Slowly, Poirot learns of the rumors surrounding the mysterious third girl, her family, and her disappearance. Yet hard evidence is needed before the great detective can pronounce her guilty, innocent, or insane.…

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• At least Hercule Poirot was actively involved in this case. I like it when he actually interviews witnesses, views crime scenes, and sets subtle little traps for people. In the last few novels featuring this particular detective, he didn’t do a whole heck of a lot of investigating. He seemed back to form here.
• I liked that Christie acknowledged Poirot’s age in this novel. She admitted in at least a few interviews that she started him off too old, and then had to find ways to make him not seem as ancient as he would have been if his years unfolded as chronologically as the books. (If he aged in real time, he would have been close to 100 or more in this one!)
• I picked up on the painting clue almost immediately. I knew there had to be a reason it was mentioned so much, and I was right! Score one for me!
• I loved how much Christie made fun of the long-haired, dope smoking hippie youths of the day (the ’60s). Her observations were funny — probably because I share her opinion.

Disliked:

• The story was a bit hard to follow. It was also kind of boring at times, which made me pay even less attention than usual. As a result, by the time the answers were revealed, they made practically zero impact on me.
• The title of this book had me hoping that one of the main threads would be a love triangle direct from a romance novel or soap opera. I think that would have been much better than what readers actually got!
• Wait, was this yet another case of impersonation/fake identity?! Come on, Dame Agatha, I expect more from you than the same old ruse that you’ve used numerous times already!
• How convenient that Norma and the good doctor should run off and get married. It’s funny how Agatha Christie didn’t seem to lose her romantic tastes, even as she got up there in years.
• Since all these murders and whatnot were committed for money, I wish Christie had given the reader a general idea of how much was at stake. I don’t think a figure was ever mentioned. It was just hinted that the Restaricks were very wealthy.
• I still don’t like Ariadne Oliver, and thought she was particularly ridiculous in this one with all her wigs and stuff.
• Speaking of wigs, just how was it that Poirot put everything together simply from knowing that Mrs. Restarick wore a wig? It seemed like a pretty big leap to go from, “Oh, she wears a wig because it’s convenient” to “She wears a wig so she can pose as someone else and commit murder!” Spelling out the intermediary steps would have been helpful.

Rating:

Overall, Third Girl is an Agatha Christie novel that the author herself probably would wish erased from her canon. It just didn’t feel like a real Christie book in the sense that there was very little suspense along the way and most of the book was quite dull. Furthermore, the solution was a stretch and rather implausible. I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

Warning: MAJOR spoilers below!

Liked:

• As with most Patterson books, the pace was pretty good. Things moved right along for the most part — except for the ridiculous “romance” angle.
• I can’t believe Alex Cross sticks with this kind of work for, what, 17 more books? That’s insane. If I were him, I’d start looking for Speech-Language Pathologist Jobs or try to get into family practice. As a widow with two young children, why would he put himself at constant risk like that?
• I was kind of surprised about the death penalties getting carried out so quickly. They weren’t in Texas, were they? Didn’t Jezzie and the other guy want to appeal anything? From trial to lethal injection in just a few months? Wow.

Disliked:

• What a wholly UNINSPIRED “twist” to have Jezzie actually be a dirty agent and only sleeping with Alex to get information from him. I don’t know… maybe that kind of thing was original back in 1993 when this book was published, but nearly 20 years later it just doesn’t go over well at all.
• I was really looking forward to my first Alex Cross book since he’s been around for, what, 20 installments? What a disappointment to learn that he’s one of the most boring protagonists I’ve ever encountered. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to continue with this series because he just doesn’t do anything for me.
• When a killer gets captured before the halfway point of the book, you can damn near bet the farm that he’s going to escape.
• I hated seeing “Soneji/Murphy” throughout the whole freaking book. It was as though Patterson wanted to make absolutely certain that we all understood the Jekyll/Hyde implications of the antagonist. Save some ink and just pick one damn name or the other!
• What was all that crap about interracial dating?? I know the book was written two decades ago, but weren’t interracial couples pretty common in the 1990′s???
• There were a bunch of other little details that nagged and bothered me while reading this; unfortunately, I can’t remember any of them now. I just remember feeling that the book was a bit sloppily written — which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me, given Patterson’s other work.

Rating:

I read James Patterson because it’s airport/escapist stuff, not because I’m expecting tightly plotted, character-driven literature. As such, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when the final product turns out to be something like Along Came a Spider. I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

All that is about to change . . . because of a promise.

The school year is almost over. Anxious families await word of college acceptances. In these last pressure-cooker months of high school, some kids will make the all-too-common and all-too-dangerous mistake of drinking and driving. But Myron is determined to help keep his friends’ children safe, so he makes two neighborhood girls promise him: If they are ever in a bind but are afraid to call their parents, they must call him.

Several nights later, the call comes at 2:00 am, and true to his word, Myron picks up one of the girls in midtown Manhattan and drives her to a quiet cul-de-sac in New Jersey where she says her friend lives.

The next day, the girl’s parents discover that their daughter is missing. And that Myron was the last person to see her. Desperate to fulfill a well-intentioned promise turned nightmarishly wrong, Myron races to find her before she’s gone forever. But his past will not be buried so easily – for trouble has always stalked him, and his loved ones often suffer. Now Myron must decide once and for all who he is and what he will stand up for if he is to have any hope of saving a young girl’s life.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• As with most Myron Bolitar books, the pacing in this one was very good. There were hardly any lulls, and the action kept moving right along through the requisite (for Coben) twists and turns before coming to a conclusion.
• I liked that Myron got his ass kicked by “the twins.” That doesn’t happen nearly enough in the series, despite Myron getting into all sorts of against the odds situations. Sure, Win came to the rescue (as usual), but not until one of the twins took a huge bite (!) out of Myron’s leg.

Disliked:

• As soon as it was revealed that both Katie and Aimee went to the same school but didn’t know each other, I figured a teacher had to be involved somehow. You mean to say the cops never thought to pursue that angle? Give me a break!
• I listened to the audiobook version of this novel, and this time around it was read by Coben himself. OMG, what a disaster!!!! He was terrible! Aside from Myron’s dialogue, which was read in Coben’s regular voice, ALL the other characters sounded pretty much the same. And he made Win go from sounding like the snooty, arrogant, rich boy that he was in Jonathan Maerosz’s interpretation to sounding like a little old lady. I’m telling you, it was awful!
• Okay, so let me get this straight. Dr. Skylar kidnapped Aimee because her son (Aimee’s teacher) impregnated the girl and Dr. Skylar didn’t want Aimee to get an abortion??? What the…? Coben’s novels are usually twisty, but this was just too much.
• God, it was annoying how Coben constantly said “ATM machine” throughout the book. ATM = automated teller machine, so ATM machine = automated teller machine machine. Ugh. And yes, I know people say it like that in real life (and I’m guilty of the same thing with saying “PIN number”), but hearing it 100 times in succession made me want to rip my ears off.
• Why would Myron make himself available to 18-year-old girls in that way? Of course he wouldn’t do anything with them, but it’s just very inappropriate for a 40-something, single, male friend of the family to offer to be the designated driver for teen girls that he barely knows. What’s next, offering to let junior high school kids check out the home dlp projector in his basement? What a weirdo!
• I didn’t like any of Myron’s relationship stuff, not Jessica coming back and certainly not the new woman (9/11 widow) with kids. None of it is interesting, and doesn’t really belong in an “action” novel.
• Esperanza has a kid? And is married? Wait, when did all this happen? I know Myron went to her wedding and gave her away and all, but that whole thing felt so sudden and utterly contrived. Couldn’t she at least have ended up with a woman??? After making so much out of her bisexuality or whatever, that was the least Coben could have done. Oh, well.

Rating:

I generally like the Myron Bolitar series, but Promise Me was a bit too disjointed for my tastes. It seemed like the story kept jumping all over the place without giving readers any time to get their bearings. As a result, little made sense as the story was unfolding, and the ending felt like it was pulled out of thin air. I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

Between baking up a storm for The Cookie Jar and unravelling the mystery of her cat Moishe’s recent strange behaviour, Hannah Swensen has a lot on her plate. But she’ll always make time for her business partner, Lisa, who’s in the midst of preparing for a big family reunion. Everyone is delighted when Lisa’s long-lost uncle makes a surprise appearance. No one has heard from Gus in twenty-five years – and his arrival has everyone buzzing with excitement. Uncle Gus is immediately the hit of the reunion, telling tales of his great success and flashing money for all to see. He’s almost as popular as Hannah’s scrumptious carrot cake, which is also Gus’ favourite dessert. But the next morning, as the whole family gathers for the group photo, one person is missing. Hannah offers to track down Uncle Gus, but her search leads to a shocking find.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The recipes sound delicious, as usual. I swear, one of these days I’m going to get around to trying them out!
• At this point in the series, the only enjoyment I derive out of the books is rolling my eyes at them and sputtering about how stupid and unrealistic they are. It’s a waste of time for sure, but at least I can turn my brain off for a couple of days while I read.

Disliked:

• I have never seen an author stick to a formula as stubbornly as Joanne Fluke does. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has actual chapter templates that she fills in for every book. It would look something like this: 1) Create some schmaltzy small-town event for Lake Eden; 2) Have a stranger or long-lost relative show up unannounced; 3) Stranger/relative gets killed; 4) Hannah finds the body; 5) Mike warns Hannah to stay away, Norman and Andrea encourage her to investigate; 6) Hannah interviews everyone with the slightest connection to the victim — and they actually talk to her; 7) Hannah figures out who the killer is, confronts the person, and nearly dies; Mike swoops in for the rescue. *Yawn.*
• The Mike-Norman-Hannah triangle is beyond tiresome at this point. The situation might be believable if Fluke were writing about the 1880′s, but certainly not for 30-somethings in this day and age. You mean to tell me that these men are perfectly content to “share” Hannah, and that after however many months/years it has been, they’re just fine with asexual pats on the shoulder and a quick kiss here and there? Yeah, right! Fluke really shows her age when she writes about this triangle.
• Don’t even get me started about Gus having a Honus Wagner baseball card. It is the rarest, most valuable card in the world, with only a handful (less than 200) even produced, let alone circulating. The card would have already been rare when Gus was a kid, so it’s highly unlikely that he would have had one to begin with. Oh, and the part where Gus’s sister clearly recalled exactly what the card looked like 30 years later (even though she wasn’t a baseball fan and didn’t realize the thing was valuable) was just laughably ridiculous.
• Fluke’s dialogue is just clunky and awkward. Like when Mac’s wife was trying to convince him not to kill her, she said, “I’ve been a legal secretary for 30 years, so I know…” Would a wife really need to explain that to her husband??? As if he didn’t know what kind of job she had or as if she strolled out in nurses uniforms every day instead of business attire suited for a law office?
• Oh, don’t look now, but Hannah’s perfect niece once again came in first place in some stupid competition.
• Honestly, there was a bunch of other stuff that I hated, but what’s the point of spelling everything out?

Rating:

This is a typical paint-by-numbers Hannah Swensen “mystery.” I suppose if you like cozies that deliver the exact same product each and every time, this will be to your taste. I read the book simply because I have it (I have the whole series, actually) and because I like to roll my eyes at Fluke’s grandmotherly ways. I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Hey, am I just imagining things, or was that a happy ending?!!! Well, even though Dick and Fancy can’t be said to be living in perfect bliss, this is as close as it will ever get with Hardy!
• I couldn’t help but look at Fancy Day as a precursor to other Hardy heroines. It was interesting to see how this character had some similar features to Tess, Sue Bridehead, Batsheba Everdene, et al. For instance, she was highly aware of her sexuality and used it to get the man she wanted, just as future Hardy women do. I believe this was Hardy’s first published novel, so it was cool to see his prototypical heroine taking shape.

Disliked:

• Meh, a book about a group of country musicians wasn’t really my cup of tea. Sure, the romance between Dick and Fancy took center stage eventually, but there was quite a bit of description about general life in Mellstock that I found rather dull.
• The dialect was kind of hard to get through. I understand the desire for authenticity, but it certainly would have been a lot easier to read standard English!
• The book was so short that the characters barely seemed to be developed at all — not even Dick Dewy and Fancy. Maybe I would have cared about their outcome more if I had known more about them.

Rating:

Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite writers of all time, but Under the Greenwood Tree is clearly not on the same level as his other works of fiction. This book is interesting mostly because it contains hints of the author’s great talent, but as a standalone, it doesn’t have much merit. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The basic outline of the story was a good one. I liked the whole idea of an unofficial witsec person (Wendy) having to come out of hiding to prove that her good friend didn’t kill her.
• I liked that Jack was a competent investigator, but not a superman. He wasn’t able to rig complicated traps armed only with a utility knife, nor did he ever figure out that it was Paul and Sylvie tracking them. Despite not catching Wendy’s would-be assassins, he still managed to keep her safe and get the testimony required to clear Eric.
• The reveal that Wendy was more involved in Kit Stoddard’s disappearance than she let on was a nice little twist. I never would have guessed that she was taking money to introduce pretty girls like Kit to rich men.

Disliked:

• I hated how Perry gave such detailed background information about SO many different characters. I understand the concept of wanting to flesh them out, but this was going overboard. Did we really need to know about Sylvie’s, ahem, film history in order to understand that she was insecure about losing her husband? Did we need to hear about “Ann Delatore’s” pimp/prostitution background to understand why she would be willing to help Wendy? Did we need all the details about Scott Schelling’s business deals, history with Carl, and one-night stand with Jill so late in the game? NO! The book would have been half as long and had much better pacing without all the detours.
• Were readers supposed to feel sympathetic towards Sylvie or something? Why was so much of the story told through her and/or Paul’s eyes? I didn’t find them intriguing; just mostly annoying. I know this book predates Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but I saw the movie first, so I couldn’t help getting that kind of vibe from Paul and Sylvie. And that’s not a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.
• Ugh, Jack and Wendy sleeping together? Again, this is a personal pet peeve, but I just cannot STAND it when two people who are running for their lives and have professional killers on their tail, somehow find time to have sex. Why would sex even be considered at a time like that???
• I disliked that nothing was resolved between Paul and Sylvie by the end of the novel. Was there a sequel to this one? If not, I felt I deserved a real end, with one of them killing the other. Instead, they head off to Spain together, each one planning how/when to off the other. After sticking with them that long, a resolution was definitely in order!

Rating:

This was the first Thomas Perry book I ever read, and I don’t think I’m going to go back for more. Maybe I’ve just spent too much time with this genre recently, but I couldn’t get into Silence at all. Most of it felt rehashed from any of the hundreds of other novels, movies, and television episodes treating similar topics and situations, and there was very little originality injected along the way. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Liked:

• I liked the general idea of the book, the “what-if” imaginings of the true origins of Homer’s hero and various alternative versions of Odysseus’ famous adventures.

Disliked:

• I found the utter randomness of the stories to be quite tiresome. There was no order or logic to the presentation, and while that might have been the case with the original as well, the fact remains that this wasn’t the original. It simply wasn’t palatable to me to leap back and forth in time, shift between the POV of a number of characters, etc. The effect was rather disorienting, and didn’t allow me to get comfortable with the book.
• The stories were way too short, incomplete, and fragmentary for me to enjoy. Again, I realize Mason was probably intent on mimicking the original, but come on. If you’re going to re-imagine the Odyssey, at least make it meatier than this!

Rating:

I checked out The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel from my library because of the buzz I’d heard about it. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in the final product, despite having studied my fair share of the classics when I was a student. I can’t imagine anyone other than hardcore Greek mythology enthusiasts enjoying this one. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the publisher): Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire’s son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur’s seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris.

A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The second half of the book was much better than the first. Whereas the first dragged on and on in an attempt to set the scene and familiarize the reader with the characters, the second contained most of the action. I’m just surprised I stuck with it long enough to get to the “good stuff.”
• I liked that Hetty did not get a happy ending. Getting pregnant was obviously not her fault alone, and I do believe she meant to go back and rescue the baby instead of letting it suffer and die from exposure. But she couldn’t erase that initial act, no matter how much she repented afterward. It’s good that she was spared the death penalty, but it was also fitting that she was transported to the colonies to serve her sentence (where she subsequently died).
• The teacher (I’ve already forgotten his name) provided a bit of comic relief with his ranting against women. He turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable character in a book mostly devoid of them.

Disliked:

• It took far too long for Eliot to get her story started. I listened to the audiobook, which was a good thing in this case. If I’d had to read it on my own, I wouldn’t have finished it. That I was stuck listening to it on a long car trip helped me push through to the end.
• Adam Bede was such a dull, uninteresting character that I have no idea why he merited first billing in this book. He did nothing to arouse any kind of emotion in me whatsoever, so I didn’t care what happened to him or his family.
• How did Adam and Dinah end up together?? It was pretty convenient of Seth to simply renounce his feelings of love for Dinah so that his brother could have her. And then of course Seth ended up being the perfect bachelor uncle to Adam and Dinah’s children while they all lived together? Whatever.

Rating:
It had been far too long since I’d read a classic, so I decided to jump back in by tackling Adam Bede by George Eliot. This story totally felt like a first novel from an inexperienced writer — which is precisely what it was. No wonder it wasn’t published until after her death. I give the book 2 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought the premise of Harry Haller having a dual nature (part man, part wolf) was an interesting way to look at man’s natural appetites. I probably would have appreciated this book a lot more if Hesse had addressed this topic in a more straightforward manner.

Disliked:

• Many of the scenes in this book were just way too out there for me. For example, all the Mozart stuff seemed utterly ridiculous, and I didn’t buy any of the Maria/Hermine/Harry stuff.
• This wasn’t really fiction so much as it was a philosophical treatise. Philosophy has its place, of course, but this kind of content wasn’t really what I signed up for.
• So Hesse’s ultimate message is that we shouldn’t take ourselves or our lives too seriously? That we should lighten up, laugh a little more, and love each other? Gee, how deep.
• Haller wasn’t really that compelling as a protagonist. I didn’t like anything about him, and as the story slogged along, began wishing with all my heart that he would just go ahead and kill himself already instead of waiting until his 50th birthday!
• I can see how this book might appeal to college students who think they know everything. You know, the ones that constantly question authority, despise everything they see in regular society, and generally think they’re somehow above the fray. But reading this as a well-grounded, middle-class, family minded adult? Meh, total disconnect.

Rating:

I read Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse because of its standing as a classic. After an intriguing start, however, the story simply descends into a slush pit of philosophical drivel that didn’t grab my attention at all. No doubt I’m one of the hedonists that Harry initially railed against and no doubt I missed some of Hesse’s other important “messages,” but there’s no way I’m going to spend any more time trying to figure it all out. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Daniel reports the theft to the police, and is introduced to the head detective, M. Jagot. Jagot, a former thief himself, knows the ways of the underground, and upon hearing Daniel’s story and description of the woman, immediately knows her to be part of the Society of Ten Thousand, a ring of thieves who take on only big, daring jobs that are worth more than 10,000 francs. Jagot gets Daniel to agree to help nab Lucienne.

What Daniel doesn’t count on is falling in love with the woman. He runs into her at the Louvre a few days later, and she tells him her amazing history: how she comes from an aristocratic family, how she barely escaped death at the guillotine, how she traveled with Napoleon’s team of scholars and philosophers — disguised as a man — to collect treasures from Egypt. Daniel is attracted to her worldliness, experience, and intellect as well as her beauty, and the two soon begin an affair.

Though Daniel tries to throw Jagot off the trail by saying that the fossil “theft” was actually a big mistake and that everything has been returned, the wily detective doesn’t buy it. He has had Daniel followed, and knows of the illicit meetings with Lucienne. Furthermore, Jagot has his own ulterior motives for wanting Lucienne under his control: he’s trying to blackmail her.

The rest of the novel then follows these various storylines to their conclusions. We see Lucienne plan a major heist to steal the biggest diamond then known to man, and we learn what kind of power Jagot wields over the woman. Finally, we learn if Daniel and Lucienne end up living happily ever after.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought the setting was terrific. Stott did a wonderful job of evoking the sights, sounds, and general feelings of Victorian France, so I was drawn into that era almost immediately.
• Some elements of the diamond heist were pretty entertaining, though by that time my overall interest in the book had already waned down to practically zero.

Disliked:

• Daniel was one of the most boring characters I’ve ever come across in literature! He was completely passionless and seemed bored by his own story. If this was how he felt, having lived through all the events, how are readers supposed to feel hearing about these things after the fact? What a waste.
• I didn’t buy the love affair between Daniel and Lucienne. What could that woman possibly see in this young, naive boy? He had absolutely nothing to offer her, so why did she waste her time on him?
• There was simply not enough action to sustain my interest through the entire book. I lost the narrative thread somewhere in the middle, so from that point forward, I was basically just reading the words without really understanding their full meaning or implication on the story as a whole. Frankly, I’m surprised I made it all the way through to the end.
• WTF was the point of all those cutaway scenes to Napoleon pacing the deck of his ship?? I thought that was going to tie into the main story somehow, but it never did. Huh??!! Why even waste the reader’s time with that nonsense!

Rating:

I’ve been reading quite a few historical fiction novels recently, and since my library had The Coral Thief, I decided to give it a try. Boy, was I disappointed! The main character was a dullard, the romance was unbelievable, and the action was barely existent. I kept turning the pages hoping for something good to happen, but was not rewarded for my persistence. I give this novel 2 stars out of 5.