With these great titles from our reviewers! Thanks everyone for your continued support!
From Skyla:
“I liked the first and third books better, but the events in this book linked them together. The only thing I didn't like was the drug use.”
“It kept my interest, and the characters situations made me keep reading. The cliffhangers KILLED me!”
“This book was funny and different and had real feeling characters. I loved the twists and humor as well as the story.”
“This book really surprised me by how good it was. The characters, story, and setting hook you, and pull you in from the very first paragraph."
JoAnn submitted a whole bunch!
“I've read all of Karin Fossum's books that I can find because I love Inspector Sejer. He's such a low-key fatherly man. I wish there were more positive features to lighten his constant immersion in death and evil. In other Fossum books, Sejer’s compassion and understanding shone brightly. This book was not as satisfying. The plot was too simplistic and the characters were too black and white bad guys-good guys. It left me feeling depressed and sick of reading murder mysteries. Especially negative was an incident involving a kitten. Less gratuitous evil and more subtlety would be good. I wish there were more books with Inspector Sejer doing something besides police work...maybe if he went on a cruise and met one of Maeve Binchy's characters, they could help some troubled souls and have a good time to boot!”
“I've read all the Nevada Barr books I can find. Her main character is a female forest ranger who solves mysteries in national parks. I love getting behind-the-scene details about these beloved locations. The only gripe I have about the ranger character is that Barr puts her in unrealistically dangerous situations that no sane person would actually attempt like deep-sea-diving solo. This book had the unlikely location of New Orleans, where there's a national historic site. It has more up-to-date references than her older books, so it's set in the here-and-now. It unfortunately focused on the child sex trade which isn't fun to read about. The interesting new thing in this book involves the acting trade and how handy that experience can be for someone going about in disguise. It was unclear to me what the ranger was actually doing in New Orleans and whether she was working or on vacation. There's not a lot of depth to the book, but it's an easy, entertaining sum.”
“Picoult's books seem to always involve teenagers, medical drama and legal dilemmas. But they’re a riveting way to learn about new topics. I couldn't put this book down. I learned about "locked-in syndrome" which led me to rent "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" to learn more about this condition. It seemed unbelievable that one of the characters could live with wolves for a year, but the same disbelief and confusion that I had was mirrored by another character in the book. Nice twist at the end. Enjoyable reading!”
“There are two things that will throw you off - - the title and the author. There is another book by a different author titled "In the Garden if the Beasts." And this is NOT a typical Deaver novel. I loved this book so much, that I emailed Deaver, who told me that it took two years of research to write this. It's a historical novel set in Germany during the 1936 Olympic Games. There is an amazing amount of detail about the German culture. You see points of view of so many people that it illustrates the many dilemmas faced by the German people. You could feel the fear of the common person that didn't want to support the Nazi regime yet was afraid to be seen defying it. I loved the characters Otto Weber and WiIlie Kohl. Deaver seems perfectly willing for the reader to be ambivalent about Paul, the main character. He has a heart-of-gold but is a hit man that will have his criminal record expunged if he will go on one mission to kill a German leader. He, of course, has "good" reasons to do things and he gets himself into entanglements because of his willingness to rescue underdogs. But the detail of German culture was so interesting. Did you know that the term "Nazi" is Bavarian slang for "simpleton"? Did you know that instead of playing cowboys and Indians, the German children played Aryans and Jews? Did you know that it's considered rude to whistle for a taxi in Germany? Hang in there as you read through the sad parts...you will rejoice in the end.”
“This was a moving story told by an investigative reporter that moved to India. I guess I didn't realize that it was non-fiction when I started it. I got really upset at things that happened to some of the slum kids. I found myself rooting for some of the characters to do something to save themselves. But so much was working against them that it got to be depressing to continually see them in hopeless situations. I wanted to kill the character "One-Leg" myself. I plowed through until the ending, which was worth it. Some goodness prevailed. When I got to the author's epilogue, I realized that these were real people that she spent time with. I almost cried with relief that some survived their situation. But the corruption described in the story made me never want to donate money to a charity again.”
Dawn gave us this review:
“This is a book that parents might enjoy reading and discussing with their teen children. Set in a perfect town, full of perfect children, and perfect parents, this story describes multiple issues caused by the subliminal messages and the choices the main character Oscar makes.”
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