Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts

A Review (Blogtember: Day 16)

Today's prompt is to write a review over a book, place, or product.  Well, this is easy!  Ya'll know I'm going to pick a book right? 

This is actually perfect timing because I just finished a book on Saturday and I have been dying to talk about it with someone!  So, if anyone wants to chat about this book I am about to share with you, hit me up!  I am about to explode at the seams!


If you have not read Gillian Flynn, you are missing out!  This lady can weave a story!  She had me on the edge of my seat several times.  Also, she kept my brain going.  I never got bored with Dark Places nor her other two, Sharp Objects and Gone Girl. I was always entertained while reading her books.


I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club… and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer.

This book was hard to put down.  I found myself crawling into bed an hour early every night so I could read this book.  The way Flynn writes is intriguing to me.  She can weave webs throughout the story line so intricately and then she very carefully begins to unravel them.  You can even feel the edginess and anticipation of her character's as the webs unravel.   That is good writing in my opinion.

If you love suspense, thrills, plot twists....this is the author for you.  Go add her to your to-read list!

Have a great Tuesday!






Book Review: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

You can purchase a copy here
"Pain demands to be felt."

I know I have been talking about doing book reviews since I started blogging.  I even have a list of books that I want to review for all of you.  I just wasn't sure how
 I wanted to go about it.  After finishing The Fault in our Stars by John Green, I knew I had to tell you all about this book!  So, here we go!  My first ever book review!

I have been wanting to read this book forever!  It has actually sat on my Goodread's list for quite some time. So, when my awesome brother got me a gift card to Amazon for my birthday, I ordered this book and another book.  I love books.  I love gift cards to buy books.  My family knows this.  If you ask me what I want, I will tell you money to buy books.  That's all I care about.  I am easy to please.  Well, and wine.  I like wine, too.

I tore through this book in a total of two evenings.  I got sucked in, ya'll.  My husband lost me.  He is aware that this happens, so, usually he just finds something else to do.

I am going to give you the synopsis that Goodread's has listed, then I am going to give you my two cents.  I will not include spoilers!  


Goodread's Synopsis: 

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now. 


Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. 



Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

My Two Cents: 

The Fault in our Stars is what I refer to as an easy read.  It doesn't make your brain work too hard and when you finish it, you are glad you read it.  

However, I have a couple of issues:

1.  The teens are a little unrealistic.  The only reason I could come up with as to why they were written the way they were is because of the cancer.  Cancer, however young or old the person may be, causes people to question a lot of things.  I do realize that a teenager with cancer (remission or not) may not be able to do or act like a normal (that term is used very loosely) teen.  The characters in this book were far from the teenage norm.  I actually forgot several times that they were, in fact, teens. I honestly believe it's the language used.  In my experiences with teens, very few of them speak the way these characters spoke in the book.

2.  I had a hard time picturing the characters in my mind.  I have to have a clear image in my head of who is speaking, doing, etc.  It helps me to get into the world in the book.  These characters were kind of "fuzzy faced" to me.  

Overall, this was a good book.  I am glad I read it.  Would I recommend this book? Yes I would.  Here's why:  There are some really great monologues and conversations in this book.  There are things that are written that make you say, "Whoa.  Mind. Blown."  It makes you think and causes you to look at life a bit differently   That's what I like in my books!

Overall Rating:
4 out of 5  







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