westernskynaida's Reviews (147)

I’ve decided to read all of Berry’s books - so I started with the first published and working my way to newest

This one wasn’t bad, but I can definitely see why it’s the first published. I kind of called the twist from the end about The Night but besides that it didn’t hook me as much as Phantom Limb did. Which isn’t to say Missing Parts was bad, it just…I’m not entirely sure how to explain it

The ending made me more mad than anything else but I’m glad Celeste was able to go back to where she felt she belonged. I liked David at the beginning but man he pissed me off at the end there. I know it’s not unheard of in these situations but it still hurt to see him being described as someone super understanding to someone just so full of hate

I decided to read Donlea’s books from first published to his most recently published since I’ve read Twenty Years Later and Those Empty Eyes already. And finding out that some of the characters in earlier books sometimes show up in newer books is right up my alley for cool inner-verses

I was actually kind of nervous about reading Donlea’s first published book because I feel like the two I’ve read were very good. Summit Lake did a very good job of setting and story. I had suspect lists and reasons for why I had them and even then one of the twists still surprised me. It does get a bit of a lower score than some of the later books because it definitely took me a good bit to get latched into the story

I’ve given Donlea kudos but I’ll continue to do so, but Donlea has a very good knack for writing women protagonists which makes me sometimes forget that Donlea isn’t a woman

I look forward to the next one on the list

I liked this one. There was a lot of tension and some fairly scary bits. I definitely held my breath at some points

Harry was insufferable. I liked Sasha more. But honestly I loved Dan and Lucy. I’m so glad we got a lot of those two to counter act the insufferable chapters that was Harry

I do feel that this was a good book on tackling trauma and being able to be open about thoughts you’ve closed your mind off from

I think I read the first parts of this when it was originally on Reddit. So this was fun to see that this had been expanded on. I also read this while we were on a trip up to Winter Park, CO in a cabin with the extended family (probably not the best thing to read honestly but I finished it)

I feel like there were quite a few scary and uncomfortable parts. I also feel the folklore was very well done and with quite a bit of tact

My biggest complaint was that if you’re going to name locations in Colorado, just use actual Colorado areas. I was automatically changing the names of locations - Pale Peak to Pikes Peak. I got excited about Arvada and realized the location was referencing somewhere in California. If you’re from Colorado, just be aware that that might annoy you

Two things I learned while reading this book. 1) King takes quite a bit to describe the exposition for the story. 2) King is also very bad to read on a deadline

Those two points aside, I thought this was a great book - especially once you got past the initial 150-200 pages for the backstory. Once I hit a certain point I really didn’t want to stop reading

I would definitely recommend this to someone who is interested in King but isn’t sure about diving into his mountain of horror books. Just don’t read it on a deadline like I did for a bookclub

This was a fun little book. I’d never read Nancy Drew before but I’ve enjoyed the games based on her books. It’s a simple little story with a fun little mystery

I was also probably waaaaay over the reading level for this but it was still nice

Man this one was a bit rough. I definitely enjoyed it, but sometimes when it was during the flashbacks with The Freak it was hard to stomach sometimes

The feeling of how Annie was manipulated by multiple people before and after her abduction I thought was very well written. I definitely felt the tense feelings Annie went through

I also enjoyed the jumping around of Annie talking to her therapist - since therapy isn’t always a straight line of trying to figure things out

I also saw the main twist coming but I feel it worked really well with showing the narcissism that had been involved

So this one was an interestingly higher rating than I expected

The first 2/3 of the book I feel moved so slow and I almost considered DNFing it but I’d heard it’s one of those horror books than disturb people so I was curious about how it got that description

It’s now about 20 minutes since I finished and I’m actually shaking. My cat jumped onto my lap and I flinched back at first not realizing it was her….I’ve never had a horror book give me that reaction before so that’s why I’m giving it a 4.25

I tried to read this as a physical book but couldn’t focus on it. So I started the audiobook

I actually read this one because I was curious about the radio broadcast by Orson Wells - which I enjoyed

The original book was definitely slow moving but I feel like there were points that definitely added to the suspense and helped you feel like you were there with the MC as he tried to get through Martian invaded London

Definitely one of the better classics I’ve read so far

I’ve started being less critical of books and less afraid to give books a full rating. So this one definitely is a full 5/5 for me

I feel this was really well written for showing how someone experienced trauma - past and current trauma. Stockholm syndrome from both the persecutor’s side and the victim’s was also very well written

Even with how disjointed some of the parts were, it made sense with how Maya’s trauma played out

This book was also very good at making my skin crawl with how terrifyingly close to some true crime stories I’ve heard about played out or could have played out

I’ll definitely be checking out the rest of the series of these books because I read this so quickly