Review: Never Fade

Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



3.5 Stars

It had taken me a couple months to formulate more than one paragraph as an official review for the first book, The Darkest Minds, so I don't doubt that it'll take a while for me to write, re-write, and re-assess my thoughts on Never Fade.

For now, it's a pretty simple, straight-forward gush, mainly for the characters of this book that kept me going and will continue to keep me going onto the next book. I pretty much enjoyed the same things about this installment that I did from the first. Ruby is a nice development in progress, and I love her more than I did before. There are new characters introduced whom you ALSO come to love, and then there are the old characters you still love.

The conspiracy of this dystopian is revealed more and more, but it doesn't seem like anything we weren't expecting. This is definitely a character-driven story, which doesn't really bother me in the least.

Anyway, review to come, hopefully soon.



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Review: Froi of the Exiles

Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I wasn't going to write a review for these Lumatere books (though I DID think about writing a review for the series overall), but the book took me so long to read that I actually started formulating thoughts... of the non-positive persuasion. And that's usually not so great.

Did I say in an earlier post that I loved the characters from Finnikin of the Rock? Honestly, I don't know where that came from, but the more I read Froi of the Exiles the more I believed that I must have been bewitched or something. I think I'm more neutral on these characters than in love or in hate with them.

In fact, I don't really have too many complaints about Froi of the Exiles or Finnikin of the Rock save for the characters. The book was adventurous and fun; and I love adventures!

I liked the way the book was written and I liked the whole big curse theme with it's supernatural/mystical/magical elements and I liked the background of the world created for Lumatere. And some of the dialogue isn't so bad either, witty and thoughtful.

But the characters make life so miserable (and yes, I DO understand that life is miserable for everyone in the story with power struggles and wars and fighting and killing and death and curses, but still...) because I get the feeling that everyone is going out of their ways to prove just how much suffering they all went through and who suffered more than so-and-so... It's a world of people trying to one-up each other on their stories of misery.

I know that there was more going on than what I mentioned above, but this is what I ended up focusing on.

The only bright spots of happy in the entire series so far... well, there's Lady Beatriss's daughter Vestie. And then there are Trippideaux (how to pronounce name...) and Grijio, De Lancey's children, who are actually kind of fun for their brief presence.

So, in the kingdom of Lumatere, instead of everyone playing nice and trying to work together to bring their kingdom back into a flourishing world... everyone's just being all prickly and mean and angry at each other. I mean, I also take note of those behind-the-scenes moments that mention how people are working together to rebuild their kingdom... but then we emphasize on all the more hideous attitudes and behaviors from a group of people who feel like they've been wronged the most by this entire power struggle of the kingdoms.

And then in Charyn... well, THAT kingdom is kind of... arrogant and angry in its own way? I don't know how to describe it. I mean, do people really have nothing better to do than to condemn a young princess who has no control over her own life, has been targeted for death since she was a child, and just so happened to be the baby born when the big curse came into effect throughout the kingdom? I mean, she was JUST a baby when the curse happened and it's NOT like she was the one who cast said curse. And when she seems to be the only person with an answer to the resolution of the curse, everyone continues to treat her like an insane person as they ridicule her and verbally demean her routinely?

I don't see anyone else trying to figure out how to break the curse.

It's kind of sad. Everyone's so pissed off. Can't we all just get along? Am I too naive, maybe?


And so, entertaining as this book/adventure was, it's pretty telling when I begin to put off reading the book at times. But then when I DO pick it up and start reading it, I seem to fall right into the darn thing.

So... yeah... I'm not even sure what to think about this book (or the first one, cause the same sort of ish happened while I was reading Finnikin). I DID like this one a little bit better than Finnikin... if only by a slight margin.

And yes, I'm already beginning Quintana of Charyn... it's just my stubborn way of saying: "I looked forward to this series, and gosh darn, I'm going to finish it!"

And darn it, looks like this post turned into an actual review after all...



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This is my 'DO NOT DISTURB' sign.

DON'T POKE THE BEAST!

Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Edited 10/03/2014 with official review




10/03/2013

I’m going to try to relate this review more with the actual book than my emotionally stimulated feelings of “OMG, this book is so freakin’ awesome, so let me tell you how awesome I think it is!” type of gushing. I’m sure I did enough of that in The Raven Boys to scare off hordes of the more emotionally stable population out there.

Anyway…

Aside from a typical introductory segue to make my posts look a little more structured and lengthy, honestly, I suck at structure. I’m not sure how I managed to make it through high school and college with my inability to format my essays properly, but I did and I must say, I’m not sure I ever really learned anything from any of my English classes about proper structure for a piece of written work.

So here I am with more random segways (yes, the above), and random thoughts on The Dream Thieves. Because, well, who cares about structure anyway?

Let’s start with the beginning though.

Before I started reading The Dream Thieves, I was worried about being overwhelmed. Sometimes, when I love a book so much that it hurts, and when I am in such high anticipation of the next book in a series that I can’t sleep, it’s a dangerous situation. Because as the time approached for the release date of The Dream Thieves, I began to have little panicky moments of the usual: “What if this book isn’t as good as the first one?” “What if this book is so good, but I don’t catch onto how good it is and I can’t do it any justice when I’m reading it?” “What if Book One had been the exception?” “What if I have too high expectations?” “What if I just don’t know what to do anymore?” “What if my dog eats my book review?”

“What if, what if, what if….?!!”

I’m ALWAYS like this with sequels to books that I personally loved and found fabulous (also for movies and Asian drama series as well; sequels can give me a heart attack easily with just BEING there). I’m always worried that the sequel or the second book won’t hold up to the first and that I’ll be disappointed.

So, I’m ecstatically delighted to announce (as many probably already have guessed) that this was definitely, absolutely NOT the case with The Dream Thieves. As I already mentioned: so many “AWESOME!”s to put out there.

I first realized one of the main reasons why I’d been loving The Raven Cycle series so much after about three chapters into this book. From the review of the first book, I had already mentioned how much I loved the characters, their interaction and their development. In this book, having paid more attention during my reading, I found another reason to love Maggie Stiefvater: her writing style is just so consistently witty and amazing. Let’s see, what did I call it in a note to myself?

Her writing borders on fantastical fairy tale meets whimsical, magical and mystical, with a side dish of natural sarcasm and dry humor to boot. And honestly, this is a type of dry humor I can appreciate because it’s not even in a laugh out loud, “you’ve gotta laugh at this particular scene” type of comedy. They are the little descriptors and analogies, one-liners and strange quips… They are strewn all over the place, every few sentences as a thought or an action or just as part of the ending of a paragraph. It’s like “serious, serious, snicker, emotional, serious, strange, serious” and then suddenly, all too smoothly and naturally, “insert O.o quip here” and it always makes me giggle or chuckle or backtrack just to reread it only to be impressed by how genius it was. And then we keep moving along the story like I hadn’t just been laughing at something snarky. They are very fine, little details that just fit into the writing effortlessly.

And I’m a sucker for attention to detail, that’s for sure. It’s one of those things where, if you aren’t really looking and you couldn’t really appreciate it; and if you’re looking at other parts of the story, you probably wouldn’t notice it at all and it won’t tickle you in the right ways.


The Dream Thieves is centered on Ronan Lynch -- a boy with a secret that we learn early on. He’s able to pull things from his dreams, tangible objects that just appear to him when he dreams about them. But aside from this little magic trick, there are even deeper, darker secrets about Ronan Lynch that he hides behind his anger and dark sarcasm.

I didn’t dislike any of the characters from the first book. Ronan had been a destructive bastard, a rich boy with a tendency to cause trouble and become antagonizing to everyone around him. But there had always been something about him that still drew me to like him for who he is -- dark, scathing humor and asshole personality all included. When I learned that the second book would be Ronan-centric, I was a little conflicted, because I’m sitting squarely in front of a Gansey pedestal. However, as I began to read The Dream Thieves, I realized that, despite being Ronan-centric, the telling of the book manages to capture so much more than just the base storyline.

Written in the third-person omniscient, we still get to see through the perspectives of each of the characters we fell in love with from the first book. In this, I believe is wherein lies a big success of this series. Because despite being a book about Ronan Lynch, it’s also a book that shows us the rest of the characters in varying degrees, smoothly tying everything up with Ronan’s journey.

So while we delve deeper into Ronan’s as well as the Lynch family’s secretive history, we’re also shown a lot of more reveals about the rest of the characters. Again, little moments that may not propel the main story, but manages to pick up significance in light of the surrounding actions.

It’s brilliant.

Characters continue to develop and their circumstances all continue to tug at heartstrings. There are so many moments in this book that make you smile and laugh, moments that make you churn those logical thinking wheels, and even a lot of gripping moments that have you at the edge of your seat waiting for the fall out. And then there are heartbreaking moments as well.

So much happens in this book that, if not handled properly, the story would have gotten out of hand and confusing. But The Dream Thieves manages to make it work, because even as more mysteries begin to occur and more side tangents present themselves, the story only manages to become more exciting.

On a final note, I feel like the characters are definitely the driving force of this series, and especially of this particular book. They’re all so intriguing that, even with an antagonist like The Gray Man, or the minor characters at 300 Fox Way or the Orphan Girl in Ronan’s dreams, I’m drawn to them and their significance -- no one seems to be “just a background character” with no rhyme or reason. I even enjoyed seeing the interaction between Ronan and his brothers, which draws upon so much more understanding of Ronan and his behavior. And it’s great! They all have their own stories if given the time.

I loved the interaction between the five friends -- the Aglionby boys and Blue -- and found that, despite my hopeless romantic love, I appreciate that the romance unfolds so subtly with such care. It’s the friendships that I love the most: between Blue and Gansey, between Gansey and Ronan, between Gansey and Adam, between Ronan and Adam, and especially between Blue and Noah. There’s a different air about each of these pairings in the friendship, and then the atmosphere is made all the different when they all come together.

I’m wholeheartedly and completely in Gansey’s boat. That boy has a charm to him that makes it hard NOT to love him. I’m particularly biased because I’ve let my love of Gansey get a little out of control. So, of course, I’d love to see Gansey and Blue complete their OTP pairing soon, and as the romance slowly unfolded itself in this book, it came to me that I loved how it was such a sweet, yet quiet occurrence. The fact that they started off as friends first and bonded through various interactions and sweet little moments made it all the better. Because I enjoyed the friendships in this book (and the series so far) that the romance is honestly the last of my priorities concerning The Raven Cycle series.

After the first book, it didn’t bother me at all that the romance seemed to be heading in a different direction with Blue and Adam starting a somewhat relationship. Because compared to Gansey, even though I loved all of the characters, I loved Gansey more and so it didn’t matter to me whether or not he paired up with the girl in the end.

I’m at least glad to say that I’ve grown to love Blue more in this book than I had from Book One. She has a strange and quirky personality, but in this book, she proved that she’s also feisty and fiery and doesn’t let anyone walk on her at all. It’s something I appreciate in a female character since, too often in a lot of books (especially YAs), the girl is painted in a demure, doormat fashion, written for readers to pity and sympathize with. No, I prefer the Blue Sargents of the world where, even if there are moments when she is scared or even when she doesn’t know how to act, she still doesn’t just lay there and let people walk all over her.

The Dream Thieves is a very magical, well written, fun and witty adventure (that’s not quite an adventure) with great characters and an intriguing story. There are times when you find that perfect book that you can’t help but to completely fall in love with.

Today, that book, for me, is this one.


***

08/28/2013

I just saw a rating of 4.5 stars pop up from one of the reviewers I follow.

Aaand.... so now we are counting down the days until the release of this book! September 17 seems like so MUCH longer than just the 20 days from this moment... well, 21 days, but I'm rounding down a little for my own benefit.

Oh man, I'm all fidgeting just waiting for the book release. I need this book so BADLY! RIGHT NOW!


09/19/2013

If I thought I loved the first book... I think I love this second book just as much and am not even quite sure which one I loved more. It's safe to say I've found another favorite series to add to my list, and officially declaring another favorite author I will be following.

So many thoughts, so many "AWESOME!"s to put out there. And I'm not even sure how this will go. But if I had to highlight every line of this book that I personally loved, my book would look like a striped lollipop.

Going to try to put my thoughts together in a more timely fashion this time, although I'm not sure how well that will serve my review since my review of the last book was simply a big ol' four page declaration of how much I loved The Raven Boys. I doubt there will be much different for The Dream Thieves -- though there may be a lot of added gushing over Maggie Stiefvater, my newest girl crush of an author.

She is so freakin' brilliant!

Review to come... maybe. If I can stop gushing. And after I get some sleep.



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Review: Why Do Dramas Do That? Part 1

Why Do Dramas Do That? Part 1 by Javabeans

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Well, it wasn't what I was expecting (not all of it), but I still had fun reading through this little "guide" for K-dramas. Some sections I kind of hoped would have been a little bit longer with some more examples from dramaland, but we take what we get, right?

Still, it was just as entertaining as it usually is reading from the Dramabeans blog, and for that, I'm satisfied.

As I said before, I will read anything these ladies churn out, even if I don't always agree with some of their opinions. They are witty and creative and that, for me, is just enough. I mean, sometimes reading their drama series recaps and reviews are just so much more fun than actually watching the drama series itself.

So this was a nice little detour from the other books I'm in the middle of reading.

Looking forward to Part 2 now, which I'm sure won't be far behind.



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Annnnd... here's a new book (of all the many, many books I'm already reading)!

Available at:

Amazon

Smashwords

In an entirely biased opinion, I will read anything that these ladies write (whether or not I like or agree with them is a different story), so when I learned that they were pushing out a book about their opinions on K-drama pop culture, I was pretty ecstatic.

So here it is, and so far, it's been pretty informative and lots of fun.  Available in e-book format only, here's a quick post update from them about the book itself: 

Why Do Dramas Do That?: The Book Launch

If K-dramas is also your thing, here is a link to their blog that I may or may not follow a little too religiously... sometimes... or almost every day... 

Dramabeans

Review: Inhuman

Inhuman by Kat Falls

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I looked forward to this book mainly due to the premise which sounded intriguing just by the summary alone. And while the basis for the story's concept was pretty strong, the set-up of the world (a desolated, post-apocalyptic place where a virus called Ferae has turned most humans into savage, mutated creatures) is pretty much standard YA dystopian fare. But I'm not complaining. There's a reason why I'm drawn to these types of books -- they're exciting, they're intense, adventurous, interesting... if written properly.

And ultimately, my love of a YA dystopia comes down to a simple factor: how this author depicts his or her post-apocalyptic dystopian society differently from others running on this same trend, and how well the author incorporates this idea using well-developed characters and a good plot to follow with.

Inhuman already had a good premise going for it, though a little vague. Delaney "Lane" Park McEvoy (she of whom I had been referring to as simply "Delaney Park" because I kept forgetting she has a last name) lives in a societal safe haven away from the rest of the American nation which has turned into a wilderness of life infected by the Ferae Naturae virus. Due to certain reasons (big corporate greed and the fascination of rich people's need to play god in this world), this virus broke out and life became chaotic. I'm sparing the details since I don't really remember all of it anyway -- something about the richest company during that time, called Titan, playing around with animal DNA because the CEO wanted to include a centaur or something like that into her amusement park-like mazes as entertainment. But Ferae broke out, people became infected, and apparently the virus spread like rabies (which isn't really a rabies-like virus) is turning all humans into savage animals when infected -- a blood-borne pathogen, if you will, that affects a human's mental faculties and turns them into wild animals. I was still trying to understand the nature of Ferae, but then the action started, so I just kind of shrugged and moved on.

In order to repent for this problem, Titan's CEO builds a wall, isolating the uninfected half of the population in a safe bubble from the rest of the population in the eastern part of the country now known as The Feral Zone. And this wall is safe guarded by Titan-employed line guards to keep each half in their designated sides on the wall. Familiar set-up, interesting concept, nonetheless.

Anyway, the rest of the story details how Lane must go into The Feral Zone in order to save her father's life. I like how, in the beginning, it was supposed to be a simple task for Lane. She was to find her father and tell him the situation so that he could perform a "fetch" (retrieving items in The Feral Zone for clients on the other side of the quarantine wall for money). When she couldn't find her father, eventually, she ends up having to do the fetch herself. Adventures ensue.

As I said, the premise of this book was good to begin with. The first half of the book was also quite intense and exciting as we got introduced to the The Feral Zone with Lane as our guide. She's got a good voice and tone and I actually enjoyed following along with her, as she also shows us that one can be a kickbutt heroine and take care of herself, without also being that annoyingly stupid type who tries too hard to be tough and gets herself into troublesome situations -- which eventually require a man to come to her rescue. There are various situations in which Lane manages to pull herself out of danger, or to stay out of danger all together, and this works for me.

Rafe was a boy I couldn't quite put my finger on. While at first I thought he was a douche for being rude, arrogant and seemingly dangerous, he surprises you by using that jerk of a personality to become charming at the same time. He kind of just sneaks up on you. But then, he kept reminding me of all the other douche main characters you loved to hate, and by then I couldn't figure out how I managed to stop disliking him. Rafe has an interesting history and an interesting lifestyle; and his survivalistic mode is understandable. It's really just HIM I have trouble understanding.

Everson is the typical good man, stoic, intelligent, lovely, heart of gold, Mr. Congeniality and... well, boring. I have little to say about him, mainly because he doesn't stray far from the standard descriptions. There was maybe once or twice in the book that he surprised me a little bit, but then it didn't seem too significant, so I didn't take much note of it.

The ideas that went into the effects of Ferae become quite fun and intriguing the more that Lane learns from others about it. There's a very great suspension of disbelief being tossed around the more scientific topics as well: the human/animal mutations (both feral and manimal), a specific number of virus strains being known to be in existence, the animal/animal mutations called "mongrels", the fact that second and third generation offspring of mongrels and manimals don't become feral and don't transfer the virus if they bite...

These are all really creative and interesting, but only if you don't really try to think about them or analyze them. Otherwise, you just end up continuously asking yourself: "Hmm... is that even possible?"

Anyway, story-wise, Inhuman had a lot of good going for it. But the second half of the book reminded me of the word "Deadline". Because that's how it felt -- the rest of the story seemed rushed and the climax and twists and conclusions felt underdeveloped. It was as if we got to a point where the story needed to find a proper ending, and well, there IS a properly thought out ending in outline form... but, how to write it? And then we run out of time and simply patch things up the best that we can with deux ex machina tricks and supposed surprising occurrences of the emotional kind that ended up going by so quickly that I didn't even have time to react to them. I wish I could point out a couple instances at the end of the book that caught me off-guard (and not in a good way), but then we'd get into spoilery territory, and I honestly don't really like including spoilers in my reviews if I can help it, even WITH tags.

Finally, the romance... I wasn't really too bothered by it, honestly, because it felt kind of underdeveloped and placed in the sidelines. So it's not that I didn't enjoy it, but I just didn't really think about it too much aside from, "Oh, we've got a triangle at hand now", but since it didn't really take off in a significant fashion, I've got no complaints about it despite how much I dislike triangles (or any kind of relationship polygon).


Final Conclusion: Great premise, good characters, decent writing, intact story, great imagery and creativeness... I enjoyed it even if it wasn't the best and even if it was just another one of your typical YA dystopian affairs. I'll keep an eye out for the second book since I'm intrigued to know where Lane, Rafe, and Everson go from here; most especially Lane since I overall liked her the most of all the characters.





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Review: The Iron Queen

The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I've started this review three times now.

After finishing The Iron Queen, I thought about just giving it a rating and being done with it. After all, I had finally decided to stop thinking about the book and just reading it.

And honestly, while I managed to enjoy parts of the book, there were still too many factors keeping me from fulling liking the book as a whole. The Iron Fey world is still as magical and exhilarating as it had started off from The Iron King. The ideas, the creations, the obstacles... all of it in adventure form was lots of fun. Because, as I'd said before: I DO love me some adventure. And adventure there was plenty of in this third installment of The Iron Fey series. And so I couldn't drop the stars too much since the ratings kept sliding back and forth until I finally just settled on a rather neutral area.

I didn't entirely like this book, but I didn't entirely hate it either. But I DID get caught up in more parts than I got turned off by, so there you have it.

I've made my thoughts known about how I feel on two aspects from the second book, The Iron Daughter. Those thoughts have not gone away, even if they HAVE ebbed slightly. For one, Meghan's development was MUCH better in this book than it had been for the past two books -- she goes through so much more growth in this single book alone than she did in the two books prior. Or well, let's put it this way:

In the first book, Meghan had her chance at growth and she got to a good point where it was acceptable, even if not ideal by the end of the book. But in the second book, it was like she just completely back-tracked and then picked up about fifty other personality flaws while she was at it, only to end off the second book by developing back to square one where we'd left her at the end of the first book. If I could pretend that the entire second book didn't happen, then I might be a much happier reader. But I can't, and so that's why we've got the history of Meghan's journey hanging over our heads while reading the third book.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the development that Meghan finally goes through, and were this not the THIRD book in the series, I might have liked the book a whole lot more, merely for the fact that, everything that happened in this book, I sort of kind of wished that it had happened throughout the three books -- even a lot of the romance. Meghan's self-absorbed behavior gets set aside as more important things start to happen, although at the beginning of the book, I felt she was a little harsh on Puck. She still tended to get all loud and dramatic at the most insignificant things. And, honestly, sure she's a bit more badass with the fighting at the glamour and the finally picking up a backbone thing... But Meghan was still a bit stupid and still a bit slow on the uptake.

So... while she DID finally grow on me, I'm not quite going to be classifying her under my list of well-liked female characters any time soon.

Coming to the romance, if Ash and Meghan had had a stronger supportive relationship history, I would be a hundred percent behind their love. Because it was written rather well and kind of touching in this book. But it was hard for me to separate the feel of the romance's premature beginnings from the first two books (and the mopey, angsty, oh-my-god-stop-whining-and-crying-about-your-shallow-love relationship from book two), from the more emotional, more agreeable, and much more heart-warming love between Ash and Meghan displayed in this third book.

Anyway...

There's nothing left to say about this book. Adventures happen, magic happens, stuff happens... the characters were flatter than ever before, and I got through it.

It's as simple as that.

I realize that I am a minority in a sea of Iron Fey worshippers here. So maybe this series isn't really for me. I'm currently contemplating whether or not I want to start reading The Iron Knight since the synopsis seems pretty straight forward. I have about a week and half left before I have to return all these books to the library, so maybe I'll just see how far I get. Or, maybe I'll just have to come back to it another day after I've padded myself with some other books in between.



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Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



08/28/2013

I just saw a rating of 4.5 stars pop up from one of the reviewers I follow.

Aaand.... so now we are counting down the days until the release of this book! September 17 seems like so MUCH longer than just the 20 days from this moment... well, 21 days, but I'm rounding down a little for my own benefit.

Oh man, I'm all fidgeting just waiting for the book release. I need this book so BADLY! RIGHT NOW!


09/19/2013

If I thought I loved the first book... I think I love this second book just as much and am not even quite sure which one I loved more. It's safe to say I've found another favorite series to add to my list, and officially declaring another favorite author I will be following.

So many thoughts, so many "AWESOME!"s to put out there. And I'm not even sure how this will go. But if I had to highlight every line of this book that I personally loved, my book would look like a striped lollipop.

Going to try to put my thoughts together in a more timely fashion this time, although I'm not sure how well that will serve my review since my review of the last book was simply a big ol' four page declaration of how much I loved The Raven Boys. I doubt there will be much different for The Dream Thieves -- though there may be a lot of added gushing over Maggie Stiefvater, my newest girl crush of an author.

She is so freakin' brilliant!

Review to come... maybe. If I can stop gushing. And after I get some sleep.



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Review: About That Night

About That Night by Julie James

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



3.5 stars

Mmmm... Well, I was excited going into this book, but I wasn't all too excited as the book progressed. There is definitely that all too familiar witty banter and humor between our main couple, but other than that, not much else seems to happen. This is more or less a contemporary romance first and foremost with law and proceedings coming in at a close second. I was kind of expecting some suspense and crime thriller type (since the first two were sort of in that genre), but there wasn't much action going on.

Nonetheless, if you look at it as a standard contemporary romance, it's an excellent book. The characters are wonderful, intelligent, fun, and lovable; the story line is cute and trendy. But since I went into the book expecting a side dish of suspense and crime and thrill, I came out of it a little conflicted... and feeling kind of meh.

I tried giving the book two days to sink in before deciding how I REALLY felt about it, but since the excitement was lost on me while I was reading it, I don't think I ever got it back. And honestly, I know it's unfair to this book since it IS written well, and it DOES have excellent characters.

On a side note, I find it really strange that my interest in Kyle when I was reading the second book kind of deflated after he became center stage in this third book. On the other hand, while I was reading A Lot Like Love I didn't really feel like Nick McCall stood out too much outside of being the hot, hero, FBI agent type. However, in THIS book, I found that I fell in love with Nick as a side character.

Stranger things have happened, I must say.

A few things I DID appreciate about this book:

- Rylann's law geek tendencies.

- The sibling banter between Kyle and Jordan.

- Sam Wilkins and his "meet cute" line.




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