The Final Chapter by Jerome Loubry

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.

When David was young and on holiday, his childhood friend went missing. Now a famous author, he and his publisher friend are shocked when one day they receive a book which tells the story of that fateful summer. But their books differ slightly and there is a third unknown recipient out there. With all three books promising to tell the truth of what happened, they must find the third author and discover if any of them is actually a murderer.

This book started off okay but quickly became very boring. In particular, it felt like it dragged around the middle and nothing of interest was happening for a long time. It is actually a relatively simple premise and plot, but the way it was told was so confusing that it became a chore to understand. The characters aren't that interesting or sympathetic, and I felt like the twist at the end was very predictable. Unfortunately this just wasn't for me.

Overall Rating:

Dead End Drive by Ian Kirkpatrick

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Steak House Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this book was a mess. Originally I was going to give it 2 stars for having a decent premise, but having found out that it's based off a boardgame, that means the only things I liked about it aren't original at all.

Dead End Drive is about a family where, when someone dies, the battle for inheritance is a literal battle to the death. After the reading of the will, the person left alive in the morning will inherit everything. How can such a premise go wrong? Well, for starters the premise isn't actually introduced well within the book itself. People just start killing each other with no real explanation, which would have been very confusing if I hadn't read the blurb recently before starting it.

This book has two major problems. Firstly, the writing is not great. The pages are littered with both actual editorial mistakes (understandable for an ARC but there are a lot, far more than any other ARC I've ever had) and just poor writing choices. The characters are bland and, in the worst cases, harmful stereotypes. There is a gay stylist who constantly uses the word 'honey' and who, after murdering a black woman, insists on fixing her 'coarse dark hair'. I'm almost certain the racial implications of this were accidental but yikes.

The pacing is similarly poor. You get introduced to all the characters in very repetitive chapters, and then the one with the most personality instantly dies so you don't have a character you have a connection with. Far from being a bloodbath, the rest of the deaths are then paced very oddly. There is no real sense of tension or fear and none of the characters seem particularly scared or bothered by their situation. Again, the only character who wasn't aware of the bloodbath beforehand is murdered straight away so you don't get the benefits of following an outsider in this horrible situation.

Overall, I sadly can't recommend this book. I ended up skim-reading everything after 50% as I just didn't care enough. It's a shame because a book like this has such potential and some of the humour/horror elements were alright. It just had too little going for it.

Overall Rating:

The Stranger's Wife by Anna-Lou Weatherley

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

This book really did not gel with me. I did finish it but it was a definite slog and I skim-read about 40% of it. There was just nothing in the plot which I found particularly gripping and, while the characters were alright, I wasn't invested enough to make up for the lack of good story. The two female characters described in the blurb don't meet until about 60% of the way through the book and once they do, things become very pedestrian. I also feel the plot they hatched made no sense? I could see no advantage to what they did. So disappointing!

Overall Rating:

Growing Things & Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to William Morrow and Edelweiss.

Oh boy. I really honestly thought I would love this short story collection. I read A Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to experiencing a greater range of his work through an anthology. Sadly this book was not designed for the casual reader. Honestly I was surprised by the sheer amount of references to his other work present in this and, as someone who has only read one of his books, I did not find the stories easy to understand despite not getting those references. This was my major problem with the anthology and I found myself skimming and skipping stuff as a result. Maybe if you're a mega-fan then you would get a lot more out of this but I also feel that this should stand on its own as a collection rather than relying on knowledge of other works.

My other main problem is I just wasn't that interested in many of the stories. Normally I review every single story for an anthology but for this one I would be repeating myself a lot so I'm just going to mention a couple and do my overview stats.

Number of stories: 19
Number I liked: 2
Number which were okay: 3, maybe?

Something About Birds-A somewhat meta creepy story about birds where a journalist writes about meeting a horror author who wrote a creepy story about birds. Okay, so this one definitely felt like I was maybe missing something from the context but it was one of the few where it didn't matter and I still got absorbed into the story. It was probably my favourite of the collection and it had creepy moments whilst still making sense.

A Haunted House is a Wheel, Upon Which Some Are Broken-A choose-your-own adventure story about a woman visiting a haunted house. Despite the page numbers not being available for the ARC (meaning that I could not choose my own adventure but had to read it linearly) this was a very beautiful story and I loved every minute of it. A tied favourite with the previous story and this would probably be my favourite had I been able to read it in the way it was intended.

These two stories save it from being a one star read for me. Now for some of my least favourites:

Notes from the Dog Walkers-An incredibly meta story which is exactly what it says on the tin. This story just went on and on and on and I tried to read all of it but it was just getting worse and worse. I have actually read the work I needed to in order to get this reference and yet I still didn't get it which is a terrible sign. It was very surreal and read very narcissistic to me. Only for mega-fans I feel.

That's the only one I can talk about in detail as I have forgotten the rest. Sorry.

Overall, I am deeply disappointed I didn't enjoy this. It won't stop me from reading Tremblay's other books and being excited for them but I think I'll avoid his short stories from now on. I understand Tremblay is a huge author but it seems a strange decision to release a collection which is so alienating to people who don't know his work inside and out. I wish I could have given this a more positive review.

Overall Rating:

The Stranger Inside by Laura Benedict

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Mulholland Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. And it started off so promising! The Stranger Inside is about what happens when a woman comes home from a long break to discover someone else is living in her house. That alone is a great thriller premise but unfortunately that's pretty much the only great thing about this book.

A lot of other reviews have complained about the main character, Kimber, being incredibly unlikable. This actually didn't bother me much because a) I don't think anyone deserves horrible things to happen to them and so I have a high tolerance for terrible people in thrillers, and b) Kimber was so flat that she didn't have much of a personality for me to dislike. I just could not understand her actions at any point. From the very first chapter, the way she reacts to someone being in her house is just..off.

There is also unfortunately a serious case of the plot only happening because certain people act like morons. Pretty early on Kimber discovers something which could get the stranger out of her house. Does she tell the police? Nope. Instead she keeps it to herself and decides to investigate and continue not being allowed to live in her house. I understand curiousity but what she knows about the stranger isn't intriguing enough at this point for her to want to investigate further. From that point onwards I was just frustrated because everything could be stopped if only Kimber went to the police with what she knew.

The other major problem is that this book really dragged for me. This is a combination of poor pacing, a dull protagonist and a really weird way of doing plot reveals. One spoiler-free example goes like this: Kimber finds out the name of the stranger in her house. A flashback chapter then reveals who that stranger is in regards to her life. Then in the present day, Kimber finds out who that person is through a friend. Then another character tells her who that person is. Then she finds evidence to confirm who that person is. Then another character tells her who the person is. This is the same bit of information talked about again and again with no new details, and we have to sit through characters talking about stuff we already know.

The ending as a whole was a mess. There is one very weak 'twist' which you actually again, get told earlier on through narration. This basically amounts to Kimber going at one point 'Hmm, that mysterious person reminds me of X. But that's silly haha.' and then at the end, 'Omg, that mysterious person is X! Who could have seen this coming?'. I came dangerously close to not finishing reading this and I skimmed the end as a result. The final few pages hold another 'twist' which just erases a pretty major thing and it's about as awful as that sounds.

I really don't feel good when I dislike ARCs that I've requested but sadly, The Stranger Inside just did not do it for me. If characters really aren't important to you and you don't mind not being surprised by a thriller, then you might get more enjoyment out of this than I did,

Overall Rating:

Method 15/33 by Shannon Kirk

Ooh boy, it has been a while since I've struggled this much to finish a book. Honestly I was so close to DNFing it that I basically skim read the last 100 pages (and it only has about 200 to begin with).

This is not really a thriller. I mean it is but there are zero thrills to be had here. The plot is exactly what the blurb says without any additional twists or surprises. I'm not necessarily someone who believes a thriller needs to have a huge twist to be good but it at least has to be interesting. This could have been an intense story about a pregnant teenage girl trying to escape from kidnappers but our main character recounts the entire thing with all the detached disinterest of someone talking about what they had for breakfast. Speaking of which, the main character of this was awful. I can't even say that I hated her because she didn't have enough of a presence to hate.

So there are two narrators in this book-a 18 year old pregnant teenager and a 30-something year old male FBI agent. Both of these characters are written with the exact same voice. Our teenage protagonist is meant to be 'emotionally gifted' in that she can switch her emotions on and off whenever she likes, and this is quite possibly the most baffling character choice I have ever encountered. All of the potential tension of the story is completely dissolved by having an emotionless main character. How am I meant to root for her? Where is the emotional core of the story? Instead of two protagonists to root for, you get two bland and uninteresting narrators. 50 pages in I already didn't care about either of them.

As mentioned above, the entire plot is very one-note.There is nothing after page 100 to keep you reading and if you're hoping for some kind of plot twist (or even a new development in a story which is over by that point), you're not going to get it. This book is not worth even glancing at to be brutally honest. There are far better stories about people being kidnapped and many, many thrillers more worthy of attention.

Overall Rating:

First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy

God, this book was such a disappointment. I have so many books by Alexandra Sirowy on my to-read list and now I'm finding it hard to muster up enthusiasm for any of them. I just could not get into the writing style of this book and it got to the point where I almost didn't finish reading it, which is a Huge Deal for me. But the narrative style is off-putting, rambly and faux-poetic in  a way which creates a kind of pretentious, dreamy atmosphere. In short, it is the exact kind of style I can't stand. And this is mostly due to personal taste but to be honest, even excluding that I don't think this book has a lot to offer.

Plotwise, I found it very difficult to follow what was going on. This was mostly due to the writing style as I mentioned above but it was also because no one was really acting like a real person or making sense within their motivations. The basic plot is that these four outcasts decide to form a psuedo-cult to get the town to pay attention to the murder of a girl which happened years ago. Everyone at school, particularly the popular kids who have been bullying them for years, becomes desperate to join this cult and will do crazy things to get into it. This already requires too much suspension of disbelief on my part. There is no natural transition between the popular kids hating them to idolising their weird club. It happens mostly because of a semi-naked bonfire dance and what??? That is not the kind of thing that will get the popular people clamoring to take part in something. If anything, it should ostracise them even more as weirdos.

Characterisation was another big problem. Are we meant to hate the bully characters? Conner is despicable but when he starts to want to join the club, I get the impression that the narration wants us to think he's maybe not so bad? Viv is just the worst and has nothing relatable or sympathetic about her. Graham made me so uncomfortable in his attraction and attitude towards Izzie and gave off serious 'nice guy entitlement' vibes. I actually did like Harry right up until an incredibly nonsensical and stupid decision he makes near the end. Finally, Izzie would have been okay if she'd been written more clearly. I know ambiguity is meant to be a part of it but I couldn't really understand how she felt about Graham or Conner or several other important things. That's not ambiguity, that's bad writing. I should understand the main character's motivations, even if they're not clarified until the end. Instead they just don't get clarified at all.

Overall, I just don't get what people like about this book. I guess if you're a fan of the overly-descriptive and poetic writing style, you might get something out of this. It had some potentially good plot elements and the core idea could have worked with some tweaking. Sadly this was not a book for me.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Trap by Melanie Raabe

The Trap has the kind of intriguing, meta premise that drew me right in. Unfortunately, it was a little like being trapped into reading it. It is a book about an author writing a book to trap the killer of her sister. The main character is a reclusive author and when she thinks she sees her sister's killer reporting the news on TV, she decides to write a crime book and get that reporter to interview her, hoping that reading a book about the murder he committed will get him to confess.

First of all, I feel I should say that this book is pretty weird at points. It has a strange false-start thing early on where you think something is happening (and something that goes on for quite some time) only to suddenly be told by the narrator that they were imagining how something would play out. This felt like a complete waste of my time and instantly made me wary when I was reading anything else that was going on, in case that also turned out to be not real.

The book unfortunately drags a lot too which is very weird given how relatively short it is. It really doesn't have much meat to the story at all and the pacing suffers massively because of it. I thought I would breeze through it due to the length but it turned out to take me longer than usual because there just isn't much going on. Half the wordcount is taken up by the in-story book that the main character is writing and to be honest, I skipped almost all of those sections. Maybe it would have added some extra depth to the story if I'd done more than skim them but from what I did read, it really didn't seem like it.

Overall, I think this book had the potential to be really great but the author didn't know what to do with the premise beyond the basic idea. There is a throwaway line at the end about how the main character hasn't really written a crime story but a different kind of story (not revealed because no spoiler review) and this was clearly meant to be some clever meta commentary on the actual book. However, it just falls flat because really this book isn't any kind of genre particularly. For a thriller, there aren't enough twists or tense moments. The crime aspect is not focused on, nor are any of the relationships particularly developed.  Even for its short wordcount, this book doesn't deliver on the story and for that reason I can't recommend it.

Overall Rating:

.5

Three Sides of a Heart: A Short Story Anthology

From one fantastic cute anthology about love to...well, this. This isn't the worst anthology I've ever read but it's one of the dullest. Most of the stories don't even follow the basic premise and the whole thing is super disappointing. I'm going to do what I've done in the past and go through each short story in turn, only expect a lot less detail for most because I don't actually a) remember what happens or b) like most of them.

Riddles in Mathematics, 2.5/5-One of the better ones, not that that's saying much. It's written in a very dull and kind of hard to follow way. It's also one of the ones that follows the love triangle premise the closest, although yeah, it still doesn't really count as a love triangle. Basically there is a girl, her brother and a girl who is their best friend. Girl fancies best friend girl but thinks she is dating her brother. You can probably guess what happens.

Dread South, 3.5/5-Not. A. Love. Triangle. This was such a weird story to follow the first one but also it was pretty great so I can't fault it too much. It takes place in an alternate timeline where zombies exist after the American Civil War. Black women are trained as warrior servants to protect rich white people, and the main girl gets bought one by her rich fiance. She then falls in love with her servant protector. Bit of a weird context but enjoyable on the whole.

Omega Ship, 2.5/5-Kind of a cool idea? So it's the end of the world and humans are evacuating the earth. However, the ship breaks and only three people manage to escape-one girl and two boys. The girl is overcome by the idea of having to have babies forever and has to choose which boy to have a baby with first. The problem with this is that it could have used more time to explore the emotions of the characters and the themes it was trying to consider. I could totally see this working as a full-length novel or YA series. As it stands, it's a bit weak.

La Revancha del Tango, 1.5/5-I have pretty much no memory of this apart from skim-reading it. A girl dances? Someone gets jealous? Somehow the person she is dancing with symbolises who she is going to be with for the rest of her life. One of the weaker ones.

Cass, An and Dra, 1.5/5-Told sooooo badly. Again, this could have been a cool idea. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the whole 'Cassandra' thing is beyond a reference to Cassandra the fortune teller. Basically Cass (none of the characters have gender in this) is dating An but then is tempted by Dra-or at least, I think that's what this was trying to convey. Cass can see the future and see how each decision they make will result in different options, so each time they have to actively choose An. Obviously the names spell out 'Cassandra' so I was expecting some kind of split personality thing but nope. I don't care enough to try and sort out what this clumsy mess was trying to say I'm afraid.

Lessons for Beginners, 3.5/5-A actual love triangle! The main girl gives kissing lessons to people at school. She gets employed by an old childhood friend and her new boyfriend to try and improve his kissing. The two girls have insane chemistry but aren't sure where it's going to lead. I don't remember just how good this was but it was cute and far more interesting than most of the other stories.

Triangle Solo, 1.5/5-Erm, so this was needlessly sci-fi. It just kind of dropped the sci-fi in there as well, like shoving ham into a vegetarian sandwich. Effectively this is two guys fighting over a girl they used to know who went away for ages and came back hot. I barely skim-read this one.

Vim and Vigor, 4/5-By far the best story in this. There is a love triangle in this but it's not actually part of the story really, just the set-up. These girls were best friends and massively into a fandom when one of them died in an accident. They then stopped speaking to each other and drifted apart, but this story is about them learning to cope with their grief and re-establishing their friendship. A sweet story and a breath of fresh air to the anthology.

Work in Progress, ?/5-I don't even remember this one.

Hurdles, 3.5/5-Another solid one rooted in reality. A girl is set to become a star athlete and has a lovely boyfriend. Her ex boyfriend has just come out of prison for drug use/other bad things. She is trying to decide whether or not to run away with her ex or stay with her new boyfriend and go for an athletic scholarship (or something similar). The only thing holding this story back is you never find out what she chooses. Very disappointing considering one option would be extremely bad for her.

The Historian, The Garrison, and the Cantakerous Catwoman, 3/5-Apart from giving me serious Buffy ripoff vibes, this story was pretty cool. The main character is a girl who helps a superhero-type figure fight demons by basically being his researcher. He then meets another superhero-type girl who he falls in love with. This story is all about the main character's jealousy and feelings of betrayal at this.

Waiting, 1.5/5-I only vaguely remember this story but I definitely know I was not happy with the love triangle resolution. I'm pretty sure the main character ended up picking the worst possible option and treating a perfectly nice guy like crap in the process. This story was clearly going for 'pick passion over companionship' and while I understand that to an extent, they shouldn't have made the other option so appealing. Instead it just seems like she had learned nothing and was making the same bad mistakes all over again.

Vega, ?/5-Erm...this was probably a story in this anthology?

A Hundred Thousand Threads, ?/5-I skipped it sorry.

Before She Was Bloody, ?/5-I also skipped this one. I tried, I really did.

Unus, Duo, Tres, 3.5/5-This was really well-written and quite a cool concept of a story buuuut...polyamory is a thing guys. I don't want to say too much but this is about undead vampire lovers and what happens when they both fall for another human and yeah, polyamory should have been the resolution.

Okay, so as you can probably tell this was a very long anthology and my memory of many of the stories is pretty hazy. I read it only a month ago and even from reading the story descriptions from other reviews, there are some I just can't remember anything about. Overall though I would say it's not worth picking up this anthology. Even the good stories didn't really blow my mind massively, and there are so many that it really drags near the end. It's such a shame because this could be a great premise for a bunch of interesting short stories but that just doesn't happen.

Overall Score:

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

I have reluctantly tagged this book as 'horror' due to Goodreads and several reviews on there insisting that this book is scary. It really isn't.

I don't get this book. I heard such rave reviews about it and the premise sounds so interesting and yet the execution is bland and weirdly distant. I get a vague Frankenstein vibe from it which I guess could be a good thing but something isn't quite right about the tone. For starters, the author manages to make a story about a girl constantly spawning murderous clones boring. That in itself is kind of impressive. They also manage to create a novella with very little plot and no real resolution. Combined with a lack of character depth, why is this so popular again?

Okay, so my main issue with this book is that it didn't make me feel anything. The main character is extremely flat and distant, and there's absolutely no emotional reaction from her to anything. Again, maybe this was meant to reflect how traumatic her life is and how it's ruined her? But we start with her as a child and she is just as lifeless then. At no point did I feel like I understood Molly's actions or was worried for her wellbeing. All the potentially interesting things that could stem from this idea remain unremarked upon. What happens if a clone murders her? We never find out. Why is this happening? We kind of find out in the most unsatisfactory way. What the heck does the opening/ending mean? The author decided to just stop so we're definitely not finding that out. It's all so disappointing.

The more I reflect on this book, the more I find to dislike about it. It's not particularly bad or enraging, it's just kind of hollow and ultimately pointless. Even for a novella, there's very little to it. The book equivalent of eating a rice cracker.

Overall Rating:

Only the Truth by Adam Croft

I almost didn't finish this book. Seriously, that's how dull and uninteresting I found the plot. Not going to lie, the main problem of this book is its protagonist/narrator. It has been a long long time since I read about such a self-centered, stereotypically awful male protagonist. There are two female characters in this book and neither of them matter at all in terms of their character. For the most part, you are stuck listening to this whiny, self-pitying jerk narrate the really quite uneventful plot until the sweet release of the ending frees you.

Maybe it seems like I'm being too harsh. This book seems to be popular enough to be advertised to me on Amazon after all. I however can't find a single thing to say about it that's good. The plot sounds promising enough-the main character finds his wife's body in a hotel he's staying at and, in a fit of panic, runs away with his current lover who works there. But...it's just so bad. His wife is given zero personality and the protagonist mourns her very little. Even then, he only uses sentences like 'How can I possibly put into words how much I miss her?' without actually going on to attempt to tackle that challenge. The lover is slightly better but her character is tainted by constant physical descriptions of how slender and short she is, again seemingly the only thing the main character notices about her at all. She is however the only slightly interesting thing about the whole book which makes it even worse when SHE FREAKING DIES HALFWAY THROUGH.

That is the exact point I almost gave up. I basically skim read the rest of the book and I kid you not, it's just him going from one location to another with nothing worthwhile happening until the climax. Speaking of which, it's so painful. The lover turns out to be the one who killed his wife all along (of course, given that she's the ONLY OTHER CHARACTER) and she did it because...he's a jerk? The main character even acknowledges how little sense this makes, that's how bad it is.

Worst of all, the main character has learned precisely nothing by the end and escapes with no ramifications except a dead wife (we know just how much he cares about that). I actually agree wholeheartedly with the bad guy here and I'm not entirely sure I'm meant to. Aside from the fact she should have killed him rather than his wife, she was 100% right in my eyes. Ultimately, when you actively want the protagonist to suffer horribly, I don't consider that a great book.

Overall Rating:

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

After reading heaps and heaps of reviews about how people loved this book, I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here.

Did we read the same book? Honestly, I don't see how I'm supposed to feel anything reading about this relationship (if you can call it that). From the start it was painfully clear that these two weren't meant to be together. Min is a pretentious film-lover, Ed is a typical jock. ON THE FIRST DATE he isn't getting her. I never believed they were in love for one second, let alone 300-odd pages.

This leads me to another problem. This entire book is Min writing her ex a letter about their relationship. Except their relationship didn't even last two months. This coupled with the way she narrates it just implies to me that she became waaaaaay too obsessed and for no real reason. Ed isn't attractive, he isn't charming or witty or charismatic in any way. Am I supposed to see this as Min being a silly teenager? If so, then the execution is very poor because it felt accidental. Also, why write a book about it and make the prose so very literary?

The writing style is maybe the only thing that made this book tolerable and that's not saying much. It's pretentious, the sentences go on far too long and Min spends way too much time getting to the point. I can't say I felt particularly attached to any of the characters. The illustrations are nice I guess? All in all, a flimsy book held together by pretty artwork and presentation. Not worth spending time or money on.

Overall Score:

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Dear Lord I hated this book. What's more, I hate it in a way which makes me angry that other people have given it good reviews.

First things first-this book is terribly written. As in, so bad it's painful. Sentences are phrased so badly that I genuinely started to think the author was just screwing with her readers.

'The thing is, Susannah was right. It was a summer I'd never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it'd be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.'

'It was also ironic, Steven teasing me about being flat-chested, because two summers later I had to wear a bra, but, like, for real.'

'Compared to you, everyone else is saltines, even Cam. And I hate saltines. You know that. You know everything about me, even this, which is that I really love you.'

The main character is supposed to be 15 but she reads more like a 12 year old. She has the super irritating problem of not being able to decide what guy she actually likes. Apparently she falls for Conrad when she's 10 and yet she also kinda likes his brother Jeremy when her friend flirts with him and she also likes a guy who hits on her at a party. Really, she just comes across as someone who craves male attention of any kind and will instantly 'fall in love' with whoever gives her that attention. She's also incredibly vain and self-centred.

'Had he caught me looking at myself in the mirror, checking myself out, admiring myself? Did everyone think I was vain and shallow now?'

'Was this because of me? All summer, Conrad's moodiness, locking himself up in his room-- had it really been because of me? Was it more than just his parents divorcing? Had he been that upset over seeing me with someone else?'

NO YOU IDIOT HIS MUM HAS CANCER.

The boys weren't much better but at least they were likeable. This is the kind of book which drains brain cells when you read it. I don't know what else I can say except for stay far, far away.

Overall Score:

Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Hey look, it's the sequel no one wanted!

Actually no, the word 'sequel' is far too kind. It's more like 'Hey look, it's the rehashing of the first story no one wanted which is basically identical in every way!'. I read this book mostly out of curiosity, prepared to give it the same meh review I gave the first one. But this book has made me angry.

Walking Disaster is essentially Beautiful Disaster told from Travis's point of view. At first I was sort of hopeful. Maybe he won't seem so crazy and abusive if it's told from his POV. But dear god, I actually think it manages to do the impossible and make it worse.

In my review of the first one I didn't really go into detail about what exactly made their relationship so dysfunctional. Now though I am far too pissed to let things slide.

 This relationship is so messed up. This book begins with a scene of Travis's mother dying in which her last words are basically 'Find someone you love and fight for them'. These words then essentially cause Travis to lose his shit completely whilst pursuing Abby, convinced that 'fighting' translates to being an utter douchebag. One paragraph at the end of the book describes how he feels at peace once him and Abby are married since he has finally done exactly what his mother wanted him to. That is not wanting to follow good advice from a dying parent, that's a terrifying obsession. There is also some very uncomfortable Freudian-esque subtext here which is followed up later. The way Travis and his family talk about Abby, it's pretty clear they consider her a replacement mother. If that doesn't make your skin crawl then don't worry, there's plenty of other stuff which will.

Travis falls into that classic Madonna-Whore complex thing. Every girl in the world is a slut (or as he calls them, 'vultures') because she sleeps with him, with the exception of Abby of course. This brings us to the origin of Abby's nickname 'Pigeon' which believe me, is frigging hilarious.

'I decided a long time ago I would feed on vultures until a dove came along. A pigeon.'

Dear god, this whole thing is nonsensical. It's painfully obvious this was just shoehorned in to try and explain the nickname and it doesn't make a lick of sense. I could maybe swallow it if he called her 'dove' but he just jumps from dove to pigeon with zero logic. Better yet, he uses this weird comment with his dad later on who instantly understands despite no explanation.

Travis is a hypocrite. Of course he's allowed to ogle Abby and constantly talk about how beautiful/sexy/desirable she is. Heaven forbid any other guy who does it though because clearly they just want to get into her pants whereas his feelings are TRUE LOVE!

'I imagined Parker noticing her soft, shiny skin as I had, but with less appreciation and more salaciousness.'

Guess what else? Abby and Travis don't practice safe sex. It's okay though because if you do it a certain time after your period then you totally can't get pregnant, no siree!

All this book succeeds in doing is making Travis look even more insane than he did in the first one. Essentially every thought he has is about Abby. He's constantly jealous and aggressive, and every time she isn't with him the man can barely function enough to put on clothes. He brings her to a fight because he can't stand the thought of her being away from him for two seconds and yet then spends the whole time worried she's going to get hit on by some other guy. THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC, THIS IS A SIGN OF SERIOUS EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS.

Overall, the story is exactly the same as the first time round. The fire which was the 'big ending' of the first book gets completely brushed over, almost as though the author realised how stupid it was but was already too heavily invested to stop. There's a godawful prologue tacked on where Travis is a secret service agent and they have twins and dear god, I couldn't care less. There is one more novella which I may power through out of sheer curiosity but trust me when I say this series is better left alone. Anyone who thinks Travis is a perfect love interest needs professional help.

Overall Score:

Afterparty by Ann Redisch Stampler

Boy this book was a disappointment. By which I mean it was a rambling mess.

Okay, admittedly I didn't expect a whole lot from this book to begin with. The blurb sounded intriguing enough but it also sounded like your typical 'good girl goes off the rails' story. Unfortunately, in terms of originality it was seriously lacking. Normally good writing and solid characters can make up for a not-so-unique plot but again, Afterparty had neither of those. The result is like eating a very bland spongecake. It's dry, hard to swallow and you just keep wishing the whole experience was over.

The writing in this book isn't just bad because it's dull, it's bad because it's weird. There are a lot of run-on sentences and bizarre, never-ending metaphors which just leave you feeling confused and too exhausted to try and work them out. The characters are all very flat. You never really get the sense that Emma is in danger or really becoming a 'bad' girl. The others either have little to no personality or else they're just completely unrealistic.

In short, this book is not really worth reading. There are some redeeming parts but on the whole it's far too long and other books have told the same story in a far more interesting way. Hopefully this isn't a sign of what's to come for the rest of 2014.

Overall Score:

.5

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Dear god man, get to the point!

That's basically what I was thinking the whole time I was reading this. Well, that and various, barely funny variations of the title which fully expressed my rage. Enduring Yawn? Boring Love? Who dies in a hot-air balloon-related accident anyway?

There's no question about it, this is a bad book. Unfortunately it's based around a good premise which only makes it all the worse. The main problem of this book is that it takes forever to go anywhere. Just as the plot is about to kick off and things are starting to get interesting, the author will interrupt the story for a five-page lecture on science. Don't get me wrong, I love science. But this isn't supposed to be a book about science, it's supposed to be a book about a crazed stalker. You can analyse until the cows come home about what the science lectures are supposed to represent but screw that, I want story damn it.

Okay, so let's put my issues with pacing aside for now...and move onto my issues with characters! Firstly, the narrator. As mentioned, he's pretty boring due to said lectures. But hey, he doesn't have to be interesting. The main star is surely the stalker right? Except...well, Jed is sort of flat. He has a motive I guess (yay for more negative portrayals of religious people being fanatics -_-) but no real depth to him. My most-hated character however was, without a doubt, Joe's 'loving' wife. Seriously, what kind of woman would respond in the way she did when she found out her husband had a stalker? Worst still, she never gets called out on it, leaving me with the uneasy impression that we're supposed to agree with her actions.

I'm not saying I hated this book completely. Like I said at the start, it is based around a good premise. The whole hot-air balloon thing is ridiculous but everything else has promise. Sadly anything good just gets drowned in a sea of endless rambling and never-ending tangents.

Overall Score: