I enjoyed this quite a bit, although it was not an easy read.

That might be part of what made it so real.

This deals with a lot of things--teen pregnancy, parenting and what it means, relationships and what they mean and attempting to cross that divide between teenager and adult without completely screwing things up. Added on top of that, we have the main plot, or at least the main thread of the plot: short-term amnesia after an accident, and a girl trying to figure out what was going on in those crucial few minutes that she's lost.

Taylor did not exactly get an easy life in a lot of ways, but she's attempting to deal with things in a way that felt quite realistic. It's messy and confusing and complicated, but so is life, and I appreciated the things happening to her and her behavior not being demonized or white-washed. She was a teenager, with dreams and perhaps not completely understanding everything, but trying to do so and make up her mind and figure out what she wants and needs to do about her own life.

Scott's family was painted a little thinly (except for his brother), though it was not really their story, and her interactions with them are colored by her inability to really talk to them, given they have a son in the hospital and their priority is him. Dani, Taylor's best friend, is crazy supportive, and it's nice to see a solid female friendship, without any catfighting or gossiping about each other but without them having to share all of the same interests or any kind of "outcast" status. There's certainly nothing wrong with the latter, but it's nice to see something different for a change.

I was not expecting several of the revelations when they came, and with each twist in the tale it went to a new level of realistic soap opera. Yes, I genuinely believe things can be both, as I genuinely believe life can be both (because how can reality not be realistic?), and it is due to this that it is not an easy book to get through.

The writing was fine, the voice felt real, but reading it, as with many things, was a little too much like living it for me to be super comfortable with the idea of a re-read anytime in the near future. For those to whom this book feels like a mirror of their reality, it is probably a more comforting read, because in the end, despite the messiness of things, it is hopeful, and it's always nice to feel a voice of hope calling out of the darkness that life can be.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this up pretty much exclusively because it was an Audible Daily Deal one day, and it looked cool.

I don't actually regret that--it's fun to go in with almost no conception at all of what you are getting.

This was a solid thriller (admittedly, I was expecting a bit more of a horror story, but given I was basing that almost exclusively on the cover, that is completely my fault) with a few interesting twists and turns. I did have some of what was going on pegged pretty early on, but the back-and-forth of our narrator did trip me up, because when she tried to figure things out she was making good points regarding it, so I wasn't quite sure what to believe. The only thing I was certain of was the "mysterious message" portion--there was no doubt in my mind what was supposed to be implied there, so that centered my theories around a particular individual.

I did have some trouble pinning down the setting. The narrator is British, and it seemed clear when we started that the book was set in Britain, but there were a few odd points that kept cropping up that threw me. Some of it was language use (it went back and forth between "go to the hospital" and "go to hospital," which may be quite normal in Britain but I was under the understanding they used the latter exclusively?), some was content (at one point the group laughs about the idea that there may be an Indian Burial Ground underneath the house. Maybe that's an idea that has extended to Britain, but it seems pretty darn American to me?), but I kept having to stop and go "Wait, they are in Britain, right?" which was weirdly distracting.

Nora was a solid enough main character that I was hoping nothing bad would happen to her, which is honestly good enough for me in a thriller--I have certainly read quite a few I was rooting for the hero or heroine to get murdered, so it was pleasant to be rooting for her. The rest of the party was an interesting enough lot--I was quite willing to assume any and all of them were murderers or crazy people or hiding secrets long before the end, which was a very nice set-up.

I enjoy mysteries where you have a relatively small cast and a small, enclosed area--where you know it has to be one of these people, and everyone starts looking suspicious really quickly. This was well-done in that regard, and I'd be interested in picking up more by this author.

Oh, I had such high hopes for this.

Even starting it I was intrigued. It felt a little Alice in Wonderland (or, okay, maybe just a little Splintered), and I do love gothic books set in weird places. Asylums? Crazy people? Icing on the cake!

Then things got weird.

Now, weird can be good. There is lots of good weird in fiction, and there's a place for it. That place is even often on my bookshelf. This took things to a new a different weird place, and I was not enjoying the trip. Do you know that moment when you are reading along, and you have to stop for something, and then the entirety of what you have been reading hits you like a freight train and you are vaguely horrified at yourself? That was this book for me. I set it down for ten minutes for something and then picked it back up and looked at the words in complete confusion. The spell was broken and I realized nothing made sense.

The second part of the book does manage to at least maintain a moderately coherent plot thread, but even then it is not anywhere near as enjoyable as I would hope. The first part just sort of stumbles through character interactions and situations like a drunk at a party, knocking things down without picking them back up and often turning around and going the wrong way for a time.

The characters are all pretty awful. Their motives for any of their actions are paper-thin at best (we're talking newsprint and not watercolor paper, here), and honestly, they were all insane. Or sociopathic. Or perhaps both--I'm not a psychiatrist, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable diagnosing (or being in the same room) as these people. They went from happiness to anger to happiness to murder to not murder to murder but by a different way to happiness to fear. In one chapter. Without a great rationale behind pretty much any of it.

I hate not liking gothic and quirky books, but I'm not sure I should have even finished this. I think I was hoping it would get better at some point, but unfortunately it never managed.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I do hate giving this, which is one of my favorite stories, only a three, but I was not really a fan of the adaptation.

The story itself was well-done, both in terms of the original and in terms of adaptation, and I thought the little magazine covers between each part (I'm assuming I was reading a combination volume and that they were originally released as individual comics) were adorable. The design there was quirky and charming.

My problem was the actual art.

I am one of those people (I apologize now!) that actually rarely notices the art in anything that has words. I read the words, I get a general impression, I notice color most decidedly, but I don't generally have a very strong opinion one way or the other on it. This really really bothered me, though, and it got progressively worse the longer I read. I was iffy from the beginning on the fact that they had clearly looked at the Keira Knightly adaptation of the film for inspiration, but I was willing to overlook that (and hey, redheads! I'm a fan of that!). Then small things started bothering me. The shading of their lips, which I winced every time I saw. The male faces, which were all oddly unsettling, even the friendly ones. By the time I finished this, I was attempting not to look at the art, which is kind of a terrible thing in a visual adaptation like this.

I can't say it isn't just me (it probably is), but it really came close to ruining this for me--I almost gave it up (and it's 120 pages of a story I love--seriously, it is not a long read). I finished and actually debated between two stars and three, but let the charm of the story, the well-handled dialogue and well-chosen bits that were adapted, and the cute little magazine covers sway me up to "I liked it."

I'll be going back to the book for my next re-read, though, for certain.

This is what I was hoping the original book would be. I take back any negative things I said about the scare factor of the first book because this had it in spades.

Spoilers for the first book in the series will be unmarked, as a heads up. Guys, don't read reviews for sequels before you've read the first book! ;)

Tark and Okiku have settled in a bit into a ghost-hunting lifestyle, and my, is it a dangerous and glorious thing to see. Dolls unsettle you? Turn back now. No, seriously.

While there is certainly character growth, this book is definitely much more focused on the scares, and it handles a few plotlines deftly and without any pacing issues. I may possibly have picked it up intending to read a chapter or two because it was going to be returned to the library soon and accidentally finished the whole thing. In like two hours. In the dark. Without getting up, because I was maybe the tiniest bit afraid of what would happen if I put my feet on the floor.

Aokigahara, often known as the Suicide Forest, is one of those places that has always fascinated me. I often get fascinated by strange and creepy things I cannot pronounce in a million years, for some reason. At any rate, setting the action here, adding a layer of mystery, and keeping the chills coming kept me reading much much longer than I should have on a work night.

If you liked the first book, or at least were ambivalent about it and wanted more scares, this is definitely worth picking up. I'll be poking around to see what else the author has written, because you can now color me impressed.

This book has been showing up for ages on every list of things I ought to read practically ever, so after a few glowing reviews from people I actually knew, I decided it was probably time to read it. It is supposed to be the first real psychological thriller, and on that count it does seem to succeed (assuming it is the first--I fully admit to not researching that claim). The problem I had with it is that it is oddly told.

It is much harder to feel what you ought (or at least what I was hoping to feel) during the second half of the book, because everything has already played out. Okay, there are a few curiosities, but you know what is going to happen. It is intriguing to see the differing understandings of the characters on motivations and occasionally even exact events, but alternating chapters seems like a better way of handling this in a lot of ways. There was no question about whether she would succeed at this or that, because we had already seen it from his eyes. We had already seen everything from his eyes. So the "thriller" aspects were downplayed.

The characters themselves: wow. I'm not sure what the author was going for. I'm going to assume that we were not supposed to sympathize with either character for very long and were thus supposed to feel bad about ourselves a bit. That's kind of where I was throughout--I had moments of sympathy, but an awful lot of moments where I kind of wanted to just leave the two of them together to torture each other, because they were both terrible people. Differently terrible, but terrible all the same.

The writing styles of the two worked quite well in explaining their personalities--they did sound distinctly different, and they were well-realized characters, despite being awful. Well-realized awful people that you are willing to read about for an entire novel are tricky to pull off, so kudos for that.

The ending was quite good and had this been a movie (has this been a movie? Seems likely, now that I think about it.), it would have been a sequel hook, no question.

I'm glad I did read it, and I'll probably pick up more Fowles books, but it's not going on my "favorites" shelf anytime soon.

This was quick, fluffy, and enjoyable, even if I still don't like Jeb.

It was interesting to see the boys from this series in their own heads, without the separation that the original book offered. The two of them take center stage in this bite-sized novella, and it adds some depth to their actions and gives us a few glimpses of things that took place behind the scenes in Splintered that genuinely felt both valuable and interesting, which is not always (or even normally) the case with mid-series stories like this.

Of course, it also led to my desperately needing to pick up the novel sequels (no excuses here on why that took me so long), so that's probably what I'll end up doing tonight. Thank you Christmas money and oddly low prices; goodbye sleep.

If you enjoyed the original, this is definitely worth picking up. It is a fascinating take on the Alice in Wonderland trend that has been going around lately, and quite dark. If you have not read the first in the series, be aware that this will spoil a hefty chunk of it without the same emotional impact the novel manages, so definitely start with that instead.

So somehow I had no idea Jack London had written a dystopian story.

I suppose it is more "post-apocalyptic" than "dystopian," strictly, but the line has always been a bit fluid to me.

The "scarlet plague" itself is actually scarier than most of the imagined diseases that destroy mankind, mostly because of how quickly it kills. Watching it destroy civilization was kind of terrifying, and the aftermath of things was not pretty. The speed with which the modern world became completely unimaginable to the next generation made sense, but was awful to watch.

I also kind of hated most of the younger generation, because they were horrible little monsters, but that's neither here nor there.

The whole story does feel very Jack London simply because we are looking at a "man versus nature, nature wins" scenario, but the wider focus (and, let me be honest, the whole "end of the world" bit) drew me in a bit more. It's still hardly what I would call "cheerful" (am I the only one for whom "To Build a Fire" was a turning-point in childhood reading?), but it is fascinating reading and something I actually wish I had been aware of before I pigeon-holed Jack London into the "cold + dogs + depressing" category. He is apparently quite capable of more than that.

The patterns in this book were quite lovely, and I was very tempted to set aside my holiday gift crochet and start a few. I'm glad I can get started on them now.

The book was well-organized and had a nice selection of different things. That might be my favorite part, actually--that this was not just a book about one item, but that it included all sorts of different items of different sizes and requiring different skill levels. There are a few patterns in here that are probably still beyond my skill level, but that's okay--I feel like I can grow into them eventually, and I'm excited to do so.

Each pattern reads easily and has a very lovely image of the finished project, which I always find useful. There is some explanation of the stitches required, which is always useful, and it does seem like if you have a basic grasp of crochet at all you can pick this up and find something you'd like to make.

Stylistically, this book is a kind of modern take on sixties-style stuff. It's very pretty, both retro and modern, and very colorful. I'm definitely looking forward to playing with a few of these, and anyone interested in a wide array of different things to make is probably going to enjoy paging through.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This might have read a little better if the synopsis had been about more than the last quarter of the book.

A chunk of the problem is how very very slowly it starts. We get an absolutely massive amount of backstory that was somehow not terribly interesting since we as yet had no real stake in the universe. In practice, the plot of the story picks up somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the way through the book, and that just felt way too late to really redeem things.

Rhuun is a bit woe-is-me and given how much time I spent growing up with him I really feel I ought to have been more invested. The other characters never really made much of an impact on me. Most of them were vaguely annoying, but in that disconnected way you get when characters don't have enough "character" to even anger you.

In the end, I felt like the first several hundred pages were set-up for the ending (which was admittedly solid) and the next book. I do like slow-burn stories, but I need to be more interested and more connected on my way to the main plot. This dragged badly and was rather dry to boot, and although it picked up in speed and intrigue towards the end, I doubt I'll be picking up the next in the series.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.