A Sky Beyond the Storm

 

A Sky Beyond the Storm is the final book in the An Ember in the Ashes series. It took me a long time to finish since I had to keep taking breaks to get my emotions in check. I should have known it would be a roller-coaster of emotion since the friend who gave it to me loves when characters die.

The world is breaking, everyone who dies feeds the maelstrom and it is only a matter of time until enough people die and the storm breaks free. Laia will do anything to keep that from happening even giving up her humanity if she must. 

Helen knows war and death yet people around her are determined to remind her she is more then The Blood Shrike. Wanting all her emotions to go away Helen is content to just fight on forgetting all those she has loved died. 

Elias is worried there are not nearly enough dead to pass to the other world and thus his job is not being done properly. Lost in an emotionless void Elias seeks answers as to where the dead are going. 

My biggest complaint with the series is no index with names of characters and a brief biography for each one of them. Along with no glossary of terms for words the author used that were either made up or in a different language. This use to be common practice and it needs to come back.

The story ended, I was left with no questions. The characters will stay with me for a long time though. The world was richly written with a well defined map which I highly appreciated. While I really loved the story I am not sure I will seek out more work by Sabaa Tahir since so many characters die throughout the span of the series. 

The Night She Disappeared

 

The Night she Disappeared was an impulse checkout from the digital library. Even though I have three library cards I still struggle to get books on my to read list due to a long waiting time for them.

I really loved the first chapter and how the writing drew me into learning the story. I started to loose interest after Lisa was introduced. Made no sense having her working on the mystery of a teens who disappeared when she did not know them, was not connected to the town, and only interested because she was a mystery writer. 

The plot got super confusing as it jumped around between people and time periods which made no sense. The only reason I really continued to read is because I had nothing else to read at the time. I did not care about any of the characters and the overall mystery seemed far fetched and highly unbelievable. I will not seek out more of Lisa Jewell's work.

Five Total Strangers

 

I have not been interested in reading before bed and I could not figure out why but apparently it was just the books I was trying. Five Total Strangers kept me up reading long past my bed time. Unfortunately the main reason I kept reading was never answered at the end. A huge plot hole which was a moving point of the plot not being answered is beyond frustrating. 

Mira is on her way to see her mom for Christmas when a storm grounds all planes. Determined to get home she agrees to ride with a girl who sat next to her on the plane. All is going well until she realizes the plane companion has invested three other people. Still determined to get home Mira ignores her instincts and gets into the car with four strangers. 

Of course nothing goes smoothly along the journey and soon Mira realizes she is in way deep. Still determined to get home Mira does her best to ignore her strange companions as mother nature fights to keep them from moving onward. 

The writing was okay, nothing stand out. Character development was not existent but since the story focused on five people you really do not learn much about any of them. One of the main mysteries is never solved. Other problems as well occur and when you get to the end it is so weakly held together I wonder why I spent so much time frantically reading to figure out who was lying. I will not be seeking out more of Mrs. Richard's work since I like mysteries to be solved not left to the imagination. 

Monster

 

I cannot recall if I got Monster from the local Free Library or the second hand store. No matter what it is a hard book to read and I totally see it being required reading for a high school class.

Honestly I have no clue how to even describe Monster, it was written from the point of view of Steve who is on trail for murder. However he wrote it like a movie scene except for his private journal entries which took place in jail. 

The only reason I kept reading was to see what the jury would decide for Steve. You never really get a run down of what happened at the crime scene just some speculation. It is super dry reading with no way to connect to the characters. All the characters were impossibly hard to keep straight since not one of them were described in any detail. Fast reading though since most pages only had a handful of sentences on them due to it being written in script format. 

13 Reasons Why

 

I am pretty sure I got Thirteen Reasons Why at the local second hand store. 

This is a hard book to review since one of the main characters is speaking in the past tense and the other main character just mainly has thoughts. I struggled to keep up with the flow of the writing at times and figuring out who was who. So many names randomly tossed out and little to no description to help paint a picture in my mind of what they look like to help keep the characters separate. I would imagine writing a story in this format would be hard and it was captivating enough I wanted to keep reading. 

False Witness

 

While browsing the e-library looking for a book I saw False Witness and the cover intrigued me. 

Harleigh and Callopie are both used to having a hard life. With a mother that care more about money and less about being a mother the two girls both get jobs at a young age. Unfortunately for both of them the father of the boy they babysit for is a child predator. These incidents clearly messed up both girls for life as they struggle with their own problems in adulthood. 

Harleigh has legally changed her name to Leigh to leave the horrors of her childhood behind, now a rising attorney she has a lot going for her until an old friend shows up. Horrified to see the young boy she use to babysit accused of a brutal rape Leigh wants to refuse the case but knows she cannot. Her horror continues as she slowly begins to think that Andrew knows what happened the night his father disappeared.

Callie never ever recovered from her time in high school, from being raped by her employer to a cheerleading accident her life has been one problem after another. Now a serious drug addict Callie just wants to wallow in the relief drugs provide to forget about the pain in her broken body. That dream is destroyed when her estranged sister shows up and says someone knows their secret.

I am honestly not sure why I kept reading since I did not like the writing style nor did I like the main characters. Both characters came off as brutally hard to like, they kept making the same mistakes and reverting to the same way of handling things. Eventually I did get to where I skimmed the story since it felt like every part about Callie was about her various methods of shooting up drugs which I had no interest in reading about. It was my fault for thinking this was more a mystery when it is really more of a thriller, no real mystery to any part of it.

A Good Yarn

 

I feel like I am turning into my grandmother reading so many books by Debbie Macomber but it is what is available in the local free library. 

Normally I find Debbie's books to be a light read that are fast and do not require much thought, this was not the case with A Good Yarn. I am not sure if it is because it was a sequel but I had to think a lot more while reading to keep all the characters straight. 

I really only liked Courtney the teenager who is trying to adjust to her life without her mom and a father working in another country. She was believable and I found that her attitude was realistic.

Maverick was my second favorite and he was not even one of the main characters. Despite having a gambling addiction Maverick felt like a caring and giving man. The rest of the characters bored me and I often got them mixed up.

At this point I do not plan on continuing the series unless it is the only thing available in the local free library.