You hear it all the time...that "Book Title X" is "the next Girl On The Train!" Well...in this case, that description would be very fitting. And not in a good way. The characters and storyline were very similar...the major difference was that in this story we're on a boat.

Needless to say, this book was a miss for me. But I did semi-enjoy it. I thought the storyline sounded so suspenseful and interesting when I first heard about it...But unfortunately, it just fall flat for me. If I had to summarize this book using a line from the book, it would definitely have to be, "I groaned at my own stupidity.” Gah.

The story opens with a very hungover character named Lo, who wakes up into a scene straight from my nightmares-there is a man she doesn't know in her apartment, wearing latex gloves... He doesn't harm her (purposefully at least), but he does take her purse, and the encounter really shakes her up.

Soon we discover that Lo really has a problem with alcohol. And that she is far too nosey for her own good. She's also quick to snap at people and very self centered. Overall a very unlikable character. And unfortunately this set the tone for me for the rest of the story. When Lo was in danger, I just didn't care. I found her drive to "solve" what happened incredibly similar to the storyline in The Girl On The Train. Again, the line, "I groaned at my own stupidity," sums that up pretty well...

Another major issue I had with this book was how overly descriptive it was... I mean, this was from ONE page:
...drank it down in three long gulps like medicine.
...like a sloughed-off skin.
...a sleep so deep it felt like drowning.
...like a broken-backed bird.
I had to work very hard to not get annoyed by this and just press on and try to enjoy the storyline.

I would recommend this book to someone that really loves books like The Girl On The Train.
To someone that doesn't mind really unlikable main characters.
And someone that doesn't mind reading a story that has a lot of loose ends...

Favorite passages:
Apparently the majority of ball gowns were designed by five-year-old girls armed with glitter guns, but at least this one didn’t look entirely like an explosion in a Barbie factory.

I lay there, cudgeling my battered brain to try to work it out, it the more I tried to ram the bits of information together, the more it felt like a jigsaw with too many pieces to fit the frame.

This book was absolutely adorable! I'm obsessed with classic Disney, so of course I loved this collection. It's a children's book, so it only took an hour to read. But the entire thing was an absolute delight!

This book is definitely something I would want to buy for my future kids.

I'm a bit conflicted about this one...

So first of all, I should say that SOUE is one of my all time favorite series and I LOVE the authors writing style (see passages below).

Second, the format of this book is very interesting, and the design is incredible. It's formatted like an accordion folder complete with a poster and then the bound letters which are all formatted differently- from normal typewritten letters, to telegrams, to a scrap of torn paper with handwritten notes. Also in the book there are a number of keepsakes that are taped in like a scrapbook, which is super neat. There is also a letter with a "code" in it. If you pay attention to the formatting, you will spot it no problem.

Third, I did really enjoy the letters back and fourth between and Lemony Snicket and Beatrice Baudelaire because it gave us a bit of a deeper glimpse into their personalities and histories. I especially loved learning more about Beatrice Baudelaire- you can certainly tell she's related to the three siblings!!

***SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE SERIES!!!***

And fourth, I really liked that on a first read through, this book was straight up confusing. However, once you realize that there are two Beatrice's here, everything makes much more sense. The Beatrice that Lemony Snicket is writing to is the Baudelaires' mom. Then the Beatrice who is writing to Lemony Snicket is Kit Snicket's child.


However, on the other hand...

First, my goodness. I REALLY wish we had dates on all of these letters! That would have made it much easier to follow from the very beginning!

Second, this line that won't stop bothering me: "And without the stories all three siblings told me of their troubles -- which in some cases differ wildly from your own accounts..." WHAT?! So are the SOUE books all wrong?

Overall, worth a read, but not sure I would recommend it because it is just so confusing. And that one line is seriously bothering me...

Favorite passages:
All I can do is hope for the best, but hoping for the best, like hoping for a bat to obey your orders, almost always leads to disappointment.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment.

But in my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you, and without you the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewritr9.

If you're looking for a stereotypical teenage angsty comic, this is it. It wasn't horrible, it was just a miss for me. I think if I had read this when I was a teenager rather than a 26 year old, I would have liked it a lot more. However, some of the dialogue that is spoken by the parents was just so condescending and ridiculous...that I certainly wouldn't have liked no matter what age. I would like to read more to see how things turn out, but I'm not sure I will or not just yet.

This story had the potential to be pretty neat. However, I couldn't really get over the fact that this book seems like a rough draft. The author's use of punctuation (specifically commas), the random tense switches, and lame dialogue drove me insane. I found myself editing more than enjoying the story numerous times. Once I started skimming rather than really focusing and reading, I got more into the story. I couldn't say I would be willing to recommend this book or move on to read the second book.

Jane Austen's style is not a style for me. This was by far the worst book I have ever read. I should have stopped reading when I reached the 100 page point and absolutely couldn't stand reading it... but I'm too stubborn. I found myself constantly thinking "who cares?" because this book was centered around gossip.

This was a total miss for me. I thought the description sounded interesting. Right on the inside of the book jacket it says, "a haunting, untethered, addictive read" but I didn't find it to be any of those at all. I almost added it to my DNF list, but I was already more than halfway through, so I pushed forward...

First of all, I didn't really care for any of the characters.

Second, I absolutely hated the relationships between the characters. The love interest between Cara and Sam was disgusting. I wanted to scream every time Cara said, "ex-stepbrother" or "but he is my brother" or "your not my brother." The abusive relationship between Alice and Nick seemed to be glossed over, even though there were a few instances where the danger was brought up, it didn't sit well with me. I really disliked that the Mom was totally obvious to the things that were going on with her kids, especially after hearing her back story.

Third, I didn't think the storyline flowed well at all. I was super thrown off from the very beginning when Cara narrated that accident season terrifies her and that she tries to stay safe, but then continues on to do the stupidest things that could very easily kill her. I found most of the story to be plain boring and throughout, I found myself thinking "wait, what is going on?" A lot of it didn't really make any sense to me. I thought the magic components had the potential to be neat, but it just didn't seem to work.

Then there was the "twist," which I felt was rather predictable. Whether it was just the non to subtle hints scattered throughout the book, I'm not sure. But I was pretty let down by the ending.

I picked up this book because the description sounded really awesome. But this book was a complete and total miss for me. I should have added it to my DNF list, but I had so much hope that it was going to pick up.... It didn't.

I don't think I've disliked a book this much since I read Emma. -.-

Reading this book felt like a chore. For the most part, I found myself skim reading because the dialogue was so terrible. The writing itself wasn't very good and it felt super forced. It thought the main character was horrid. She was incredibly self-centered, obnoxious, rude, and insanely quick to fly off the handle. The whiny tone and use of the word "like" in all of the dialogue and some of the main text itself drove me up a wall. Sometimes it seemed like the main character was narrating, but other times it was like there was a more generic narrator. There were so many sentences that were either run-on or something like: "But I. Was not. Crazy." Every time one of those two things popped up, I would just think, "UGH! Stop it."

The storyline itself didn't make much sense. Especially toward the end, where things should have been wrapped up- but I felt like we were left with a sad excuse of an ending. And a confusing one at that. And I mean, the main storyline- if however many kids started getting sick at a school, you know it would be shut down quickly. There was a flu in my school one year where 9 kids were sick and they shut the building down for a deep cleaning.

The only parts that I seemed to enjoy were the bits where Colleen interacted with her family. But even so, I did not understand the way the family treated the youngest sibling. She was seven!! How in the world did they never know where she was or see her when she entered a room?!

There were also bits that were called the "Interlude" that really didn't go with the story at all. And the tone/voice of the whole piece was so weird. I felt like the author wrote those small bits first and then tried to force a "modern" storyline around it, but also tried to make the interlude itself more modern. The storyline of the interlude also took a weird turn toward the end that didn't make any sense to me.

And there was SO much repetition. Example- in the interlude talking about wanting to run to the family barn to hide. Or Colleen hugging people and getting their hair in her mouth. How does that even happen?!

I would not recommend this book. I'm very annoyed with myself that I pushed through.

"Never is an awfully strong word"-Marez.

Well...I would never recommend this book to anyone.

You know the curse of the second book in a series? This book felt like the second book in a trilogy to me... but it was a stand alone book. I was so annoyed because it just dove right in and didn’t really explain much. While I was reading I had SO many questions…ALL of which went unanswered...I really wish I had written them down now just so I could add them here.

I also felt like this story couldn’t really decide what it wanted to be. One minute it was just a normal sci-fi storyline but then it turned into a war story, then an adventure, then a religious theme popped in, then a love story came into play complete with the overused love-triangle theme, then it became a murder mystery…then oh yeah-bach to the war story... like, what? If the author had just picked a couple of those, I think I would have liked it more. It just felt like it was trying to be too much too quickly. And the ENDING...felt SO rushed to me. Like the author was running out of space or time to write.

Overall, very unimpressed. Getting through this book was an absolute chore for me.

The one line I really liked:
"The only person that can tell you what you are worth is yourself."-Marez

I was so excited about this book when I read this bit on the inside of the jacket cover: "For anyone who likes to be surprised, touched, unsettled, intrigued, or scared, prepare to be dazzled by what a master story teller can do in a few short pages." I wasn't dazzled...I wasn't any of those things. This book made no sense to me.