Friday, January 31, 2014

The THINKING WOMAN'S GUIDE TO REAL MAGIC by Emily Croy Barker

This sounded interesting but it's very self indulgent fantasy and boring as all hell. Nora
wanders lost in the woods meets a woman, Ilssa and her mind is suddenly clouded all the time, or she's drunk. One day she has a long gown and is at a party the next day she has short hair and is traveling to another party where Ilssa's son proposes to her. This is all I can stands cuz I can't stands no more. DONE. You have to be about thirteen to even want to read this piece of crap.  Love to know who she's screwing to get this junk published and all the praise crap on the back, it's just a hollow stupid book. Other writers are the ones praising her book. It totally sucks. Sorry dear that your friends lied to you. They lie like rugs.

DEXTER"S FINAL CUT by Jeff Lindsay *****

As always edge of the seat reading. So hard to put down I can't let go of the book to fall asleep. Dexter meets a Hollywood movie star, falls in a Dexter-type love really infatuated with the hotel food and the high quality booze. He gets a small part with a few lines. While this is going on, there's a pedophile on the set, the Hollywood star is being stalked.

Dexter does death to the person he feels is responsible for scaring his new star. He is on duty protecting her and when he's not Deb fills in. He totally ignores the real family he is committed to and thinks it's too mundane for him. So of course Rita who can't finish a sentence is quieted. Astor gets herself in a pickle with another movie star and this is trouble all around. Dex seems immobile and not up to his usual par allowing his girlfriend to be killed and then gets conked on the head by Astor's new "boyfriend."

Instead of moving into a new house with the family everything he touches turns to shit and he's got to face up to what he's now responsible for. Just the perfect book for Dexter lovers and fast paced, you hardly want to put it down altho some of Dex's inner thinking gets a little repetitive and boring, probably meant to add pages but you can zip through them quickly enough to encounter more good stuff. Great reading. Nice character built up and either you like or hate em, whatever Jeff wants.

I would buy it. Really good reading.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

UNLEASHED by David Rosenfelt ****

I enjoyed the story line pretty much, I wasn't crazy about sometimes using first names then in the following chapter using last names, but aside from that it was easy to follow the basics. The story flowed nicely. Most of the characters were well developed but there were a LOT of people. I sort of went "bad", "good" and tried to keep that in order in my head. It's difficult to read a book over days and remember so many people. It's hard when you read yourself to sleep, the next morning I had to begin a chapter over again to remember who was good, bad or ugly.

In the end someone was faking being someone's wife and I had no clue what was going on there. Who told her to act like the wife? Did the guy have a wife? Did he know she was posing as his wife? Wasn't he dead? Where was the real wife? I mean I tried to keep track of people but very often they got lost like that.

Story is a mystery involving a female cop, her attorney husband, and a couple friends. They have to solve the problem because other people they keep wanting to talk to end up dead before they get a chance to talk to them or after for having spoken to them so they know the framework is a big one. I still don't understand what all the trading off of money from people to banks to another bank etc. was about. Left me in the dark there, made it seem like the story was chopped in half. Half for the money being moved around and half for the mystery of dead people. Trying not to give anything away here.

It was basically well written with some 'what the hells' I would get it at the library.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

GONE by James Petterson & Company ***

The story was mildly interesting, but not what I like to read. Gangs, killings, hiding Michael Bennets extended brood of adopted kids. He leaves them to go chasing a killer he has a personal issue with. He apparently caught Perrine once and he escaped. So he's off chasing him down again.

Quite a few red herrings, or twists that's supposed to keep you from being bored. One of the FBI agents (supposedly) gets kidnapped by the bad people who want to know where Bennet is hiding his family and nanny, her name is Agent Mara. As soon as someone lays a hammer down on her elbow she's squealing like a little pig where she believes the children are being stashed. Does she not know that no matter what she does or says she will be killed? She's a frickin FBI agent. Apparently without any negotiating skills, no survival skills (she got caught right?), no loyalty skills and no brain. Soon as she begins vomiting out information they kill her. NO DUH. Did she think she'd remain alive after the torture? Isn't she an FBI agent with a brain in her head? Guess not. Must be tiny brain.

She rats out the family and they kill her. They also kill some innocent priest, I'm not sure if it's the one who helped the family or the one who spouted his god crap in the town. Why is religion shoved in my face? Why? I don't like that. So only 3 little stars. Get through it all you atheists, Buddhists and agnostics. Good for the soul. LOL

HOW AMUSING IS IT THAT I PICK A BOOK CALLED "GONE" AND READ ONE RIGHT BEFORE THIS CALLED "FOUND"???? LOL

Sunday, January 19, 2014

FOUND by H.Terrell Griffen **

I found this difficult to start. There are a lot of names, some of the names are also aliases. Talk about confusing. I pretty much felt lost thru the entire book. One person in the book was written in the first person the rest was not.

Some guy, I guess J.D.'s boyfriend Matt, whoever the hell he is and why he is, I don't know. He has "friends" in high places. Like someone in the government, a spook, I suppose, named Jock. Jock secretly has a case going on amidst the torture of the rest of the story. Most non-essential personnel in the story end up dead, dying or about to die and it's pretty much for no reason I can fathom. It's like a mysterious reason they all die over paperwork from WWII. I don't GAS about WWII. I don't GAS about elderly men fighting over money and hiding it or gambling it or selling drugs with it. Most of the major plot was forgettable FOR ME. I totally picked up a book that sounded interesting and something I'd like only to find it was a maze.

So how many times did J.D. ask why and where Katies body was? On pg. 69 she asks "any theories what happened to her body?" on page 70 J.D. says "so what happened to the body? Any ideas?" I bet you could get drunk every time Katie's missing body was mentioned at least through the first half the book. The rest of the book you could get even drunker over every unnecessary dead person. It's all a mystery to me, even finishing the book who did what to whom and why. It needed almost two chapters to explain how everyone was related and who had reason to kill someone else. So confusing I'm dizzy.

Don't attempt to read this to fall asleep because you'll totally forget everyone and their connections. It's a nightmare.

Monday, January 13, 2014

WORK DONE FOR HIRE by Joe Haldeman ****

This was a quick read and very interesting. A writer is given a submachine gun or something similar, to use as a sniper rifle and he has no idea who he's meant to kill but it seems the invisible killers want him in DC. There is no way that anyone could have followed him in the manner and to the extent he was followed all the time. He never told anyone but his girlfriend where he was or where they were going. I didn't like that throughout the entire book. No explanation, even at the end. Reason for only 4 stars.

While the writer in the story is working on a horror novel/movie deal this whole charade begins. His girlfriend is eventually kidnapped, he walks into the house where she is and the publisher guy is there as a hostage not as the director at all. Another reason only 4 stars.

You get to read his short monster story which was weirdly interesting, the rest will keep you waiting for unanswered questions unless you're not a curious person.
Not bad. Not great.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

FIRST PHONE CALL FROM HEAVEN by Mitch Albom ***

I was ok with reading this, but it was so monotonous that sometimes I didn't feel like finishing it but I did for the ending. I wanted to see how it ended.

Several people from town get phone calls allegedly from friends or relatives who passed away. The voice was truly the voice of each caller. Eventually this little town makes headlines all over the world for the phone calls from the dead. Very few words were spoken. This is where it became repetitious for me. The words spoken are supposedly coming from heaven were simple sentences, like "tell everyone" and "I am happy so don't worry" and this is the entire book.

One guy who lost his wife and ended up in jail right afterwards, but served less than a year I think. He doesn't get any phone calls and spends a lot of time trying to discover the person fooling everyone. He succeeds but does hear from his wife.

People who heard from a dead person all ended up happier for the experience even tho it was a hoax. It was done in the spirit of helping people.

I thought the story line was ok, but think doubt would be a lot more prevalent than it was in the book. It's a small book, goes quickly, it's not horrid or anything. I just wasn't crazy about it. What do you think?




Wednesday, January 8, 2014

LIFETIME by Liza Marklund ****

This is written by a Scandinavian. Not sure but the names of people and towns are real winners for the "pronounce it" test.
Things weird: a phone in the bathroom; on page 44 'she looked her colleagues in the eye.' That would take real talent to look an entire room full of people in the eye. One eye. Not multiple eyes.; Tears were burning in her throat. Really? Not in her eyes? Hmmmm; a cop sent digital and hard copy photos to journalists. I think nowadays most people don't need or use hard copy photos, they use digitals in the newspapers. So why would anyone waste time passing out hard copies of photos? That's a waste of trees.

Ok so basically the story had a couple themes going on. One was a multiple murderer who killed someone shooting his junk and stole his 4 yr old kid leaving the wife to take the blame for it all. No one thought the child was alive. The wife ended up so freaking mental she really needed psychotropic drugs. She was of course found guilty. When the real serial killer was loose. Now this serial killer was unexplained as far as why she killed some of the other people she murdered. Why? So there are a lot of unanswered questions.

I thought Annika and Anne being on the same page a few times was distracting, in the beginning I couldn't differentiate them. So Annika's husband is leaving, he left the same day someone (do we ever know who or why?-no) burned her house down. Someone from another book I suppose. One I didn't read.

There are way too many sausages in the story. Hated the sausages. Isn't there anything else to eat in Scandinavia? Why not get hooked on Spam or something like that. Are these people all heart attack candidates or what? At least they don't drink friggin tea all the time, coffee drinkers. Yay. I was so so on the book. The story line was confusing, the many themes added to the confusion with newspapers losing jobs, union things, friends getting in to arguments, love triangles, geez the whole thing was stifling to read but I slogged thru it. You can too. If I can do it you can! Have fun. :)

Friday, January 3, 2014

STRESS TEST by Dr. Richard Mabry

I read the reviews and that's all I needed to know I would despise the book. Religious mumbo jumbo. I do not need to be told about someone's crap they "believe" in. GTH.
This Christian crap is creeping into our society like a frickin swine flu. 

Buh bye don't let the door ... and all that.

NO STARS

DUST by Patricia Cornwell *****

Large book and good reading. Not as much angst as the last one but I'd really like more murder details than inner blahblah. I would recommend buying it. Scarpetta is not quite the prom/drama queen of the last book so it's an improvement.

Page 450 a boy watches his mom bathe he's wearing a cast on his arm. This is 3 days before his mom dies and he vanishes. Next page Kay/Benton wonder how the kid with broken arm killed his mother, the verbal response from Scarpetta was she didn't want to call "his" mom again and ask. IS SHE NOT DEAD? DID SHE NOT DIE?? I don't get those pages.
What happened to kid with cast? huh?

Everyone seems much more balanced, Kay, Benton, Lucy and Marino. I read murder mysteries mostly for the murders and details and the thrill of the chase. This book doesn't really fit in that category. Only ONE murder is dissected to any degree really and the chase wasn't really shared with the reader. WHY. WHY THE HELL did Granby a cop or head of some agency become so involved with a killer? PLEASE TELL ME. Geez. Leaving unsatisfied.

I gave it 5 stars, I liked it but she's not one of my top 10 favorite writers for a reason.