The writing is spot on, I must admit. It held my attention, lost it, and then snatched it right back up. However, that's about all it has going for2.5
The writing is spot on, I must admit. It held my attention, lost it, and then snatched it right back up. However, that's about all it has going for it. The characters are so...boring. I had so many questions for the relationship between Micah and Janie how they stayed friends, why hey stayed friends...I just...didn't get any of it. Also the pacing is off. I had no clue what I was reading, what I was supposed to understand. I loved how Zhang wrote this, I just wanted a little bit more information....more
Don't read this. If I could go back and unbuy this book and buy a different one, I would. Truly. This book starts off pretty awesome but quickly ends Don't read this. If I could go back and unbuy this book and buy a different one, I would. Truly. This book starts off pretty awesome but quickly ends up being petty and stupid. Seriously. Like just go watch Pretty Little Liars or something because those shows have better plots than this one. ...more
Look, let's just get straight to the point. Was I mad by the end of this book? Not quite. Did I still have a lot of questions, like how some loser conLook, let's just get straight to the point. Was I mad by the end of this book? Not quite. Did I still have a lot of questions, like how some loser conned more than two dozen people into giving him pretty much everything? Fuck yes. But more than that, I was disappointed. I felt so underwhelmed by every aspect of No Parking at the End Times, even during the parts where there should have been a lot of religious insight,fuck, any kind of insight, I got nothing. You're better off skimming a pamphlet on the 'New World' rather than read this book.
Why? Because nothing happens. And when something does happen, it's 77% into the book, where no shits are given anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love a good build-up, leaving room for nothing but suspense however this is ridiculous. And when you pair a boring book and awkward writing that's full of unnecessary words, well, the outcome isn't pretty. Moreover, for a novel that has so much on the Now, there's almost nothing on the Then part. The book is mostly surrounded on the decisions that Abigail's father has made and still making, how his mistakes have caused the family to lose greatly. So when I was reading and found close to nothing, honest to God, nothing on what made him switch gears and decide to listen to Brother John, I couldn't help but scream. Adding onto this, the characters aren't fleshed out. Abigail, I could understand for the most part because I could relate to her but only to a point. Halfway done, I stopped caring about her as well as the other characters. They just don't stick out, especially Brother John, who is supposed to be this magnificent man sent down from God. Obviously he's not but I did not see the appeal of him. He always gave generic answers, didn't read any fucking verses from the Bible despite always having it on hand, and all around, didn't even act like he was really into it. As a con artist you have to at least fake to have your heart in it, this guy gave no fucks. Now, does that sound like a man two relatively responsible adults with two children would give everything to? It doesn't to me, I still don't understand where Bliss was going with him.
Nonetheless, there are some mediocre things that I didn't mind. One of them being the Before chapters albeit short and mostly pointless because they tell only snippets of what happened, of how they got to California rather than giving the whole picture.
No Parking at the End Times might have been great since most books about the Rapture don't really go into after the 'event', only about two weeks later. What made me even more disappointed is the fact that the beginning is so good. Like, guys, it's so good. It's intense, mysterious, and exciting. I was giddy with pleasure (that died like two or three chapters later). Would I recommend this novel? No, like I said before, I got more information from a pamphlet, hell, even the damn internet than I did on the actual Rapture, or on anything religious. This should tell you something about how badly this book is written when I have to complain multiple times about the religion aspect of it. And I don't even like religion.
I am far too lazy to actually explain what's wrong with this book while reading only 8% of it. So, if you really wanna know, go r[image]
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I am far too lazy to actually explain what's wrong with this book while reading only 8% of it. So, if you really wanna know, go read Blythe's or Gillian's review.
The only way to describe this book is with a saying my friend, James says about certain art--It's a shitty painting with a really1.5/ Messed Up Clouds
The only way to describe this book is with a saying my friend, James says about certain art--It's a shitty painting with a really nice frame.
The idea for this book is really cool. It's all mysterious and enticing, however the actual work, is all over the place. There's insta-love and boring characters that literally have no lives except to hang out with Graham or talk about him. There are sisters that, honest to god, only compare each other and point out how different they are from one another. And on top of that, the writing is so unbelievably bad, half the time, I didn't know if I was reading the book as things were happening or as the characters reflected back on the shit that just happened. I just didn't know.
To make matters worse, this book tries so hard. It tries so hard to keep it interesting by changing up the POVs and adding random thingss here and there as well as adding a strange love triangle. However, despite the really nice frame (idea), a shitty painting will always be a shitty painting.
Bottom line, just skip this one. It's not worth it....more
Quite frankly, I've never been a fan of Lauren Barnholdt nor have I ever really enjoyed her books and I've read like three or four of them.
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Quite frankly, I've never been a fan of Lauren Barnholdt nor have I ever really enjoyed her books and I've read like three or four of them. Her books lack that realistic, raw feel that a teenager has during a relationship and in a romance. Her books are mostly fluff and toned down which infuriates me to no end. I'm not a fucking child. The audience for her stories are not fucking toddlers so I don't understand why she makes everything fluffy and light and boring. Through to You is the exact same as all of the others with the same problems. Barnholdt tries to make this one a bit more edgier with one of the main character's being very broken. Sadly, it doesn't work in her favour and by the end of the story, I felt disappointed and tired.
This story tries too hard, it really does. The story is typical-the good girl with a million phobias of anything fun falls for the bad boy who's biggest fan is trouble. It's annoying because the story is fluff, and the characters are underdeveloped. The main characters have rough problems, sure, but neither of them feel realistic and are mentioned off-handedly during the book which makes this book try to be important and moving. It's not. Furthermore, Harper is flat-out annoying, I had a very hard time caring for her and her problems. Adding on to that, the relationship between these two is odd. I found it hard to believe that after never feeling anything for a girl, (that wasn't sexual) Penn is flipping out over Harper and when they break up three weeks later, he's still obsessing over her and her every move in their shared class. Plus, there's close to nothing about Harper that seemed it would make Penn care about her even weeks after they break up. I'm sorry, but no.
Well, at least the cover matches the characters more. Also, the writing is all right in the middle of the story, the descriptions are mediocre but didn't bother me. I wasn't furious while reading this one like I was while reading The Thing About the Truth.
Through to You isn't as bad as some of Barnholdt's other novels, believe it or not. The beginning is confusing and dual perspectives isn't properly done, but I didn't feel overly angry while reading this one. However, I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone since the characters are not developed, the romance is forced and close to pointless, and the whole story is extremely predictable that I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it.
I've been on the swim team. My school is the official swimming pool in Toronto so I know how insane it can get with everyone needing to win
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I've been on the swim team. My school is the official swimming pool in Toronto so I know how insane it can get with everyone needing to win and swim and shit like that. In Deep had me excited. I rarely read books about swimming and whenever I do, I usually want it to be light and funny but with McVoy, I expected insanity, betrayal, love, and above all, victory. Can you believe what I got?
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Crap. If anything at all. There are contrived and stupid moments between Brynn and Gavin. Same with the betrayal between Brynn and Grier. All of it is fake and forced and stupid. Almost none of it makes sense and it tries so hard to be bold and thoughtful. Unfortunately it's not.
The beginning of the story is just one huge info-dump about useless crap. Brynn only cares about swimming but Terra McVoy doesn't explain her swimming or how she pushes off the wall, how she pushes herself further and all that stuff that would come along with something so meaningful. Instead, it's all, "Van made us do 4 250 of free, freestyle, breast, and butterfly. I did them all really well, I'm the best." It doesn't say or explain how she felt about it. Readers are forced to assume that she loves swimming with all of her life even though it feels fake. The characters are also underdeveloped and very forgettable. I didn't care about any of them, especially for their relationships between one another. With Brynn and Grier, their friendship is so fake, they have close to nothing in common except for swimming which Grier isn't even that thrilled about. And as far as the relationship between Brynn and Gavin goes...
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It's worse than two toddlers playing house for the first time. Nothing. It might be the worst romantic relationship I have ever read about. Not only are they shoved together with nothing in common except swimming, but it's done in a way that makes me feel absolutely nothing for them. They suck, their affair sucks, and their emotionless behaviours suck even more.
In Deep is a poorly written novel with close to nothing properly explained, weak characters and even weaker relationships. I don't recommend this book to anyone because it's too awful with no redeeming qualities....more
The worst kinds of books are the ones that start out promising and then just decide not to deliver anything good in the end. The S
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1.5 Stars
The worst kinds of books are the ones that start out promising and then just decide not to deliver anything good in the end. The Secrets of Lily Graves is that kind of book. It starts out pretty good, there's a creepy girl who likes to hang out in the cemetery and wear black all day with a dark sense of humour. The author could have made this novel fucking golden yet decided that she wanted an idiot main character who does stupid things because she's in love with a stupid boy. All in all, don't read this because you will be let down depending on how much you enjoy different main characters.
My first problem with this book is when Erin is dead. Not much details are told about it yet Lily somehow knows how she died. Lily also doesn't even suspect that Matt could be the killer, not even for s second because she knows him for a few months and that he never would do anything like that. This leads to my next problem with the novel-Lily. For someone so smart they're awfully stupid. I don't want to give anything away if you decide you may want to check this out but for fuck's sake, why would you stand there with incriminating evidence in your hands and then try to walk away with it in plain fucking sight when someone sees you? Do you not know how people work? Do you need a brain to understand that you run and then ask questions later before someone sees you? Stupid. I also had a problem with the romance because it feels extremely contrived and fake. The feelings Matt have for Lily feels too forced to be real and it didn't help that he says, "I'm so sorry. I won't let anything happen to you. I'll explain everything. I really, really like you," everything second her gets (which is every second he's in the story). Adding onto that, the pacing of the novel is slow and everything is boring, even when the killer is caught, things are resolved fairly quickly. The ending is actually kind of predictable and so is the killer if you actually think about it.
Although I didn't like this book as a whole, I did enjoy the sarcasm. It's funny, dark, and refreshing. Moreover, I liked that some things happen in the cemetery because it's quite a different scene and gives this book a bit of originality.
The Secrets of Lily Graves isn't the best mystery book. It's more about the forced romance than anything. Lily felt forced to solve the murder to me than actually doing it for a good reason. The police didn't even suspect her until she kept digging and she just met Matt, who cares about him. Overall, I don't recommend reading this unless you're in the mood for some good humour and nothing else....more
Feral is a story about two girls told in third person. This, right here, is my first problem with this book. Lately, a lot o
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1 Lonely Cloud.
Feral is a story about two girls told in third person. This, right here, is my first problem with this book. Lately, a lot of mystery/ thrillers are using third person which is great if you have a bunch of characters but Feral only has two. Two! More accurately, one and a half so there's no point for it. If the first thing about the novel pissed me off, can you imagine how many other things did also?
A lot, that's how many.
Not a lot happens in Feral, which makes it a half-assed novel in my books. Seriously, from 10/15% all the way to like, 85% it's all just boring high school crap. Moreover, the killer is beyond obvious. It's so obvious that my cat could have figured it out ! The second they come into the story, the author doesn't even try to hide who it is, instead, she leaves such obvious hints about it to make sure that everyone knows who it is. IN COMING SPOILER!
In addition to this unrealistic bullshit, Serena gets turned in a cat, (I'm assuming for the first time in her life) yet she gracefully knows how to walk and hiss and be a legit cat without ever stumbling, falling, freaking out, or anything at all that would even remotely suggest that she has no idea what she's doing as a cat. Ridiculous.
End of spoiler!
The characters are really forgettable and annoying. They barely do anything at all but complain. The whole town is boring. Nothing happens and then there are all of these random ass cats that doesn't even add the creepy feeling that Schindler is trying so fucking hard to achieve.
Somehow, however, I had managed to find a couple of nice/mediocre things this book has like Serena's perspective as a dead person is pretty cool at first. I also liked Claire's past and how big or a role it plays in the story.
Holly Schindler could have made Feral into a much better book if only she made it more realistic and all around more creative and suspenseful. I don't recommend this one to anyone because of how completely pointless it is....more
Poems are awesome and I love seeing them more and more in the novels I read. Poisoned Apples has a story that will connect with most people
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Poems are awesome and I love seeing them more and more in the novels I read. Poisoned Apples has a story that will connect with most people. I really liked some of the poems, especially the ones that are modernized retellings of some very classic tales like Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Beauty and the Beast. Overall, a fun, very short read that takes no time to finish at all.
Although for the most part, I liked this book, I didn't like how random it is between the good parts. Some of them are very short and about nothing more than, like, Abercrombie or something. Adding onto that, in the middle, the book starts to dwindle down and I found myself skimming through some of them to get to the better, retellings parts.
Poisoned Apples is a short read. I breezed right through it in less than an hour. From the stories that I did enjoy, I liked them also because of their freakiness and the art work that goes with them. The hands acting like trees and water and whatnot is very cool and caught my attention.
I understand that some people believe that life is a fairy tale but I loved how Hepperman decided to make these retellings as realistic as possible and adding in problems that many people face today. I recommend this one to anyone looking to read either some short poems or fairy tales....more
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