series

Book Review: The Abduction

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Abduction
Theodore Boone #2
by John Grisham
read by Richard Thomas


My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

When thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone’s best friend April goes missing, he knows he can’t just sit idly by and leave it up to the cops to find her.

I enjoyed this second story in the series as much as the first. Compared to the previous, this one involves a lot less of the courtroom side and more of the investigative side of Theo’s interests. He does get to help out in pet court though, up against a real lawyer, which was fun. One of the things I appreciate the most about this series is that Theo doesn’t get up to things that kids could never really do or get away with in real life. Whether alone or with the help of his uncle that was so instrumental in the previous book as well, Theo has to weigh the consequences of every action and make his decisions based on that. When I compare this book and series to others for the same age group that I’ve read that are full of action and adventure, this one might seem a little slow, but it’s so much more real.

Richard Thomas does a great job with the narration, too. For some reason I can’t really explain, every time he says, “Hello, Theo,” I smile. 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. There is a brief mention of the story from the previous book, but overall, I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order (so far).

Find out more about The Abduction

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: A Scheming in Parliament

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

A Scheming in Parliament
Of Cloaks & Daggers #2
by Erica Vetsch

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Christian historical mystery

After spending years cultivating his reputation as a drunkard amongst the peerage, Sir Bertrand Thorndike, agent for the crown, has been given a mission that requires him to go straight so he can be presentable as he takes his new seat in Parliament. Meanwhile, the Eleos school, run in part by Philippa Cashel, a former courtesan who now attempts to help other women in a similar position, seems to have become a destination for injured or sick women before they’ve barely gotten themselves set up. Philippa and Bertie have to work together when the dirt Bertie is trying to uncover in Parliament ends up colliding with Philippa’s work.

I just love the way Vetsch weaves her stories, and this one is no exception. Philippa has terrible history, but she allows it to inform her present and future and help others who are going through what she did or worse. And Bertie’s completely unassuming yet protective nature is exactly the right foil for Philippa. The slow development of their relationship is one of my favorite kinds, and while they learn to lean on each other, there’s the terrible secret in Parliament to ferret out. Bertie is capable yet just clumsy enough to be endearing, and Philippa adds her own skills to the team. I really enjoy this twosome.

My favorite Vetsch character may have had a smaller role in this book, but that just means that the others get to shine more. And there’s still plenty of Marcus Haverly, so it’s all good. I’m really looking forward to the culmination of this trilogy. I highly recommend this book for fans of this genre and time period, whether you like romance or not, because there is some, but it’s not the focus of the book. But keep in mind that this book is the second in a trilogy. They each have their own main plot, but there’s enough that carries over from the previous book that it’s better to start with A Thieving at Carlton House. Of course, I would really recommend starting at the beginning for the full, rich experience, but diving in here is fine, too.

Note: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, but my opinions are my own.

Find out more about A Scheming in Parliament

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: Forever Odd

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Forever Odd
Odd Thomas #2
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

When Odd’s best friend’s recently deceased (like, super recently) father visits him, Odd starts off on a mission to find his friend and save him from whoever seems to have abducted him and killed his father.

After finding the first book in the series interesting but a bit slow, this book is just as slow and less interesting. I still like Odd himself as a character. He’s very different from what you normally see in fiction in a lot of ways, a kind of throwback to a different time. Some reviewers seem to see this as a fault with the book, but I appreciate that his gifts have led him to live a simpler life—he has no real ambition, no need for vices, and in fact, what most people would see as a minor complication would throw his life out of whack completely. However, the first book really felt like a stand-alone. There’s usually a very different feel to a book that is the intentional first in a series compared to a book that was written to be a one-off, and though plenty of times a sequel or two may come after an original stand-alone, to me, this just didn’t work as a sequel. The main thing that I felt was seriously lacking in this book was the use of Odd’s gifts. His psychic magnetism gets plenty of play (and a new angle, unless I’m just forgetting something being mentioned in the first book), and he does see a few ghosts, but it seemed like a huge chunk of the book was just trying to escape from, hide from, and outwit the bad guys. It dragged down what was already a fairly slow read for me. Good thing I listened to the audiobook, or it might have taken me a really long time to get through this book. As for recommendations, if you haven’t read the first book, you probably shouldn’t start here, since it definitely references back and spoils some things. If you have and liked it, you may or may not like this one, depending a lot on which aspects of the first book you particularly liked or didn’t. That’s all I can really say.

Find out more about Forever Odd

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: Mandie and the Cherokee Legend

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Mandie and the Cherokee Legend
Mandie #2
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 2 / 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. I would expect nostalgia to affect my reviews for this series, but I sadly have to say that this book did not hold up nearly as well as the first one did for me. There are three main areas in this book that really bug me. Mandie’s too-perfect characterization stands out in this book. I think the author tried to combat that some by having Mandie struggle with her hatred toward her rude Cherokee cousin, but it was a small part of the book, and she didn’t struggle with it that much. Plus, he miraculously changes his tune by the end of the book for no reason, which is one of the other issues I had.

On top of all of that, this book introduces a trope in the series that I remember my sister complaining about when we were younger, though somehow it didn’t bother me. It does now. Every guy that meets Mandie is attracted to her, charmed by her, jealous of other guys’ attention of her…. She inspires a lot of attention for a 12-year-old (though the guys are all at least a year or two older). Of course, Mandie is completely oblivious and doesn’t understand why these guys are so competitive around her. It’s unnecessary at best and a little disturbing at worse. I do hope that some of the issues I had with this book smooth out as the series continues, because plan to keep going and don’t want to continue to be this annoyed.

Find out more about Mandie and the Cherokee Legend

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
How to Train Your Dragon #4
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When Fishlegs is diagnosed with a deadly dragon’s curse, the cure for which can only be found by raiding a particularly crazy band of barbarians, Hiccup defies his father to go on a quest for the cure.

This book brings a refreshing break in the formula, with Hiccup not just failing some kind of training and happening into a situation where he has to save the day. Instead, he deliberately sets out to save the day and even takes a different cohort along—Camicazi, his female counterpart from another tribe, who is a lot of fun in this book too. I wasn’t sure about this series after the first couple of books, but I find I’m quite enjoying it now. The narration is brilliant as always, and I recommend the audiobook for readers young and old alike, and really the book in general.

Find out more about How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: The Godhead Complex

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Godhead Complex
The Maze Cutter #2
by James Dashner

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: YA dystopian

The Flare, the Cure, Cranks, the Maze, the Remnant Nation, the Godhead, the Evolution, pilgrims, villas, Orphans…I don’t know what is going on in this series anymore, it’s just so convoluted and bloated with characters and plot threads. The pacing is slow enough that even in this 2nd book in the trilogy, I feel like nothing really happens until near the end. That’s not to say that actually nothing happens, but it all felt so underwhelming. By the end of the previous book, I knew so little actual information, and then in this book, almost everything I thought I knew turns out to be either wrong or at least suspect. I still am not entirely sure who the good guys and bad guys are (maybe they’re all bad? or neutral? or just trying to survive?). And I really don’t care about any of the characters enough to want to hang in there to figure out what I don’t understand when everything is so messy.

I really wish that someone had explained to Dashner or any of his proofreaders that every single use of “god(dess)” in this book should have been a lowercase G. It’s a minor detail, but it grated on me that Alexandra, the our main connection to the Godhead (at least this is something of a title, so I guess the capital makes sense) in these books, is always referred to as a God with a capital G, amongst other uses of the word. I’m going to finish this series, but only because I jumped the gun and requested an ARC of the 3rd book in the trilogy. Considering my track record with this series, I can’t imagine the final book is suddenly going to make everything better. At this point, I wouldn’t really recommend this continuation series to anyone, whether you’ve read the original trilogy or not. (On the other hand, if you enjoyed the entirety of the first trilogy, that probably means that what bothered me about it doesn’t bother you, so there’s a decent possibility that you’ll enjoy these newer books more than me.)

Find out more about The Godhead Complex

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: Muzzled

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Muzzled
Andy Carpenter #21
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When a fellow dog helper brings a conundrum to defense attorney Andy Carpenter, an ensuing sequence of events ruins his attempt at retirement when he ends up defending a man of murdering two people and faking his own death in a boat explosion.

As much as I enjoy the formula in this series, it’s nice to see it turned on its head now and then, and that happens big time in this book. Andy’s wit and snark is still wonderfully intact, as is his team of investigators and the tendency toward conspiracies in this series. The story overall isn’t a stand-out, and the main bad guy (at least the one we are aware of the most) doesn’t have quite the dangerous feel I’m used to. I think that’s because he actually doesn’t show up much. But there definitely still is danger, and Marcus’s services are fully warranted. In fact, Marcus has an incredibly rare special moment in this book! Grover Gardner continues to portray Andy perfectly. 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).

Find out more about Muzzled

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: House of Many Ways

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

House of Many Ways
Howl’s Moving Castle #3
by Diana Wynne Jones
read by Jenny Sterlin

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Charmain just wants to be left alone to read her books, and when she’s sent to house-sit for her great uncle, she think she’ll finally be able to read as much as she wants. But this is no ordinary house. Charmain’s great uncle is a wizard and his house is full of magic, which, along with the young apprentice who shows up looking for Great-Uncle William, encroach on Charmain’s reading time.

I liked this book a fair bit more than the 2nd in the series, but not quite as much as the first. It did bring back some of the charm of Howl’s Moving Castle, but Charmain is not a terribly likeable character. She’s naïve and fairly selfish, though I can’t that it’s all her fault, since she was clearly brought up to be entirely helpless. Like the other books, the story meanders for a while, which got a little tedious for me. There are hints at the plot here or there, but nothing particularly solid, at least until it started to come together further into it. Plus, characters from the first book show up around halfway in, and I certainly enjoyed that (and they’re more “present” than they were in the previous book). Overall, it’s not a bad follow-up to the whimsical first book in the series, and for others who have read the first and wonder if they should read more, I’d say at least this third one is worth it. For me, I may someday re-read Howl’s Moving Castle, but I won’t feel the need to re-read the rest.

Find out more about House of Many Ways

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: Resistance

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Resistance
The Ilyon Chronicles #1
by Jaye L. Knight

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fantasy

When the self-proclaimed emperor of Arcacia begins to crack down on the worship of Elôm instead of the nation’s moon gods, it leaves many of Elôm’s followers scrambling to hide their faith or hide themselves. Kyrin has been trained since a young age to serve the emperor, but drawing too much attention to herself right now is not a good idea, given her faith. Jace is half ryrik, a race that is believed to have no soul, which means that many believe he can’t have a soul either. But he has also come to believe in Elôm as the one true God, though he can’t help but wonder if Elôm could possibly care about him. Both find a possible home at a camp for fellow believers of Elôm and hope that they can keep their new home safe.

The overall idea of this book is good, sort of a take on the time of Nero persecuting Christians, set in a medieval-like fantasy world with at least 5 different races. I particularly liked Jace’s story arc, but Kyrin’s was underwhelming in comparison. Some exciting things happen with her for sure, but it just takes a really long time to get into it. I felt like a few hundred pages could have been cut from the book and details in those pages could have been either cut completely or sprinkled throughout the rest of the book in flashbacks, memories, general backstory. Most of this excess was probably Kyrin’s story, which is likely what makes me feel like her arc was underwhelming. But there’s also the fact that there are something like 8 POV characters, which is far too much. Too many people to try to get to know, especially considering that several of them are minor characters and thus do not need their own POV. And at least one of them just seems to be there to reinforce what we’re already learning about Jace, so again, unnecessary. If I were rating just the part of this that felt like the meat of the story, it’d probably be more like 4.5 stars. But man, it just took so long to get to it.

One thing I did appreciate about Kyrin, though, is that she’s still young in her faith and not perfect by any means. She’s trying to learn to lean on Elôm but struggles with fear, because she didn’t believe in Elôm and immediately become a perfect follower. That was a realistic angle I liked. The overall Christian parallel here is really interesting and well done. Because what I liked most came in the 2nd half or so of the book, I anticipate the story picking up from here and am looking forward to seeing where the series goes. My 15-year-old daughter read it first and recommended it to me, and it looks like the book is classified as “new adult,” so I do think that older teens up through adults who enjoy Christian fiction about persecution and standing up for one’s faith. You wouldn’t really have to like fantasy to enjoy it, I don’t think, since it’s fairly light on the fantasy.

Find out more about Resistance

See what I’m reading next.

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

Book Review: Odd Thomas

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Odd Thomas
Book #1
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

Odd Thomas can see dead people, but he can also see dark shade-like creatures that tend to congregate at sites of future disaster. Between these two things, Odd is drawn to help bring justice for victims and prevent future tragedies. He works as a short order cook in a small town in California, and when he sees a large congregation of these creatures, which he calls bodachs, interested in a particular customer, he does his best to investigate so he can try to stop whatever future catastrophe might have drawn so many bodachs.

Leaving aside the paranormal aspects, this book is a thriller mystery and a race against time to stop a massacre. Adding the paranormal aspects back in, and the overall story here is engaging and inventive. Odd himself is a sympathetic hero, if maybe a little too naïve and Gary Stu-ish. He tends to draw people to himself by being a nice, quiet guy and has more than one mentor-type character. The background Koontz shows us for Odd make me happy for him that he has these other people in his life to counter-balance some truly awful parents.

I’ve only read one Koontz before this, and I loved it, but this time, I found that his tendency to describe things in way more detail than necessary slowed the story way down. There was also a lot of focus on sex and references to body parts for a book with a main character that isn’t sleeping with his girlfriend. And a couple of the major side characters I did not particularly care for. They were just over the top in their personalities. I listened to the audiobook, and I don’t know if it would have been better to read it, so I could skim some of the descriptions or worse, because then I would have struggled to get through some of it and taken a lot longer to read it. Either way, I enjoyed the book more than not and was actually kind of annoyed with myself for not clocking the slight twist at the end before it happened. Also, I am very glad that I had already read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie before reading this book, because Koontz full-on spoils it! Overall, I like the world Koontz has set up here and Odd Thomas himself enough to continue the series. I think most people who enjoy paranormal thrillers would enjoy it, but just keep in mind the slowness.

Find out more about Odd Thomas

See what I’m reading next.

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