I thought this book was absolutely brilliant. The organization took me a little while to get used to because the story didn't run from start to finish. It skipped around as we were given little flashbacks/glimpses into his past as well as sections with quotes from books and testimonies from the case. Once I got used to it, I absolutely loved it. There were some bits that were repetitive (which normally I despise in a book) but this time I enjoyed it because we were given more information each time. It was like...each time John Wade thought about something, he remembered a bit more even though his brain had tried so hard to block it out.

The storyline itself was violent and thrilling. I found the entire book to be very interesting because you followed the already mentally unstable John Wade as his mind really started to unravel after a major loss on top of everything he saw/did in Vietnam.

I really liked the ending, especially with the authors notes. The fact that the case was never really solved added to the mystery.

Favorite lines:
“To his surprise Kathy kept loving him, she didn’t stop, and over the course of the spring semester they made plans to be married and have children and someday live in a big old house in Minneapolis.”

"Everything blended with everything else, trees and brush and sky, and already he was on the edge of lost."

"Despite everything, his mood was curiously festive, his morale high, and it occurred to him that happiness itself was a subject to the laws of relativity."

"...but this is a love story. There is no tidiness. Blame it on the human heart."

I'll admit, I almost added this book to my DNF shelf. The first few pages were absolutely brutal- the main character was incredibly annoying, clingy, and insane. However, after a few pages I realized that, yet again, Daniel Handler is a genius. He absolutely nailed what it is like to be a teenage girl going through her first major heartbreak.

My favorite lines:
"Stop saying no offense," I said, "when you say offensive things. It's not a free pass."

"I waved but couldn't answer, because I was finally letting myself grin as wide as I'd wanted all afternoon, all evening, every sec of every minute with you, Ed. Shit. I guess I already loved you then."

"I almost said I love you. Instead I said nothing and you said nothing."

A must-read for any Lemony Snicket fan!! I'm very happy to have purchased this book on a whim. It's a very welcomed addition to my shelf!

I absolutely LOVED this collection. The selections are hilarious, thought provoking, touching, and sometimes a mix of the three! I recognized a few of the passages from different Series of Unfortunate Events books, but the majority of them seemed new.

I read this book in less than a half hour and kept interrupting my boyfriend's video game session to read some of the passages to him when he heard me laugh and asked, "What did that passage say?"

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

One of my favorite passages:

"If writers wrote as carelessly
as some people talk, then
adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[
pasdlgkhasdfasdf."

This book was an absolute joy to read. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. And once it was over, I was so sad because I wanted to live in the story for much longer.

I loved everything about this book. The storyline was heartbreaking, but also inspiring and hopeful. The descriptions about Soloman's anxiety were incredibly powerful. The characters were lovable. The family dynamics in the Reed house was absolutely lovely and real. The writing was fantastic. My only irk was that when we first met Lisa, we were told that "Not even an offer from her boyfriend to drive to the coast and watch the sunset could tempt her off schedule" but then later... her boyfriend, Clark, asks her to come over and she responds, "Definitely. I need to study for a calculus test tomorrow, but I'd love an excuse to procrastinate." Just a weird bit that doesn't really match up.

This is another book that everyone should read at least once!

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book!

**Potential Spoilers**

My favorite lines:
"Sometimes life just hands you the lemonade, straight up in a chilled glass with a little slice of lemon on top."

"This is how it always started. Everything would be fine and then a sudden stinking feeling would come over him, like his chest was going to cave in. He would feel his heart bumping up against his rib cage, wanting out, quickening either every beat and then radiating down his arms and up to his temples. It vibrated him, making everything he saw bounce around like the world was just photographs being flipped in front of him."

"Sometimes that's all you can do when it happens- hold on just long enough for the world to stop shaking. There's a reason people mistake them for heart attacks..."

"Solomon took the Speedo and rubber band-style shot it at his dad, who caught it midair and then held it up to his waist.
'Oh yeah, I'm going to look good in this puppy.'
'Grandma, cancel the pool,' Soloman said."

"'Looks comfortable,' Grandma said. 'Your father broke his tailbone in middle school and had to sit on something very similar. Only smaller of course. You remember that, Jason?'
'I broke my ass, Mom. Of course I remember.'"

"Gossip works that way. It makes fools out of everyone but the source."

I enjoyed this book! I would definitely recommend this to others, but I would also say not to read any reviews or anything before you dive in so you can be as shocked as possible.

More personal review notes: More like a 3.5 review... I didn't really care for any of the characters. None of them seemed to stick out to me. I have a feeling that I'll completely forget about them all in a day or so. The idea behind the story though, that will stick with me for sure! Very creepy!

Favorite lines:
"In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is."

"There is no peace in CyFi's head. The Fry doesn't know how bad it is. The Fry doesn't know how the feelings crash over him like storm-driven waves pounding a failing seawall. The wall is going to collapse soon, and when it does, Cy will lose it. He'll lose everything."

"You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other."

I really enjoyed this book though I definitely didn't love it. The snag was that I flip-flopped between totally hating and loving the main character. In the times that I hated the character, I felt that the story dragged. But when he was being rather funny, the story seemed to fly by. The main character was just so self centered and childish sometimes. One of the characters nailed it when she called him "Sour." But other times, he was so self confident (though in a irritatingly selfish way), and I couldn't help but admire it.

My favorite lines/passages:
"We had no irony when it came to girls, though. There was just no time to develop it. One moment they weren't there, not in any form that interested us, anyway, and the next you couldn't miss them; they were everywhere, all over the place."

"...and I suddenly forgot how to walk without being aware of every single part of my body."

"Has she only got half a name? Eh? Anna who? Anna Neagle? Anna Green Gables? Anna Conda? Come on."

"Birthdays should be suspended in years like this one: there should be a law, of man if not of nature, that you are only allowed to age when things are ticking along nicely. What do I want to be thirty-six for now? I don't. It's not convenient. Rob Fleming's life is frozen at the moment, and he refuses to get any older. Please retain all cards, cakes, and presents for se on another occasion."

"We watch a man trying to light a cigarette while holding a dog lead, a newspaper, and an umbrella. It can't be done, but he won't give up."

"I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

This book is perfect for a quick morning/afternoon read while drinking your own cup of tea. The story was short and bittersweet; a typical period romance. I didn't particularly care for any of the characters, but I did enjoy seeing where the story took them.

Favorite lines:
"What's the danger? Or, if there is one, doesn't that make it all the more exciting?"

Philip: "...I don't mean it the way it sounds, but it's such a fuss for a single afternoon."
Rosemary: "Not such a fuss to start an entire life."

"And though she might not be able to control the rest of her life, it was clear she was going to have whatever she wanted for dinner."

"When someone dies, time seems to take on a dimension of its own. Minutes expand to sometimes seem like hours and silence is filled with memories of what had been."

I absolutely loved this book. It was a very quick read; so if you're looking for a book to finish in a day or so, this is a great one. The writing was beautiful. The storyline was quick and followed a very simple path. The characters were interesting, especially from the small town standpoint. I really enjoyed the anxiety that this book provoked because while it was a bit creepy (the government suddenly isolating the town and not giving the people inside much information or any answers to their questions, not letting an asthmatic out to refill her inhaler prescription, etc.), it wasn't over the top.

I would highly recommend this book.


Favorite lines:

"A slow burn panic set in, which made him do stupid things like wave the phone through the air in search of a better signal, as if the nonexistent message were a butterfly he was trying to catch with a net."

"Time seemed to split into two tracks, so that there was no time to move and yet infinite time to imagine the disaster that loomed in front of her."

"She always imagined a person would know, at a time like this, whether they were doing a good thing or a bad thing. But all she knew was that it was difficult, and that she wished she didn't have to do it."

"She often thought now about the power everybody had to ruin everybody else. You could do it by accident, just by showing up, or you could make the wrong decisions in such small pieces that by the time you realized what you were doing, it was too late."

This was such a fun read! Even though it was aimed at younger readers, I thought it was great. I'm so glad I picked it up on a weekend because once I started reading, I couldn't put it back down. The action started right away and didn't let up until the last page.

I absolutely loved the storyline and how the Chinese Zodiac was used. The illustrations were a beautiful addition to the story.

The characters were wonderful. Their development was a bit short, but effective. I loved when they would joke around with each other, and lighten up the situation with humor. Their superpowers were fun to discover and I really enjoyed seeing them learn how to use them.

I can't wait to read book #2!

Favorite lines:
"You have to be in a place to understand it."

"We only learn by making mistakes."

This book was a hard read content-wise. But would highly recommend it. I think this is another book that everyone should read because the message is so powerful.

I know this book is going to stick with me for a long time.

Obviously because of the things that happened, and the things that some characters said, it was really easy to get upset with them. However, my biggest issue with the book was the part when Kate visited Stacey's house not once, but twice, and trespassed. I was hoping something more was going to happen after that, but nothing did. I felt like that went against everything else we had been shown about Kate's character.

Favorite Lines:

"Turns out any ordinary place can be made extraordinary by the presence of the right person."

"Once you know something for sure, the only path through it is forward."

"Learning how to walk away uses a different set of muscles, new ones that I haven't yet developed. The task is slow and arduous. I force myself forward. I don't look back."

"The heart is a muscle, it would seem, both literally and figuratively. It does some things like beating and loving from memory, completely on its own."

"Sometimes, when change happens, you can't stop it or control it or direct it. You can only hang on for the ride."