The Madman's Daughter

The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I should start off saying the low rating is my own fault! I'm not sure why, but I did not read what this book was about. I saw it was a "mover & shaker" so I put a hold on it at the library. NOTE TO SELF: Read the summary of the book first! This book was a gothic, science fiction horror yet it was labeled young adult. I wouldn't want my teen-aged kids to read this.

Again, not the authors fault, she is a storyteller and I'm sure a good one, I just didn't like this story. I did not like thinking of the grotesque images of animals cut apart to create half human/half animal aberrations. It felt wrong, wrong, wrong to read, just so unnatural and disturbing. It totally grossed me out and honestly I skipped the third quarter of the book and read the last quarter. I was fine with the ending and really didn't give two thoughts to the cliffhanger. It was over for me.

I also did not realize this was a series, DUH, of course it was. Is there any young adult books that aren't series these days? (I find that incredibly annoying.) Needless to say, I will not continue with this series. It simply is not a genre that interests me in the least.

Again, my own fault and I'm sorry if this offends anyone, especially the author, but I gave my honest personal perception of a story I never should have started in the first place.

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Always You

Always You by Kirsty Moseley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I feel generous giving this book two stars, but if it had been properly edited by a publisher, it might have received a higher rating.

Terribly overdramatic, poorly written, poorly researched story. I suppose every author starts with something and we live in a time of self published books, but this is the kind of junk that leaks into the ebook world and people haphazardly buy for $.99 and feel it was a waste. I know that's incredibly harsh, but I honestly think it could have been good if it had gone through the proper publishing channels.

I just finished reading a phenomenal book, Winter of the World by Ken Follet. He's a Welsh author writing not only about his home country, but Germany, Russia, and the United States. The lesson here? An author really ought to do their homework if they truly want to be a respected author.

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City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4)

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I don't ever recall being so pissed off about a book as I have about this one.

I was surprised one day to see that there was a fourth book in the Mortal Instrument series (which I really liked!). I thought, gee, I could have sworn the third book ended well, what could she possibly write about in a fourth? Crap, total crap, that's what she wrote.

Seriously authors, STOP WHEN YOU HAVE A GOOD THING GOING! There is nothing to be ashamed of when you have a successful trilogy, stop, move on to another series, resist the temptation to mess a good thing up!

This book was lame, the beginning was extremely slow and when it finally picked up a little, you got the idea that the ending was going to be horrific, there was no way around it. Clary, Jace, Simon, you were cool to me once, now you're a distant memory because you're creator messed up your mojo...your're dead to me!

I hope I can resist all temptation to pick up another book in this series once they are released. I seriously about went to the bathroom and threw up at this ending. It was so evil and so off base from what the original series was about. What a disappointment. I don't want to put myself through that crud again. What a waste of my reading time. (Can you tell I'm angry about this one?)

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Friends or Lovers

Friends or Lovers by Rory Ridley-Duff

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Hmm, what a bold, brazen, strange read. This book seems to have an agenda with a fictional front.

The author clearly has an interest in workplace gender relations as it's also stated in his "about the author" section. I must say, I found this book to be offensive, do people really behave as the characters of this book do? Is this meant to be fiction based on firsthand knowledge or seriously over the top fantastical fiction? If the knowledge this author states he has, I'm thinking it's really supposed to be the former. If it truly was the latter, then I may have been able to like it a bit more.

Firstly, I had a very difficult time getting past the fact that it was a male author writing from a woman's point of view. I think he made the main character, Penny Leyton, a sex crazed, feminist, lonely, selfish, vain, yet weak woman. Yes, all of those in one. She was a very conflicting character to me. She acts as if she's god's gift to man by staring them down inducing them to shag her. At work she thinks her male boss, subordinate and equals alike are attracted to her and vice versa she fantasizes about them. It's either she has some serious insecurities or she's a sex addict. The whole married but shag whoever fancies you and have no faith to your spouse story-line was extremely aggravating.

By the end of the book you realize that Penny has learned much about herself but obviously she never puts faith into a lasting relationship, it's all about what feels good in the here and now. Tacky in my opinion. No, I do not feel I got to know the character by the end of the book, it didn't feel like anything was truly resolved. Seriously though, most of this went over my head. I have never worked in a large office so I haven't a first clue if everyone flirts and shags each other as much as he's trying to state they do in this book.

I won this book from Goodreads First-Reads giveaway. I'd be more than happy to pass this book onto someone else who would have an interest in reading about relationships in a horny London office.

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