D.G. ~Shameless Reader~

Thankfully, Tripwire didn't follow the same pattern as the previous two books but it wasn't as exciting. Some parts dragged terribly for me - why did we need so many descriptions of people dressing and undressing? - and there wasn't so much action. Also, I couldn't believe the villain had spent 30 years torturing people and nobody noticed. Some of the risks he took seemed crazy stupid. Why the focus on Jody?

You would think he had more important things to worry about.

I really liked the end although I wished we knew what happened with Marilyn. After being in her head for a good chunk of the book, it seemed weird never hearing from her again.

The best part were Leon's sayings - I really missed him! - and Reacher's huskiness.

Looking forward to the next book!

As I've been using BookLikes, I've found tons of issues that need fixing or features that I'd like to have - I know BL has a thread already going but that's so unmanageable that I decided to create a post of my own.

Friends, followers and everybody else who sees this post - Feel free to comment and I'll add your new suggestions to the list. If you want to share with your followers, please don't reblog but post a link so people can comment on this thread and I can keep track of things. As BL fixes things, I'll keep updating the list and removing items.

Priority 1 (Urgent!)

- Unfollow conversations!!!!! 

- Link ratings in reviews and shelves: right now, if I change the rating on a review, it doesn't change it in my shelf!

- Rating when you mark the book as read is not working.

- We should be able to edit our reviews from our shelves without having to re-blog them. I have tons of old reviews which are a nightmare to edit.

- Ability to search shelves for books (ours and others). The current shelf search is not very intuitive and it should show me the books I have right on the shelf. For instance, I searched for the bookshelf and it showed me the same book twice but I don't know if I have it twice or if it just showed me two different editions.

- Link editions so reviews for one edition show on them all (Debbie).

- Add ability to comment when updating reading progress (Sherri).

- We should be able to just write in the date of our review instead of having to go through that calendar! (Right now, some of my reviews came with a 1969 date and I've had to go through the whole calendar to get to the right date.)

- Being able to edit the book details while on the review page (SoBe)

Priority 2 (Once the urgent things are taken care of)

- Keep our last settings - if I changed my shelf to 'table view', I'd like to have it in table view whenever I come back to check my shelves again.

- Ability to remove several books from a shelf at once - the current 'remove' feature, removes a book COMPLETELY.

- New themes

- Ability to add a link to 'just my reviews' added underneath Blog, Timeline, etc. (Debbie)

- Manage followers so the feed doesn't get clogged (Hottie Harem)

- Ability to 'like' or comment or reviews whether I'm following that person or not. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to do it until you follow them and that post shows up in your feed (Kira.)

Priority 3 (nice to have but can wait)

- Our most popular tags should appear in our blogs so people can narrow their searches - this is most important for those of us who review lots of genres.

- Ability to mark reviews as private.

- Number comments so when we can refer to comment # if the thread is very large.

- Get email notifications with friends updates (SoBe).

Features I understand are in the works 

- PMs

- Groups

I'm sure I forgot something so now it's your turn!

Just started this but the whole premise seems ridiculous. You're going to get in a car with a stranger in a foreign country because you don't want to tell your boyfriend you were stupid? 

UPDATE: Couldn't take the whole thing.

I’ve read so many Urban Fantasy books with pretty much the same tropes that I’m delighted when I find something new. Yes, Written in Red has the usual gamut of supernatural creatures – vampires, shifters – but the world is definitely different: one where “the Others” are on top and humans are living on their sufferance.

Just imagine if when the Europeans reached America, the Native people were from a completely different race, one that considered humans as prey. *gulp* And when I say that, I mean it in the full sense of the word: the Others eat humans and like it. The first scene where the Others capture and devour a human was difficult to take and revived some long forgotten fear in the most primitive part of me. I didn’t think I was going to be able to identify myself with these creatures and only kept reading because of Michelle’s assurances the book was worth it.

Full Blooded had an interesting premise but the author needs to do some serious work on her world building, characterization and plot development. The ending was good - thus the 3 star rating - but the first half had the most horrid info dumps I've ever read. EVERY CHARACTER talked in long paragraphs of 3+ sentences - in chapter 2, I counted 12 examples of such paragraphs. Don't know what I mean? Here's one an example:

"Listen, Ray. I realize you think I had something to do with this whole mess.” I jabbed my elbow into door, gesturing to my apartment. “And you think I’m hiding a big, juicy secret from the world. Possibly hidden somewhere inside there. In fact, you’ve been dogging me for a very long time trying to find out just exactly what it is, making my life hard and miserable along the way, but here’s the truth—are you ready? I’m not hiding anything.” Well, other than the fact I just turned into a scary werewolf. “I’m not on drugs, I don’t deal them. I don’t have ties to the Colombians, and more importantly, I haven’t broken any laws. The truth is, my boyfriend and I decided to go camping at the last minute simply because the weather was beautiful.” Thank goodness it wasn’t tornado season. “It was just one of those happy, carefree decisions people make. He took care of bringing the keys, and I forgot to get them back. And while we were gone, someone trashed my place. That’s the end of the juicy story.”

I kept imagining Jessica as Joe Friday in one of his infamous speeches.

So in this book, Reacher got a job digging swimming pools - with a SHOVEL! - so he's tanned and in the best shape of his life. A recap:

6'5" + 250 lbs + Blond + Tanned = YUM!

Off the Grid fell apart at the end. It was almost as if the authors got tired of the book and decided to end it quickly. The narrative had been inching to an exciting end and then everything was solved in a "fade to black" fashion. The relationship between Magazzi and Grace wasn't solved at all - things were barely discussed - and I didn't buy Grace's about face with her issues. I wish Magazzi would just forget about her and get a woman who gives a damn about him for a change.

I'll continue listening to series because I love the characters (except for Grace) but I'm expecting some resolution in the next book. I really hope Grace gets some competition for Magazzi's affections so she knows how it feels to be left in the lurch!

So far the first hundred pages of this book have been a HUGE info dump. BUT, the most important question hasn't been answered...

Why the hell aren't there any female werewolves? And if there aren't, where do baby werewolves come from?

This is the whole premise of the book and so far, no peep as to why! Just that there's never been a female werewolf, blah, blah, blah.

Also, so far, there have been no discussion as to her feelings. I mean, if I was told all my life that I wouldn't shift and suddenly I do, I'm expecting some big emotions! Is she scared? Excited? Sad? Angry? Amused? Bored?

I'll wait until she meets the vampire dude from the description and if I still don't like it, I'll let it go.

"Gabriel turned, applying a questioning technique he was born knowing, a technique he inherited from his ancestors as members of the leading family of Venice for centuries."

He was born already knowing interrogation techniques? WTH?? What kind of babies do these people produce?

Obviously, this quote shows this book isn't for me. I can't take that kind of silliness.

DNF.

To review or not review? This is a conundrum that a lot of reviewers face when deciding what to do with ARCs we didn't like. Do we give a bad review to a book we got for free or just abstain from reviewing altogether? As much as it pains me to review in these situations (I'm human! For realz!) I feel my first responsibility is to share my feelings honestly. So if I read the book and I have something to say, I will share it even if it's not pretty.

Ravenous' conflict was pretty ridiculous, considering that it could have been solved with one heartfelt conversation. We never get to know the details of their early break-up, all we know is that Jesse left for the big city and left Erin heartbroken. But 8 years later, their feelings are strong as ever so when they meet again, they cannot help but get together again.

Laura Lee Guhrke has written some of my favorite historical romance but her last few books haven’t wowed me. I hoped When The Marquess Met His Match would make me fall in love with this author again but it fell short.  The book was a pleasant read but neither the characters, nor the setting nor the premise seemed fleshed out. The details were there but they didn’t create the right picture.

You will probably say that I’m being obnoxiously negative in this review because overall, I enjoyed the book. Both characters were nice people who had suffered and deserved some happiness in their lives. The hero was particularly funny and the heroine wasn’t obnoxious. But there was a big disconnect as to how the characters were described and how they were portrayed so I couldn’t connect with them.

Now that I'm unemployed, I will take some time to review some Net Galley ARCs that have been stewing on my TBR for ages. I know some of these books have been out for a while, but I want to improve my "approved %" which right now is not even at 50% (yes, dismal! You don't have to tell me.)

I'll be really happy if I can give feedback on them all, even if it's too say they are not my cup of tea.

UPDATE - 10/8

Review #1:   2.5 stars.

Review #2:   DNF

Review #3:   3 stars

After reading this, I don’t think I’ll eat Chicken Marsala ever again.

The heroine of this book ate Chicken Marsala in two different restaurants, twice for takeout, at a wedding, at a dinner with her friends and cooked it 4 times with different levels of success. I don’t know if there’s anything more boring than a person who never tries anything new (if I’d been the hero, I’d have stopped dating her just because of this.)

I enjoyed the first part of the book – the humor was not over the top and the plot was wacky but not creepy. Then as the book progressed, I found two of my big pet peeves: adults that don’t confront their parents when they’re out of line and the demonizing of men. You see, I had a mother like Min’s so I totally understand what it is to live with constant criticism regarding my figure. But when I was in my 20s, I had a very firm chat with my Mom about it and told her I wouldn’t tolerate that behavior. Did my Mother stop completely? Of course not, but at least now it’s manageable and not humiliating like it used to be. And that’s why I cannot respect Min who at 33-years old, should not let her mother choose her hairdo, her clothes or the food she eats.

Series Review (no spoilers)

The Tales of the Underlight trilogy is a romance, fairy tale retelling, modern steampunk, magic and mythology all rolled into one - I'm shelving it under UF because it's a more general shelf but it's not really. As you can imagine, something this ambitious was bound to falter and fall apart at the seams but the characters were so compelling and the narration was so well done that I listened to them back to back, something I almost never do. Jax Garren is definitely an author to watch.

BL is only letting me rate books from this page - I figure it's a bug. Anyway, I'll write something about it tomorrow.

One Week Girlfriend follows the usual premise in New Adult: traumatized guy meets traumatized girl, angst ensue. This is isn’t the worst of the bunch but I think it was too short to do the story justice.

Drew and Fable come from different worlds. He’s the golden boy football player: handsome, smart, famous, rich. Fable on the other hand is a poor local waitress who’s considered ‘easy’. Her mother only cares about her boyfriends and her next alcohol fix so Fable is mostly in charge of her younger brother. Because of her circumstances, money is always in short supply so it’s no wonder Drew’s offer was the kind she couldn’t refuse – he’ll pay her to be his fake girlfriend for a week.