NetGalley

Professional Reader 80% 25 Book Reviews 2016 NetGalley Challenge

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

The Secrets She Keeps - Review

The Secrets She Keeps  ðŸŒŸðŸŒŸðŸŒŸðŸŒŸ
by Michael Robotham  
Published July 11 2017
Finished July 24 2017


The story of a new friendship gone horribly wrong, between Agatha, single and pregnant, and Meghan, married with her third little bun in the oven.  Agatha would be exactly the reason why I don't have a public Facebook page, why I don't write a blog except for my book reviews where I really don't care if I have any followers, and why I don't have any curtain-free windows.  Agatha is more or less stalking Meghan, and her stalking is made way too easy by Meghan's blog, the internet, and no window coverings.   If things don't go easily for Agatha, she is very resourceful.  We're privy to just how bad things can become and how both Agatha and Meghan act under extreme pressure. The pressure cooker that is at first doing a slow simmer is about to blow.

Fantastic thrill ride of a thriller, one of the best I've read this year!  The writing is brilliant.  He really knows how to encapsulate the personalities of his characters and how to draw the reader into their minds and individual stories. 

This is a review of an advanced copy from NetGalley and the publisher.  

Thursday, July 20, 2017

You'll Never Know, Dear - Review


You'll  Never Know, Dear
by Hallie Ephron
Published June 6 2017
Finished July 19 2017


3.5 stars and a thank you to LibraryThing.Com  for my review copy.

I was attracted to this book by the creepy doll on the cover, wondering if dolls can still get to me like they once did.  Well, this was not as creepy as I had expected (and hoped) -- no dolls displaying signs of life; no Twilight Zone flashbacks.  This has more of an underlying suspense running throughout.

Two friends/neighbors, Miss Sorrell and Evelyn, are retired from their business of making dolls. Miss Sorrell's daughter Janey went missing some forty years ago, along with the doll Miss Sorrell had made especially for her.  The older daughter Lis was supposed to be watching Janey so she's felt guilty all these years, and still lives with her mother. They place a yearly ad offering a reward for the missing doll and any information as to where it came from.  A young woman answers the ad with a very old, damaged doll, leaves in a huff without giving her contact information, and the story takes off as the family tries to pursue this very strong possibility of a connection to Janey.

The story is engaging and did keep me wanting to read on to see how the various mysteries would come out; to see if what I thought had happened to Janey came true (I had it pegged almost to the letter).  As in many suspense novels, this had its red herrings and  implausible coincidences.  A rather slow start for me and then it took off, with well-drawn characters and an interesting sleep study program as a side story.  

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Ill Will - Review

Ill Will   🌟🌟🌟🌟
by Dan Chaon  
Published March 7 2017 by Ballantine Books
Finished July 5 2017


This is one unique book.  I will first say that I had an ARC from NetGalley but chose to listen to the finished version on audio.   A few of the chapters end, just stop, right in the middle of a thought, of a sentence.  Why?  Being edgy, risky, gimmicky?   Mr. Chaon, I don't usually care for gimmicks or such distractions. (This IS at least explained later.) The narration switches between characters, between first, second, and third person, and between past and present.  Why all the jumping around in books these days?  I don't usually care for that either, and was one of the reasons I gave your book You Remind Me of Me only 2 stars.

But, again, this book is SO different, to put it mildly.  This book, gimmicks and all, hooked me by the neck and yanked me along its journey through no less than two gripping murder investigations, two cancer deaths, two estranged brothers, two sisters also estranged, hard drugs, and multiple versions of the past.  Our remembrances of our own pasts are called into question:  You think no one knows your past better than yourself, but Chaon takes you by the neck, again, looks you square in the eye, and says Hah!  That's what you think!  And when a traumatic event such as finding your parents, aunt, and uncle all dead is involved, and of course when buku drugs are being ingested, memories are even more sporadic or repressed.

The older I become, the more I am uncertain of my own memories.  This is a subject that always fascinates me, in books or in discussions.  So I was simply captivated by this book and wished I could get back to it every time I put it down.   It was chilling, and the author's choice to be a little out there worked for me this time, but may not for others because.... 

I did read parts of the ARC aside from listening to it.  I could not get into the printed book at all and can see why some low ratings. My reason is that the formatting in some chapters gives us two or three columns of narration side by side on the pages.  Not so unusual, but then I could not figure out for certain if I was supposed to read all 3 columns on a page before turning the page, or was I supposed to read all pages of the left-hand column first, followed by all pages of the middle column, and then the right-hand.  I really didn't spend too much time on that since in the audio, that decision was made for me. 

Thus, I for one would recommend the audio over other versions.  Plus, it was just excellent.