Book Review

Eleanor and Park

eleanor and park

Eleanor and Park By: Rainbow Rowell

Plot:

Eleanor… Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough…Eleanor. Park… He knows she’ll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There’s a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises…Park. Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

Review:

Oh my god the feels. So many emotions. So many tears. This book was… so… I want to say incredible but that’s not the right word. I can’t think of the perfect word for this book. It wasn’t a roller coaster of emotion it was pretty much nonstop tears for me.

I guessed who was writing the notes on her books fairly quickly but there were enough red herrings to make me question myself.

Rowell creates characters that are just real enough. They have their quirks and you can almost believe that they really exist but they’re just too awesome. If I was ever in a room with her characters I would be too awestruck by their collective awesome to say anything.

Maybe I just judge people to harshly and people like this really exist, but I don’t think so, at least not in my world. Awesome book, must buy.

5/5

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind (The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy #1) By: Terry Pratchett

Plot:

It’s just a game . . . isn’t it? The alien spaceship is in his sights. His finger is on the Fire button. Johnny Maxwell is about to set the new high score on the computer game Only You Can Save Mankind. Suddenly, a message appears: We wish to talk. We surrender. But the aliens aren’t supposed to surrender—they’re supposed to die!

Review:

This book leaves a lot of questions unanswered, really making me wish I already had the second one. Great story and would highly recommend to anyone, not just the kids this book was written for.

The setting is during the first Gulf War, I was pretty young at the time, but since my dad was over there I remember watching a lot of news. The images he comes back to over and over in the book are images I remember seeing.

There’s a lot of mystery around Johnny. His parents are getting a divorce and forgetting about him during the process. He thinks he’s smarter in his dreams than in real life, but I think it’s more of a confidence issue. He’s a kid that’s going through a Trying Time and getting lost in the shuffle. It’s sad.

That’s not the main focus of the book, though. While playing a video game the aliens he’s killing surrender to him. What’s amazing is that Johnny lets them. They’d tried surrendering before but none of the other players would accept, Johnny was the only one. It reminds me of the video game Fable where you can choose to be good or evil. This world is too early to have played Fable though so they’ve never had options. It’s always been kill the aliens.

The premise is interesting and there’s more than just the video game issue going on, Johnny’s friends and family life are complicated too. Good amount of depth in the story and I’m really hoping the library has the next one in the series when I go in.

4/5

Untimed

untimed

Untimed (Rules of the Regulator #1) By: Andy Gavin

Plot:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates. As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem. When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it. And there’s one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

Review:

I believe this book was written in first person present tense, at times, and it’s not a tense I’ve spent a lot of time reading so every now and then I was taken out of the book because a sentence sounded wrong. I would have to re-read to make sense of it and that took me out of the story.

There were also some pacing issues. For the most part it was a smooth pace but it would sometimes slow down and I found myself skipping some paragraphs.

A few reviewers had issues with the teen sex going on, but I kind of thought that was realistic, and it didn’t really bother me. It’s not like he was going into graphic detail it was more of a fade to black.

The story was interesting and I’m curious to see what happens next but I wasn’t overly fond of any of the characters. I liked the fact that the time travel had rules and he didn’t just give Charlie or Yvaine special powers that made them different. Charlie had to work with what he had, and he was able too.

Yvaine was my least favorite character and I realize it’s because Gavin wrote her true to life. I’m fairly certain she is how a girl from her time would act, which just makes me sad , and glad that I live when I do.

3.5/5

Cloche and Dagger

Cloche and Dagger

Cloche and Dagger (Hat Shop Mystery #1) By: Jenn McKinlay

Plot:

Not only is Scarlett Parker’s love life in the loo—as her British cousin Vivian Tremont would say—it’s also gone viral with an embarrassing video. So when Viv suggests Scarlett leave Florida to lay low in London, she hops on the next plane across the pond. Viv is the proprietor of Mims’s Whims, a ladies’ hat shop on Portobello Road bequeathed to both cousins by their beloved grandmother, and she wants Scarlett to finally join her in the millinery business. But a few surprises await Scarlett in London. First, she is met at the airport not by Viv, but by her handsome business manager, Harrison Wentworth. Second, Viv—who has some whims of her own—seems to be missing. No one is too concerned about the unpredictable Viv until one of her posh clients is found dead wearing the cloche hat Viv made for her—and nothing else. Is Scarlett’s cousin in trouble? Or is she in hiding?

Review:

This is the last book by Jenn McKinlay that my library system has and I was a little disappointed by it. It wasn’t bad by any means I just didn’t feel it was her best.

Scarlett comes off at times as a little ditzy. The mystery of her cousins absence seems contrived. Everyone keeps telling her that Viv just disappears sometimes, she even remembers times when she’s done that, but this time is different for some reason. She has no reasoning, she just thinks it is. SPOILERS It’s not, it’s just like every other time Viv has disappeared.

When the murder finally happened the mystery did pick up and I thought the chemistry between Scarlett and Harrison was great. Made me kind of sad that she’s decided to take a year off from me, because I really think she needs the year but I also thought that they made a great couple.

I’m interested to see what happens next but not as invested as I am with the Library Lovers Mysteries.

3/5

Book, Line and Sinker

book line and sinker

Book, Line and Sinker (Library Lover’s Mystery #3) By: Jenn McKinlay

Plot:

“Avast” in pirate speak means what? or stop! Answering tricky reference questions like this one provides plenty of excitement for library director Lindsey Norris. But when a shocking murder is committed in her cozy coastal town of Briar Creek, Connecticut, the question of who did it must be answered before an innocent man gets the book thrown at him… Lindsey is enjoying her second year in Briar Creek as the library director, meeting with the crafternoon club, and happily dating tour boat captain Mike Sullivan. But when a salvage company arrives in town to dig up treasure buried on Pirate Island over three hundred years ago, the locals are torn between protecting the island and welcoming the publicity.    In spite of the squabbling, Charlie Peyton, Lindsey’s downstairs neighbor, takes a job with the salvage company. But when Trudi Hargrave, the local tourism director who hired the company, is found murdered at the excavation site, Charlie becomes the chief suspect. To help him, Lindsey must do some digging of her own before the real killer buries the truth for good….

Review:

Still loving this series. There was a bit more relationship drama in this one, which I liked. The ex fiancé shows up, which is always interesting when that happens. Lindsey was a lot nicer than I would have been, however, I believe that’s probably par for the course. She’s a fairly nice person but she doesn’t let anyone walk all over her, which I love.

Basically if you find yourself in a Jenn McKinlay book and you’re the bitch/asshole more than likely you’re the one that’s going to die. It’s like wish fulfillment. It helps that those people tend to have more people willing to kill them so there are several suspects, but mainly it’s nice to see them get what’s coming to them.

Can you tell I’m a bit blood thirsty?

5/5

 

Side Note: I’m kind of freaking out because my library doesn’t have the next in the series. I’d love to buy it but no money. I have figured out that the library system where I use to live has it, so I’m probably going to put it on hold and then drive half an hour to get it then half an hour back and the I’ll have to take it back. I’m not sure why it’s cheaper to use the gas than buy the book. OMG I think I found a loop hole.