Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Waiting on Wednesday (59)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. 

My pick this week:

The End Games
T. Michael Martin
Release date: May 7th 2013
 by HarperCollins

It happened on Halloween.

The world ended.

And a dangerous Game brought it back to life.


Seventeen-year-old Michael and his five-year-old brother, Patrick, have been battling monsters in The Game for weeks.

In the rural mountains of West Virginia, armed with only their rifle and their love for each other, the brothers follow Instructions from the mysterious Game Master. They spend their days searching for survivors, their nights fighting endless hordes of “Bellows”—creatures that roam the dark, roaring for flesh. And at this Game, Michael and Patrick are very good.

But The Game is changing.

The Bellows are evolving.

The Game Master is leading Michael and Patrick to other survivors—survivors who don’t play by the rules.

And the brothers will never be the same.

Eh!! Isn't this just the creepiest cover ever? And it sounds so *looks at cover*... eeek! I love it!

What did you pick this Wednesday?
Link me up! :)

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Review: Blind Spot by Laura Ellen

Blind Spot
Laura Ellen
Publication date:  October 23rd 2012
by Harcourt Children's Books

 
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.

Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration, is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her. But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her name . . . to find a murderer.

This unflinchingly emotional novel is written in the powerful first-person voice of a legally blind teen who just wants to be like everyone else
 *A copy was provided by Thomas Allen & Son for review purposes*

Blind Spot was definitely not the thrilling murder mystery I had first envisioned, but because of some recent reviews I was forewarned, and I was expecting about what we got: A crazy contemporary regarding extreme teenage drama, drugs, special ed class, and an insane, mind boggling mess.

We have a girl, Roz, who has an eye disease that causes her to see spots in her vision--imagine looking at the sun too long. This part of the story was saddening and made me appreciate what we don't always realize we're lucky to have--clear vision. Being laughed at, accused, and bullied is what she has to deal with on a daily basis, not to mention being put in a special ed class where she meets other kids who are… a little messed up. Let's just say we have a very eccentric cast of characters in this book. From the popular jock to the druggy, I can't say I was a fan of any of them. Every single character in this book made me want to slap myself in the face and pretend it was them. In fact, I hated one so much--the teacher with the bizarre fixation on Roz--that it affected my overall enjoyment of the book. What was his problem? This happened with another book recently, too, where one character annoys me to such degree that I can't even enjoy hating them. On the other hand, I couldn't help finding their strangeness completely intriguing. Weird!

As for our protagonist, she was not my favourite. Although she made me sympathize to her eyesight situation and the difficulties it caused her, I could not forgive the decisions that she makes in this book, especially when it came to Jonathan. Jonathan, a douchebag of a guy; they call him Zeus, that alone should be enough to steer clear of him. Yet, our dear protagonist is all over him because he's popular. Yes, that is all. I did not understand Roz's affinity towards him. Honestly, he made me cringe. She makes mistake after mistake when she gives in to his preposterous ideas and I could not understand why she kept trusting him. Like the book overall, her mind remains a mystery to me.

What we have here is a complete mind game of a plot. You never understand why the characters are acting a certain way,you're never sure who you can trust, who to believe, and then a girl goes missing. This is the part that I did like. I actually quite enjoyed trying to figure out what the heck everyone's problem was. In this particular case it was as fun as it was frustrating. Hence why I feel very undecided towards the book as whole. It was all very...interesting?  Then there were parts of the story I did not like very much. The whole plan near the end where the cops get involved is absurd. No way would any police play into this realistically. And then the ending, frankly I feel a little cheated. You will know why.

Did I like this book? To be honest, I'm not quite sure. I feel kind of like a deer in headlights. It's not a murder mystery, even though there is a murder (or so they think), and a mystery; it's a contemporary novel filled with angst and baffling situations. If you enjoy those types of reads then I would say give it a try. It's certainly different from anything I've read and I feel it may be one of those you have to experience for yourself.

3 Hot Espressos

Monday, October 29, 2012

Review + Giveaway: Renegade by JA Souders

Renegade
J.A. Souders
Series: The Elysium Chronicles #1
Publication date: November 13th 2012
by Tor Teen

 
Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.

But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie. Her memories have been altered. Her mind and body aren’t under her own control. And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.
*A copy was provided by Macmillan for review purposes*

Holy bloody muffins!!

Look at this pretty cover! Right? Don't be fooled! The world inside Renegade is not pretty. It's not beautiful! It's gory, disturbing, sick, and the more you advance in the story, the more terrifying it all becomes. It starts innocently enough. Perfect life, in a perfect garden, everyone is "perfect" with perfect blue eyes and perfect blond hair, perfect genetics to make perfect babies in this perfect world full of perfect flowers and perfect fish--for real! They live in an underwater dome-- you get my gist. It's a utopia. At least until Evelyn realizes she's been forgetting things. Her memory is not what it should be, and neither is Mother.

"Failure will not be tolerated. The only result of failure is death
-Enforcer Statute 104A.3"

Mother... That's what she goes by in this world. She is, of course, the perfect leader. More like, the perfect villain. Like the world itself, the more we learn about Mother, the more perturbed you will feel. This woman has some twisted plans and has been working on sick, gruesome experiments that made my eyes widen in disgust--me: the lover of all things horror. It was not always from the gore either, although there is plenty of it, but also from a psychological perspective. Brainwashing, manipulation, memory alteration, all from an alarmingly young age; there is nothing this woman has not tried. It is all so disturbing in so many ways.

""Oh my God," Gavin says, and starts gagging.
Even I can't blame him. The hallway is covered with dead bodies. The floor is sticky with partially dried pools of blood. The walls and even the ceiling are covered in sprays of blood. And it drips from the ceiling like sprinkles of rain."

Evelyn is Daughter of The People; mother's best and brightest. This girl was chosen as Mother's daughter as she is the epitome of perfect. She will grow up to be the next perfect perfectness. It comes without saying, this girl did not evade Mother's maniacal engineering. What does this give us? A very broken, messed up protagonist! A girl who is stubborn and resilient, with a mind that has been so altered, that she, herself, is not sure what is true anymore. I found the psychological aspect of this character--this novel as a whole, really-- to be incredibly well done. Layer after layer we see the mental instability of not only Evie, but this whole sick "utopia". Evie shows us her amazing strength and determination, then in the blink of an eye, she turns into someone completely different with seemingly no control over her own thoughts and actions. Now she can't even trust herself! I love books that add in psychological twists, they both terrify and fascinate me, and Souders did this brilliantly.

Some may consider the romance insta-love. I saw it more as a quick bond founded on this need to survive. Living through horrible life and death situations with another person forms unimaginable bonds, and this is what happens to Evie and Gavin. It's not the cliché all-empowering-end-all love, but a sweet, believable romance that has quickly, but believably formed between two teenagers running for there lives together, keeping each other alive. And this escape is serious; Imperative. There is a LOT riding on it and will be the difference between a new life, or a life that is worse than death. The pace is set high with constant action, though not so much that it deprives us of character or world building. The horrors that we see along the way makes it even more electrifying; and what's worse, is it's all frighteningly real. Even the dome is described in such great scientific detail that it convinces of its plausibility. When we get to the ending, we see ourselves at the start of a new journey that will take part in book two. Oh, the wait will be a killer!

Renegade is the kind of book where the more you read, the better it gets. So for a book that starts already uphill, by the time I was done, I was not only on top of the hill, but I had leaped over, and into an abyss of bloody muffins. Yes, it all comes down to the muffins!

"Way down yonder, down in the meadow,
There's a poor wee little lamby.
The bees and the butterflies pickin' at its eyes,
The Poor wee thing cried for her mommy.

-Children song, part of the pre-school curriculum"

*Note that all quotes in this review were taken from an uncorrected proof*

5 Smokin' Hot Espressos

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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Xpresso Weekly: Stacking the Shelves (27)

Xpresso Weekly is my edition of Stacking the Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews featuring the books I got this week, and I also mention blog news/happenings of the past week.


This week at Xpresso Reads
This week was very giveaway friendly on the blog. Firstly I threw a giveaway to help me spread the word on Xpresso Book Tours. You can enter here! I'm also participating in the Spooktacular giveaway hop so don't miss out on over 450 chances to win. And lastly, the Blind Spot blog tour dropped by and you can enter to win a great swag bag! As for Xpresso Book tours, you can still sign up to reveal the cover of Pieces by Michelle Davidson Argyle, as well as 2 tours open for sign up. Check it out!

Reviews on the blog this week:


New by Xpresso Design (click to enlarge):

 



Stacking the Shelves



I received for review (Click on title links for Goodreads):
 
-Chasers by James Phelan 
-Blind Spot by Laura Ellen

 

 

*Big thanks to the lovely people at Thomas Allen & Son, Kensington Teen, Disney Hyperion, Macmillan, and the fabulous Jessica Meigs for these pretties!*

Peace out, lovelies!!
Link me up to your book haul post! :) 

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Fresh Batch (October 28th - November 3rd)

Exclusively titled for Xpresso Reads, Fresh Batch features the hottest releases of this upcoming week.


Flavor of the week:
Iced
Karen Marie Moning
Series: Fever, #6
Publication date: October 30th 2012
by Delacorte Press

 
The year is 1 AWC—After the Wall Crash. The Fae are free and hunting us. It’s a war zone out there, and no two days are alike. I’m Dani O’Malley, the chaos-filled streets of Dublin are my home, and there’s no place I’d rather be.

Dani “Mega” O’Malley plays by her own set of rules—and in a world overrun by Dark Fae, her biggest rule is: Do what it takes to survive. Possessing rare talents and the all-powerful Sword of Light, Dani is more than equipped for the task. In fact, she’s one of the rare humans who can defend themselves against the Unseelie. But now, amid the pandemonium, her greatest gifts have turned into serious liabilities.

Dani’s ex–best friend, MacKayla Lane, wants her dead, the terrifying Unseelie princes have put a price on her head, and Inspector Jayne, the head of the police force, is after her sword and will stop at nothing to get it. What’s more, people are being mysteriously frozen to death all over the city, encased on the spot in sub-zero, icy tableaux.

When Dublin’s most seductive nightclub gets blanketed in hoarfrost, Dani finds herself at the mercy of Ryodan, the club’s ruthless, immortal owner. He needs her quick wit and exceptional skill to figure out what’s freezing Fae and humans dead in their tracks—and Ryodan will do anything to ensure her compliance.

Dodging bullets, fangs, and fists, Dani must strike treacherous bargains and make desperate alliances to save her beloved Dublin—before everything and everyone in it gets iced.
Read the first 27 pages of Iced, here!

Iced book trailer:



Karen Marie Moning (rhymes with 'awning') is the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of 12 novels, including the Rita-award winning Highlander novels and the internationally bestselling urban fantasy Fever series. Her books have been published in 21 languages, and her events draw fans from all over the world.

She divides her time between the mountains of Georgia and the beaches of Florida.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Review: Rebel Heart by Moira Young

Rebel Heart
Moira Young

Series: Dust Lands, #2
Publication date: October 30th 2012
by Margaret K. McElderry

 
It seemed so simple: Defeat the Tonton, rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh, and then order would be restored to Saba’s world. Simplicity, however, has proved to be elusive. Now, Saba and her family travel west, headed for a better life and a longed-for reunion with Jack. But the fight for Lugh’s freedom has unleashed a new power in the dust lands, and a formidable new enemy is on the rise.

What is the truth about Jack? And how far will Saba go to get what she wants? In this much-anticipated follow-up to the riveting Blood Red Road, a fierce heroine finds herself at the crossroads of danger and destiny, betrayal and passion.
*A copy was provided by Random House of Canada for review purposes*

The long anticipated sequel to Blood Red Road is finally here! Rebel Heart reacquaints us with our stubborn and fierce protagonist, Saba, after she found her brother, after Jack left her, after everything has become so complicated. And the fact that she is seeing things, things that aren't there, is not making it easier.

What I enjoyed the most from the first book is what has been the most polarized; you either love the writing style, or you hate it. Myself, I looked forward to being propelled inside this vivid, desolate world again by a writing style that truly makes it come alive. As much as some may find it hard to get into, I find it powerfully characteristic. It gives the book a very tangible atmosphere. You are not reading a story, you are being told a story. It still remains the most unique and best aspect of this series.

In this sequel, the characters we have come to know are back, but they aren't quite the same. Saba herself was turned from a strong, unstoppable character to this emotional mess. Yes she has gone through a huge ordeal and I'm glad that Moira didn't turn away from the emotional circumstances, but she has to stop thinking only of Jack for 5 seconds so she can realize how much she is crippling herself, and bringing her friends down with her. She was never a loveable character --what with her attitude towards her sister in book one--but she was a character I gladly rooted for. All she made me root for in this sequel, was for someone to smack her upside the head. Nonetheless, I like her, I do. She is flawed and real, no matter how frustrated she made me. As far as the side characters go, some of them definitely have grown--Tommo for one--but it wouldn't have hurt to get a little more character breakthroughs. I'm still waiting to see what Lugh's problem is; what made him so bitter. Basically, I love all the side characters so much that I'm dying to get more face time with them. I need their stories! I'm even drawn to the mysterious villain with which we make fascinating plot progress.

As Blood Red Road is in action, Rebel Heart is in emotion. There are not many intense scenes and dramatic situations such as we saw in high numbers in Blood Red Road. No cage fighting, no crossings filled with killer worms, sadly, nothing of the sort. We do get oodles of emotional distraught, hormone filled angst, and love. Lots and lots of love. No love triangle though, more like a love… waiting list? Saba is plenty busy with them boys. As much as I enjoyed all these emotions running amok, it turned the book--which I was expecting to be fun and action packed like the first--a lot more broody, and much more slower pace. For this reason, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I was hoping.

It isn't a bad book, by any means, proven by my 4 stars, and actually by itself I would have loved it. It's raw, gritty and emotionally intense, slowly filling its space with cruelty and trauma. But when I sit there and compare it to the first, when I go in expecting a sequel on a par with its predecessor that stifled me with exhaustion, end after end, and made me feel the never ending longing for something other than…. nothingness, it has nothing on it. 

4 Hot Espressos

 The Dustland series:
  

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Blind Spot Blog Tour: Guest Post + Giveaway

Today I have the lovely Laura on the blog for the Blind Spot blog tour. She's here to introduce us to her characters, and you can then enter to win a great prize pack! Look for my  review of Blind Spot on the blog next week!

Blind Spot
Laura Ellen
Publication date:  October 23rd 2012
by Harcourt Children's Books


 
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.

Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration, is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her. But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her name . . . to find a murderer.

This unflinchingly emotional novel is written in the powerful first-person voice of a legally blind teen who just wants to be like everyone else

Guest Post by Laura Ellen
Meet The Characters!
Thanks for the cup of Xpresso and the warm welcome Giselle. It’s so exciting to be here on tour now that Blind Spot is finally out. I heard you like Dream Cast posts :) so . . . I thought I’d talk about my cast of characters – and then open it up to readers to nominate celebs to play them. Sound fun? We’ll announce the nominees as well as my own ‘Dream Cast’ over at Alluring Reads on November 1.

In real life, we don’t have the luxury of identifying bad guys by their joker masks and good guys by their superhero capes, which makes it tough, because people aren’t simply one or the other -- ‘bad’ guys still do good things, and ‘good’ guys still do bad things. So, we have to rely on our instincts to figure out who to trust. We go by body language and facial expressions when interacting with someone; we note whether they are making eye contact or not, and whether their actions match their words.

What if you couldn’t see actions, body language, and facial expressions though? What if you couldn’t actually look someone in the eyes to see if they are being truthful – or make them believe you are being truthful? What if everything you saw was distorted, the center blocked out, so that your brain had to make sense of what it was seeing, and it didn’t always get that right?
Would you feel insecure about yourself and your instincts? Self-conscious? Unsure who to trust – including yourself?

That’s what the main character in Blind Spot, Roswell ‘Roz’ Hart must deal with every day because of her visual impairment. She has macular degeneration which blocks her central vision and her lack of vision makes her frustrated and insecure. But she’s also very stubborn – perhaps too stubborn – refusing to ask for help even when she needs it. She loves music and loves the ‘unknown’ – her father chases UFO sightings and sends her the photos, which she has displayed on the ceiling above her bed.
I guess if I had to specify, I’d say Roz has brown hair and green eyes, not intense green, just green – but I tried to leave physical descriptions of Roz to a minimal because Roz doesn’t see herself as other see her – and she’s telling the story. Roz spends very little time on make-up and hair, it frustrates her, but she does enough to look nice, to blend in, because it is all about not being noticed for Roz. She simply wants to be like everyone else. She wants to feel ‘normal’.

Tricia Farni is the girl who is found dead in this story, but unlike most mysteries/thrillers, readers get to know Tricia and her love-to-hate-you relationship with Roz long before Tricia disappears. Tricia is Roz’s special ed classmate and a pain in Roz’s side. They are partners in the class, but far from friends. Tricia is a drug addict and emotionally disturbed. She wears a brown hooded cloak every day that she twirls around in and dresses provocatively underneath. She has stringy blonde hair, pale skin, and dark eyes outlined too heavily in black kohl eyeliner. Tricia’s a loner and a bit broken, but she’s tough as nails and Roz admires that.

Greg Martin knows his way around the academic arena – always quoting TS Eliot and other authors/philosophers - and he’s more worried about his GPA than his social game. He tends to be judgmental because he is confidant and sure of himself – except when he’s around Roz. He’s been in love with her since they were kids (although Roz is unaware of this) and he can be shy and a bit of a bumbler around her. He is very tall, and despite his pressed dress slacks, button-up collar and sweater, he can be clumsy and a bit of a mess. His dark brown curls are usually out-of-control and more often than not he’ll have a smudge of ink on his face, He chews watermelon bubble gum constantly and shares Roz’s love of music and the ‘unknown’.

Jonathan Webb is the hockey stud of the school that everyone wants to be around. He’s a smooth talker and can make any girl think she’s his one and only. He is the teacher aide in the special education class that Roz and Tricia are both in. He has dark hair, is very athletic, wears NHL jerseys and jeans most of the time and he has a killer smile that can make you do anything for him.

Mr. Dellian is a young (early thirties) history and special education teacher as well as the hockey coach. He is very pretentious and condescending, especially with Roz, and goes out of his way to make Roz’s life miserable all in the name of teaching her a life lesson. The suspected inappropriate relationship he has with Tricia becomes Roz’s focus as she tries to discover what happened to Tricia the night she disappeared.

There are other characters, but this is the main cast. If Blind Spot ever became a movie, who do you think would play these characters the best? I have a few ideas which I’ll share on November 1st at the Alluring Reads stop, but we want to see what celebs you’d pick!

Leave your nominees in the comment section and you’ll automatically be entered to win the Character Swag Bag I’m leaving with Giselle. Want to also win a signed hatdcover of Blind Spot? Be sure to enter over on my website.

Before I go, I have the second winner in my ‘Blogger Love’ Giveaway:
Congratulations, Winter Haven Books, you’ve won a bag of swag from a ton of authors, plus your choice of either a blog badge/button designed exclusively for you by Giselle ($15 value!) or a book of your choice ($15 value). Bloggers, there’s still time to enter for your chance to win too! See the details here.




Laura Ellen is a full-time writer and mother of three who began her career as a teacher in both Language Arts and special education. Diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration as a teen, she drew upon her own experiences with vision loss to write her debut YA thriller Blind Spot, an emotional and suspenseful page-turner. Born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, she recently moved across country from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Waiting on Wednesday (58)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event that is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. 

My pick this week:

The Originals
Cat Patrick
Release date: May 7th 2013
by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

A riveting new story from Cat Patrick, author of Forgotten and Revived.

17-year-olds Lizzie, Ella, and Betsey Best grew up as identical triplets... until they discovered a shocking family secret. They're actually closer than sisters, they're clones. Hiding from a government agency that would expose them, the Best family appears to consist of a single mother with one daughter named Elizabeth. Lizzie, Ella, and Betsey take turns going to school, attending social engagements, and a group mindset has always been a de facto part of life...

Then Lizzie meets Sean Kelly, a guy who seems to see into her very soul. As their relationship develops, Lizzie realizes that she's not a carbon copy of her sisters; she's an individual with unique dreams and desires, and digging deeper into her background, Lizzie begins to dismantle the delicate balance of an unusual family that only science could have created.

I love sci-fi, especially lately; almost all sci-fi YA novels Ive read I highly enjoyed so when I saw this one with a kind of cool (though very familiar looking) cover I knew I wanted it!

What did you pick this Wednesday?
Link me up! :)

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Review: Crusher by Niall Leonard

Crusher
Niall Leonard
Publication date: September 11th 2012
by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

 
The day Finn Maguire discovers his dad bludgeoned to death in a pool of blood, his dreary life is turned upside down. Prime suspect in his father’s murder, Finn must race against time to clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him.

Scouring the sordid, brutal London underworld for answers, exposing dark family secrets, and facing danger at every turn, Finn is about to learn that it’s the people you trust who can hit you the hardest...
*A copy was provided by Random House of Canada for review purposes*
 
When I first heard or Crusher I had never heard of it or of the author before, and when looking deeper into it I was surprised to find out the author is actually EL James' (50 Shades) husband. This left me both intrigued and worried. Having been put off of 50 Shades simply from excerpts that made me cringe, I was hoping Niall would be able to create a story that was compelling and exciting, and hopefully void of bizarre tampon scenes.

Well, I can assure you there are, in fact, no tampons! A big reason *could be* probably because our main character is male. Finn comes home to find him father dead one evening, after the cops make him a suspect, he decides to take matters into his own hand and find his father's killer. This promises a heck of a lot of excitement, great action, and hopefully some awesome twists. To my great disappointment it did not deliver in either of these points.

Unless... unless you call Finn working, then working again, then getting fired, then working. Oh wait, it's a little exciting when he breaks into some crime boss's yard, but that doesn't last very long and he's working again. Washing dishes! All that steam! That hot, sweaty dishwasher! Yeah... no. Not exciting. When he isn't working, he's planning his father's funeral. Talking to funeral directors. Funeral arrangement... very sexy... Then wait, Finn trips, and oops, he stumbles on a trail to his father's killer! That was so convenient!

Let's just say, I did not find this very exciting. In case some of your are a little on the slow side.

The investigation itself involves a crime lord of some type, clues that seem to appear out of sheer luck more than anything, and a whole slew of stereotypical characters that felt like cardboard cut outs of any crime movie. Digging in clues is what's the most fun in a crime novel. You go along with the characters and try to figure out what happened. The way Niall goes about clues and twists are too coincidental to make it really captivating. Moreover, there's never any real feeling of danger or suspense. Instead of being scared, I was baffled by the characters' actions. Stupidity will never be suspenseful, only irritating, and slightly amazing.

So why did I give this book 2-stars? Well, I finished it. It kept my interest; I was hoping it would eventually get thrilling, and I was kept curious throughout, wanting to know who the killer was. So it is a decent premise, with an interesting male protagonist who could have a lot of depth if the author gave him a likeable personality, or any personality at all to be honest. The lack of consistency in the writing and sporadic pacing clearly killed the whole plot for me. But hey, why don't you try it out? *hands over book forcefully*


2 Espressos