lit_stacks's Reviews (579)

This was my first Goodall read and, frankly, I was disappointed. The book had stirred up some controversy before publication for being poorly researched, drawing some of its information from Wikipedia and other unreliable websites. I expected Goodall to cite the book heavily in order to counter these accusations, but there is not one citation to be seen. So how exactly do I know that a vegetable grown in Nebraska has to travel 500 miles just to end up at the local Nebraska Wal-Mart? Is that true, or is it something picked from a second-rate website with no editorial value? Not only that, but Goodall seems to base quite a few of her assertions on anecdotes and secondhand observations. Other times, Goodall seemed to contradict herself, lamenting technology such as chemical fertilizer yet lauding silicate soil; encouraging native peoples to go back to their original diets, yet telling stories of how she improved the lives of Africans by bringing them certain farming implements. While the book was an easy read and entertaining at times, I would recommend reading something by the more experienced food writers, such as Michael Pollan and skipping this compendium of questionable source material.

My second Hollows book and, sadly, probably my last. The premise of the books have so much promise, but in the end they are only Janet Evanovich books in a fantasy world. And I stopped reading those when Stephanie Plum kept making the same dumb mistakes. And Rachel Mariana Morgan has hit that point two books in. To top it all off, the character development is terrible. For example, Rachel is completely nasty to Character X and clearly dislikes him. But then they end up at a baseball game together. And these mixed messages are present in every relationship in the book. We're told Rachel likes a person, but her actions say otherwise (poor Nick). We're told Rachel dislikes a person but it is completely baffling as to why. The books thus end up being disjointed and frustrating reads and so I am done.

This was a very basic work of crime fiction. Some of the characters were likable and I was rooting for them, but others (Hodges) were just blah. Janey and Hodges hooking up was completely unbelievable. The most jarring thing about this book is that King has no idea how to write modern, youthful characters. The slang he tried to have Jerome use was weird and off-putting. He must have an entire team of crack researchers and editors and no one told him that this was weird and not really how a 17 year old would act?

This is one of those books that is so good because it is action-packed and heartfelt and character-developing, but you're not sure if the next book can be as good because everything has changed. Good series fail because they feel that they need to keep upping the ante until they change too much and you lose why you loved the books in the first place. I hope that Jacka can reel it all in and keep these books on track. This was a great book but this series now stands on a precipice and we now have to wait for the next one to be published to see which direction Jacka picks.