Book Review - Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage

Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage by Joe Darger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I requested this book from the library because I saw it billed as the true story of the family that was the inspiration for the HBO series "Big Love". I am a huge "Big Love" fan, and a few years ago started reading plenty of books on polygamy and Mormonism because the show got me fascinated with it. How could I resist?

Maybe the charm has worn off a little.

There's nothing wrong with this book, except that it's actually a little boring. The people behind it are just so ordinary; and I do understand that is the whole point of the book. They are trying to say, "Look how regular we are! We could be your neighbours!" and they're right. They are very ordinary. They had pretty ordinary courtships, albeit in plural, and have pretty ordinary marriages, where they fight sometimes and are happy sometimes and have tragedies sometimes and go to PTA meetings and parent teacher conferences and fret over buying Christmas gifts sometimes.

In other words, it's a life just like anyone might have, except there are three wives in the marriage instead of one.


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Book Review - Pure

Pure by Julianna Baggott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favourite post-apocalyptic YA reads - and I've read an awful lot of them in the last few years.

Pure takes place in a post-nuclear holocaust future, where everyone who didn't make it into the security of a dome shelter either died, or suffered terrible burns and mutations as a result of the bombs falling.

I really love the world-building in this book, and if you're a fan of that kind of thing, this is worth a read. It's also absolutely fascinating where the author's mind went, in including things like nanotechnology into the scheme of things, to create the kinds of situations... well, I don't want to spoil it for you. You just have to read it.

Fabulous characters, an intriguing setting that just when you think you understand it, veers off completely from what you thought, mysterious sub-plots, a tiny twist of possible romance, and some real jump-out-of-your-skin moments.

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Book Review - 77 Shadow Street

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love Dean Koontz, and it's rare that I give a book of his a three-star rating, but I had so much trouble getting into this book, that I just couldn't push it any higher. I have a rule about books; I give them all a 100 page chance to suck me in. If they can manage that, I keep reading. If not, I feel no guilt for giving up.

By 100 pages I was only slightly invested in this book, and part of that had to do with cats. Koontz writes dog characters so well (his true fans will know what I'm talking about here!) that I was really curious what he would do with a pair of cats. The answer? Not much, really. They barely show up in the book. But when I checked to see if I'd made it past page 100 I was already in at 250+ and at that point decided it'd be silly to stop.

The end of this book is the best part. I just found it so disjointed at the start with introducing so very many characters at once that I had a hard time really involving myself with any of them. What I usually like best about Koontz books are how likeable the characters are and how invested I feel in their personal outcomes. There's a reason the Odd Thomas books make me cry (heck I cry every time I think about Stormy, but... yanno...). I didn't get that here, not until I was much further into the book because there are so many characters. I did wind up feeling close to a few of them by the end, but not the way I normally do in his books.

While this was a solid read, and had some really scary jumpy points in it, and some really tender sweet points in it, I wasn't quite as engaged as I usually am with books by this author, and that made me a little sad. But no less likely to read anything else he publishes, because I'm also that kind of fan.

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Book Review - What Comes Next

What Comes Next by John Katzenbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Never underestimate the determination of a former psychology professor, even if he has started to lose his marbles, like Adrian. He's finally gone to the doctor to see what's going on, after having a long conversation one night with s dead wife. It all seemed perfectly ordinary until she vanished, and he remembered she had run her car into a tree some time ago. After learning that he has a rare brain disease that will rob him of his faculties and replace them with hallucinations, he comes home to witness a kidnapping from his own driveway.

But what did he really see? Is the girl out three somewhere, just a runaway as the police believe? Or was she dragged into that white panel van for more nefarious purposes? Adrian is determined to find out, even if he is the only one on the case, though his time is running out, with reality being replaced by conversations with long dead loved ones more and more every day.

This is a great mystery suspense novel, complete with some heartbreak and fascinating characters. Definitely a good read.

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Book Review - The Elevator

The Elevator by Angela Elwell Hunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fabulous, couldn't put it down book full of action. Three women are stuck in an elevator... Sounds boring, doesn't it? Consider that one might be a murderer, or maybe even more than one, that there is a hurricane raging outside and no one to rescue them, that one man has a chance to save them, maybe, if he can survive the storm and get to them in time, and that their lives are, quite literally, hanging in a very precarious balance. Kept me up all night!

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Book Review - Castaways

Castaways by Brian Keene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a super-fast, super-horrifying read.

I love horror novels, but I kind of hate gore. I think I just like the adrenaline rush of being scared. Usually I have to skim the icky parts (kind of like how I close my eyes in horror movies when it gets too bloody). I was pleasantly surprised when I barely had to skim at all in the first half of this book.

But then, yeah, I skimmed a lot of the last half, which is probably why it was such a fast read!

Castaways is the thinly veiled story of the TV show "Survivor" if all the worst things that could happen to the cast did happen. Tropical storm? Check. Maniac cast member? Check. Crazy half-neaderthal, psychotic, smelly, hairy, underfed cannibalistic violent-killing-machine island natives? Che-what? Yep, sorry, I'm serious - Check.

It's kind of fun to root for the survivors though, and it pays off in the end. Hey, not everybody dies! That's always a plus in a horror novel.

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Book Review - Shadows

Shadows by Robin McKinley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was lucky enough to receive an advance reader's copy of this book through my husband's job at the local library system. Sometimes the perks, they rock.

I adored this book.

I'm a big fan of good YA literature, particularly dystopian, and this is a cross between dystopia and fantasy that lures you in with the promise of magic, a new society, and plenty of teenage angst.

Maggie lives in a world without magic. Oh, magic used to be out there and nearly destroyed the world once upon a time, but thanks to some gene-splicing and vigilant army units, the use of magic has been eradicated. Or so the happy society believes. But when her new stepdad moves in, a guy from the old world, where magic users still proliferate, Maggie starts seeing strange things.

Mostly, what she sees are shadows, demonic shapes with too many legs and too many eyes and a way of blocking out even the brightest sunlight. They cluster around her stepfather. They climb the walls of his backyard shed-turned-office. They loom over the dining table on family nights. When Maggie finally comes clean about what she sees, it's just in time for her world to be thrown into chaos. Her long-time best friend, a tall skinny Japanese import with a massive secret and her new crush, a darkly mysterious college student from the same country in the old world as her stepdad vie both for her attentions and to save her, from magic? From herself? From the new world order? Ahhh, you'll have to read it yourself to find out :)

I loved this book and highly recommend it. Couldn't put it down, super entertaining and fun.

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