👶: Red, White & Royal Blue, by Caset McQuiston

I truly love reading all genres, this just wasn't my bailiwick. I very rarely DNF books, but I just had to call it quits with this one after reading 2/3 of it. And it's not for the reason you may think, so don't @ me! It had absolutely nothing to do with who was in the relationship at all. It was the salacious manner in which the book was written in general. Once they discovered they liked each other, every other scene was an open-door sex scene, and I'm just not into that, no matter who is involved. There was little focus on plot development and too much focus on open-door spice. Close the damn door🙈! On top of that, every other word was F or F-ing when discussing the deed, and I'm just not there. I know plenty of others loved it, so if open-door spice with a litany of obscenities is your thing, more power to you! Call me old school, call me a prude, but thank you, next.

Read 11/15/23

👶 Till Human Voices Wake Us, by Patti Davis

I felt as though the author may have attempted to tackle too many heavy subjects at once. The traumatic death of her child along with the predictable crumbling of her marriage leading to a love relationship with her sister-in-law would've sufficed for a novel with substance. Unfortunately, she felt it necessary to throw in the main character's depressing childhood along with her mother's incurable cancer, and people losing their homes to drought fires (really...); there was just too much to digest. With so much tragedy, one would assume the reader would feel some emotion, but aside from the pit in my stomach as the child's death was described, the rest of the novel did not move me at all.

Perhaps a reason for this detachment is the fact that their lives were so unrealistic. The women would spend their days in bed w/each other, & their evenings watching their daughter play in the ocean. Apparently once you marry into wealth, you never have to work again, even after a divorce and a subsequent commitment to someone else?! Call me ignorant, but I just don't see how one family member working at a women's shelter would afford the type of lifestyle they lived in Malibu.

I also became weary of the melodramatic scenes of these two maudlin lovers and had to roll my eyes more than once. It often read like a romance novel... which I just can't stomach. To boot, the plot line was flimsy at best, and I didn't connect with any of the under-developed characters.

Most annoying of all was the main character's countless rhetorical questions. Ugh! A true disappointment.

Read 7/23/13

👶 The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey

In an effort to give sci-fi a chance, I chose this book because of its rave reviews on both Goodreads and Amazon. Unfortunately, I have to admit, it was just not my cup of tea. Despite my fondness for Dystopian novels, I had a very hard time with suspension of disbelief as I read this novel about alien invasion. My intrigue with Dystopian novels lies in the fact that they are within the bounds of possibility, albeit a very frightening possibility.

Despite what seems to be an interesting premise, the book wasn't very captivating until perhaps the last quarter. In addition, the heroin quickly turns into a dewy-eyed sap over every tall, dark, and handsome male character. Although one would assume that such swooning would be an integral part of every young adult novel out there, such nonsense isn't necessary in strong character-driven novels, regardless of the audience. The characters and relationships weren't even developed enough to make the "teen love" believable.

Furthermore, it is evident that this alien species is fully capable of destroying the entire human race in one fell swoop, so the whole idea of dragging it out in waves seems absurd. To boot, later in the book, we learn that the aliens are pure consciousness, so if that is the case, why would they need a planet to live in? Once I read that crucial bit of information, the story became even more jejune, in my opinion - there was no point to their invasion!

Read 7/15/13

👶 The All of It, by Jeannette Haien

However lyrical this book may be, there was just no story to speak of, no point, really. The plot was thin, at best, the characters under-developed; the "big secret" was predictable and revealed too early on. Because I was not even given a chance to care for the characters before the climax was reached, it left me hoping for more substance. I even assumed that perhaps there was one more big secret, but alas, that was indeed "the all of it"...

Read 10/12

👶 Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

There is truly no "magic in how this story unfolds". I think the author's description of the book is extraordinarily misleading since this is a tragic, horrific story that has no "magic" in it whatsoever. In addition, I had no desire to tell everyone about it, as the author claims. Once the "life-changing event" is revealed, the rest of the book was fairly uneventful. I never became attached to any of the characters, despite really wanting to love Little Bee. The way the affair began was completely implausible; Sarah's ability to quickly carry on with her affair despite her husband's recent death is unrealistic, as is her willingness to return to a place that was so dreadful, with her own child. Finally, Lawrence's treatment of this child as his peer is also unconvincing.

Read 8/12

👶 Vinegar Hill, by A. Manette Ansay

I had such high expectations for this book, if for no other reason than the fact that it was on Oprah's list. Unfortunately, I was terribly disappointed, and ended up reading a lackluster novel. It was an interesting concept to explore (Catholic guilt meets quasi-feminism), but a true resolution was never realized, and the characters were never fully developed.

Read 9/30/10

👶 Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, by Robert James Waller

This was yet another predictable story about people being unhappy in their own lives, and then struggling against all odds not to fall into bed with one another. The author focused too often on bodily pleasures instead of focusing on a thicker plot line. Having said this, this genre is Waller's forte, so I should've been prepared for such.

Read 9/10

👶 The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt

This was a very long read, filled with pointless imagery and non-stop chatter. It leads one to believe that the mystery can be solved by the end. However, after muddling through it, one is left unsatisfied. There was so much left unexplained, so many threads left hanging... It seems as though the author just got bored, left several characters undeveloped, and ended it without any thought. Disappointing!

Read 2/10

👶 Heat Wave, by Penelope Lively

This was a difficult read, primarily due to the redundancy in the descriptions. I will take the author's lead and say this in another way: there was just too much extraneous detail. I was ready to put the book down several times because I read so many descriptions of landscapes. It truly left me exhausted just waiting for the author to get to the point! Furthermore, though I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual, some of the vocabulary was just plain frustrating and unnecessary.

Read 7/09

👶The Measure of a Man, by Sidney Poitier

Unfortunately, this book fell short of my high expectations. Poitier confuses the reader as he jumps back and forth between times periods in his life. It was next to impossible to envision an accurate time line, and there was unnecessary repetition to boot. Unimpressed:-(. Tremendous actor, sub-par author.

Read 3/30/09