Very dry. The book is presented as a series of interviews, which made t very hard to get into the book.

I tried - repeatedly - to finish this book. I so wanted to like it - and it wasn't half bad for the first 20% or so (though the main character obsessing over wanting a shower in the middle of a crisis was extremely stupid). I plowed through another 10%, but started having major issues with Mike's hatred of women, mentally handicapped, the elderly, and gays. The way the author talks about women in the book makes you wonder what Tufo is like in real life. The random jokes and constant side comments were old, but I get what Tufo was trying to do, and I could deal with it (at one point Mike mentions that if you aren't from New England you aren't going to get his humor, and first of all, as an author you should be able to write so anyone will get your book, and two, I was born, raised, and currently live in Massachusetts).

I kept plowing, however, because this series has lots of fans and I do enjoy zombie books and would love to have a new series to read.

About halfway through the book I just had to give up, however - the author randomly switches the point of view from first person to third person, and then goes off on a huge tangent about Mike and his best friend which has NOTHING to do with the plot, and then spends page after page discussing bathroom smells in great detail.

As much as I wanted to give this book one star, I still have to give it two stars (even with the lack of finishing the book) because the story line clearly has a lot of premise to it. I do wish he had fleshed out the backstory more (I always want this) and Tufo definitely has to learn how to write women characters (well, he needs to learn how to write any non-prime-of-his-life male characters), but I did like the plot when Tufo was actually writing about the plot.

Another one of those biographies where the author continually tries to claim he's completely innocent, but an interesting read all the same. Dragged a lot in the middle

Badly written. The author was extremely childish and naive throughout, and comes across as a very flat, one sided character. It's hard to believe anyone was actually that simple in how she thought - I'm sure the author was trying to just oversimplify the events of her life, but it didn't come across that way.

I didn't really learn anything new about Mormonism either, which is why I read the book, and could not like Laake as a person, which made for a dreadful book.

So, this is the second time reading this, and just like the Pillars of the Earth series, it's not quite as good as I remembered.

It's still a great read - just not quite as amazing as the first time through. Isn't that always the case with anything one loves?

This is the type of book/series I love, that was so popular in the 70's and 80's, and I don't see a lot of today. It's a multiple generational series, spawning multiple wars, over the globe, so you get different viewpoints and see different parts of the action (John Jakes was so good at this in his prime, as was Michnener!)

The characters in the book are, for the most part, very normal people. Sure you've got the nobility, but we are supposed to relate to these individuals, and we do. Their normalacy is how we relate to them so well. Do I find myself falling in love with them and crying when they do? Well, no. There's just SO many characters - you have to have a lot in a book like this - but it's hard to keep them all straight sometimes (even with Follett's cheat list in the front) and it's hard to get really involved.

There are some other issues with the book as well. Follett I think has his own bias in the book and that shows through in the entire series in the "working class" verses "aristocracy" fight. It gets tiresome. Life isn't that simple. Follett also seems determined that everyone reading his novels are idiots, feels the need to explain every little tiny thing in great detail, and repeats himself throughout, often within the same paragraph. The characters speech is especially bad / unrealistic with the over-explanation of details that wouldn't happen in real life. If I was talking to my mother about the President of the United States, I wouldn't say "Donald Trump, the President of the United States who lives in Washington, D.C. our nation's capital", I'd say "Trump is ..." and make my point.This review was originally posted on Rambling Reviews

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for my honest opinions/ review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.DNF as I couldn’t get beyond multiple instances of ableist language. It was also not edited at all.

Publicist - who was very sweet & very nice - said that the author's husband refused to change any of the ableist language in the book because he wanted to keep his wife's memory alive (badly paraphrased) which is very understandable - however, the badly written sentence structures & grammatical errors took away a lot from the story.

 

Author also seemed incredibly naive, entitled, unrealistic, and immature, and did not appear to grow as a person throughout the half of the book that I did read, instead blaming everyone else for her problems and decisions.This review was originally posted on Rambling Reviews

Awful. Couldn’t get beyond the awful grammar/lack of editing.

I received this book for free from the library in exchange for the possibility of my honest opinions/ review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I didn’t realize this was a YA book. I do enjoy YA books, but YA historical fiction is too simple for me. I didn’t particularly think the authors did a good job at creating a balanced narrative. Each one seemed focus on just one aspect of their life, what each wife is most famous for. Each wife’s story is so briefly told, yet felt repetitious and boring. And Henry comes across as selfish and obsessed. No one is just one thing, and this book only showcases the worse in each individual. I read100 or so pages and skimmed the rest.

This review was originally posted on Rambling Reviews

The book is so badly written and poorly edited, that you unfortunately can’t make heads or tails of the authors story.

I greatly enjoyed Irene’s earlier two books and fully expected to like this one.

However, clearly the book wasn’t edited well or at all. The book is overly repetitive - both within the book itself and to her earlier books. She’s all over the place, you can’t tell what year she’s talking about and doesn’t give any references to help you figure it out.

Sadly, this book just seems to be a way to make money, without offering any real substance. I applaud Irene trying to support herself; a book talking about her current life would have been nice.

There are multiple typos and the formatting is awful - often just one word on a page or line. I suspect it was automatically converted to kindle format and no one bothered to check how well it worked.