I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU by Dan Wells **

Teen monster story. A teen hero (16) with friends who all own their own cars, which BTW are driveable even after being smashed and crashed. This is part of a series, part 3 I think. Very repetitive on the sociopath info. Sort of a Dexter wannabe but a bumbling idiot teenager.

He "sees" bad spirits or whatever he calls them in people and is all too ready to slaughter everyone with very  little proof. Then he finds- in a corpse -a thick ashy gooey substance the frickin cop forensic investigator missed (right) and decided THAT was the invader of normal people. What we don't ever get explained is if the goo is in the dead body how did it move into another body without taking itself?  Why bother explaining that to a teenage reader? So he's a killers killer trying to find all the guilty murderers.

Some stuff you read: Teenagers slashing their wrists plus a guy stabbing other people then sticking poles in their shoulders like flags and stabbing them over 50 times AND a bullet wound to the head, hands and tongues removed. None of which was explained to my satisfaction. He caught both killers, and of course his mum got the ashy goo in herself, ran into a burning car and died the death of a hero. Don't make the mistake of thinking the hero "John Cleaver" is the hero because he seems just as likely to kill his friends for no reason as to kill someone deserving. He seems very psychotic.

He has "dreams" of embalming his girl'friend'.  Real normal reading for a teen. Very social misfit who thinks he's only killing to rid the world of monsters. Give me S.King at least he sets better examples. Good is good. Bad is bad. No in between. Didn't find it "Brilliant" altho "creepy" is a nice description on the cover.

SAIL by James Patterson *****

Yard sale find for me. Good one too. Keeps you turning pages relentlessly. It's actually a quite simple story told very well and not long winded. There isn't a word there that's not necessary to forwarding the story line. I so wish more authors knew how to do this.

Great beach read, for bedtime, between other heavy duty reading, whatever. I'm not going to say it was intellectually stimulating or anything but if you like to read -this book goes hard and fast. The ending I wish was a little more punishing for the perp (court-wise) but he does get what he deserves.

DRY ICE by Bill Evans & M. Jameson ***

Some parts of this weather control story are very technical and boring. Then there's a story about some woman in the country killed by a storm with her animals while we are left wondering WTF and never get a reason for that when it takes place. I guess I'm supposed to connect dots at the end. Not sure.

A maniac Simpson, controls a weather facility in Antarctica and he manipulates everything in the software so IF he happens to be replaced all hell will break loose and there's no way to stop it. The hackers hired on at the same location can't stop it. The new boss, Tess can't stop it. The whole time I wonder why a plug or energy line can't be pulled/shut off and take the damn thing offline and it's over. I still don't understand why that wasn't reasonable. Meanwhile  tornados, earthquakes, floods, ice melts and all sorts of weather havoc are killing families of people he doesn't like along with a million others.

The president gets involved and the most reasonable end would be take out the facility (some reason they can't). Lots of reasons why things "can't" be done meanwhile instead of killing a few people at the facility millions are dying everywhere else. Has some sort of happy ending. Wonder how the other countries are dealing with that. Like Israel which was sort of bumped off the map.

The only thing scary about this is that it's probably likely someone DOES and IS controlling aspects of our weather. Instead of global warming it's more likely to be global tampering. Many other countries are in this race as well as the US. Otherwise I didn't find it very good story telling in the beginning nor the end. The middle was so-so.

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by S.J. Watson *****

Very good writing, tense and page turning. Woman has no memory due to an "accident" she doesn't remember and needs to be told over and over daily what her life is like, where she lives who she is etc. She begins to keep a diary and gets a doctor without her husband's knowledge and as she begins to write and reread the journal things about her life become more and more peculiar. She discovers a lot of lies being told to her etc. Oddly enough the dangerous life she is now leading is what cures her.

Psychological thriller. Enjoyable reading, good descriptions, nice confusion of events. Just why wasn't anyone trying to find her? At all? Abandoned to fate I suppose. Even her doctor should have been looking for her records and had more information about her past than he did.

The KNOWLEDGE of GOOD & EVIL by Glenn Kleier ***

I'm not really into religion, god or any manifestations of novels depicting such but if you like that sort of fantasy this is surely the book for you. Takes a guy who wants to visit hell and heaven with priests trying to kill him to protect the church's secrets. Not a bad read if you're into that sort of thing.

I found it sort of bogged down in repetition, but the characters were ok. Most depicted well, and with their own personalities. Angela...well she sticks by her man way beyond what's healthy for a normal woman. But that's my opinion. You're entitled to your own.

The VAULT by Boyd Morrison ***

Its sure a lot of book to read. There's every death imaginable; gunshots, falling, drowning, boiling, being blown up, belt bombs, phosphorescence bombs, people turning to gold by the Mida's touch, I think car accident was covered as well. Involved are the mafia, some language expert, engineers, Greek manuscripts and more.

People are forced by having relatives kidnapped into doing whatever the evil characters have in mind, which is finding Midas' tomb and taking home all the gold and the "disease" that causes whatever is touched to turn to gold.  Only thing missing are aliens, spacecraft and zombies. JK. Lots of chasing, involving cars, running, etc. I forgot to mention how someone wants to radioactivate the world and blame it on muslims -the villain of the month.

Took me a long time to read it. So much going on it's not easy to keep up with it all. People held for ransom blown up, survive, others think they're doing stuff to keep them alive and 2 factions after the Mida's touch thing. Never sure of anyone's true motives here and it's somewhat overdone but not the worst book I ever read. Give yourself a lot of time to get thru it tho.

TOYS by James Patterson ***

A strange futuristic tale about robots and humans. The robots were created by the humans for labor and took over parts of cities eliminating humans. Some guy in the middle of these robots with no clue finds out he's really human and he goes back and forth from being a robot to a human and from being in love with his fake wife Lizbeth and kids to his friend/sister Lucy. Some toy dolls are invented with evil intent and you gotta read it yourself and decide what you think.

I thought it was sort of shallow, confusing in some areas, like we never really know what 7-4 means and we never saw how he was born and why he has no memory of his childhood as a human. Where did he finally end up changing into an Elite figure who knows. I read it all and have about 100 questions, which isn't a good sign.

The SIXTH MAN by David Baldacci *****

Fast moving, lots of characters to learn but worth it. There's FBI, and alleged serial killer genius who needs a lawyer, Sean King and his girlfriend Michelle Maxwell. Things get confused and more confused with the gov't against people working for the gov't. Traitors and egos bigger than the planet.

Takes some work keeping people in your head but after awhile it gets easier. It was a good story, well told, no leftover questions and satisfying ending. Good reading.

YOU BELIEVERS by Jane Bradley *

Keep on walking, nothing to see here.
Bunch of professional rambling in between nothing going on.
Some girl gets kidnapped or something, it's hard to tell- then the kidnappers are in a kitchen rambling on about whatever and at the end of the chapter you learn kidnapped girl ran off. I think. Not sure cuz I began to skim thru quickly. I was bored to tears.

There is so much explaining, describing, going back to birth stories, of everyone. Just really dead. Anything else would be more interesting. The encyclopedia for example. Momma this grandmomma that. Egads. Could not finish I was too bored. Hated it.

FORBIDDEN by T.Dekker & T. Lee ***

It's readable. It's futuristic or mythological however you want to see it. Story about life without what the heart of life is, sort of dead people going thru the motions of living but mostly about the wealthy inheritors and their battle for control of the world. 5 people drink some blood and spend a bit of time 'feeling' emotions. Lack of emotions is called the Order and most people rigidly follow along altho you don't really see any day to day of people's lives.

Of course I don't like books without an ending and this one you need to read more- this is a series "The Books of Mortals" and there's a lot of repetition which is another thing I don't really like. Expect love, death, carrying hearts around, headless corpses, battle for supremacy and stuff like that.

Your call if you like series-type mythological stuff or not. I'm not on that bandwagon. I esp. hate the non ending. I read 376 pages with the expectation I would 'get somewhere'. Didn't really happen.