a Pulitzer Prize winner a 3 Star rating, but???? It is what it is. Here’s the deal . . . The first 75 pages and the last 75 pages of Ironweed are 5 Star worthy. The writing is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen (and when you’re dealing with nothing but horrifying and revolting situations, that’s a major feat to accomplish), but the middle killed it.
You’ll notice in my synopsis I conveniently left out anything about the character “Helen.” While I found her to be a fine addition in order to add to the richness of Francis’ story (and apparently the movie version really beefed up her part being that Meryl Streep received an Oscar nod for the role),
I felt the book went a little off the rails having a featured segment of Helen’s history (along with padding Francis’ tale even further). Even the prose changed in the middle of the book. Maybe that change was intentional and I’m just too dumb to get it, but it felt like a bunch of filler to me.
My other complaint? The dialogue. This is a book that is filled with elaborate description and imagery that really made me feel like I was experiencing everything along with Francis . . . and then the characters started talking and I was immediately yanked right back to reality because the conversations seemed so stilted and read so false to me. The exception? The conversations Francis has with his “ghosts” – now some of those were heartbreaking.
If you haven’t yet read Ironweed and are already experiencing the holiday doldrums, I recommend keeping this pushed back a bit on your to-be-read list. After all, no one wants to come to someone’s house and find not only the turkey cooking in the oven, but the host trying to stick their head in there alongside it as well. ...more
Welp, turns out that Zombicorns isn't about undead one-horned magical beasts, but is actually a story of the zombification of regular ol’ people through the ingestion of corn. An anti-Monsanto statement, maybe???? Nahhhhhhhh. Well, maybe, but not really. It was actually about each individual’s “U.C” . . .
“What is your ultimate concern? What, ultimately, motivates your living? For what would you die? What is your capital-U ultimate capital-C concern?”
and about love . . .
“I came to the conclusion a while ago that there is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another”
and about humanity as a whole.
John Green himself admits that he wrote this in a quick hurry and it’s not really all that good. He’s not lying. The story definitely doesn’t have a great flow and the zombie apocalypse is most certainly not Green’s forte. That being said, Zombicorns still makes you think a bit and even on his worst day Green writes YA better than 99.99999% of everyone else on the planet, so he gets 3 Stars. Bonus that this originally was written in order to raise money for charity. I know a lot of people think Green is overrated and pretentious and too-big-for-his-britches and blahblahblah, but as long as he keeps acting like a human every once in awhile I'll keep reading his stuff.
However, I do feel I was a teensy bit gypped, so I think it’s only fitting I get an actual zombicorn for Christmas . . .
After discovering my youngest child was fudging his nightly reading requirement (a cardinal sin in my house, as I’m sure you can imagine) by spending quality time staring at the walls or sitting on the dumper instead, I decided to take extreme measures and requested this ARC that we could read together. Both of my kids are fans of the Big Nate books, so I figured I wouldn’t have too much of a fight on my hands, but I still didn’t trust the little sneak to actually read it if given the chance to skip out and build a Minecraft mansion instead.
Let me start with the kidlet’s notes. He wants to make sure I give him credit for his contributions to this review so he can share in all of the zeros of dollars I make reviewing, so here goes:
1. The Big Nate books are FUNNY. If you have a kid who doesn’t like to read, they’ll probably still like these. Comics are much easier and more fun to read than just word books.
2. Nate is hilarious. He plays all sorts of different sports and thinks he’s really good, but he kinda sucks. He also doesn’t get along with his teacher and isn’t the best student, but when he gets in trouble it cracks me up.
3. I love the parts about Nate’s sister. She’s such a loser! And his dad is so nice, but he’s a dork. Poor Dad : (
4. It is so cool I got to read this book in December and it doesn’t come out until January. I’m telling everyone at school about this for share day!
So, there you have it.
You know what I found out after reading Big Nate? I’m raising him. Yep, file this one under “non-fiction/biography” because I’m pretty sure it was about my youngest.
Also? Big Nate can help you add some wicked “Yo Momma” jokes to your repertoire.
The Silent Girls is a book that hits the ground running. The opening sequence is a deliciously gory stabbing scene committed by a very surprising culprit. The story then unfolds into a well-paced thriller revolving around a missing distant relative of one of the local cops in a small Vermont town. Former detective turned private investigator Frank Rath has been called in to help expedite the search and rescue in hopes of finding the girl alive while simultaneously hiding the fact that the case has been given preferential treatment. Frank hung up his badge decades ago when his own sister was murdered. Now, while trying to piece the background of the missing girl’s last goings-on, Frank finds him dealing with old unhealed wounds and his team discovers the mystery may be deeper than they originally thought when they realize there are actually five girls who are missing fairly close to their area. The only thing the girls have in common? They’re all young. Then a body surfaces . . .
Literally. Surfaces from the entanglement of brush she’d been buried under in a local creek and it is discovered she was gutted and carved upon with potential satanic images. Are the missing girls connected? Is a cult to blame? Can they piece the parts together in time to find their original missing girl????
According to Goodreads, The Silent Girls is 100 pages long. Yeah, that’s not correct. I actually bumped this one to the top of my reading list thinking I’d be able to breeze right through it and get on to my next book quickly. That wasn’t the case, but I ended up being okay with it. I am still curious about the page count, though - first, because I assume it was closer to 400 pages and second, because the one complaint I have about this book is that it could have been whittled down (which cost it in the rating department). There were a lot of plotlines . . . easily enough for two related (because of main characters), but separate books (and a third once you throw in the open-ending). I like a book with some twists and turns, but this one had umpteen of ‘em all at the end. One or two would have been plenty because the writing was goooooooood. There didn’t need to be a giant dog and pony show to serve as a distraction.
There were also a lot of unnecessary factoids with respect to the characters that didn’t end up being necessary. Frank’s bad back is mentioned once every other page and another character’s addiction to running is droned on and on about. I understand the author did this intentionally for deeper meaning, but really? In this case it didn’t really work and most of it could be left on the cutting room floor. And finally, there were a lot of instances of using italics that put the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. In all fairness, however, I did read an uncorrected proof, so hopefully that issue will be corrected before final printing.
Bottom line? This was one of the better thrillers I’ve read this year and I’ll definitely look for more of Eric Rickstad’s stuff in the future.
ARC provided by Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review ...more
I always wanted to hear the story from the Evil Queen’s perspective. You know the old saying, “there are three sides to every story – her side, her side and the truth????” I knew the Evil Queen couldn’t be completely at fault and 100% bad. I mean, doesn’t a little part of all of us want to kill Kristen Stewart Snow White????
According to Goodreads 3 Stars means “I liked it” and . . . . well, I liked it – I just didn’t like it like it. Part of me wants to say that it was because this book was more of a filmography rather than a biography, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it because I wanted to read about Jack’s movie career and already knew about/could have really given two shits about hearing more regarding all the chicks he’s banged. The problem with this book (for me, at least) was that it got so mired down in the details and mechanics of what it took to make each Nicholson film that it lessened my enjoyment. Being inundated with budget overages, failed production timelines, hiring and firing of various producers, directors, actors, script writes and re-writes is not my idea of what I want to read when someone offers me a “Jack Nicholson biography." All that Negative Nelly crap now said, Nicholson was still an interesting read.
“My work motto is ‘everything counts’ . . . My life motto is ‘more good times’.”
This book discusses EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of Jack Nicholson’s movies. From the ones waaaaaay before my time, to the one that officially put him on Hollywood’s radar as the “next Brando” . . .
Nicholson even tells us about all the movies Jack turned down (and holy crap did he turn some good roles down). This book is a great reminder that Jack has truly “been there and done that” when it comes to cinema. His dear friend Mike Nichols probably sums it up best:
“Jack is the hippest place in the universe, coolest place in America, the Independent Republic of Jack. The hardest thing to do is wear a gift well, and Jack wears it with a killer smile and a pair of shades.”
^^^^Okay, that’s the end of the “real review” (if you can call it that) – now I’m going to bore you with my personal history with Jack Nicholson.
If you follow my reviews you’re already aware that I know a whole lot about movies (and not a whole lot about much else). This is apparently a genetic defect that I inherited from one of my first best friends . . . my Uncle Rod. Let me tell you, Rod was a movie quoting mother*&^%r. We could hold entire conversations in movie speak and one of the most quotable of all Hollywood icons was none other than Jack Nicholson.
His two faves were One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Shining (both of which I highly recommend watching and reading if you have not done so yet).
Rod was a drinking man and LOVED to quote Jack Torrance from The Shining. We constantly heard “ I'm the kind of man who likes to know who's buyin' their drinks” and EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. US called each other “Lloyd” after the bartender. (He used that nickname so much that my other uncle his DAMN DOG Lloyd after Rod passed away.)
Back in the 80s before there were eleventy billion television stations to watch, families actually spent time together. Any time we attempted to play cards or a game we would be inundated with quotes of "PLAY THE GAME, HARDING!!!!" until someone finally broke and got pissed off. It never stopped being funny. Rod was our resident McMurphy . . . a little crazy, but the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.
His love for pop-culture and gift of endless movie knowledge lives on through me, and I’m happy to say my children appear to have the gene as well. Thanks to you, Lloyd, for introducing me to Jack. I’ll see you on the other side where I hope to be greeted with “Wendy, I’m home!”
I requested We Are All Completely Fine for the simple reason that it kept popping up on my Goodreads’ feed due to other people reading it. Upon reading the synopsis explaining how the story revolves around group therapy sessions wherein the members are a “monster hunter,” a former victim of a cannibalistic family, someone who escaped a serial killer (but not before he filleted her and carved on her bones), a mass-murderer in the form of a firestarter and a dude who never takes off his sunglasses my brain was convinced it was going to be getting into something like this:
Not that there’s anything wrong with that – it’s just kind of become the horse that I want taken out of its misery already for being BEATEN. TO. DEATH. Another thing that wasn’t working for me??? That cover. You have to admit, it’s fug. And although it’s really not fair/is really shallow to judge a book by its cover . . . I totally do it all the time.
Lucky for me the bad cover was not a foreshadowing of what was to come once I got inside the book and doubly lucky for me just because a guy doesn’t ever take off his sunglasses it doesn’t automatically mean it’s because he shoots lasers out his eyeballs. What I found instead was a short, but deeply woven horror/mystery. Once again I’m probably the odd (wo)man out because I wouldn’t categorize We Are All Completely Fine as a “horror.” Horror is supposed to . . . well, HORRIFY me, and I think this book earned the moniker simply for the squick factor rather than the scare factor. At the end of the day this story is about finding out why these people were selected to become members of this particular therapy group. I mean, aside from coming to terms with the the typical stages of “forming, storming, norming, and perhaps, someday, performing” ; )
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!...more
If you want to read a real review (you know, one that actually has some quality to it), I recommend clicking over to Nick or Julio's instead of this one.
Still here? Don't say I didn't warn you.
Call Me By Your Name is the story of an all-encompassing love affair between a teenaged boy and an older guest who is spending the summer at his family's home. For Elio, this is a time of exploration and acknowledgment of never-before-felt emotions and attraction. For Oliver, it is a time of attempting to stave off the desires of what he realizes should be left as a mutual infatuation. For both it will be a few weeks which will alter their lives forever.
I'm not too hard to please when it comes to books - I read every genre and I don't require Pulitzer quality writing in order for me to enjoy a story - but this writing???? Swoon worthy . . .
"All I prayed for was for time to stop. Let summer never end, let him never go away, let the music on perpetual replay play forever, I'm asking for very little, and I swear I'll ask for nothing more."
I wanted to chew up every word and digest it. I found myself slowing down in order to make my reading experience last longer . . . and that rarely happens for me.
I'm not a huge fan of traditional "romance" novels - sure I read plenty of RomComs and fluffy pieces of nothing by the pool - but I would definitely prefer my love stories to have a bit of heartbreak and a lot of substance when I can find them. Nick and Julio's linked reviews above turned me on to Call Me By Your Name and, lucky for me, the story did not disappoint. I expected a "decent" book with some depth, but what I would have never expected was to be completely blown out of the water. If you're looking for something hot and steamy, this probably is not the story for you . . . but if you're looking for intense, raw emotion that will leave your psyche bruised and battered by the last page, this is a winner.
And, speaking as a not-quite-young, married, straight lady - Call Me By Your Name is also a tale that proves when it comes to matters of the heart . . .
Yep, it’s another 1 Star review. Before I even begin – let’s get some things clear:
1. I review for me - for fun (but I've been lucky enough to make some great online buddies on Goodreads). 2. I don’t get paid to review (other than with free books) and don’t consider it in any way, shape or form to be my job – it’s simply a hobby. 3. I don’t have an agenda nor do I request books that I think I won’t like in order to flame them. I’m never “angry” when I write a review, but I am honest and willing to admit I don’t like everything I read. 4. I don’t have aspirations of being a writer – hence the .gif-laced reviews.
Now that all of that is cleared up, hopefully this review won’t be trolled.
Like I said above, although it seems at times that I request/accept every ARC presented to me, I do actually try to show some restraint and only look for books that I think I will enjoy. Forget Love was one of those books.
The synopsis is a familiar one . . . Penny wakes up in the hospital suffering from amnesia. While there she is tended to by both her ex-husband (Tom) and her boss (George). Not only is Penny faced with the problem of trying to get her memory back, but she’s also faced with the dilemma of figuring out which one of these fellas she loves.
I seriously thought I would dig this book. I figured it would go one of two ways. Either a sappy little love story like this . . .
I think the intentions of Forget Love was to be a mix of both, but sadly it fell short of the goal. There seemed to be a lack of focus which resulted in several problems, the first being there were too many ongoing storylines. Not only does Penny have the problem of amnesia, but more kinks are thrown into the works with the subplots of an unexpected pregnancy and a meddling mother-in-law. In addition, there were too many unnecessary characters for such a short novel. Excess friends/co-workers could have been eliminated in order to flesh out just a few. There were also some important questions that never got answered. Why were Penny’s friends so focused on Tom remaining the “ex”??? Penny discovers she was apparently a selfish asshole before her accident (although, again it’s not really elaborated on – you’re just supposed to take Tom at his word), but I kept waiting for some kind of confrontation with the jerky pals she had chosen to surround herself with. And speaking of jerks, if George the boss was truly the creeper he ends up being, I’m fairly certain everyone would have been well aware of that fact and, amnesia or not, they would have told Penny not to go near him with a 10-foot pole.
All in all Forget Love ended up being a big mess for me . . . but maybe that won’t be the case for all of you. The release date is today (12/02/14) and the Kindle price point is decent at $4.99 on Amazon (or $0.00 for Kindle Unlimited subscribers).
ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley! ...more
Kelly (and the Book Boar)
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