Review: Deeper

Author: Blue Ashcroft

Published: August 2013

Pages: 172

Summary

Rain Wilson isn’t ever going to love again.

It’s a promise she made the day her boyfriend died in a water park accident, one she still blames herself for. Now she’s a senior lifeguard in a new town with a new pool and she’s just going to keep her head down and everyone safe.

Until a mysterious guy follows her into the waves at the pre-season bonfire and kisses her senseless. It’s just one mistake, and Rain is determined to put it behind her, until the dark haired, blue eyed hottie turns out to be her new co-supervisor Knight Mcallister.

Knight is hot, tatted, and carrying baggage of his own. He’s not happy about having Rain for a co-supervisor, and he’s even less happy about his attraction to her.

But between lifeguard drama, hot underwater kisses, and a growing attraction between them that can’t be stopped, Knight and Rain are being pulled deeper into their pasts, and realizing that sometimes too much broken can make a relationship impossible.

Then again sometimes it’s the broken parts of us that fit together best.

Rating & Review

Man, oh man. Whew. I don't really know where to start. First, I do hate giving these types of reviews. I don't enjoy it at all. But I was given this book in exchange for an honest review and that's what you're going to get. 

For me, this book was just all over the place. I never really got attached to the characters. This is going to sound crazy ... it was like when I was a kid, my dad was a gigantic Star Trek fan. He had all of these collectible toys and I never understood why I couldn't rip those bad boys out of their packaging and play with them. That's what the characters in this book were like for me. I just wanted to get to know them better but they were all locked away in a closet like a dirty little secret. 

Let's see ... the teenage vernacular was a little unrealistic for me in this novel as well. Not that there aren't teenagers who talk about the low visibility in the water ... I'm sure that there are but it wasn't just a once in a while thing, it was all the time with these weirdly academic phrases and words. It felt really forced and not like actual phrasing that anyone would use. It was just another contributing factor in not being able to grasp these characters.

The two main characters, Rain and Knight, both had traumatic experiences in their past. Instead of making me sympathetic to their situations or endearing them to me, the stuff in their past just kinda ticked me off. Especially when you find out what is in Rain's past. I literally rolled my eyes when I found out why she was celibate. And this is a tiny spoiler, so you need to skip to the next paragraph immediately unless you want to know about the "boyfriend". Okay ... the term boyfriend must mean something different to me than it does to the author because the blurb on the back of the book states that Rain's boyfriend dies ... yet when you find out what happened to him, it turns out that they weren't really dating! Rain's ... dude ... made one comment moments before his death about how he liked her and now all of the sudden they're dating? And she's totally devoted to a guy who flirted with her? I'm sorry but throwing yourself onto the proverbial sword for a dude that you basically just started talking to? Becoming a hermit/outcast/loner for a guy you barely knew? Le sigh. 

After I read that part of the book, I basically checked out. Come on. Talk about dramatics. There were other things that I didn't really like in Deeper but why rehash all of that at this point. I won't lie to you. I probably won't read another book by this author. I'm kinda done.

Review: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Title: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Author: David Foster Wallace

ISBN: 9780349111889

Date Published: October 1997

Pages: 288 

Summary: 

David Foster Wallace made an art of taking readers into places no other writer even gets near. The series of stories from which this exuberantly acclaimed book takes its title is a sequence of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women. These portraits of men at their most self-justifying, loquacious, and benighted explore poignantly and hilariously the agonies of sexual connections.

Rating and Review:

This is one of those few books for me that just did not click. I didn't get it. I didn't like it and I didn't agree with it.

I couldn't even finish the whole thing. I just couldn't. I tried and I just couldn't. And this wasn't like a gradual thing ... like the book was good in the beginning and then it started to taper off ... no. This was a bad experience for me from the very beginning.

The fact that so many people have given this book four and five stars just BAFFLES me!! I just don't understand how this was a good book. I get the short stories. I kinda like the darkness and taboo-ish-ness of the stories but I just didn't connect to them.

I actually reread some of the interviews because I was honestly wondering if I had missed something. Was I reading too fast? Skimming? Not paying attention? Oh, no. I was right the first time. I paid attention, the book just didn't do it for me.

The kicker is that the movie version of the book looks interesting. It looked funny and entertaining ... I just can't figure out how this book translated into THAT.

Not for me. But it might be the best book ever to you. Good luck.  

The Marbury Lens (The Marbury Lens #1)

Title: The Marbury Lens (The Marbury Lens #1)

Author: Andrew Smith

Date Published: November 2010

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 358

★✰✰✰✰

Sixteen-year-old Jack gets drunk and is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is kidnapped. He escapes, narrowly. The only person he tells is his best friend, Conner. When they arrive in London as planned for summer break, a stranger hands Jack a pair of glasses. Through the lenses, he sees another world called Marbury.

There is war in Marbury. It is a desolate and murderous place where Jack is responsible for the survival of two younger boys. Conner is there, too. But he’s trying to kill them.

Meanwhile, Jack is falling in love with an English girl, and afraid he’s losing his mind.

Conner tells Jack it’s going to be okay.

But it’s not.  

Little Miss Bookmark did not like this book. Little Miss Bookmark thought this book was weird. Little Miss Bookmark had high hopes that this book would be good but Little Miss Bookmark thought that it fell short. REALLY SHORT. (If I could quadruple underline REALLY SHORT, I totally would ... just thought you should know that ... )

Annoying when people talk in 3rd person, right?!? THIS BOOK WAS FULL OF THAT!!!!

First of all, I HATE having to say that a book is bad. I can only imagine how much work goes into writing a book and to bash what someone has slaved over makes me feel horrible. But. Oh. My. Goodness. This book was almost like a train wreck - I didn't want to look, but I just had to. I had to finish this book even though everything inside me kept saying, "STAY AWAY!!".

It was just weird. I had a hard time looking past the main character talking in third person and the story line was ... weird ... just weird. Jack gets kidnapped and then all the sudden, "his brain is messed up". Uh ... okay (???). Then Jack went to England and he met a guy (I still don't know if he existed or was just in Jack's head) that gave Jack some glasses so that he could see another world through them. Literally. An alternate universe. The premise of the book was awesome - it had a great chance to be one of the most amazing books. But it was just too confusing, I had no idea who it was that was talking sometimes because Jack kept talking in 3rd person!

And new paragraphs were started.

For no reason.

In the middle of the action.

With only one sentence each. WHO DOES THAT?!?

Anyway, in case I didn't make it clear ... I was disappointed. I had really looked forward to reading this. It's just unfortunate. Little Miss Bookmark wishes she could get the hours back that she lost 

reading

this

book.