Book Review: Throw Away Girls: The Jaycee Wilder Series Book 1 By: Jennifer Vaughn

Title: Throw Away Girls: The Jaycee Wilder Series, Book 1   By: Jennifer Vaughn

Publication Date: 7/15/2016

Summary:

The killer lives a normal life during the day, while hunting the Throw Away Girls at night, punishing them for their dark urges. He leaves messages behind in his victims' blood, his explanation for enacting such brutal, twisted justice upon the unworthy. He watches the media coverage. He knows the wily reporter is chasing him. As Jaycee follows her gut, and the evidence, she forces him to act. But when a killer is clever and cunning, he can infiltrate anywhere. Jaycee must utilize all her skills to expose him before he gets to her first. From www.amazon.com

Review:

I give this book 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. I am going to review this book with Pros and Cons to sort my thoughts out.

Pros:

1.       I really liked Jaycee. Her character was not an “over-confident-assertive-female-detective” that we read in every other novel of the sort. I felt like I knew her and we could be friends. She didn’t annoy me, and I get easily annoyed with the female characters in a lot of mystery novels. That was definitely a plus.

2.       The storyline was good. Gruesome at times, but again, just enough that you are like “UGH,” but not too much that you are thoroughly disgusted. And it was different, maybe because it was set in L.A.?

3.       There wasn’t much for dull moments. The book kept my attention and there wasn’t any chapter that wasn’t in-line where it needed to be.

Con:

1.       Though the book kept my attention, I feel like the pace picked up a little too quickly 70-75% through. This would not deter me from recommending; it was still a good book, but I never felt scared for her which I think was the goal. I didn’t ever feel she was in any grave danger. Another aspect is that the boyfriend was such a big part of the ending, and there was a lot of emotion between the two of them at the ending, but I didn’t feel that love throughout the book.

Putting the "con" aside, I am really looking forward to reading the other books in the series. I do feel a little kept on the edge to see how the other characters develop throughout.

Read Date: 6/24/2016

Acquired From: NetGalley

Book Review: "Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch

Title: Dark Matter   By: Blake Crouch

Publication Date: 7/26/2016

Summary:

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” 

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.   -  From www.amazon.com

Review:

“Dark Matter” is my third Blake Crouch book. I don’t know if I like Sci-Fi, or I just like Crouch? I’ve never been one to read it, but I REALLY enjoyed this book. It was part love story, part sci-fi, part thriller. Like his other books, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The whole 4 days while I was reading it, I was questioning my own life. What if this could really happen?

Unfortunately, like other reviewers, I don’t know how to give any further review without spoilers. JUST READ IT! You won’t be disappointed! If you liked Wayward Pines, you will likely also enjoy this one.

Read Date: 6/16/2016

Acquired From: NetGalley

Book Review: "When Strangers Meet" by Kio Stark

Title: When Strangers Meet   By: Kio Stark

Publication Date: 9/13/2016

Summary: When Strangers Meet reveals the transformative possibility of talking to people you don’t know—how these beautiful interruptions in daily life can change you and the world we share.

When Strangers Meet argues for the pleasures and transformative possibility of talking to people you don’t know. Our lives are increasingly insular. We are in a hurry, our heads are down, minds elsewhere, we hear only the voices we already recognize and rarely take the effort to experience something or someone new. Talking to a stranger pulls you into a shared humanity, it’s a source of creative energy, it opens your world, it cements your relationship to the places you live and work and play, it’s a beautiful interruption in the steady routines of our lives. Talking to strangers wakes you up. From www.amazon.com

Review: This book read like a good lecture. It was too the point and didn’t veer, which was nice. It included enough research to keep you interested, and not too much to get off the main topic.

I’m curious to know who the expected audience? I feel like this book would have wonderfully complimented the coursework in my Sociology classes when I was in school.

I have a Master’s degree in Sociology, so I think I have a deeper interest in the topic than then general public may have. I often analyze ALL social interaction, including some I don’t participate in (I’m an active people-watcher). This book makes me want to branch out and start talking to strangers!

Opinions of talking with strangers will greatly vary depending on the audience. I feel like as I’ve gotten older, I tend to interact less with people. I don’t know if it is because of where I live, my own perceptions of whether or not people want to talk to me, or because of my generation and our tendency to hide behind a screen. Regardless, I suppose this book has got me thinking which means for me, it was a success!

I would be interested in reading other books/lectures/research by this author.

Read Date: 6/11/2016

Acquired From: NetGalley

Book Review: "All the Missing Girls" by Megan Miranda

Title: All the Missing Girls   By: Megan Miranda

Publication Date: 6/28/2016

Summary: It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace. Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne’s case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched.

The decade-old investigation focused on Nic, her brother Daniel, boyfriend Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend Jackson. Since then, only Nic has left Cooley Ridge. Daniel and his wife, Laura, are expecting a baby; Jackson works at the town bar; and Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, Nic’s younger neighbor and the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared. Then, within days of Nic’s return, Annaleise goes missing.

Told backwards—Day 15 to Day 1—from the time Annaleise goes missing, Nic works to unravel the truth about her younger neighbor’s disappearance, revealing shocking truths about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne that night ten years ago.- From www.amazon.com

Review:

Imagine a dark cloud looming over you, intense, mysterious… This is how I felt during the whole book. I couldn’t figure it out. Who was lying? Was everyone lying?

This book was perfectly written, in reverse. It’s difficult to write a book (not that I would know), but to write it day-by-day in reverse and to also have it make sense? It was very unique and worked perfectly. Each day peeled back another layer. You almost want to read it all over again, and by knowing how it ended, would make it even that much more brilliant. 

To top it off, I felt like I could relate to Nic in regards to her leaving a small town, where it appears when coming back that nothing (and everything) has changed.

I’m excited to see the success of this book when it’s released. I can’t imagine it won’t be a hit.

Read Date: 6/11/2016

Acquired From: NetGalley

Book Review: "A Head Full of Ghosts" by Paul Tremblay

Review: A Head Full of Ghosts 

By: Paul Tremblay

Summary: The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil. - From www.amazon.com

Review: I decided to start with this book because of the aftershock I experienced after reading it. I read a fair amount of books, but there are a select few that leave me with deep questions of why? who?… that I will never have answered. The second reason is because I wrote to the author on Good Reads after I read it and he wrote back his appreciation! (I’m kind of a nerd.)

The story goes back and forth between past and present, and does so seamlessly. There is not much confusion, which can sometimes be the case in books written this way.

I really felt like I knew the characters throughout the book. By the middle of the book, I felt I had “figured it out.” By the end of the book, I had so many questions. But not so many questions in that there were plot holes… no, not at all…. so many questions about humanity, right/wrong, why did this person do that, who did what? Emotional. Roller coaster.

Since I typically read a lot of mystery and thrillers, one thing that I find annoying is a story that is far-fetched, or could never happen in real life. This could totally happen in real life.

“A Head Full of Ghosts” was by far the best book I’ve read this year.

Read Date: March 18, 2016
Acquired From: Purchased from Amazon.com