ARC, Books

Book 542: Final Girls – Riley Sager

I received a request to review this back in December* before everything happened with my mom and before we moved and I’m just now starting to play catch up four months later. Right as I’m finally making progress on my backlog of ARCs and galleys I start to request more. When will I learn?

This was a super fast read and it kept me engaged, yet I still have mixed feelings on the book. I went back and actually lowered my rating on Goodreads from four stars to three stars. I think it deserves 3.5, but didn’t feel it deserved the round-up. I’ll let it marinate for another week and decide if I’ll keep it at 3 or bump it back to 4. I’m going to try not to spoil the book, but I can’t guarantee it so read the Goodreads synopsis here and decide if you want to read past this.

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Book 527: Tell No One – Harlan Coben

Since the last two Harlan Coban novels I read I’ve wanted to read this one, but I’ve just been lazy. This has been sitting on my shelf since April 2016, which isn’t too bad for me. I picked up a copy of this after Cathy at 746 Books mentioned it was her favorite when I read my first two Coben books. I was not disappointed.

These types of books, like many romances and many mysteries, are a dual edged sword for me. When I read them they are wonderful page turners full of action and adventure, but 7-10 days later most, if not all, of the details fade away into oblivion. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s also not a great thing especially if you’re looking for a bit of disposable entertainment.

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Book 525: Origin (Robert Langdon #5) – Dan Brown

I’m not sure if this has pulled me out of my reading slump, but I did read it. When I got the notification from the library for this I was surprised. I had completely forgotten that I’d requested this.

I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to read this, but I figured why not? Brown might not be the most high brow of authors, but the man knows how to write a page turner (mostly). I still remember reading The Da Vinci Code it’s year of publication and quickly seeking out Angels and Demons and Deception Point. Ever since then I’ve made a habit of reading his books as they’re released. I enjoyed both The Lost Symbol and Inferno, and this one probably falls somewhere with those two. The wonder and awe as the action in Da Vinci Code unfolded just wasn’t there in the follow ups.

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Book 519: Claudia Must Die – T.B. Markinson

I’ve had a copy of this on my Kindle since February of 2015. I’m not sure why it took me this long to read it, but who knows with me. TBM was one of the first blogging buddies I made when I started to blog all those years ago.

One of the things we connected about was Boston. She’d recently left Boston and I’d recently moved to Boston. Little did I know that almost seven years later I’d read a book that was set on the same street where I work! Seriously, a good portion of this book takes place on the street and the block where I sat on a deck reading this during my lunch break.

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Book 518: The Atwelle Confession – Joel Gordonson

Every now and then you need a bit of a historical mystery/thriller to keep you going and when the publicist reached out to me about a review copy of this I was just intrigued enough to give it a go.* This is the third book from this particular group of publicists I’ve said yes to, but the first fiction title.

I was intrigued by Gordonson’s background as an international lawyer, but also slightly concerned that both of his books to date have had religious settings. This isn’t a bad thing (especially having read this one), but it was still a wait a second am I reading propaganda moment when I finally picked up my copy of the book (I wasn’t).

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