Book Review - Love Anthony by Lisa Genova

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova

I love Genova's first book, Still Alice. I thought her second book, Left Neglect, was okay (see review here).  I was excited to hear she had a 3rd book out!

I think now that I am a mum, I can understand the mum/child connection better. The aspect I love the most about this book, is for me to learn more about autism from the autistic person's perspective as I do not know a lot about it, and it was eye opening. This reminds me of Still Alice in that regard.

However, I felt that there is an aspect of the story that is a bit unbelievable. I don't want to spoil it by revealing what it is, but for those of you who had read it would know what I mean. Is it impossible? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know, but I felt it weakened the story. Thus I gave it 3.75 Stars since I couldn't decide between 3.5 or 4.



Note - The book was borrowed from the library.



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Book Review - The Strange You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams

The Strange You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams

Not bad for a debut. The main lead, ex-FBI profile Keye Street who is now a private investigator, is flawed, which makes it more interesting than a character who is perfect in every way. In that sense it reminds me of the main lead in Revelations by Laurel Dewey.

There are a couple of things that bug me though (SPOILERS ALERT!!!!!!!)


(1) There are some unnecessary plot lines - e.g. the missing cow case has nothing what so ever to do with the main plot. Maybe the author wants to reinforce Keye's confusion about women hitting on her but I don't think eliminating that part of the story will harm the rest of the book

(2) the real killer - seems like it was done just to add a twist since there was no explanation given about why s/he did what s/he did so the ending felt rushed.


3 Stars - it's okay



Note - Received a free ARC.



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Baby is here!

I know I had been MIA, but Baby Mental Foodie is here! He was born last week and we'd been home a few days... we're all still adjusting but each day is getting better. We're both doing well though :)

We'll see when I'll have time to read (I AM reading a book but only a few pages a day...) and we'll see if my reading tastes has changed (e.g. mother/family books don't appeal to me much before...)

Hope all of you are happily reading away :)



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Book Review - The Phantom of the Post Office (43 Old Cemetery Road #4) by Kate Klise, M. Sarah Klise (Illustrator)

The Phantom of the Post Office (43 Old Cemetery Road #4) by Kate Klise, M. Sarah Klise (Illustrator)

I haven't read the first 3 books in the series. Just saw this on the library shelf and thought it looks cute - it is not really a written word book in the typical sense, as it includes illustration, letters etc.

Cute concept, cute characters, cute message but nothing very substantial. It was categorized in the adult fiction in the library, but read more like a middle-school book. Since it didn't take that long to finish, didn't feel like it wasted my time at least I guess, but the plot was fairly predictable.

3 Stars for something different.


Note - The book was borrowed from the library.



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Book Review - XO (Kathryn Dance #3) by Jeffery Deaver

XO (Kathryn Dance #3) by Jeffery Deaver

The good - I haven't finished a non-baby related book for a while so I finished this book relatively quickly, since each chapter is short.

However, it doesn't live quite up to the usual Deaver standard... I was a bit disappointed in Kathryn Dance since she's the Body Language expert, but this book lack the technical details that I usually like in Deaver's books (some people though may like it better...) There were more music details than body language info, so that was disappointing for me.

The plot was just okay, the characters were just okay if not a bit cliche. The highlight was that my fav Deaver characters, Lincoln Rhyme and Ameila Sachs (from Deaver's other series, which is much more forensic focus) made a guest appearance - even though they just were mentioned in a few pages, but it was like meeting an old friend.

Overall, just okay. 2.5 Stars.

Note - The book was borrowed from the library.



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Book Review -Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

I am always for the next favorite murder/mystery author. This is a debut, so I was excited about that, as you never know what to expect!

Not a bad effort for a first book, as I did finish it despite my lack of attention / time / energy right now (33w today!) but I think there are some room for improvements.

1) The prologue gave too much away, probably can do without

2) The beginning was a little confusing since the timeline jumped all over the place, with different people. Though once you get into it, it's mainly between 2003/2004 and 2007, and you get a better sense of who the people were.

3) At almost 400 pages long (ARC copy anyway), it dragged on a bit too much and some editing would probably make the story moved faster

4) The characters were okay, not really memorable [SPOILER] - with Cathrine's OCD, I was surprised at how fast she recovered once she started seeing the psychiatrist Alastair? I mean, she went from not wanting to go out and having panic attacks with just the thought of Lee, to totally almost confronting him after just a couple of sessions?! Also, I kept waiting for Stuart to be a bad guy... he just seemed to good to be true? [/SPOILER]

5) The ending almost seemed a bit anti-climatic...

The story did make you want to keep reading to find out what happened, to see who's telling the truth, so that's always a great start :)

3 Stars out of 5.




Note - An ARC was given to me by HarperCollins, in exchange for an unbiased review.



All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.

Book Review - The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi

The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi

Murder/mystery, my favorite genre. Just okay for me. A little slow (not sure if it has anything to do with the translation?) but I did finish. Quite a few twists and turns, but in the end it almost felt like the twists were put in there just for the sake of having another twist, if you know what I mean?

Would have scored it a little higher if not for one aspect [SPOILER] - a psychic was used to solve part of the crime... not discrediting the use of psychic, but the whole story had been based on this criminologist and a missing-child-profiler using their expertise to find the serial killer, so the use of a psychic seemed like a cop-out. [/END SPOILER]

3 Stars.



Note - The book was borrowed from the library.



All reviews and posts are copyrighted by Christa @ Mental Foodie. Please do not use or reprint them without written permission.