Review: Run Away

Run Away by Harlan Coben
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes I forget how much I love me some Harlan Coben! This was the perfect holiday vacation read--I stayed up until 1:30am reading it, and then had to read it first thing in the morning to finish it. He and David Baldacci are two of my fav pop fiction authors.

Simon is dealing with every parent's worst nightmare--his daughter is addicted to drugs and doesn't want to get better. But he can't stop trying to help her. In doing so, he is sucked into a wild ride of murder, drug dealers, grief, and cults. Block off a few hours, because you'll want to read this in one sitting!

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Review: Run Away

Run Away by Harlan Coben
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Sometimes I forget how much I love me some Harlan Coben! This was the perfect holiday vacation read--I stayed up until 1:30am reading it, and then had to read it first thing in the morning to finish it. He and David Baldacci are two of my fav pop fiction authors.

Simon is dealing with every parent's worst nightmare--his daughter is addicted to drugs and doesn't want to get better. But he can't stop trying to help her. In doing so, he is sucked into a wild ride of murder, drug dealers, grief, and cults. Block off a few hours, because you'll want to read this in one sitting!

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Review: The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Norris is full of teenage angst--so much so that it was difficult for me to read about how much he was bitching about moving. But it would be hard for a Canadian mixed-race kid to move to Austin, Texas, wouldn't it? But then I think, well, at least it's Austin and not some podunk rural town.

One thing I like about this--it's a YA novel about typical teenage life. There is no major life problem (although Norris and his new friends have plenty of them), and there are plenty of healthy teenager-adult relationships in this book, too. Dating is hard, and Norris makes a lot of mistakes, and I love how things don't end up all peachy and fake at the end.

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Review: Twisted Twenty-Six

Twisted Twenty-Six by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I just can't listen to these books anymore. I used to love the whole Ranger/Morelli love triangle and I would lol while listening. But now I cringe when grandma talks and the story is just simple and boring. Sigh. No more of these for me.

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Review: The Testaments

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When things wrapped up neatly at the end of this novel, I was disappointed. How dystopian of me! But I guess I wanted things to NOT work out. Some of the plotlines I loved--I liked hearing from Aunt Lydia and baby Nicole, but I really didn't enjoy the ending. You'll see what I mean. From looking at the reviews, I'm not the only one who didn't love the way things wrapped up.

And read this in print. The audio has some annoying issues.

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Review: Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This ranks higher than Bad Apple, but lower than Bone Gap for me. I wanted to see less of the ghost and more of the real characters, because I just couldn't get into the magical parts of the book. I'm sure this will be discussed at the Printz table because magical realism always seems to be there but I loved Bone Gap so much more.

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Review: Cursed

Cursed by Thomas Wheeler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Nothing new here.

I feel the same way as one of my Goodreads friends--this would have been a better book if the characters had different names. Most readers would "get" the Arthurian references that way, but not be irritated when the characters didn't match with their reputations in the original myths. That's what really bothered me. I loved Nimue and her kick-ass attitude with the magic sword, but I wanted Arthur to act like the Arthur I know, and Lancelot to act like Lancelot, etc. The names distracted me.

As for the illustrations, I hate how Nimue's buttcrack is emphasized in one of them--it made to check to see if this was a male illustrator. Yep, of course. And I hate how the illustrations aren't fully integrated with the text. I want the illustration on the page where the text is--not on the next page. I'd rather have smaller illustrations that are integrated with the text than what is in this book. I don't want the visual elements to look like they were done separately and then just stuck in by the book publisher.

Will this make a decent Netflix series? Meh. Not so sure. I'd love to see a diverse cast in any fantasy series, but I don't know if another Arthurian series is needed.

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Review: Wanderers

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel took forever to finish because I was winding up my second year on RUSA's Listen List Committee and only read print books on my lunch hour. And this book is 782 pages. (!)

Please, please, turn this world into a Netflix series because I would SO watch it. I had never read anything by Wendig before, but this is full of pop culture and teen friendly and just REAL. And that's my favorite kind of apocalyptic novel.

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