randi_jo's Reviews (420)

This book is a wild ride verging on the ridiculous but firmly planted in reality. Lacey May Herd is a 14 year old girl trapped in a cult and is fighting each day discovering more about herself, the world, and her faith as she's forced to comply with the whims of the church's leader Vern.

The prose is so wonderful - it focuses on the mundane, comparing and contrasting against the absurd to bring the setting into life. Lacey's narrative stays innocent, both appropriate for her age and not, tainted by the things she's forced to endure. It's bitter and it's sweet as she grows too fast but not fast enough.

The plot, I feel, is rather straightforward with the kinds of twists that make you think "oh no, when do they make it all stop? How far will it go before it blows up?", a good kind of anxiety.

I think the main focus is Lacey's and her mother's relationship - or lack thereof, a constant undercurrent from page one to the last sentence. I think it's more about breaking cycles than it is about her mother, who is the kind that even if they're present, they're emotionally absent. The moment her mother leaves, she's filled with "motherloss", the abandonment, the repressed memories of past abuse by her mother's boyfriends, the longing for a mother's love. And though she lives with her maternal grandmother, Cherry, she's confronted by the reality that her mother was just another link in the chain. I think it was the learning that motherly love doesn't HAVE to come from your biological mother, but also you can become the person you've always wanted in your own life. Manifest it.

I 100% cried at the end. It was satisfying, reflective, and touched on each theme of the book (what is faithfulness, what is motherhood, found families and breaking cycles). I couldn't be happier that I picked this book up.

Well...

It's a fun read with some serious deep think topics about women's rights, synthetic rights, human ego, etc. Some of the characters are impossible to like, most are impossible to sympathize with so when things happen to them you're like: oh well. 

The pacing of the book is terrible, to the point of complete confusion because random shit happens every third sentence.

I received an ARC of this book from Henry Holt & Co. 

I definitely had a love/hate relationship with this one. It's pretty light on the plot, with one main plot point being the buildup to Hurricane Ike, but even that was over in two chapters before moving onto a few chapters of 'clean up'. It felt like it was lacking in suspense or drama or anything interesting, focusing more on the lives of the people than the devastation of the events (for the record none of the 18 mentioned characters die. One runs away. None are displaced. None have homes destroyed beyond water-damage that's typical from flooding. And if they are displaced, it's never mentioned.)

The prose was nice. Not very flamboyant, but is rather solemn, sometimes to its own detriment. On this front though, I feel a bit robbed, honestly. It had a lot of potential to be a highly emotional read, but all emotion seemed to be removed from the story, somehow. People say they're "angry" or "scared" but you just don't feel it. Beyond that, there is a lot of Spanish and Tagalog mixed in but they're generally typical words/phrases that are either translated in the text or used in a context where you don't really NEED to know what it means because it's a filler word/phrase like 'you see?' I liked it but there were some cases when it became overbearing.

Speaking of 18 characters - I counted, but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some - it really did become too much. I read some reviews before starting this and thought "too many characters? is that possible?" It is. There are 12 characters that have at least one chapter in their POV and 6 characters I like to call 'fringe characters' who don't have a POV but are mentioned in several other POVs. Each chapter is from a new perspective, sometimes not even along the slowly moving linear timeline but rather a recollection, that somehow will tie a character to one of the 3 main characters (Carly, Jess, the grandmother Magdalena) whether it be friendship, relatives, or the guy that had an affair with the grandmother back in the 90's. It does well to show that a community is comprised of so many little connections but with the shifting POVs and lack of plot to bring focus to events and fringe characters, it becomes muddled. I had trouble remembering who was who and had to flip back many times to find the one sentence or two when a character relation was mentioned in a different POV because the current POV made it sound like I should know who the mentioned character is.

The epilogue is written like a book's appendix. I did not enjoy that at all. In fact I almost skipped it because I didn't think it was actually part of the narrative and that it was actually an appendix/glossary. It details some of the characters' closures, but nothing unpredictable or that you couldn't have gleaned from the earlier chapters.

In all a 2.5, rounded down because the more I think about the book, the more disappointed I feel.

Man, this book had my head spinning for the 2 days it took me to read it. I was constantly thinking about it and trying to guess who did what and how and why. The prose is straightforward, making it an easy read without being overly simple. The best part was that I was almost never right!

Beth and Shea are both interesting, complex characters, although I do feel like Shea gets shafted on
organic character growth in the end because Spoileralmost all of her growth happens in the last 1/16th of the book, and most of it falls in the last 20 pages where it's almost completely glossed over; getting over being in a car, learning to drive, being comfortable in the public eye, etc., once the mystery is solved in typical mystery book fashion.

And to tread into more spoilery waters: SpoilerThe plot twist gave me 'Gone Girl' vibes in the suddenness of the narrative shift, but with a half-sister instead of it being the victim lol.

My biggest qualm was that the paranormal became too real with Lily's ghost feeding Shea information (and also attempting to kill her, which I THINK was supposed to fuel Shea's character development, but the trauma of it is swept under the rug in favor of her becoming a podcaster/author). There could've been a better route for her to learn how Lily died, instead it came off as contrived, even more so when the police just . . . believe her.

In the end it had me highly invested and even though the ending is a bit rushed, it hardly detracts from the rest of the novel. A great read.

This is a pretty valuable gardening resource. It's divided into manageable segments, month-by-month and general, trees/bushes, vegetables, and ornamental plants, along with a lot of numerical information at the end detailing soil types, pH, and fertilization charts.

For the most part I would ignore any advice from this book on when to sow seeds/harvest vegetables since it cannot pertain to every climate/zone out there. For that you should get more local information, such as a farmer's almanac. 

I did find a vast majority of the tips to be extremely helpful along with some tips I wouldn't have thought about before, such as building birdhouses, introducing ladybugs, or making a fishpond to kill potentially harmful insects. It also has great information on composting, building different garden structures, tool maintenance, and how to garden in greenhouses, rock gardens, and potted gardens.

The index is pretty detailed but it would be invaluable to have an electronic copy with a keyword search function. I think this is a gardening resource more for intermediate to experienced gardeners than it is for beginners.

I've never read a Sanderson book before, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting into with this one.

I found the world building to be super great and interesting. The setting was engrossing and I had so many questions like: Spoilerwhy are all these buildings run down? what was the turning event in 2016 to change the world so much? what the hell is the THING that makes Snapshots possible? I'm a little sad that these things didn't get resolved, but it kept me engaged.

The 'mystery' itself was a little meh. I can't say I saw the twist coming from a mile away, but neither did it surprise me too much.

3 stars because I wish the book had been more about Spoilerthe 'unconscious thing' generating the Snapshots than the 2 average crimes that were presented.

This book hit me like an emotional dump truck. So much so that half-way in I had to take a two week break from it because I was projecting too much onto my own children and sense of self lol - I guess that's just a testament to how relatable it was in parts.

What drew me in the most were the characters. Each one was good and terrible in their own way (some more terrible than others), that each one had their own redeeming qualities - to an extent. Also, the prose was SO good! It really hammered in the MC's emotional turmoil, the confusion, the self-doubt, the fear. And even though it seemed like the narrative was from an unreliable narrator, I think the ending helped sway me into believing that MC was right the entire time.

It was challenging and addictive. My only regret is that the story ends before Spoileryou get to see Fox shamed for being a massive asshole and then also proven wrong about Violet when something happens to Jet - or maybe he starts gaslighting Gemma, too, that bastard.