BRIDGET JONES, Mad About The Boy by Helen Fielding ****

I was burning pages I was reading so fast. Each page doesn't really contain many words, lots of space between some paragraphs it's a fast read for sure. So there were some times I was in bed trying to read before falling asleep and I began giggling because Bridget is so "duh" about things in general. I like the stupid sex scenes with her boy toy as Americans call them not the other way round "toy boys"? What is that? Robot?

The killing of her husband was pretty slick, writer is one trick pony. She does stupid sex, wanting sex, watching other couples and wishing for sex, while superficial friendships abound. Didn't like the dead husband angle (killing off Mark Darcy) much the story goes from widowhood to fucking a tween half her age. Again she falls in love or is it lust?  If the original Mark died we are OVER being in love, and dripping for sex are we not? Isn't there something else we are supposed to learn about Bridget aside from sex? What was marriage like? I made this up to keep last names in order for high school tests: "Romeo and Juliet a Montague and Capulet, both are lovers never to see what living together would really be." by ME.  Story is the same old same old. Just like reading the first one over again. Author says she has "moved on" from the first marriage angle of the book but then goes and continues it all over again in this one. Same shit different names.

So there are terms which are incomprehensible: "Spagbog"? HUH??? Sounds like something coming out the rear end of a dog but they eat it. Then we have "sledging"? Which IRL is sledding? Duh. I guess they can shag on their sledges then, no?  How can Bridget fit '2 sledges and children INSIDE her car? Would that be a sledge HAMMER?? What kind of sledges are we talking about? Little saucer type things? Regular size sleds? WTF? Maybe she drives a Hummer or something. When going sledging why does one wear goggles? WTF is that all about? Gee I wish I knew English. (So glad the tea went into Bahston Habah.)

Here's a nice indecipherable sentence for all you Americans out there "I haven't got any summer events to go to or a fascinator." Pray tell what the fuck is a fascinator? Fastener? Like a snap or zipper? What the fuck? A huge battery operated dick? Fascinator?

So if you slide or glide over the Queens English pretending you understand, it's a quick funny read and I might suggest buying but try library first. The entire time I pictured Rene Zellweger in the role so it was good for me but nothing new but 2 children.

The CURIOSITY by Stephen P. Kiernan *****

This is a really good read with some twists and turns. I had a hard time putting it down. A guy is discovered in "hard ice" and a crew of scientists want to see if they can reanimate him out of the ice as they have done with shrimp and krill. But the lower life forms have a life expectancy of a few minutes so making this frozen ice guy live for longer than a month is a question no one can answer till the end of the book and the ending is a little ambiguous. A reasonable cure is found to keep him alive but he rides off into the sunset on a boat with his newly screwed scientist crying on shore.

Now for one thing the author gets into what this guy is eating way too late for me. Also they NEVER find one living relative. Now his wife had a family and so did he I would think unless all parents, brothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents of both wife/husband are all dead. Sort of unrealistic in that respect. So I was unhappy with that aspect of the story.

The fact this mega intelligent scientist Philo (weird name) screws him is another matter because he's from the early 1900s and has a different outlook on easy carefree sex so I don't think in my wildest dreams he would be fucking her. And WTF is she doing by screwing the experiment? Sure he's human etc so lets find some RELATIVES for heaven's sake and go screw someone else that's not 100 yrs old and newly reanimated, k? Desperate much?

Otherwise I thought it was fascinating and unique for a book idea and it was well written with characters you felt you knew. I recommend the book, and even go buy it.

HUNTING EVE by Iris Johansen **

Man another dose of sleeping pills here. It's so much talking, thinking, doing of nothing, like filler for a pillow with very little story line. In a nutshell Eve still has to make a sculpture of some raving lunatics son. The end.

Page 299 "No one protects anyone but Eve." OMG she is all that and a bag of chips. On the cover is some body holding a gun yet Eve never has killed anyone, she's mostly wimpy and always in jeopardy making everyone else around her risk their lives to save her. The end was an explosion and oh my god Eve was in the building when it happened...could she...really....could she be....I only wish...could she be dead???? LOL

NO ENDING. THE END. Another one.

TAKING EVE by Iris Johansen ***

Wow, my precious precious Eve gets nabbed by a maniac who (hahahaha) wants her to sculpt his dead murderous son's head. I can't help laughing thru most of this book. Girl talks to feral cats, dogs living longer than supposed to, CIA and FBI morons hiding criminals because of some stupid tapes Doane/Haller(?) uses for blackmail but the CIA can't get them altho they are hiding him in a safe house. From the safe house he kidnaps poor Eve who is beloved by her ghost daughter, her boyfriend or husband Joe, her adopted daughter plain Jane, Margret, Caleb who is so addictive to Jane she creams her jeans over him all the time but is scared of him at the same time.

People do NOT talk as portrayed in the book, it makes everything so childish and inane. It's like watching a movie and just before anyone gets shot they have time to spill their guts, then something switches order and the guy gets arrested. Like TV drama shows. So dramatic all thru the book, "She whirled on Venable (CIA), and said fiercely, 'It could have been Eve damn you Venable. Joe said you know more about this than you're telling him. You talk to us.'" LOL

Most of the characters are either so good they wear angel halos or so bad and cunning they can kill with the thrill of a hunter. This whole thing is unbelievable. Literally. Don't like it much I think it's for teenagers or something. Not for adults that's for sure.

This book has no ending you must buy or borrow the next book to see what happens. Drama, drama, drama and all the queens you need. I shall continue on the second book cuz like an idiot I picked it up with this one. Reading till I get to the library again. Woe is me. There is no ending to this book, must be the same publisher for Robin Cook.
NO ENDING. THE END.

W IS FOR WASTED BY Sue Grafton **

::Yawn:: I don't know what it is about this novel that was terribly boring for me. Could have been the dozens of characters involved, a bunch of names to memorize, or the descriptions of people's lives from birth onwards in some cases. I didn't really have a cohesive picture in my head of anyone but Henry, the cat and Kinsey. But I've read a lot of her novels and maybe that's why the 2 humans stood out.

On page 306 she has a flat tire that has been punctured on the side near the rim. Now that happened to me as well and no mechanic can "fix" that, you need a new tire. Tires can only be fixed by a plug if the hole is on the part riding on the road.

At the end Kinsey ends up with one of her "relatives" moved in with Henry and we never see the end of that. I have NO CLUE why that girl, Anna, was in the novel at all. WhyTF did she move in with Henry and WTF was her purpose for being there at all? She was a hastily sketched person with barely a personality and I can't see why she followed Kinsey home. WTF???

For such a large book the story had a lot of time to WASTE before hinting at the very slow moving story line. So I can see where the title came from. WASTE of paper. Was a fan, thinking of moving on. I just didn't get it with all the stupid characters, drunks, bums, doctors, research, bad medicine, nothing showing up in the autopsies not even the bad drug that supposedly killed 3 people. So I'm just gonna go hit up the grand marnier and get myself wasted cuz this was over bearing boredom FOR ME.

CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE by Owen Laukkanen ****

Very fast paced novel about a wealthy man who can't afford his lifestyle so he tries out robbing banks. What is sort of a disappointment is that when he does all these banks there are no dye packs involved. Like huh? Everytime?

He has a new secretary, a teenager who has a boyfriend and she somehow knows exactly the people to call for guns, ammo and where drug dealers live and play poker. She's inappropriately hired as his secretary? Why and what skills does she have minus the criminal activities? Funny how she just works for the wealthy guy who is into robbing banks now and she has all the creds of an ex con.

The more the criminal, Carter Tomlin, robs and kills the happier he gets about doing it. With no apparent skills in this department he spontaneously decides to rob an armored car a couple times, no planning or anything. Once in the morning when there probably isn't ANY money in the truck. It's a little preposterous. So I could only give it 4 stars. Mr bad guy gets shot in the gut yet manages to kidnap a BCA's daughter and run around like that in the mall of America shooting his way towards her while bleeding to death. Then at the end he survives, big surprise there. He got shot driving an SUV away with gunfire behind him where he shoved the BCA's daughter who didn't get a scratch on her yet the truck was filled with gunshots from the rear. Another unreal scenario.

I did like the fast pace, some of the characters, I liked FBI Agent Windermere and almost liked Stevens who was the BCA but he was kind of wishy washy. The story, altho full of flaws for me was pretty good reading, just turn off most of your credibility and read away.

The DOLL by Taylor Stevens ****

After chapter one which is loaded with names it becomes the start of a story. It's about a couple people who are well trained with guns etc. and the female Vanessa Michael Monroe gets kidnapped and is threatened by the "Doll man" to deliver Neeva, a movie star,or something similar from one place to another. They are holding her Michael/Monroe's brother for collateral. Why the criminals don't use their own skilled shooting bunch of thugs I have no clue. That really wasn't believable but continuing on. There's a lot of fights, murder, blood and gore. I still don't know why they'd hire a female who is uncontrollable in the long run and they KNOW she's going to hate the assignment and kill his people. So Duh?

I thought it was fast paced enough, the female's boyfriend Bradford has to find the hostages all the time so Michael/Monroe can kill the abductors. During about half the book the protagonist is called Michael (who was made up to look like a guy-again why?) then all of a sudden author decides she's not Michael anymore and begins calling her Monroe. So confusing I had to go back pages and pages to see who the fuck Monroe was.

Apparently this is a character the author writes about again and again there are  more books with her brave antics. It's not an easy book to stop reading because of the fast pace but at other times you want to laugh at the "bad" guy who dresses up his kidnapped females in doll clothes. So this is about human trafficking and more missing kids are hidden away that Michael/Monroe has to free. Etc etc etc.

Not bad reading, not great reading so get it at the library.

REVIVER by Seth Patrick ****

This was sort of different. Some people, I suppose it's the future, can awaken the recently deceased under certain circumstances and revive them to ask who killed them if murder is suspected. Or someone needs closure in the relationship etc.

There were too many people for me. Just so many names and weird ones at that, "Never" that's a guy's name so sometimes you think the word never starts off a sentence but no...it's the guy.  So Jonah Miller is one of the revivers and he keeps hearing weird background voices when he's reviving someone and he begins to believe there is an evil spirit that wants to exit his dormancy in the "other world" so to speak.

There are several different agencies at work, some people want to control the other world guy, there are theories about who or what it is and some want it not to survive transference permanently into a living body. That would mean the person sacrifices him/herself to the other spirit. There's so many people involved I had a difficult time keeping it all separated. I have to sleep sometime and when I start up the book again--forget it. Confused all over again.

I sort of liked the idea of "revivers" but the evil spirit showing up is the major story and I didn't really care about much of that. I would get it at the library.

ALEX by Pierre Lemaitre ***

Well I read the entire book, finding a lot of passages to skip over. The writer gets carried away with descriptive long boring passages about the character. There is a writing rule: Show don't Tell. He does a lot of telling and it's boring as all hell. Aside from that....

The story was interesting, it had a nice number of murders and they seemed unconnected until the end. There are twists and turns as you continue reading to the end. That part I enjoyed but it could have been done a little quicker without all the boring what someone is thinking about someone else. The main detective is like 4'11" and the writer never lets you forget it. It's in almost every chapter how he's "disabled" due to his height. There's a little Columbo in there, with the short Commandant Camille (female name, but a guy). He walks around and suddenly something occurs to him and bang he solved something about the case.

The killer is very interesting and has a lot of problems. I think the story is ok. It's translsated copy from a French writer who was a literature proff. Still I think he could cut down on the descriptive narratives and make a better tighter story, this is too loose and you lose interest here and there.

The LEVIATHAN EFFECT by James Liliefors ***

The first thing I have to get out of the way is how difficult this book is to get into. There are so many people in the beginning along with acronyms and agencies. Every page up to about page 50 you have new people or whatever to learn about and he doesn't take anything you may already know for granted, he explains all details so by the time you get to page 50 you want to stop reading the damn book. But hang in there because if you just skim over the crap you'll finally enter the story.

This is about weather control and it's an interesting concept. So you have the lead characters, I would give them equal weight really, Catherine Blaine and Charles Mallory. They try to find information about what the hell is going on because someone is sort of black mailing the president to stop a hurricane developing in the Atlantic ocean. It's loaded with murder and false leads, and real ones. I didn't mind it after I waded thru the beginning but the acronyms continue throughout the novel and it gets tedious.

If you like a semi-realistic scenario and murder and chasing and solving the crises type of story this one is ok. Not on my top ten list but wasn't bad enough to replace with another book. Fair.