hannahpewee's reviews
157 reviews

This book was a wild ride from start to finish. It was laugh-out-loud funny, while at the same time intense and exhilarating. It was the perfect mix of campy fun and action for me. The characters were all likable, and I found myself rooting for all of them 'till the very end. Alice was my personal favorite, her character was so fun and well-written.

The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the ending scene. No spoilers, but I think that it felt a little too hammy and left things with too many questions.

Nevertheless, I completely enjoyed this book and had a lot of fun with it. It's not to be taken super seriously, so if you're looking for a fun and creepy time, I would totally recommend this book!

Love Amy Poehler! Of course, her book was charming, funny, and offered a lot of great insight. The only thing I didn't like was that I found it was a little hard to get through. I can normally finish a 300 pg book in a day or two, but this took me over a week! I think some chapters dragged, but overall, I would still recommend it. Poehler is hilarious, and the insight she offers really resonated with me.

2.5 Stars. The book was a mixed experience for me. Overall, it was a thrilling read. I finished it pretty quickly and didn't want to put it down. I wanted to see what happened to these girls, I wanted to see them get out. The tone overall was consistant - it was unsettling, unnerving, and very dark. The premise was very creative as well - a kidnapper and killer trapping four girls, naming each after a flower.

However, there were many negatives that, in my eyes, stopped this book from reaching it's full potential. For starters, while the plot is thrilling, the pacing was often sluggish. When we start off in the novel, we're following Summer day-by-day, but suddenly, we cut to months later without warning. I found the sudden massive change to be slightly disorienting, especially since after this large time jump, Summer (and all the other characters) were acting exactly the same.

The story also tends to get repetitive. A large bulk of the book just consists of Summer curling up into a ball, the girls doing what Clover asks, and Clover killing people. Time and time again we're presented with scenes of Clover killing people, but it leaves no emotional impact. There's no point to it other to just show that this guy is crazy - which we already knew.

The biggest hang-ups for me what that this entire book was VERY exposition heavy. Instead of being shown things about the characters, we're told them. This was especially apparent in Summer and Lewis' relationship. It is one of the pillars of the story, the driving emotional force, and yet I had no attachment to their bond. I think this had mostly to due with the fact that, once again, we're told that they love each other instead of showing it. Some of the flashback scenes we had between the two were really nice and sweet, but then it'd be ruined by Summer or Lewis just saying "I loved her/him for so long, I've always loved them," etc, etc. You can't just sit back and TELL the reader that they love each other, we need to see it. Otherwise it just comes across as forced, which for me, it was.

My second biggest complaint would be the ending.

Spoiler

We, the readers, are trugding through this story, hopefully rooting for the characters, praying they'll escape...and when the time finally comes, we don't get to see it? When Summer is rescued, she blacks out. In fact, when you first read it,
you have no clue she's about to get rescued at all. She's fighting with Clover one minute, passes out,
and then wakes up in the hospital. After all the darkness and emotional toils we've read through,
there's no emotional payoff, which was crushingly disappointing.

Overall, The Cellar was an okay read. The premise and plot were dark and moving, however, how it was executed was unsuccessful.

I love the PLL TV Series - it's a total guilty pleasure that I adore watching. As the show wraps up, I thought I'd delve into the book series. I went into this first book knowing all the spoilers, and that the book series is EXTREMELY different than the show. However, I was willing to set that all aside and approach the book series with an open mind.

What I got was mixed feelings. Let's start off with the positives: the plot is completely captivating. Someone stalking our 4 main girls, knowing their every little dirty secret - it makes for a fun and engaging read. I finished the book in one sitting. The writing is average - nothing stellar, but easy to read, conversational, and straight-forward. However, it does have its problems, as I will discuss below.

However, where the book struggled was largely due to the 4 main girls. In the TV series, Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer are flawed, but likable. They make mistakes, but do their best to be good people and look out for their loved ones. In this first book, I felt this wasn't the case. All of the girls come across as vain and vapid. All of them (except perhaps Emily), have passages in the book where they just sit back and admire their own beauty and wealth. Whether it'd be spending 20 minutes in a photo booth taking sexy photos of themselves (Aria), flashing strangers on the streets (Hanna), or having their sister's boyfriend feel them up, multiple times (Spencer), the girls are all unlikeable. While the mystery of A is intriguing, I didn't feel any connection to how the girls are portrayed here.

In addition, one way the writing style struggles is all the constant name-dropping. Brands are thrown around left and right, I don't think there's a single chapter that doesn't describe someone by their designer jeans or shoes. When setting up a scene, throwing out a designer isn't going help me visualize what the person looks like. Saying a character is wearing "John Fluevog" boots means nothing to the average reader.

Overall, while I continue to adore the show, I'm hesitant to continue further into the series. Since I know almost every spoiler of the book series, I have to admit that the mystery of A is better in the books. Who they are, why they became A -- it's much more satisfying of a reveal than it is in the show. However, having such unlikeable main characters, in addition to spotty writing, makes it hard to want to continue with the book series.

Heather Wells is back and just as lovable as she was in the last installment. I'd give the second book a 4.5 rating. This second book was funny, engaging, and quite intense near the end. However, I did enjoy the second book just a little bit more. Nevertheless, Size 14 was a great read and I can't wait for more!

It's always difficult for me to review classic books since there's so much bias going into them. When thousands of people have praised a work for being flawless, it's hard to ignore that. Nevertheless, after some thought, I do think that The Shining does deserve all the recognition it's received.

King is a great writer. The way he takes his time setting up a scene, delving into characters, crafting his stories - it's all done with precision and tact. Nothing seems arbitrary. This isn't simply a ghost story, but an in-depth study into the minds of our 3 main characters : Jack, Danny, and Wendy. Each character feels fleshed-out and completely authentic. Even as Jack slowly sinks into madness, the novel is careful about guiding you down this dark path with him, letting the reader understand his point of view (as deluded as it may be). The novel also delves deep into dark themes and handles them well. Abuse, alcoholism, divorce, violence - King isn't afraid to tackle these subjects head on.

While the tension does take a while to develop, once it arrives, it is in full force. The last act in particular was electrifying - I felt as if I was on the edge of my seat while reading it. The final scenes were so engrossing I just couldn't put the book down.

Where I think the novel struggles is with the scares and the vulgarity. For the former, I simply didn't find the idea of hedge animals coming to life scary enough. While that may be just a personal preference, for me it cheapened some of the scenes that were solely to these hedge animals. This carried over to some of the other "scary" moments, like a man pretending to be a dog, or a hose that acts like a snake. These came across as borderline silly to me, instead of horror-inducing.

For the latter, I felt there were numerous times where some of King's language directed towards women and African-Americans bordered on offensive. It's one thing for a racist character (or entity) to use offensive terms like the n-word, as that's a product of the times. However, when the narrator himself starts using the word to describe characters like Hallorann, the line between a racist archetype and an offensive author became too blurry for me. In addition, the way King often described women was very off-putting. Almost every woman in the novel (even ones that were only in one moment of one scene), felt sexualized in some way, whether that be male characters admiring their chests or how well they could squat. For some people, this isn't an issue, but for me, it really made for an unpleasant read.

Overall, The Shining met my expectations. It was an excellent novel that dealt with harsh themes brilliantly, as well as told a compelling and tension-filled story. King's writing in this book is excellent, captivating, and really displays how well he knows how to craft a good story. While it does have a few faults, I think it deserves to be regarded as a classic, and I would highly recommend it to any reader looking for a good, dark thrill.

I would rate this book a 4.5. It was a thrilling ride from start to finish. The tension never faltered, and the winding mystery kept me guessing to the end. All the characters were well developed, and the story was completely satisfying.

The only thing that stops me from giving it a full 5 star rating was the romance. While I didn't dislike it per say, I felt it got WAY more focus than it needed. There were so many passages just devoted to kissing and making out, when I just wanted the plot to keep advancing!

Nevertheless, I throughly enjoyed this book. It was captivating, suspenseful, and deeply engrossing. Highly recommend this one!

This entire book reads like a bad Lifetime movie.

Let's start with the positives: the premise, while not incredibly original, was interesting enough - a stalker killing people out of devotion for our heroine. The book was engaging enough to keep me reading (sort of?).

However, this isn't enough to save the book, not by far. For starters, the main character comes across as being incredibly weak. She lacks a vibrant personality, quirks, charms, and character flaws. Instead, she's a hollow shell of a narrator that does nothing through the course of the book other than cry and dry-heave. There was one point I literally had to set the book down because she'd broken out into her millionth crying attack, all over the drop of a hat.

The romance of the story is underdeveloped and emotionless. We're given no reason to root for Sawyer to find new love, especially when her feelings over her ex are so muddled. One second she talks about how much she hates him, the next she's crying because she misses him so much. How is the audience supposed to take a stand when the main character can't?

In addition, the "big reveal" is incredibly predictable. I'm using really bad at guessing 'whodunits,' but I called this one from the first chapters. It's incredibly obvious and the attempts to hide the culprit come across as clumsy.

Lastly, some parts of this book just made NO SENSE. As I mentioned earlier, one minute Sawyer is hating her ex for beating her, the next she's remembering all their sweet kisses and gift exchanges. Half of the book, we were told Sawyer's home had no cell phone service - and then in the next chapter all her phones are suddenly working perfectly? One of the most ridiculous moments of all was when Sawyer visited the police station. She literally just walks right in and is granted permission to just take case files from an ACTIVE MURDER INVESTIGATION. What. The. Hell. It's so unrealistic it's insane.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. The heroine is flat, the story lacks emotional investment, and the plot is predictable and ridiculous. I would give it a 1.5 star rating if I could, but alas.

Meg Cabot has always been my favorite author, and with this novel, she did not disappoint. Size 12 combines two of my favorite genres - chick lit and mystery, in a cohesive and fun way. Heather's voice in the story is conversational and engaging, and makes for a relatable and likable heroine. The mystery side of the story was well developed too -- it kept me guessing until the very end!
If you're looking for a fun, fluffy read with a mysterious edge, this is the perfect pick!

I found this book to be a quick and engaging read. However, I wanted more from it. With the exception of Helen, I feel like none of the main 4 go through any kind of character arc. Their personalities are the same as they are at the beginning of the story, which is disappointing as a reader. I also felt the ending was too quick and not satisfying enough. It ends moments after the climax with no falling action.

However, one of the strongest components of this book were the more intense scenes. When action was happening, it was captivating and engrossing. I just wish we had more scenes like this throughout the book, because when they were good, they were really good. The twist at the end was nice too and I didn't see it coming!