I DEVOURED this book! Such a sweet and well written love story. It's choc full of young-love angst and even better than the first book which was heartbreakingly beautiful to read in it's own right.

Such an eye opening read about WWII and what POWs went through. It's an amazing story of survival, hope and miracles; reminded me a bit of reading In The Heart of The Sea about the whale ship Essex. After awhile, though, I was getting confused as to where a number of the characters ended up in Japan and I wasn't always eager to pick it up, due to the repetitively awful scenes of the prison camps. But it's the part of the story that should be told and what those men went through should be remembered.

I certainly enjoyed the fantastical nature of this book - the main character has the ability to 'taste' the emotions of the person who cooked her food. However, it didn't seem to delve deep enough into a lot of the WHY. WHY was her mother so sad?? We come to find that othe members of her family have 'talents' when the story is nearly over, and I wish we could have learned more of their stories and the enigma that was her grandmother. It was beautifully written and I certainly felt the sadness of this character's burdens. But, I dunno, I felt like I wanted more from this book...

It was fun to read a totally different style of book from Jodi Picoult. Yet, I can't help think that in writing this book with her daughter, she was indulging her in a way... It was a bit on the cheesy and predictable side. It's not a 'crossover' kind of novel, I'd put it firmly in the YA category.

I always enjoy a good coming of age story and Julia's awkward junior high storyline was heartbreakingly identifiable to me. And the setting of the story, during a time when the earth literally begins to stop spinning, was really intriguing. I like a good sci-fi yarn, but I feel like she was just setting a scene (with some really creative details of the most mundane, yet fascinating things that might happen if the world would cease to spin) and never brought that part of the story to a conclusion.

Wow. Just, wow. I haven't been riveted by a book like this in awhile. I'm not really a fan of thrillers, but this is not like one I've ever read before. It reminded me of when I was reading Room, by Emma Donoghue. It gave me that same 'oh my God, I have to know what happens next' syndrome. I love when an author uses more than one character's voice to tell the story, and the way this unfolded was jaw dropping, literally, for me. Gillian Flynn is a genius at crafting a thriller and I'm adding Dark Places to my reading list, for sure.

I enjoyed the story and the question of whether love could be considered a disease. Although, maybe I've read too much of this genre, because I saw a LOT of Matched, Divergent, Across the Universe, and of course The Giver in the themes of the book. But, the author it a different spin and I hate not know how something ends (OF COURSE it ends on a cliffhanger), so I've put the second book on hold in the inevitable trilogy. Sigh.

I was curious to read this acclaimed novel because I'm a fan of sci-fi and young adult fiction. Turns out, it was not my cup of tea. Two things killed it for me: it was terribly repetitive, and terribly vague. The 'battle' scenes (which we re-live, over and over for nearly 300 pages) are all told from Ender's perspective, and he's not very descriptive; I could barely picture anything in the book and had a hard time feeling a part of the action. And the politics/political structure on Earth (the scenes with his siblings) were so bland and unclear. I felt like I was being forced to read The Fountainhead again. The last ten pages of the book make it somewhat worthwhile, but I'm in no rush to read any sequels. And that's saying something, because I usually fininsh out any series that I start. Not so for Ender.

Ughhhhh. Zzzzzzzzz. The last one was the most boring. I finished it a few days ago and I'm literally having trouble remembering what happened... They were fun overall, and I'm glad I had an open mind to read them. I think I'll just link to the best reviews on these books here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215?auto_login_attempted=true This is the review for the first book, but there's a link at the end of each review for the consecutive books. Each. Review. Is. Worth. Reading. OMG. High hilarity!