SPOILERS

Here is just one thing that I loved about Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah: there was no obvious plot twist at the end.  I was so worried that we would find out that the whole thing was just a figment of Beth's imagination.  Which totally works in some books!  But I personally would have felt seriously ripped off if it had happened in this book.  The thing is, this book is SO well done and the whole thing is SO good that it would have been the easy way out to make Beth into someone who was having a logic break.  Excellent thriller.  Just excellent!  And no off-putting Briticisms! 

Quite Good and No Off-Putting Briticisms

or Missing Molly was just that good that they didn't bother me.  Natalie Barelli wrote The Housekeeper which I read earlier this year.  I am SO looking forward to reading more from her.  It was one of those books that I had skip to the end and read backwards at one point.  I got so involved with molly, really cared about her, that I had to see how it ended!

And AGAIN!

After a book drought, this year has been great so far!  The Last Lie was another one I couldn't warm up to right away...I think it was the worry of the off-putting Briticisms, but if there were any, I didn't even notice them.  Alex Lake did an excellent job of keeping the suspense up an even though I figured out what was going, I didn't see it all clearly and it didn't make it any less enjoyable.  Really worth reading! 

Never Would Have Thought

that I would enjoy a book like Slam.  First of all, I seriously don't often enjoy books set in England.  Not a fan.  Second, I have heard of Tony Hawk, but really don't about him at all and he doesn't have a big role in the book, but if one knows Tony Hawk, it would make this book more of a no-brainer to read.  But I really, really liked Slam! A lot!  And I would recommend it for sure!  Nick Hornby is a popular writer for adults.  This was his first YA book.  He has written books that have been made into really popular movies like About a Boy and High Fidelity.  There aren't too many books written from the POV of  a teen father and this one is so good.  It's not the amazing First Part Last, but really, what is?  But it is really, really, really good!
Here is something else I need to add!  This book is set in Islington, which is in London, and Islington was also mentioned in Becoming (Mrs. Obama visited there!)!

My First Agatha Christie

Yes, I am not a fan of off-putting Briticisms.  Yes, I had tried to read this very Agatha Christie book when I was a kid, but I really needed a read and had nothing else and so I read Hallowe'en Party, the thirty-ninth Hercule Poirot book.  And it was SO funny!  Now I know someone died.  But it was funny.  It reminded me a lot of Columbo, which I loved, too.  I do want to read more and was glad that I read this in October!  Tis the season and all!  Loved it!I had seen a middle schooler reading it and asked her about it and other AC books and she just said she really liked them so I thought, well, maybe I am mature enough now! 

A Secret Secret

A Secret Garden is one of those books that EVERYONE has read, right?  Well, I was not among the EVERYONE, until now.
I think.
I mean, I listened to the book, but I don't think, now that I think about it, it was the WHOLE book.  It was one of the BBC Full Cast Dramatization things. 
Yeah, no.  This was around two hours long and the full book is around seven.
So I guess I still haven't heard/read the whole book.
AND THAT IS OKAY!
It just didn't do it for me.  Though I was really surprised by the ending.  I guess.  I mean, the dad's reaction.  It was okay.  And the two hour version was enough.
A little more than enough, actually. 

Good Me, Bad Me was very good.  Very good and I would recommend it, for sure.  I sucked me right in and all along the way.  It is creepy and awful and real and horrifying.  The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that I was not surprised by the ending at all. But it was still really, really good. 

Chalk

I might have been trying for a different book with "chalk" in the title when I put The Chalk Man on hold, but when it came in for me, I listened to it anyway.  It was decent, but the ending just seemed a little too easy or cheesy or something for me.  Kind of like a Murder, She Wrote episode without the endearing qualities and of course, the great Angela Lansbury. 

Wish there were more, but maybe not...

The War I Finally Won is a sequel to The War that Saved My Life and I loved it.  I love Ada and Susan and the whole story and I wish I could read more about them, but I wonder if this is just one of those things, like it is better to have this one be the end?  Would a continuation of their stories just be cheesy?  Unnecessary?  I am the wars are over and wow, what an ending.  What a great, great book.  The ending was absolutely perfect.  Just wonderful.  I loved this book. 

WhY!

I know why I didn't read The War that Saved My Life before and it is because I thought it would be super boring and just the "same old same old" but it was NOT!  This was really, really good!  And I am looking forward to reading the next one!  What a great story.  I loved the main character and her brother.  It was hard to hear the way that Ada and Jamie were treated by their mother- the way that she talked to them.  But we know that happens. 
Just an excellent book. 

Ah...the Teeth

The 1,000 Year Old Boy is a really, really good book.  I found it funny and it kept me wanting to read.  I never thought about the teeth being a consideration when one lives 1,000 years.  But think about it...that's a lot of wear and tear on the choppers.  Would you want to live 1,000 years?  We will live 1,000 years.  We will live more than 1,000 years!  We will live for eternity because of Jesus and all, but I am thinking that teeth won't be something about which we will need to worry!  

I can recommend this book for sure.  

Potential Series?

I love a good stand-alone book.  And sometimes a book should just be you know, a book!  But The Mesmerist seems to me like it would be a good series! Ronald L. Smith wrote Hoodoo which I have not read, but I want to read it now, especially after reading this.  I was attracted to it because of the whole spiritualist thing, which I have found fascinating.  It makes me sad that people don't know that when their loved ones die they are in perfect peace with God (Jesus is my path and He said He has sheep that belong to other flocks and so I KNOW this is true!  EVERYONE! Christian Universalist  that I am!) and so I can see that people would want to find answers and assurance.   This book takes place in Victorian England and so it was neat to find out more about the time period and spiritualism.

Boys will be Boys

If you've read a lot of Roald Dahl, you probably aren't surprised to find that he was a pretty spirited kid.  Boy:  Tales of Childhood is the first of Dahl's autobiographies and I love reading the candy store chapter to grade school kids because it is, well, spirited!  Going Solo is the second autobiography and I hope to have a listen to that someday.  Fans of Dahl's work should really like this one.

Dishonorable

I love Stone.  I do.  I was just surprised by him in this book, at the end.  He gets upset about something that I think he had no right to be upset about, given his own ways.  But maybe I need to rethink it, but then I think, dude, I don't think that one is supposed to think that much about a Stone Barrington book!  Isn't that the point!  Dishonorable Intentions is Stone number 38.   This one was very good and went very quickly.  Lots of flying around, not much Dino, who I don't seem to like as much as I did back in the day, so that was okay!  And Teddy Fay, who I like a lot!

Feeding on Lies

You remember those songs, Tell Me a Lie and Tender Lie?  Both sad, country songs about wanting to hear a lie instead of the truth, for the benefit of one's heart.  I can see the desire to want to hear a tender lie.  I have asked for a tender lie, many, actually, before, to be honest.  The lies that the Lie Tree likes in the book by the same name are different, but the tree does want lies.  

The Lie Tree in TLT is strengthened, grows from the spread of lies.  And the lies have to be lies that people want to hear.

This is a big book.  A deep kinda book, I think.  Too deep for me, really.  I didn't like it too much as it really isn't my "go-to" type of book.  It isn't set in America, it is set on an island called Vane, which I am not sure exists, but it is somehow related to England in the book.  Also it is set during the Victorian Era, which I know was a very important time and so forth and I know many people like Victorian stories, but I am not one of them, at all.  So this book had a lot stacked against it, for me.  I say that all in defense of the book.  I say it just to say that I am not the best person to judge a book like this.  For me, it was just too much to overcome.  The author, Frances Hardinge, is very well acclaimed and the book itself won the 2015 Costa Award.  I am so unqualified to judge this book that I didn't know what the Costa Award was!  

Most people really seem to love this book!  And the few people that didn't, at least on goodreads, criticized it for things that I really didn't think were a big problem, like the gal who complained that unlike the females in Pride and Prejudice (which I haven't read either and have no desire to read, again, an example that I am not the one to judge this book) the main character in this book just hid around and seemed to take her position in life for what it was and not stand up to the sexism of the time.  I didn't really see that as a criticism.  

I just really didn't care too much about the main character, whose name I have forgotten, sadly, and I didn't care for her dad, who was a minister and a scientist and I didn't care for the whiny little brother.  At first I didn't like the mom, either.  But then I figured that she was just doing the best that she could, given the position of women in society at that time.  If this wins the Printz, I am sure it is deserved.  It won the Costa Award, right?  But I will personally sad because this book was very hard to suffer through for me.  Although I don't know how it could fit this particular part of the criteria: Inspire wider readership in the genre.  But again, that's just me.  

 

Scandelous Behavior is the thirty-sixth Stone Barrington novel.  After the last one wasn't too hot, I didn't know what to expect because Woods hasn't been all that consistent as of late.  But this was pure Stone.  Running around England, buying houses.  Peter was in their, too.  Good stuff!  It will make any Stone fan happy.

What I Didn't Realise

was that most of How I Live Now is set in England.  For one reason or another, I am not big on books set in England.  Maybe because I have never been there and probably will never go there!
Set in a time that has not yet come, but could come tomorrow, for the way that human nature is, Daisy is sent to England from Manhattan to live with her cousins and while she is there London is attacked and war breaks out.
This is more than a war story though.  It's about first love and loneliness and loss of a parent and finding a little joy amidst all of the misery.  Good stuff, but it wasn't a 5 star for me.

Didn't HAVE to Read It, But....

Last year I read Found and really, really enjoyed it.  I had tried to read Sent a few times and just couldn't get into it at all.  I was so determined to get through it, though, I finally bought the audio.  It was just super confusing for me.  Way too much sci-fi and life in the 1400s in England really isn't my cup of tea, so I wasn't much interested in the story, either.  Turns out that this is the story of the Princes in the Tower, which I didn't know anything about until I read this book, so I guess I learned something after all.  Will I continue the series.  Not sure.  I won't pay for it though.