Book Review: All the Bright Things by Jennifer Niven

My review:

Oh dear Lord, how I loved this book! Definitely one of my favorites this year! I have nothing good things to say. Just look for it in January, read it and talk about it!  

Book Summary:
An exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death. Every day he thinks of ways he might die, but every day he also searches for—and manages to find—something to keep him here, and alive, and awake.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her small Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister's death.
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school—six stories above the ground—it's unclear who saves whom. And when the unlikely pair teams up on a class project to discover the "natural wonders" of their state, they go, as Finch says, where the road takes them: the grand, the small, the bizarre, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising—just like life.
Soon it's only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a bold, funny, live-out-loud guy, who's not such a freak after all. And it's only with Finch that Violet forgets to count away the days and starts living them. But as Violet's world grows, Finch's begins to shrink.
This is a heart-wrenching, unflinching story of love shared, life lived, and two teens who find one another while standing on the edge. (Author's website)


Author Website:
Jennifer Niven

Happy Reading and thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Book Review: Missing You by Harlan Coben

It's a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé Jeff, the man who shattered her heart—and who she hasn’t seen in 18 years.

Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her.  But when she reaches out to the man in the profile, her reawakened hope quickly darkens into suspicion and then terror as an unspeakable conspiracy comes to light, in which monsters prey upon the most vulnerable. 

As the body count mounts and Kat's hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that challenges her feelings about everyone she ever loved—her former fiancé, her mother, and even her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained. With lives on the line, including her own, Kat must venture deeper into the darkness than she ever has before, and discover if she has the strength to survive what she finds there. (Goodreads)

Harlan Coben is amazing. He continues to surprise me with every thriller he writes. I did not figure it out at all and this is a big thing for me when reading thrillers. If I have it down before the end, you probably have bored me.

Coben mixes police and family politics with the mob with kidnappers with online dating with mental illness to get a huge story with lots of secrets. His writing was sharp, and kept me on edge. I really liked Kat's character and her struggles with finding the truth about her father and missing fiance were hard to stomach at times. 

Coben is an author you can pick up anywhere along the line. His writing is pretty consistent and not overly formulaic. With every book you get a new thrilling mystery. Recommended for psychological thriller fans.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Book Review: Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry—lonely, friendless, not too good at sports—spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele—a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.

But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect piecrust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others—especially those we love—above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for. (Goodreads)

My book clubs were chosen to review this book and also the soon to be released movie. Both my clubs meet later this month but I wanted to post my own review of the book since I just recently finished it.

I really enjoyed it overall. Very easy to read. I have never read Joyce Maynard before and this was smooth writing at its best. At the heart you have a love story; at first between a son and his mother, and then his mother and the stranger and then the son and a girl. It's very honest writing, told in the voice of the son; a son at the age of puberty, ripe with his own thoughts and desires and opinions. You get some back story of his mother and the relationship she had with his father and what brought her to the solitude that she lived in for most of the novel. And the presence of this stranger that they keep in their home is tantalizing, strange, tense and comfortable all at the same time. 

The stranger feels at home right away and the relationship between him and the mother is obvious from the very beginning;love. This book is now a movie with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. I had those actors in mind when I read the book because of the movie-tie-in version that was sent to me. They fit perfectly; mysterious and beautiful. I am very much excited to see the movie and how they bring it to life. So much happens in such a short period of time that the movie will pack a punch, I'm sure.

I spread the copies of the books to both of my book clubs. One meets tomorrow and the other next Monday. I will include in another post their feelings and then eventually our group review of the movie.

I highly recommend this book. It's a fast read, though emotional. The ending is a bit abrupt but I think it had to be for where the story needed to go. 

Overall, a good book club choice.

Author Website:
Joyce Maynard

Movie Website:
Labor Day

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Book Review: Fear Nothing by Lisa Gardner

My name is Dr. Adeline Glen. Due to a genetic condition, I can’t feel pain. I never have. I never will.

The last thing Boston Detective D.D. Warren remembers is walking the crime scene after dark. Then, a creaking floorboard, a low voice crooning in her ear… She is later told she managed to discharge her weapon three times. All she knows is that she is seriously injured, unable to move her left arm, unable to return to work.

My sister is Shana Day, a notorious murderer who first killed at fourteen. Incarcerated for thirty years, she has now murdered more people while in prison than she did as a free woman.

Six weeks later, a second woman is discovered murdered in her own bed, her room containing the same calling cards from the first: a bottle of champagne and a single red rose. The only person who may have seen the killer: Detective D.D. Warren, who still can’t lift her child, load her gun, or recall a single detail from the night that may have cost her everything.

Our father was Harry Day, an infamous serial killer who buried young women beneath the floor of our home. He has been dead for forty years. Except the Rose Killer knows things about my father he shouldn’t. My sister claims she can help catch him. I think just because I can’t feel pain, doesn’t mean my family can’t hurt me.

D.D. may not be back on the job, but she is back on the hunt. Because the Rose Killer isn’t just targeting lone women; he is targeting D.D. And D.D. knows there is only one way to take him down:

Fear nothing. (Goodreads)

I have grown to look forward to a new book by Lisa Gardner each year. I have read a few of hers now and she is definitely a favorite and one of the best thriller writers out there. I like that her books are set in Boston, where I once lived and I love her detective character D.D. Warren.

All of her books have twists in them that you don't seem coming, which I love. This new one features two sisters, one that suffers from a condition where she doesn't feel pain and the other who is a notorious serial killer known for inflicting pain. They also just happen to be the daughters of Harry Day, a notorious killer in his own right. Talk about crazy plotting!

D.D. is injured in the beginning so her character is struggling with keeping up with her limited body while trying to catch a killer that is targeting one of the sisters and copying the styles of their father. This brings on a different twist because D.D. character is generally such a force to be reckoned with. Here you see her weaknesses.

What you get is a wicked fast paced psychological thriller. Told from the perspective of Adeline, the sister who can't feel pain and D.D., you follow this twisted story to its climatic conclusion. I would say this one has to be one of my favorites so far. Gardner really knows her characters, knows how to write from both sides of the coin (good and evil) and knows how to wrap it up nicely.

I will eagerly wait for another book next year and read it right away. She has definitely topped my list of thriller writers to watch for. HIghly recommended.

Author Website:
Lisa Gardner

Release Date:
January 4, 2014
Purchase at Indie Bound

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child