Every Vow You Break

 

I received an advance reader copy of Every Vow You Break in exchanged for an honest review. I am sad to say it was all I could do to even skim parts of the story, it was so boring and slow moving. I do not feel like the story really started until around page 150, the first whole half could have been condensed into three maybe four chapters at most. 

Abigail makes the mistake of sleeping with a stranger on her bachelorette weekend. After that everything starts to get odd for her, she keeps seeing the man all over the place and her fiancé is acting all excited for the wedding and not noticing her behavior.  Happily married Abigail's husband Bruce whisks them off to a private island for a honeymoon. The island is not all it seems though. 

Everything is told from Abigail's point of view and a lot of the time she is alone so it feels like she is talking to herself. The writing made sense it just took a long time to get to the point then little bursts of something interesting would happen before things just slowed down to more filler. All in all not a writing style I enjoy at all. 

The Princess Academy

 

I got The Princess Academy out of the local little free library. I am always looking for age appropriate books for my Goddaughter that are well written with a strong female lead character.

Honestly I do not know why I kept reading the story, it was so boring and slow paced. Nothing exciting happened until the very end and then it was just a couple chapters of action followed by some strange twist of fate. I will not be passing this on to my Goddaughter. 

The Woman in the Window

 

I may get some hate for this but I saw a movie trailer for The Woman in the Window when I saw Little Women in the theater last year. Ever since then I have wanted to read the story but had to work up my courage to since it looked a bit scare jump at times. The Woman in the Window is the first book I have read based on seeing a movie trailer, I did not even bother to read the synopsis of the book before starting it. 

Anna Fox is an interesting character, with a PHD in psychology she comes off as normal and the reader wonders what is going on in her life to make her the center of a story for several chapters. Since the chapters are short (for the most part) it does not take long for the story to pick up and small tidbits of information about Anna and he mental state to be feed to the reader. Despite the story being mostly about Anna nothing ever feels boring or like not enough is going on to move the story forward. 

My biggest complaint with the writing is chapter size consistency, I like it when all chapters are about the  same length. While most chapters are five pages or less sometimes a longer chapter is randomly thrown in which I feel messes with the pacing of the story. Since I am not an old black and white movie buff I did not understand a lot of references to the movies Anna liked to watch so those parts I found sort of boring and sort of just skimmed any chapter where that was the focus. 

A couple parts left me wondering what was going on after the story ended but all in all the big questions and issues were wrapped up. While I would read another story by A.J. Finn I want to wait awhile since I like to mix up thriller writers so the stories do not all start to feel the same. 

Three Days Missing

 

I got woken up one night around three am and could not go back to sleep I saw Three Days Missing on the first page of the library ebooks so I randomly checked it out hoping it would lure me back to sleep.

Ethan is super excited to go camping with his school and hopes that it will finally help him fit in. All those hopes are dashed when Kat (Ethan's mother) gets a rude awakening to a plain clothes detective telling her that her son has gone missing while on the camping trip. 

Shortly after Ethan goes missing Stephanie, the mayor's wife, gets a call that her son has been kidnapped. Terrified Stephanie quickly rushes to the campsite only to realize it was Kat's son who was taken and not hers.

In a way two stories were woven together but neither story felt substantial enough to hold it's own alone. I did read the first half of the story quickly but I had to drag myself through the second half where things really started to slow down. Overall a good concept but badly executed. I had problems with some of the events that occurred and the write contradicted herself at times to make time lines fit. 

The Woman in Cabin 10

 

I had heard about The Woman in Cabin 10 so when I saw it in the local free library I grabbed it. 

Right away the story starts out with a bang and I was instantly hooked. I think that is why it was disappointing when the story turned and got painfully every day boring. Nothing really happened but then again little tidbits of things that could be wrong would pop up and keep me reading. It was the last fifty pages or so that the story really picked up the pace again to the point I could not put the book down. 

The writing was smooth and well edited. Character development did not really happen but the story took place over a small amount of time, right around two weeks so I would not expect people to change that much. I have been really into faster paced stories lately and since I felt the middle was slow I do not see myself seeking out more books by Ruth Ware.

Thanksgiving

 

I happened to see Thanksgiving while browsing random ebooks on the library website. Since I like Janet Evanovich and it was a few days before Thanksgiving I checked it out. 

Megan was a pretty flat character, she returns a rabbit to the new dr in town and instantly falls for his good looks. It is not long after she decides he is cute that she is goes more towards falling in love with him. Patrick is a new dr in town and just wants to get his practice set up but all that changes for him when a cute red head returns his escape artist rabbit.  

I could tell this was early work by Mrs. Evanovich, the character development needed some work and parts of the story did not flow smoothly. However despite that it had good bones and I did laugh out loud a few times during the story more so for the last couple of chapters. It also focused a lot on the intimate part of life and I felt like Mrs. Evanovich was not sure how to write a love story without physical needs taking over which was a bit of a let down. 

Confessions of a Shopaholic

 

Confessions of a Shopaholic was in the local free little library so I grabbed it since I saw the movie years ago and vaguely recalled it was amusing. Even better my memory was correct and I laughed my way through the story.

Becky is not a fan of his boring job at a financial magazine at all but she likes the paycheck which pays for her shopping sprees. Happy with her life of splurging on anything her heart desires Becky ignores all the financial advice she writes about as she happily hands over her visa card every time her debt account is empty. Not really caring how much she is spending Becky has a bit of a break down upon receiving her bill and decides it is time to turn her life around.

I really have very vague memories of the movie but I recall liking it which was the case with the book until I got to the very end. It just stopped, horrible way to end a book. I understand that it is a series but some sort of transition needs to occur between books, I was looking to see if someone had torn pages out of the book but alas that was not the case. While I would like to know what happens further with Becky I am not sure I will continue with the series since the ending was so abrupt.