Lazy days

Some might say this is a formulaic serial killer mystery which follows a path of a thousand other such cliched books but it has been a really long time since I have read a detective mystery and I devoured it. I thought it was well written and loved that it was built around a strong female lead. I learnt a bit about the Amish in the process too who, as a New Zealander, are as much of a mystery to me as this book. I had no idea that a version of German was spoken by them. Entertaining and educational so thumbs up from me.

A-Z Challenge - Amish

Read to find out what all the fuss is about, there is an extraordinary amount of reviews on this book 2.7 mil and climbing and its sitting at 4.2 stars! That blows my mind, I believe I am more awed by that fact than by the book though. I liked it, didnt' love it but it was an easy read and I have an urge to find out what happens in the other books so will prob read those at some stage.

A-Z Challenge - original publication month of April

Its tagged as horror which it definately is not, it's an average mystery with mean girl teen drama. 

A-Z Challenge - Author's first name. 

Alice in Wonderland gone cray cray. This is dark and nasty and I loved it. The politeness and charm of Alice against the perversity and debauchery of the world was a stark contrast and kept me reading into the small hours of the morning. Will definately be reading the next one. 

A-Z Challenge - Adventure

This was dark and oh so so good. I knew this book was about aliens going in, the blurb simply said: “They never meant to come to Earth. They were never allowed to leave … Welcome to Cottonwood”.

Sounds all kinds of super cool and right up my alley. What I didn’t realise was that this had *whispers*

The premise is remarkably similar to that of District 9 which is an awesome movie but I loved this so much more. This went into some dark territory and it was horrifying and equally riveting. Humanity at its most vile. But where there is evil there is good too, Sarah the heroine of the story is one of those too good to be true people. A person so kind hearted and self deprecating that you may even dislike them as they remind you of everything you are not as you sit there in negative town drinking from your glass half empty. I liked her.

"She wished she could have been like one of those girls in the movies, defiant to the last, the kind of badass bitch that would fight back every time and maybe even win once in a while. She wasn’t. No matter how many times it happened, she always ended sobbing on the floor in a huddled heap begging them to stop.”

She was the baddest of badass bitches.

One thing though which was not tidied up which is driving me crazy is what the hell happened to

Even with that small annoyance this book is incredible and I cannot wait to read more of the author’s books.

A-Z Challenge - Aliens

I admit that that these are my guilty pleasure. I usually don’t read all that much strictly romance/sexy time books but I love these books. The characters are so well written, complex, faulty and broken but lovable. I care more about Lo, Lily, Rose, Connor, Ryke and Daisy's story than what goes on between the sheets and for a book about sex addiction (among other things) there isn't all that much sex.

Book 2 of the Addicted series

A-Z Challenge - Addiction

I wasn't a fan of this one. I didn't quite understand the transition from a pill popping anxiety riddled dude with a too perfect life and too perfect wife to a Bruce Willis action man in the space of a what ... like a day. If that's all it takes to cure depression and self doubt then sign me up to fight some giant ghost butts.

I know I am supposed to suspend belief when I'm reading a book about hundreds of feet tall spectres that resemble flowers, abstract art, barracudas and Gollum but I need my characters to be fleshed out and not be cardboard cut outs. Everything happened very conveniently so there was no suspense. "Oh no big scary monster is about to get us" [insert secondary character who appears out of nowhere to thwart evil plans].

I did enjoy some of the humour though and actually lolled a couple of times so gets a star for that.

A-Z Challenge - Action

I once was lucky enough to spend a lot of time travelling before kids and a mortgage. On one of my trips I travelled to a place called Varanasi in India. Deaths and marriages hold much significance for that holy city with outdoor funeral pyres burning constantly and mass weddings by The Ganges. I remember seeing a group of young girls in traditional red wedding dresses with stunning jewellery on arms, nose and ears.  These girls were beautiful ... but young, too young , 11-12 years old surely, small children. Their eyes were what shocked me they looked so incredibly sad, this wasnt a day of joy for them, but a life sentence to I imagined an old man that they had only just met. Being a westerner I do not understand arranged marriages. I know that these marriages can result in love eventually but the fact that the choice is taken away from woman doesnt sit well with me. 

This book is set in Pakistan but it brought back memories of what I saw in India. An easy fast read that I didnt think was particularly well written but the story is one that I imagine is happening all over the world. 

This was odd. It kept throwing out weird science facts that I didn't know if it was the author taking liberties or were actually true, and I stopped reading mulitple times to go consult Google to see if such things were true/possible. 

The book is pretty much about drugs, smart drugs. Drugs that make you see colours, drugs that turn straight men gay for a day and drugs that make you see god. 

The story felt a little slow for me sometimes and at other times moved along at a good pace. I was bored, I was intrigued. Overall though I did like it but when I finished it I still felt confusion like there were some parts that were left unresolved ... or maybe it went over my head and I just didn't get it.

Highest stars I could give a book. So far I have read this three times which for a 1000 page book is no mean feat. I am due another re read. My husband wouldnt let me call our kitten Trashcan Man which made me sad. The only other character in literature which I have read which compares to ol' Trashy is Gollum. Essential pitied characters whom without the story would've ended very differently.