A fun, quick read. Margaret Peterson Haddix is a wonderful writer and particularly good at crafting over the top plots big on conspiracies. I would definitely recommend this to any preteens/young teens, or anyone who enjoys books geared toward a younger audience. It's not gonna change your life, but it's a cute story, much like the rest of her books.

It felt very messy. Like there was so much going on and so many plotlines that served no purpose except to act as red herrings. Which would be fine if it weren't for the massive amount of time spent on those subplots. If something has no bearing on the outcome of the story, it doesn't need to be allotted full chapters and dozens upon dozens of pages. It just made me feel cheated.

And I don't know, maybe this is just a genre thing, but I felt let down by the ending. Half of it had almost no buildup and the other half had so much buildup it was rather predictable. If you like dark thrillers, you'll probably like this.

I personally preferred Gone Girl, but this did suck me in and get me invested in the outcome. Probably not a reread, but I'm glad I read it.

This book was quite dreary. It seemed like a slow descent from the beginning, with things just getting more depressing even after Lucy went into remission. And if you know anything about her life, the descent continued after the book's end to her death of a heroin addiction. That took its toll on me as a reader, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I got through the whole thing in practically one sitting.

She had lovely descriptions and prose throughout the book, and I could really tell she was a poet first. Bits of it dragged on, but I still give this book four stars. The parts that hit you were amazing and more than enough to get me through the rest of the book. It's hard to recommend because of the dreariness, but I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and the way she captured the childish perspective for the first half of the book.

It was fine. A bit boring. I didn't really understand the need for the twist ending, which was predictable, yet didn't really fit with the rest of the story. I've read this kind of story before, but I didn't think it was done particularly well here. It just didn't make sense, even after everything was explained in excruciating detail. It felt like something the author came up with halfway through, but then didn't bother rewriting the first half to fit with the new ending.

But I'd have given it three stars regardless. It's not something I'll be recommending or rereading, but it kept me entertained for a bit. The characters were entertaining, even if their motivations felt off for the most part. The plot was perhaps generic, but kept my attention enough to finish in one day. So overall, vaguely positive, but not all together good.

This is my first foray into Sedaris's work, outside of "The Santaland Diaries," which might affect my judgment, but I found it to be a humorous and entertaining read. He's rarely laugh out loud funny, but more in a mildly amusing, thoroughly entertaining way. A few of his essays fell flat for me, but for the most part I enjoyed this book and his voice. I can't compare to his other work, but I read this based off some recommendations from friends and I'm planning to read Naked soon. Not sure this warrants a reread, at least not anytime soon, but I'm glad I made it through once. Definitely worth the time.

These books got worse as they went along and this was the worst. It was even more boring and needlessly long winded than the other two, which was saying something. I'm usually a pretty quick reader and this book took me weeks to slog through. I feel like I was stuck in this world forever and there'd be no escape. It was impossible for me to sit down and read more than a hundred pages (or often anything remotely approaching a hundred pages) in one sitting.

There was a lot of explanation about every tiny detail of the Swedish secret police, so if you're interested in that, you might enjoy a good deal more of this book than I did. Otherwise, I can't see anyone sitting down and enjoying it. There seemed to be so much extraneous detail that this book could have been combined with the second by cutting out all the meaningless drivel.

In all honesty, I'm just thankful to be done with this series. It had a few good points, but it wasn't worth the two thousand pages.

This is a reread, but honestly every time I come back to it I like it better. As someone who's struggled with depression and the loss of a close friend in high school, it really hit close to home. It also made me cry, although just a little. Which is saying something because at the time I was reading it on a treadmill at the gym. But I love how mental illness is depicted and all the characters are complex and flawed and sometimes you do hate them just a little. This is one of those books I'll come back to time and time again. If it can make me cry, gotta give it the full five stars. It's so beautifully written.

I couldn't get super into this book. There's much better romance out there, but it was fine. I was a little bugged to find out it was part of a series since there's nothing on my copy indicating that. So the ending through me for a bit of a loop. I probably won't go looking for the sequel(s?). But it was a nice fluffy little read. An enjoyable two hours of my life, and one I might repeat in the future.

I found my opinion of this book incredibly similar to my opinion on Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey. Parts of it were beautiful, enough to give this a positive review, but for most of it I found myself waiting for those moments of greatness. It didn't seem like it was ever enough to push this book into something memorable, although I'll probably skim through some of the poems a bit in the future.

About two thirds of it felt like it was trying to tell a cohesive story, but then the other third seemed random and disjointed, which was a bit off putting for me personally.

I dunno. These kinds of poetry memoirs just might not be my thing, no matter how much I want to enjoy them. Honestly, read a quick except and you'll know pretty fast if it's gonna be your thing or not. I'm absolutely glad I read it, even if it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

I almost gave this one star, and the second might solely be because of the relief I feel that it's over. But all in all, I think it was more interesting than the first one. Still long winded. Still could have been about half the length without missing anything important.

And there were so many completely useless irrelevant characters who seemed to exist solely to be irredeemably evil. I'm all for having jerks and misogynists and homophobes and murderers in fiction. They exist in real life; they should exist in fiction. But when there are a dozen random side characters who don't contribute anything to the story and just exist to hate women (or whoever they hate), it's exhausting to read. Especially for over seven hundred pages.

But it was a quicker read than the first, and it felt like a lot less info dumping was going on. I still don't understand the popularity of these books, but I'm starting to think it's some voyeuristic obsession with sex and sex crimes.