Book Review ~ Dead Don't Lie by L.R. Nicolello

Finished ~ Dead Don't Lie by L.R. Nicolello
Completed 8/18/14
4.5 of 5 stars
230 page Kindle book

I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.


Evelyn is a detective who has risen as a star within the ranks. She's really able to understand murderer's and it comes from her own tragedy. When she was 18, her parents and sister were killed. Now, a series of deaths are occurring and she, her partner and an FBI agent sent to help are scrambling to try to figure out what is going on.

I LOVED this book. It was FANTASTIC. It should be a 5 star book, but it's not, for one reason which I can only share in a spoiler.

I liked the book, the characters were great, the storyline was great, the action was fast and it kept me totally engaged. What I can NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT (times 10) get over is WHO the killer is, and the fact that they would not even CONSIDER that person as the killer. I just wanted to scream at them. I knew from the beginning, and they didn't know until the end? It was a little lame and VERY VERY disappointing when the book was so fantastic. I think the author could have had the same suspense if they had been searching for him all along because he had NO ties to them whatsoever, so it's not like they would have found him anyways, and it would have been more satisfying if they had at least considered that angle instead of ignoring it.

Beyond this one glaring issue for me, the characters were great, the storyline was great, and the action was constant. There was even a "holy shit" moment that I didn't see coming and still can't believe it happened. I really really enjoyed this book, I just wish that there was one major change to it, but even without it, it was still a strong book and I'd be interested in reading more about Evelyn, if it were to be a series.

A definite good book for suspense/thriller lovers. While you might have the same issue that I did, the rest of the book really is good enough to make up for it.


Setting = B
Plot = A
Conflict = B
Characters = A+
Theme = A

Bout of Books 11 ~ Start of Day 1

It's here, it's here, it's here!! :) It's Bout of Books time, and OMG am I up EARLY. The problem, for me, with making plans to get up early is that I do NOT sleep when I make plans. If I got an hour of sleep, I'm surprised. Oh well, here I am now, and I'm doing the challenges to get this started, then it's off to the books. With my GOALS being what they are, I need to get started on reading! :) Keep an eye on this post, I'll be updating my reading stats through the day then post a re-cap tonight. If you follow me on Bloglovin' (the only place I use to follow blogs), I'll follow you back. If you use something else, let me know you are following me, and I'll follow you on Bloglovin'.

After I do the challenge, it's time to start reading. I listened to an audio before bed, but that will just be my night time reading right now. To start off the day, 1st up ~ Our Broken Sky by Sarah Harian. 2nd ~ Fated by Benedict Jacka. 3rd ~ Dead Don't Lie by L.R. Nicolello. 4th ~ Cursed by Benedict Jacka.


As for the informal challenge, I don't do photos of myself (no camera, and ewwwww), so none of that, plus I don't use Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr. Those things just aren't for me. I'm more of a rambler and that stuff is for people who don't like to talk much. So, I'll just be doing what I can here at my blog.

CHALLENGES

The first challenge comes from The Book Monsters and is a Book Scavenger Hunt. No #4 as I don't read poems or short stories.


1. A Book that begins with “B” (for Bout of Books!)
(My favorite "B" titled book!)


2. A book that has been made into a movie/tv show


3. A series you love


5. A book on your TBR shelf, or your full TBR shelves
(Books being released 8/26 that I'm waiting on!)



The second challenge is about making playlists. Since I only listen to a few artists (Pentatonix!!), I'll skip this challenge. :(

Updates!!

Monday

Night Time Audio listening time/pages: 1 hr 30 min / 70 pages
Day Time Audio listening time/pages: 3 hr 30 min / 344 pages
Kindle reading time / pages: 5 hr / 378 pages
Number of books I've read today: 3
Total number of books I've read: 3
Current Book: Cursed by Benedict Jacka
Pages Read Today: 792 (90 pages, 234 pages, 230 pages, 180, 58 of 2 DNF books)
Total Pages Read:
Time Read Today: 10 hr
Total Time Read:
Challenges Participated in today: Book Scavenger Hunt
Today's Completed Books:

It's Monday! What are you Reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? ~ Hosted by BookJourney


Another GREAT week of reading, and our team regained the lead by 160 points!! WooHoo!! My AWESOME real life friend over at My Book Nook is on my GoodReads Challenge Team and she knocked out 27 books this past week!!!! Amazing! Her and I combined for 41 of our 65 books this week (Sat to Sat, so it included some of the books on my last update). It was a great reading week. Speaking of my friend, she's just getting back into book blogging and is participating in BoB, so if you could, pop over and follow her. :) As for me, and what I've been doing, here's a summary of my reading week! I actually took Sat night and all day Sun off from reading to gear up for BoB and my Lofty Goals. Wish me luck! :)


Right now I'm reading ~

Audio & Kindle


Here's what I read since last time ~



Quick thoughts on the books I read ~

• Game for Marriage ~ not bad erotica ~ 3 stars
• Crash & Burn ~ liked Allison's part, not Laura's ~ 3 stars
• Illusive ~ NOT "Xmen meets Ocean's 11" ~ 2.5 stars
• S.E.C.R.E.T. Revealed ~ good conclusion ~ 3 stars
• A Dark Mind ~ good series, not great ~ 3 stars
• Rush ~ AWESOME AWESOME book! ~ 4 stars
• Push ~ another great one!! ~ 4 stars
• If I Should Die ~ a good Lucy story ~ 3 stars
• Obsessed ~ ok book, GREAT ending ~ 3 stars
• Naked ~ crap crap crap erotica ~ 1 star
• Set me Free ~ good conclusion ~ 4 stars

Rêveur Reviews ~ My new Review System, Coming Soon!

You may not have guessed, but I've made my blog to remind me of my favorite book ~ The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. With that in mind, I was trying to come up with a new idea, and it finally came to me what I'd like to do.

Come August, I'll be starting "Rêveur Reviews". "Rêveurs" is a term used in The Night Circus which distinguishes the true fans of Les Cirque de Reves from the normal Circus goers. If The Night Circus were real, I would most definitely be a Rêveur. The Night Circus is all about opposites as well, from the black and white of everything within the circus to having the circus during the night, instead of the daytime.

With "Rêveur Reviews", I plan to review more books than I have been doing, showing more of a variety into the many books that I read. Many many times I get comments saying that readers haven't heard of the books or the authors that I read, and I like that I stand apart from the crowd. While you'll see me enjoying a few books that everyone else is as well, for the most part I tend to go against the flow and read things not everyone else is. Those are the books that I will cover in these new reviews. I originally thought I would review books that were opposites together, but I'm not going to stick with that, as I might want to review a series together or something. Rêveur Reviews will just be reviews of any kind, that I want to do, that aren't part of my NetGalley or other ARC type reviews.

Though I'll keep the same 5 star system of ratings at GoodReads, I'll be using a 12 "star" rating here. 5 stars doesn't give the depth of rating as I need. A lot of time I rate books 3 stars and people think that means I don't like them, when I do, really really like them, just not as much as I rate 4 and 5 star books. So, here I'll be using this system, which will be 12 roses (see below). Hopefully this will show more of my true feelings about the books for people to see. Here is what this new system will be ~



LOVED it, best book ever! (5 stars)

LOVED it, an amazing book! (5 stars)

LOVED it, a fantastic book! (4.5 stars)

LOVED it, such a great book! (4 stars)

Loved it, really really enjoyable book! (4 stars)

Really Liked it, a really good book! (3.5 stars)

Really liked it, a quite enjoyable book! (3 stars)

Enjoyable, equally good and ok. (3 stars)

Ok book, not great, serious flaws! (2 stars)

Meh, not a good book! (2 stars)

Awful book, so much I didn't like about it! (1 star)

Horrid horrid book, I absolutely hated it! (1 star)


The colors, in that order, come from The Night Circus. It's the colors are the ones used to light the opening night bonfire. 12 performers with bows and arrows arrived just before midnight. As the seconds count down, the lit a fire on the end of the arrows and shot them into the bonfire, creating those colors in that order, from yellow to white.


This new segment of my reviewing will start up after my current crazy month of challenges and read-a-thons and will feature books that I have read in the past few months and then books I will continue to read. The "Rêveur Reviews" books will not be books that I receive from independent sources (such as NetGalley or direct from an author), those will remain separate, as they do now, the Rêveur books will purely be the books that I am reading and loving. I do hope that you'll enjoy these new reviews, so be on the look out for them, coming soon.

Book Review ~ The 100 by Kass Morgan

Finished ~ The 100 by Kass Morgan
Completed 8/9/14
2.5 of 5 stars
336 page Kindle book

I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.


This dystopian book is about a future where it's not safe to live on Earth any longer. Humans now live on Spaceships above Earth. However, it's decided that a group of teenagers, who have all been jailed for one reason or another, will be sent to Earth to see if life can be sustained there again. These 100 teens are not given a choice and are sent to a place they know nothing about. The story is about them arriving on Earth, as well as what continues to go on within the spaceships.


When I saw this book a while ago I thought it looked pretty good and I almost tried out the TV show. Perhaps the TV show worked out, I don't know because I haven't heard anything more about it, but the book did not. For me, there were too many characters. Each chapter went back and forth on a different character and it was too much information to be squeezed into such a short book. Plus, for each character, there was the present time, and there were flashbacks about how they ended up where they are now.

It was just WAY too much going on for such a short book. Perhaps if it was twice as long and some of the stories were more detailed, instead of each being a hurried explanation of something before it moved on, it could have maybe been better. I would have liked it better if it was one, or even two, main characters that learned all the things we learned about the others from talking to them, getting them all to share their stories. Plus, what was going on back at the Spaceship had nothing to do with what was done on Earth and I felt it was completely out of place with what the book was supposedly supposed to be about ~ 100 teens landing on Earth and starting a new life there.

This book just didn't interest me at all and I have NO desire to read any more of the books or see the show. It was a boring and jumbled mess of a book that had a good premise but didn't deliver. Instead, gave tiny tidbits of multiple lives with almost no action on Earth itself. Boring overall.

Setting = A
Plot = C
Conflict = C-
Characters = C
Theme = C