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November in Review

/ Kristi / 2 Comments

This will be a pretty quick post, since reading took a backseat to NaNoWriMo and other very important writing tasks. I finished 5 books last month and DNF’d one.

Here are the books I read in November:

Martian
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Bleak Creek
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The Martian by Andy Weir (4.5 / 5)
 The Passengers by John Marrs (3 / 5)
 Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (5 / 5)
 The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters (2 / 5)
The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal (4.5 / 5)

I did not finish: Claiming T-Mo by Eugen Bacon (mini-review pending)

This list includes 2 ARCs and 0 re-reads. My favorite book from August was Anne of Green Gables. I started 1 series, continued 0 series, and finished 0 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.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads, if anyone is interested in that. 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: The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

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The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek
by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Thriller, horror

Bleak Creek

In 1992, the small town of Bleak Creek, NC has a reform school where children who act up are threatened to be sent. It is viewed by all of the locals as a necessary place that really works…even if 3 kids have died in freak accidents there in the last 10 years. Best friends Rex and Leif are horrified when the third member of their trio, Alicia, is sent to the school because of a catastrophe that all 3 were to blame for. They question what they might do to save Alicia, eventually teaming up with a recent film student graduate to delve into the mysteries of the school and expose its secrets.

This was a fun, easy read, with 90s references and characters that seemed all-too-real. Rex & Leif, while best friends, had issues that arose from being too close, almost like sibling rivalry. The mystery of the school developed in a way that kept my attention, and especially had me wanting to come back and keep reading after I’d hit the half-way point. And the ending, which can make or break a thriller more than most other genres, was well-executed. At times, Rex & Leif’s arguments were a little over the top, given what was going on around them when they had them, but really, as someone with 3 sisters, I know that we didn’t always take into account whether or not our petty squabbles were a good idea in the current circumstances.

While it’s labeled as a horror book, this book was not scary to me at all. I said this in another review recently, but I’m really not into horror much as a genre, in any medium (so why did I just read 2 horror books in a row?). This also means I’ve not read much horror, so I don’t honestly know how it normally works in book-form. But to me, this was suspenseful, but I wouldn’t call it horror. If it were made into a movie, I could see some visuals being pretty horrific though, so maybe that means the tone wasn’t set right in the book to make parts that could have been scary appropriately creepy.

I’ve read so many thrillers lately that promise everything up until the last 20% of the book, and then fail to deliver the right punch to drive home the thrills. I was skeptical as I neared the end of this book, but it did its job perfectly! It was just what I would have wanted it to be. Plus, a character that was a minor annoyance (intentionally) throughout the book had me laughing and cheering at the end, which was a plus!

I read this book because my nearly adult son is a big fan of Rhett & Link and Good Mythical Morning. He was interested in reading it and thought I might like to too (mostly just because he knows I’ve been getting back into reading a lot lately). So we got it from the library as soon as their hardcover copy came in. He hasn’t finished it yet (he’s never been much of a recreational reader, so he needs nudges to even remember to read it), but I can say that from the perspective of someone who has seen very little of Rhett & Link’s online presence, I’m really glad I read this book. I would recommend it for fans of thrillers and horror, understanding that it’s a very mild horror.

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Dead Girls Club

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The Dead Girls Club
by Damien Angelica Walters

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Suspense, horror

Heather Cole is a 40ish-year-old child psychologist with a loving husband and a quiet life. Then her life is turned upside-down by the arrival of half of a “Best Friends Forever” necklace in the mail. While the other half of that necklace is safe at her house, she knows this half was last seen on the body of her best friend who died 30 years ago…at Heather’s own hand. What follows is a tale of fear and obsession as Heather tries to find out who sent her the necklace, while having terrifying memories and dreams about her teenage days, when she and her friends tried to summon a witch.

I know that the lower I rate a book, the longer the review tends to be, so I’ll try to be more succinct in this one. Most of what I really want to say is spoilery anyway, so here goes. I really did not like the main character…couldn’t connect with her at all. I also didn’t find the mystery or the twists all that interesting or surprising, and pretty strongly disliked the ending. And the synopsis is very misleading.

The story is told in 2 timelines–the NOW is first-person POV with Heather as an adult narrator. The THEN is third-person POV, but still focuses on teenage Heather. I could not stand adult Heather. She acts like a victim of this mysterious person who is sending her little things that Heather knows were directly related to the night Becca died, but uses this as an excuse to stalk people from her past and treat pretty much everyone she interacts with terribly. By the second half of the book, I would literally groan every time the book went back to the NOW storyline, because it was just so boring. Her obsession with finding out what was going on turned her into a monster. And don’t even get me started on how terrible she became at her job, which just bugged me so much.

I also got to a point by halfway in the book where reading it made me feel kinda skeevy. Heather had a habit of picking at her cuticles when she was nervous and stressed, which of course she was during the entire book. As an author, it is important to give characters quirks, ticks, habits like this to make them seem real, but the amount that her peeling, biting, and scratching at herself enough to draw blood is shown got under my skin (pun intended).

I am surprised I haven’t seen this in any reviews yet, but during the THEN timeline, the teenage girls go into a bit too much detail about their menstrual cycle for my taste, which makes me feel especially bad for any men who read it. There’s just no need for some of what they said to be included in this book…at all.

Now about the horror aspect…I honestly can’t even tell you why I requested a book classified as horror (I told myself that it must not have been listed as horror until later, but I really can’t say if that’s true), because I am really not into horror in general. But I steeled myself for a scary read…that hardly came. The supernatural elements that the book promised were flimsy and constantly explained away by the MC. I think I came to realize at some point that the narrator was very unreliable, which just made me doubt everything that happened in the THEN parts. I also didn’t find the stories about the Red Lady scary. A bit gruesome and over-the-top, yes, but not so much scary. Near the end, the combination of reading the last 25% at night and a decently creepy scene did finally give me some chills, but that was pretty much it. I’m seriously a wimp when it comes to scary things, so that might tell you something about the level of horror in this book. I also wouldn’t really classify it as a thriller, so suspense is the best I could come up with.

In the end, a lot of this probably boils down to personal preference. So this wasn’t a good book for me, but it has plenty of 4- and 5-star reviews. The THEN parts contain some 90s nostalgia that a lot of people will probably enjoy, and the horror and thriller elements will likely hit the mark with plenty of people. So if it seems interesting to you, please be sure to check out others’ reviews for this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.  

Find out more about The Dead Girls Club
Publication date: December 10, 2019

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: Anne of Green Gables

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Anne of Green Gables
Book #1
by L.M. Montgomery

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic, coming of age

In the first installment of the books about Anne with an e, she is brought into the home of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a brother and sister who are both getting up in years. They had sent for an orphan boy to help them with the work on their property, but were sent Anne instead. She charms her way into their hearts (especially the shy, kind Matthew), and they raise her from the age of 11.

This is one of many well-known and much-loved classics that I have never read before. I have family members who really like it, so I decided that with my recent reading revolution, it was time to give it a try. I’m so glad I did, as I really enjoyed this book!

Anne has such a fiery spirit, and while I would probably be a bit frustrated to be around her much in person, I liked reading her monologues. The reactions by both of her guardians often produced a smile from me too. Though as a parent who is currently dealing with a strong-willed child who tends to melt down when she doesn’t get her way, some of scenes where Anne threw a fit made me cringe. To see Anne change as she aged 5 years in this book was wonderful and realistic, and while she lost some of her loquaciousness, she remained the same kind, generous girl at heart.

I absolutely loved Matthew, and really liked seeing Marilla’s character change throughout the book. When tragedy struck, even though I could guess what was coming, I was devastated with Anne. I am really looking forward to reading the further books in this series.

Fun fact: One of my sisters and her husband have named each of their 4 kids after characters from this book series (whether first or middle names), and it was fun to find 3 of them in this first book. Though I have since learned that one of them from this book wasn’t the actual inspiration for their son’s name, but he was named after a character with the same name in a later book in the series.

Find out more about Anne of Green Gables

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Passengers

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The Passengers
by John Marrs

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Sci-fi thriller

In a future where self-driving cars are becoming the norm, a mysterious Hacker takes control of 8 different vehicles, each with Passengers inside. These eight people are told that they will likely be dead in just over two hours. The Hacker than forces a jury of 5, alongside the entire world watching from their electronic devices, to decide which one of the eight should be saved.

I was really into this book for for the first 80%, which were parts 1 and 2. If I gave a rating just on that much of the book, it would be a solid 4 stars. Then part 3 came along, and everything just fell apart for me. The writing was good, for the most part, and some of the characters were interesting. Some were major stereotypes, but to be honest, with that many characters, it doesn’t surprise me. But the thriller aspect just died in the last 20%, even with a push to bring it back.

To be honest, the hacking done on the cars might have been wholly unrealistic, but I don’t really care. I’m blessed to be someone who can just enjoy it for what it is, because I don’t really know a lot about software, AI, or electronics in general. It was pretty clear that some of the Passengers were only in the book so that the Hacker could show how serious he was, as the number quickly dwindled from 8 to 5. Each of those 5 Passengers has their secrets, which are unveiled as the Hacker hurtles them to their doom.

While this is happening, the protagonist, a woman named Libby, is one of the 5 on the jury that is being forced to decide these people’s fate. While there were some things that she did that really bugged me, it was a good perspective to watch the events from. The very end of part 2 was a bit confusing to me, and unfortunately, in the mess that was parts 3 & 4, the book didn’t really give a satisfying reason for what happened.

Parts 3 & 4 are messy and mostly unnecessary. They felt like a tack-on, and frankly, soured the mysterious nature of the Hacker. I felt like there were too many attempted twists, and I quickly got to a point where I just didn’t believe anything, which makes it difficult to enjoy a book.

In the end, I am glad I read this book. Enough of it was enjoyable that I would recommend it for fans of sci-fi, especially people who enjoy books that show horror stories about the direction our technology is heading. Because of the many higher ratings this book has gotten, definitely check it out if you think you might enjoy it.

**Side note: One of the characters in this futuristic story mentioned that Facebook peaked in 2020. The idea of this was really funny to me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me a copy of this book to review.  

Find out more about The Passengers

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: The Martian

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The Martian
by Andy Weir

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Sci-fi drama, suspense

Martian

Following a dust storm that forced an evacuation from the surface of Mars, astronaut Mark Whatney is left behind, presumed dead. But he’s very much alive, and must now figure out how to survive alone on Mars while back on Earth, they work on how to bring him home.

I watched this movie a few years ago (as research for a mini escape room I helped build), and I really liked it. The book is even better! Whatney is resourceful and determined. The repertoire between him and the rest of his team is fun and touching. The determination of those back on Earth to do whatever they can to help him survive is really interesting too.

The book has a lot of explanation about the different sides of what Whatney needs to survive. Ideas are thrown out and dismissed for better ones. It has such a real feel to it, as if it were any other modern space mission that went wrong. The genre is sci-fi, and it’s obviously a bit in the future, but the science isn’t far out there. It’s just a bit past what we have now.

The format of the book was interesting. Much of the narration comes from journal entries by Whatney, so it basically reads like 1st person. Then there is the 3rd person narration of what happens back on Earth. There are other formats, but explaining that would be a bit spoilery. I enjoyed feeling like Whatney was sharing his experience directly with us.

I watched the movie again a few days after finishing the book. I still think the movie is good, but like with many adaptations, they weren’t able to reach the depth of characterization that the book did. Plus, some harrowing moments and difficulties that Whatney faced were completely written out for the movie. Still, a good movie, and a great book!

Find out more about The Martian

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

October in Review

/ Kristi / 2 Comments

I read even less books this month than last month, but I’m not really surprised. Between homeschooling and working a part-time job with sporadic hours, plus spending a lot of my free time working on getting my own book ready for publication, I’m glad to have read what I did. This month will probably be even lower, due to NaNoWriMo.

Here are the books I read in October:

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HP2
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Battlemage
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Priceless
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Butterfly
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Smoke Screen by Terri Blackstock (4 / 5)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (4 / 5)
Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff (3 / 5)
The Battlemage by Taran Matharu (4 / 5)
The Dinner Party by R.J. Parker (2 / 5)
Priceless by Joel & Luke Smallbone (4.5 / 5)
The Butterfly Recluse by Therese Heckenkamp (3 / 5)

This list includes 4 ARCs and 0 re-reads. My favorite book from August was Priceless. I finished 1 series (a trilogy), continued 1 series, and started 0 series. My ever-changing 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.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads, if anyone is interested in that. 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.

NaNoWriMo Eve

/ Kristi / 4 Comments

NaNo handouts

NaNoWriMo starts in 12 hours where I am. This month, known by many as Preptober, was much less full of prep than I planned. This was mostly due to a combination of working on final edits for my first full-novel release that is due out on January 10th and feeling like I could push off the prep work, because I’d already made an outline for my NaNoNovel a few months ago.

I did finally spend some time Monday and Tuesday this week looking over the outline, as well as the outline for the book that precedes it (it’s drafted, but had to be re-outlined due to a lot of changes needed). I re-read character interviews and wrote a new one with some brand new characters.

I am not sure I am 100% ready, and actually hope to look over the outline again at some point today, before midnight. But I do know that, if necessary, I have enough to get started. I’ll be starting right at midnight (known as the midnight sprint). I do that every year, and whether I write 500 words or 3000 words, anything I get done before going to bed is a huge mental jump start on the month!

And fair warning: I will blog every day about my experience doing NaNoWriMo. I’ve done this nearly every year since starting this blog (the only exception was the year that I had just started full-time at a very demanding job, and what I was writing for NaNo that year was a difficult, personal subject, so frankly, I was doing good to even reach 50k that year).

There may be those who are curious about how others get through the month–I know I am, and most days I also spend some time reading blog posts by others about how their writing went that day. I have also found that I really enjoy being able to look back in later years and read about my progress through the month.

I will also share each day’s NaNoToons, which incidentally will be the last year for NaNoToons. (In fact, the first one for this year just went up! I’m so excited!!) And I’ll post episodes from the NaNoMusical throughout the month, because it’s one of the best things to come out of NaNoWriMo ever, and every Wrimo needs to know about it!

I wish my fellow Wrimos well, and hope to hear from some of you during the month! Please feel free to add me as a writing buddy!

Are you ready for NaNo to begin? Do you plan to do the midnight sprint tonight?

Book Review: The Butterfly Recluse

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The Butterfly Recluse
by Therese Heckenkamp

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Christian romance

Butterfly

Lila lives alone in a secluded location and hasn’t left her property for pretty much anything for years. She raises butterflies and is happy to just be alone with them. Until her life is disrupted by a man who wants her to sell him some butterflies for a butterfly release at his sister’s wedding. Harvey’s presence and persistence chip away at the fortress she’s built around herself and make her question if she’s really happy with her life the way it is.

On the surface, The Butterfly Recluse is a sweet, clean romance with some simple faith thrown in. There is a twist near the end and an action-filled climax. For me, it was a middle-of-the-road read. Harvey’s persistence annoyed me, and it was difficult for me to like him for a while.

Lila’s reclusiveness was what first interested me in the book. I am an extreme everything social (shy introvert with extreme social anxieties and even anti-social at times) that could easily lead to becoming a recluse in the right circumstances. In the end, though, her reasons for becoming a recluse weren’t related to her personality so much as caused by PTSD from a traumatic event in the past. Even still, she seemed to overcome her near-agoraphobia a little too easily from my perspective. And as far as her PTSD goes, I could see where the author was bringing it out, but I felt it was swept away too easily in some areas. Meanwhile, at one point, she really overreacts to what I assumed was an innocent statement (we never really know for sure) related to her past trauma, for the sake of the plot.

The romance was sweet, but also very cliche and filled with tropes. The way the two characters flirted early on, when they’d barely met, seemed like something out of a TV show for kids/teens. At the time of writing this review, the book was categorized as YA on some sites (though that information is less prevalent now). It wasn’t listed that way on the site I read it through and the main characters are adults, so I honestly don’t know if it’s meant to be YA. If it is, the romance may be spot-on, though still not for me.

I had some inklings about the plot twist, but still didn’t actually see it coming when it happened. The climax was a little overdone for me, but I think it would still appeal to many. I would say people who enjoy clean, YA romance would very possibly enjoy this book, and for others, it’s worth checking out other reviews to decide if you want to read it or not.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Find out more about The Butterfly Recluse

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!

Book Review: Priceless

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Priceless: She’s Worth Fighting For
by Joel & Luke Smallbone

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fiction

Priceless.png

“…you are a pearl of great price. Do not cheapen your own treasure.”

After a terrible accident claimed his wife, and bad choices result in the loss of custody of his daughter, James is desperate to get back on his feet so he can be with his daughter again. With reservation, he takes a cash job driving a truck for a delivery, but before he reaches his destination, he discovers that the cargo is human–two young, Mexican women. He follows through on the delivery, believing he is simply transporting illegal aliens, but at the end of the trip, there is no doubt that these young women are destined for something that no woman should have to be part of. He can’t just return home and leave them to their fate.

While the beginning of the book was a little difficult to get through, and it took some time for me to warm up to James, the overall story, and the message of this book, are well worth the read. I knew the basic story here, having seen the movie when it first came out 3 years ago, but didn’t remember the details, and found myself caught up in it as the story unfolded.

The book starts with the death of James’s wife, and then with his stupid decision to traffic drugs, which promptly lands him in jail. It’s depressing and a little painful to read. I assume it was specifically that way to get James to the point where he’d do almost anything to make some money, especially with the threat of losing custody of his daughter completely, once he’s out of jail. But it still took some time and deliberate plodding through to get to the beginning of the real story–when he discovers the women in the truck. Again I say, it’s worth it.

The writing could be better, but to be honest, I didn’t care. I can live with some weak sentences and a slightly confusing line now and then for something so important. The heart of this story was to shed light on the sex trafficking that is far too prevalent in the shadows in our world. Seeing what these women go through in various stages of being forced into prostitution is heartbreaking and really makes you root for James and his new friend Dale.

Speaking of Dale–he’s my favorite character in the book, but to be honest, I don’t know if I would have loved him quite so much if I didn’t remember him from the movie, played so well by David Koechner. Still, he is a great friend and helper to James, and it is mainly Dale who infuses the spark of faith in God back into James. While the Christianity presented in the book isn’t very strong, I think it comes across clearly enough, especially near the end.

I am not the most emotional person, but during the last 2 chapters, I think I cried more than I ever have over a book before. The message of the book can be summed up with this quote: “…there’s a God who knows exactly what you’re worth…” It was basically everything I would have wanted for an ending to this story. Sadly, it doesn’t end this way for most women in similar situations to this.

I definitely recommend this book for Christians to read, but really, for anyone who has a daughter, sister, or any female friends or relatives…or is a female herself. It really carries past the sex trade and into our everyday lives, affecting how we see ourselves, and how we value ourselves and feel we should be valued.

Find out more about Priceless and Joel & Luke (for King and Country)
Listen to “Priceless,” the song (it’s a shortened version and the video is a little spoilery, but the best one I could find on YouTube)

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!