fiction

March in Review

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I read 15 books last month, which is getting to be closer to a normal month for me. And my total page count for the month was only around 300 less than my recent record-breaking month in January. It’s definitely a huge up-tick in having time to listen to audiobooks lately that’s done this, considering that 8 of the books I read last month were audiobooks (leaving only 7 that were read normally!).

Here are the books I read in March:

Lunar 1
HTTYD 8
Mists
Exiles
Smith 3
BSC6
Boone 6
Carpenter 24
Lightkeepers 1
Lunar 2
K Team 4
Lion 1
Sadie
This Book Kills
Mandie 4

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (5 / 5)
How to Break a Dragon’s Heart by Cressida Cowell (2 / 5)
Mists over the Channel Islands by Sarah Sundin (5 / 5)
Exiles by Jaye L. Knight (4 / 5)
Luck and Judgement by Peter Grainger (4.5 / 5)
Kristy’s Big Day by Ann M. Martin (5 / 5)
The Scandal by John Grisham (4 / 5)
Best in Snow by David Rosenfelt (4.5 / 5)
A Kingdom of Shadows by Emily Bain Murphy (3.5 / 5)
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (4 / 5)
Good Dog, Bad Cop by David Rosenfelt (3.5 / 5)
A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers (3.5 / 5)
Sadie by Courtney Summers (4.5 / 5)
This Book Kills by Ravena Guron (2 / 5)
Mandie and the Forbidden Attic by Lois Gladys Leppard (3 / 5)

This list includes 2 ARCs and 3 re-reads. My favorite book from March was Cinder. I started 3 series, continued 6 series, and finished 3 series*. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.

*This includes 1 series I didn’t reach the end of, but decided not to continue reading, after being at least 2 books into the series.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.

Book Review: Mandie and the Forbidden Attic

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Mandie and the Forbidden Attic
Mandie #4
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian historical fiction

I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen, and I read some of them to my now-teen daughter when she was younger. Nostalgia definitely affects my reviews for this series, and I’m okay with that. Though I am also willing to admit the flaws in the books; for example, here we have another guy who is drawn to Mandie as soon as he meets her. Though to be fair, they’re sort of thrust together, and so far, he’s mostly just being polite. Mandie is particularly unruly in this book, breaking a rule at her new school over and over despite being caught and even punished. At least it’s one book in which Mandie isn’t just perfect, but in the end, her rule breaking produced a certain outcome that essentially ends up exonerating her, which isn’t a great lesson for the kids who read this book. It’s too easy for the reader to empathize with her and feel like the authority figures are simply being unfair or overbearing, and reading this as an adult, I kind of wish Leppard had been more careful with that. While I think these books can still be good for younger people to read, especially if you’re looking for something with Christian content, I strongly recommend discussing what’s good and bad in them with your kid(s) after they read it.

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Book Review: This Book Kills

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This Book Kills
by Ravena Guron

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: YA murder mystery

When a murderer copies details from a short story that Jess Choudhary wrote for school, it puts her smack in the middle of the investigation of the murder of one of her fellow classmates. When she starts getting death threats of her own, then police don’t inspire confidence, so she knows it’s up to her to solve the murder.

I am at a bit of a loss with this book. I don’t understand the title, don’t agree with the “perfect murder” claim on the front of the book, and am baffled by a major component of the mystery. The story is 1st-person as if written by the MC to help her cope with what happened, so maybe the title is referring to what she’s writing down, but there’s nothing inherently dangerous about it. The short story she used inspired a killer, but that’s it…no reference to books of any kind killing. The tag line on the front of the book says, “She wrote the perfect murder. One of her classmates carried it out… Now she’s next.” There was literally no mention in the book of the short mystery story she wrote for class being a perfect murder. It was just a murder. And she’s not even the only one who is ostensibly targeted to be another victim, so the tagline is pretty clearly sensationalism that isn’t delivered on.

The murder the MC wrote for her short story had 2 specific elements that were copied (well, 3, if you count the murder happening in the woods, but that’s not super specific): the victim was killed with a trophy and the murderer spelled out “help me” with twigs next to the body. That least one is what baffles me. I kept waiting for an explanation or at least some theories about the “help me,” but nothing ever came. So I can’t help but wonder…why did she have the murderer in the short story do that? To pretend it was the victim who did it (to what end, though, I have no idea)? Was it a cry for help from the murderer, either real or faked? Was it a taunt, saying that the victim needed help even though they were already dead? None of these jumps out as an obvious reason for the twigs, because to me there isn’t an obvious reason, and it’s literally never questioned by anyone in the book. Supposedly the MC put it into her story to show off her creativity, but to me, it’s not creative so much as…pointless? The murderer copied it, and truth be told, I don’t think I ever even understood why the murderer bothered to copy the short story details. Then, at least to me, the author was trying so hard to keep the reader from guessing the murderer (which I didn’t, but I rarely do) that she threw in too many sub plots and red herrings. In the end, it was underwhelming, confusing, and just not enjoyable. Around halfway through, my 15-year-old daughter (who was interested in the book when I started reading it) asked me what I thought so far, and all I could say was, “Meh.” It was just kind of boring. It was clearly not for me, but if the book interests you, please do check out other reviews at the link below.

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Book Review: Sadie (re-read)

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Sadie
by Courtney Summers
read by Rebecca Soler, Dan Bittner, Fred Berman, & Gabra Zackman

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: YA suspense, drama

See original review here.

I don’t normally write a new review when I read a book I already reviewed on my blog. But this is a special case. The first time I read this book, 5 1/2 years ago, I still gave it 4 stars, but I had some issues with the audiobook. I couldn’t handle listening to Sadie’s parts for 2 main reasons. The first is that there was a lot of language, and though it doesn’t generally stop me from reading books, it bothered me more to keep hearing it out loud. But I also struggled with feeling like the narrator made Sadie sound angry all the time, even when giving the description of a room she’d entered or something. So I switched to a format where I read Sadie’s portions myself and listened to the “podcast” parts. Recently, I listened to a couple of audiobooks by the same narrator, and I quite liked her. So when I realized it was the same narrator, I wanted to give it another try.

I can honestly say that I don’t know what my issue with the “angry” narrator was those 5+ years ago. I think that the fact that I had barely listened to any audiobooks back then, but now I have extensive experience with them probably has a lot to do with it (I still cringed when there was a lot of cussing though, especially dialog with many f-words). The story is still dark and gritty with subject matter that means I couldn’t really recommend this YA book for anyone younger than 16 (see content warnings in my original review at the link above), but it’s compelling and engaging.

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Book Review: Good Dog, Bad Cop

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Good Dog, Bad Cop
The K-Team #4
by David Rosenfelt
read by Fred Berman

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When asked to select a cold case to investigate for the Paterson police department, Corey Douglas insists on being allowed to work on the not-so-cold unsolved case of his old mentor. Though unsolved, it’s widely believed that the retired cop murdered a woman and then killed himself, but Corey is certain that he would have never done such a thing.

The plot of this book is overall decent, with some twisty conspiracies not dissimilar to those standard to the main series. It has an interesting ending that I didn’t see coming, though I could look back and see some hints to the final reveal. Still, Corey himself is just a bland main character to me. In this book, he points out that investigators need to be objective, but that in this case, he’s not going to be able to be, and I thought, “Just in this case? Because I remember another recent case where you set out to prove a guy you didn’t like was the bad guy from the get-go…” I just have a difficult time buying this guy was ever good at being a cop before he retired.

I’m always torn between being happy when Andy shows up in these books and being annoyed, because he comes across so much more snarky and annoying in this series. Maybe that’s intentional, due to that being the way Corey sees Andy, and if that’s the case, then it’s well done by Rosenfelt. I did manage to get used to Fred Berman’s narration, which really threw me off at first, but that’s most likely because I couldn’t help but compare him to Grover Gardner, the narrator for the Andy Carpenter series. If you’re a fan of the Andy Carpenter series and wonder if you should read this, I’d say give the first book in the series a try, because (minor spoiler) a recurring character from the main series comes to an end in that book. Then you can decide for yourself whether to continue on, but the other 3 books in the series don’t contain any major developments for the main series. If you haven’t read any of the main series, don’t start here. But definitely do start on the Andy Carpenter series if you’re interested.

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Book Review: Scarlet

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Scarlet
The Lunar Chronicles #2
by Marissa Meyer
read by Rebecca Soler

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous book in the series, Cinder.

Scarlet’s grandmother is missing, but the police don’t seem to care. She starts following clues to track her down on her own, somewhat reluctantly accepting the aid of a mysterious street fighter called Wolf. Meanwhile, Cinder has to escape from prison and figure out where to go next on her quest to understand her identity.

I didn’t love this book as much as the previous, but I did still enjoy it a lot. I think the main difference here is that there was a lot of focus on the building relationship between Scarlet and Wolf, and I just wasn’t really feeling it. On the plus side, though, since we have a new main character in this book, I was glad that Scarlet is different enough in her personality compared to Cinder that I didn’t feel like it was a repeat of Cinder and I didn’t have a hard time keeping the two characters separate in my mind when Cinder had her own POV scenes throughout this book. Scarlet is quick-tempered and stubborn, though maybe her personality is part of why I had a difficult time buying her growing relationship with Wolf.

Scarlet’s search for her grandmother was broken up by Cinder’s continuing story and, less often, Emperor Kai trying to prevent war with Queen Levana. My favorite thing about this book came in the form of a new side character—Thorne. Though he’s quite inappropriate at times, he’s a great comic relief. The overall advancement of plot in this book kept me invested, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a great job with the different characters, though she seemed to drop Scarlet’s slight accent now and then. I still recommend this book (though definitely start with Cinder; these are not stand-alone books) to fans of futuristic sci-fi and/or fairy tale retellings, maybe around age 15 and up (there was more in the way of physical interaction in this book than the previous, though it was still pretty clean overall).

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Book Review: Best in Snow

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Best in Snow
Andy Carpenter #24
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

Finding a dead body in the snow might not have been so bad if it hadn’t led to Andy Carpenter being asked to defend the man accused of the murder. But it’s hard to say “no” to a friend, even a friend like Vince Sanders, the gruff newspaperman who can’t believe that his protégé would commit murder.

Is it weird that I struggle so much with the reviews for this series, not feeling like I have more to say than I said in every review before it, yet I don’t see that as a bad thing? And when I’m ready to listen to the next book, I’m excited and it feels a bit like coming home? The series is formulaic in a good way, but that makes it difficult to know what to say that isn’t the same as I always say. So here goes…Andy is delightfully sarcastic and funny; I laughed out loud a couple of times during this book. Andy’s team is fun and efficient; it’s always fun to see the Boobalah Brigade, though I feel like they weren’t quite as involved in this time as they have been in the past. I can’t remember the last time Andy wasn’t brought into a case by a dog (other than his own), so even that small break in formula was kind of nice. My favorite thing about this book does involve the “dog of the week” though, since someone besides Andy takes the dog in and the whole sequence of what happens is in turns hilarious and endearing. Grover Gardner never fails to do a wonderful job narrating, and if it’s not clear, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, as well as the books that precede it in the series (and probably all that follow it, but I’m still working my way through).

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Book Review: The Scandal

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The Scandal
Theodore Boone #6
by John Grisham
read by Richard Thomas

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

No one likes standardized testing—not the teachers, not the students, and not the parents. Theodore Boone is no exception, but at least he can be happy when they’re over. But when he hears about a possible scandal at a nearby school involving the tests, he can’t help but be concerned that he’ll have to take them again. And that would be the worst thing ever…

The idea of someone cheating on state-wide standardized tests was interesting to me. I remember those tests in school (who doesn’t?), and I remember disliking them. And I remember hearing the phrase “teaching for the test” being used as a negative, and eventually coming to understand why it would be seen as a bad thing. Yet the tests persist, though that’s really a matter for a different discussion. Or maybe not, since, as has become typical in this series, the question of the wisdom of having these tests is brought up in the form of Theo’s parents disagreeing over them. I suppose young teens and pre-teens might not find the subject as interesting as I did, but Theo’s involvement in the scandal, as well as his attempts to not be involved in the scandal, keeps the book moving forward at a decent pace. I enjoyed the story and the characters here just as much as previous books. Poor Ike takes a bit of a hit in this book, but I still like him.

It’s strange that a series that I just discovered randomly when looking for something to listen to that I wouldn’t have to put on hold ended up being something I liked so much and that I’m sad to be near the end of. This book is probably the most stand-alone since the beginning of the series, though I’d recommend reading it all in order anyway. Overall, I’d say whether or not a teenager or pre-teen will be interested in this book will depend on what kind of fiction they like—if fast-paced action is important, this probably won’t suit them. If they’re interested in realistic fiction about crime and law and trials, this could be fascinating for them. And the audiobook is well-narrated, if that’s your/their speed.

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Book Review: Kristy’s Big Day

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Kristy’s Big Day
The Baby-Sitters Club #6
by Ann M. Martin

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

For complete transparency, I’ll say up front that I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen. And at the time, my name was the same as the founder of the BSC (with the first name spelled slightly different). Nostalgia will hugely affect my reviews for this series, and I have no plans to try to be objective.

The main story in this book involves a whole bunch of kids, aged 10 down to an infant, converging in Stoneybrook in advance of Kristy’s mom’s wedding. The entire Baby-sitters Club pitches in to keep the kids occupied for a full week while their parents help plan the short-notice wedding. I really related to what they went through, first making plans for how to pass the day and then having to alter the plan or even throw it out the window as the day gets going. I’ve totally been there. Sometimes I have to remind myself that these babysitters are only 12 years old and being left alone all day with around a dozen kids, a few of which are only 2-3 years younger than them. I can’t say how realistic it is, but I did enjoy it.

Whether or not this book will translate well to kids and pre-teens now, I couldn’t say. I wish I had thought to start reading this series to/with my daughter when she was around 8-10, because I think she would have enjoyed it, and we could have discussed the good and the bad of the books.

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Book Review: Luck and Judgement

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Luck and Judgement
DC Smith #3
by Peter Grainger
read by Gildart Jackson

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Detective procedural, mystery

When a man disappears from an offshore gas platform, it’s unclear whether foul play was involved or not. DC Smith and his team’s investigation leads them to some seedy parts of their town and involves some powerful people.

I think this was my favorite of the series so far, even if it did involve some very questionable elements, from a “married singles” club to DC’s own decision to bend the rules (quite a bit, really) for a matter unrelated to the case. Plus, the case was left a bit dangling at the end, but it’s really just a lack of a satisfying resolution. For all intents and purposes, we have an ending, just maybe not one we’d like. I don’t know if this will be continued in future books, but I could see it as a possibility, since cases from previous books are brought up here and there in this book as well.

DC is such a nuanced character, it’s difficult to get a handle on him. But I mean that in a good way. He feels a lot more realistic that way. I enjoy his ribbing with Waters yet also being stern when needed. And him being understanding with a new member of his team that has had a bit of a colorful and rough background. And the further crumbs we get about his history before the start of the series—both about his late wife and the difficult, high-profile case that apparently had some issues—continue to intrigue. Gildart Jackson unsurprisingly does a great job as narrator, bringing DC and all of the other characters to life. I recommend the book for fans of procedural crime dramas, especially with a seasoned detective and set in a small-town area of England, and I don’t think you’d really need to start at the beginning of the series.

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