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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Book Review - Dead Air

Dead Air by Deborah Shlian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This audiobook kept me company in the hospital until I got to disc 4. If I had downloaded this for pay I would have been furious; but this was checked out online from the library. You see, disc 4 got steadily faster and faster and no adjustments to my playback speed on my iPod could make a difference. Halfway through, I was listening to a chipmunk on speed. Much past that it wasn't understandable at all so I had to skip the rest of that disc. Whether or not that affected my enjoyment of the book and the plot I'm not certain, but I felt it best to disclose that I missed a big chunk of the middle of the book.

This mystery is a bit outdated, though it takes place on a college campus in the era during which I was in college, so I enjoyed it. I didn't realize at first that this was an older book, so I was a bit confused as to why things had to be so complicated for the main character. Couldn't she just look X up on the net? Get on Wikipedia for pete's sake! Why are you so unreachable for your boyfriend, can't he call your cell? Why is the hospital using such an outdated paging system? Hah! Once I figured it out it made much more sense. Sheesh but it was harder to solve mysteries before modern technology existed.

All in all it's a serviceable mystery with a decent plot and some good characters. That said I had the big baddie figured out from his first appearance and kind of thought the main character was a little dim for not making the connections herself. I like mysteries better when I'm surprised and this was a tad predictable. It does, however, serve up some decent entertainment as a middle of the road read. Good to kill some time with when you're bored silly.

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Book Review - The Distant Hours

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was one of those books that, once I finished it, I couldn't read anything else for a while because I was so caught up in the world of the book.

There's a creepy old gothic castle, a trio of delightfully eccentric spinsters, mysteries that date back to WWII, a fascinating bookish heroine who discovers family secrets she never dreamed of, love, deception, selfishness and generosity. And it is beautifully woven into a narrative that moves seamlessly through several different eras and the minds of many wildly different characters. I re read some passages just because I found the writing so delightful. For me, it was a vacation in a book, and a fantastic escape.

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