New Book Review: The Apartment

2 of 5 stars

This novel took me entirely too long to finish. It was hard to identify with the characters and some of their decision making skills. Grey wrote a horror novel that had the attempt at being character driven yet the characters were not likable. The story is narrated through Steph and Mark’s point of view of the aftermath of a not so brutal home invasion that leaves the couple scared and paranoid. Then the couple finds a house swap site and take the first home in France that responds. Once they arrive at the house in France, they notice it is in a seemingly abandoned building. The apartment is in shambles and doesn’t look lived in. They stay due to their lack of funds. Mark had lost his job and they are pinching pennies. Weird things occur over their stay but nothing so gripping that a reader wouldn’t put the book down. There weren’t very many moments that tied me to the story, especially since Steph and Mark continually lie to each other which gets annoying. At some point, they need to have a meaningful conversation, yet that never happens. The end is lackluster. So meh and blah that you’re wondering if that was the payoff.

Raging Book Reviews Not Recommended

*book purchased with my own money (sadly)

New Book Review: The Woman in Cabin 10

Tags

cruise, female lead, ruth ware

Rated 2 of 5 stars

This is my second Ruth Ware book and will likely be my last. The hype behind this book alone has made me question whether there will be any really great book from her that aren’t hyped to the max. It makes me not trust the publicity behind this author and that sucks royally for me as a reader since I spent my hard-earned money on both of her books because everyone LOVED them so much and I saw it practically everywhere. Well, now that I know that she has a good publicity team, that’s about all I have to quantify my spending because the books were not great, not even that good. So let’s get into it…

Ruth Ware has a way of creating the weakest, shrinking violet female leads that make me think she lives in some bubble somewhere. A place where the average woman is sobbing 75% of the time and the other 25% she is drinking her troubles away. This to me is a very annoying and demeaning trait for female leads to have. Therefore, I absolutely hated the main character in The Woman in Cabin 10. Laura “Lo” Blacklock is a travel writer sent to a luxury cruise liner to do a write up on all the rich and influential people attending the first voyage. Before she attends, she is robbed in her apartment. Not at gunpoint or knife point…he just locked her in her bedroom while he took everything. Of course, this has sent her reeling and paranoid that someone is out to get her…even though she has no security on her place. Anyway, this robbery stays with her and makes her feel unsafe so she heads to her boyfriends place. He returns home and helps ease her mind even though she ends up fighting with him and basically calling off the relationship in a fit of misplaced anger. At this point in the story, I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with this woman? Her reasoning for fighting with her boyfriend seems very sudden and dramatic. So I rolled my eyes constantly during their exchange. I guess the author didn’t want them to be on great terms before the cruise because it was sooooo forced.

Anyway, Lo finally makes it to the cruise and its pretty fancy. There’s only a small group on the ship. The cabin next to hers is supposed to be empty but she sees a girl in there when she asks to borrow mascara before dinner. Later that evening, while in bed after a night full of too much drinking, she hears a scream and splash. When she rushes to look out the balcony, she sees what looks like a hand going beneath the tide and sees a blood smear on the next patio door. She calls the security team who inspects the room next door to find nothing there about 5 minutes later. No blood. No signs of struggle. Nothing from the girl who was staying there that lent her the mascara. So she is tossed away as a drunk that was dreaming but she believes what she saw.

Throughout the rest of the story, you follow Lo’s quest to figure out who the person was in the cabin next to hers that no one seems to know about. The story gets really boring at this point. She finds something then someone steals it, erases it or loses it. It’s like “oh look what I found…then where’d it go?” for about 150 pages. In between all this, there’s lots of drinking, crying and weird interactions with guests, including an ex boyfriend. There was literally no one likable in this story.

In the end, there’s a few twists but none that are easily believable. It gets interesting at about 275 pages up until the end but who wants to wrestle through 275 pages of mediocrity ? So if you read this book, just skip to 275 and start there. You will still be asked to suspend your logical mind when they explain what has happened and how a person gets away with it.

If you prefer weak, drunk female protagonists…then have at it. Otherwise, save your pennies and get a book with a real woman leading the charge.

Raging Book Reviews Not Recommended

*This book was purchased with my own money.

New Book Review: Undertow

Rated 1 of 5 stars

Well, I couldn’t finish this book for a multitude of reasons. One, as a black woman, I thought the book was horribly bigoted in it’s portrayal of black people. Two, the characters were not likeable in the least bit. I couldn’t root for anyone. I also didn’t care what happened to them. Third, I couldn’t figure out the point of the plot, other than this politicians plight to get out of a scandal. And that doesn’t hold my interest for a full novel. There needs to be some sort of backstory or mini-plot for something that superficial.

I DNF’d this book at about the 80% mark. I know, I know…I was very close to finishing but then I thought…why am I wasting my time reading something I have not been enjoying???

So sorry, Adler, this one does not cut the mustard for me.

*Recieved a copy free from Reading Alley for an honest review.

Raging Book Reviews NOT Recommended

New Book Review: Raven Sisters

Rated 1 of 5 stars

*Received this book for free for honest review from NetGalley

I hate to give one star reviews but more importantly, I dislike reading one star novels. This novel, Raven Sisters by Gabi Kreslehner, was a struggle to get through. It was enough struggle that I had to DNF it at about 20% in. The story made absolutely no sense! I couldn’t get a grasp on who the main character was and who was speaking or thinking at a given time. It was all over the place. Mind you, this is a translation…so someone’s job should be on the line. The cover of this novel is what pulled me in. It looks awesome! Unfortunately, the story inside is a jumble of people, thoughts and places that make absolutely no sense. I hope we can blame this on the translator and the original was in much better shape (especially since it was from a highly regarded international author). This is definitely an occasion where a remake goes horribly wrong.

Raging Book Reviews NOT Recommended

New Book Review: The Fever

Tags

megan abbott, the fever

 

RATED: 2 of 5 stars

I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t like this book more but I can try to pinpoint a couple things that stood out to me as I read Abbott’s erie novel, The Fever. First, the story was quite confusing since there was never a really clear reason for some aspects of it. We learn about Gabby, Lise, Skye and Deenie, a group of friends who have become distant with each other for some unknown reason in the book. They have these weird conversations that never really make any sense at all to the reader. There was an incredible amount of rambling by the characters and the author with extremely long analogies to boot. I found myself skipping over whole sentences when the writer would say “it’s like when your…”. The excessive use of “like” should have been caught by any decent editor. In my opinion, it took away from the story even though it was supposed to be from the mindset of teenagers. The book has differing viewpoints from Tom, Deenie’s Dad and high school teacher at the school Deenie and her friends attend. He’s a little strange and not really likable by the end of the book for me at all. Then there’s Eli, the hearthrob hockey player and brother of Deenie, that really just seems like an after thought of the book. I couldn’t fingure out why he was needed until the very end (and that sucked to read over 200 pages and not be enthralled by him in the least bit). Then there’s Deenie herself who was the most interesting character but unfortunately couldn’t pull the whole book off by herself. I didn’t find any characters to identify with, like or even care about. So it was a struggle to read many days. In the end, the last couple chapters helped put some theories to bed and gave a simple ending to the story. The only jolt of emotion I recieved from this book was when I was extremely happy to be done with it. Not a fave and probably won’t remember this one by tomorrow.

New Book Review: Beauty

Beauty by Frederick Dillen was not what I expected. I found the storyline to be dull and boring. The main character, Carol aka Beast, was not a character of true depth. She was either hardcore business or deeply in love which seemed a bit rushed for me. The love story aspect of the novel seemed like an afterthought. I felt like someone maybe told the author the main story of saving an old fish plant wasn’t going to work, so Easy was created. But their love wasn’t built on much of anything and I found it odd that the first real date is when personal information was shared about Easy’s wife and baby…then used that moment to say “oh and I love you”. It was extremely awkward to read and imagine. The only bright spot in the book was the shopping they did together. That was the moment when I could dig into the sparks that were supposed to be there. Anyway, this book felt disjointed for me. The main plot was boring as all hell and the cheeky love story did nothing to save it.

Not Recommended…

New Book Review: The Ballad of a Small Player

Tags

lawrence osborne

The Ballad of a Small Player: A Novel by Lawrence Osborne
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ah, the wonder of a Goodreads win. I was super excited to receive Lawrence Osborne’s, The Ballad of a Small Player. It’s a story of an older gentlemen who stole money from an old woman that trusted him and how ironically, he happened to lose every penny whilst being lonely and drunk for most of the book. Fortunately, Osborne is a very clever writer but unfortunately, he overused his cleverness. It was like reading a clever line every other sentence when in your mind you scream “Get on with it already!” I felt the book lacked a serious plot and the main character Lord Doyle was not interesting enough to carry the book. We had no real backstory to connect us to him. The entire novel consisted of places to eat, liquor to drink and the highs and lies of gambling…all of which can be accomplished by asking a drunk uncle, not reading 255+ pages to walk away with that bit of information. I can’t say I walked away with any emotion after spending a week reading what normally would take a day. I can only hope for better from Osborne in the future.

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New Book Review: Complete Surrender

The author wishes to not share the review. This is a book I can’t recommend.