Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

By Amy Chua.

 

I'd given this book more, for some parts I'd love to give full 5 stars, but then other things set me back to 3-4 starts, but on the balance, it's 3.5 stars.

"Bill Clinton recently told some Yale students that you can only be really great at something if you love it..."
"But just because you love something, I added to myself, doesn't mean you'll ever be great. Not if you don't work."
This paragraph pretty much sums up the book for me. This is one paragraph that I agree with absolutely and unequivocally!
As to the rest of the 229 pages.... well, mixed feelings, I suppose.

One of Us is Lying

by Karen McManus.

 

 

I am torn between "Aaaw..." and "Wow. That was cool!"...
I must say, I have never seen/read "The Breakfast Club", so those parallels are alien to me.

I really enjoyed this book! The way that at 1.30 am you don't want to put it down and wonder if drinking more coffee will help your eyes to stay open, because you just have to know what happens next... It's one of those books, that I call movie type of a book. When you are reading it, you can see every scene, you imagine every character, every dialog so vividly, so clear, it's like watching a movie.

Being not a fan of YA and having rather preconceived opinion (yes, yes, I am that old wagon, that tells her children "When I was your age...") of it (most times is just overhyped, too obvious, too dramatic... ), I have to say, this one was a pleasant exception.

This book is a good example, that if something is well written, it's good, regardless of its genre, style, etc...
And this book is well written.
Very smooth narration. Even though the story is presented from four different characters, two boys and two girls, it does not feel jumpy, inconsistent or overlapping. There is no confusion, you don't need to flick the pages to check in, whether it was that one, or this one...

There might be no astonishing novelty in the plot, but the idea is still well presented and executed so that it holds your attention.

So, it starts from a school detention session of five students. One of them takes a drink of water and... dies. He suffers a fatal reaction to peanut oil...
Freaky accident? No, impossible. Murder? Yes.
But who would do such a thing? And why??...

Simon was not a popular high school student in a conventional way. Yet, he had a reputation of a weird guy who has a blog where he posted other people's secrets and dirty deeds. Someone cheated on a girlfriend? Made a show of themselves? Lied about something?... be sure it will appear on Simon's blog. The four in detention, who were with Simon, are no exception. They have their secrets, their embarrassing moments. But, then, who doesn't?

Would one's embarrassing moment, a lie, a feeling of guilt be enough to kill a fellow student?

I must confess, from around middle of the book I could foresee where it was all going, but it was still rather satisfying to follow the story.

I really liked the way the characters were composed and how their portraits got more dimensional with subtly added details every now and then.

My favourite one is probably Bronwyn. I'd also say Nate, but he was a bit too sweet for a bad boy. Addy is another great one. You just don't know what that girl can come up with next... Cooper was probably the least intriguing, even though his secrets were deeper than expected. He was kind of "expect the unexpected" type of guy. So even though the surface seems smooth and plain, you know it's not. And it doesn't take long to figure him out.

There was a bit of sappy slag going here too, but not too much, so it did not get on the way. Besides, it was cute :))

So, yes, definitely well deserved four stars.
I should check The Breakfast Club.

P.S. Oh and I like Variations on the Canon!

Last Breath. Detective Erika Foster #4.

by Robert Bryndza.

 

 

Two days i could not put the book down and kept reading at every opportunity I got.
I just had to find out how all this was going to end!

I will not go into the plot and story details, as it is worth reading firsthand. There' s quite a lot happening to Erika. Maybe, even more than usual, which makes the story well packed and eventful. A few unexpected turns, too!

Good suspense, good story twist, a few different lines to follow, all well paced.

What's not to like?

Dark Water. Detective Erika Foster #3.

by Robert Bryndza.

Another good one. DCI Erika Foster has it all this time.

Erika is working on the drugs case, looking for a dumped load, when she finds a body of a little girl who had gone missing years ago.

Erika's gut instinct and professional persistence tell her to re-open the cold case and try to figure out what had actually happened 20-odd years ago. Why was a little girl abducted in the daylight, a few yards away from her own home and why the case was never solved?...

The investigation is not going to be simple. It will have a few throw backs, a few odd findings and it will come to its conclusion, but at what price?...

With so much time gone from the original events, there's little hope to put small pieces of old puzzle together to make a bigger picture, but, as always, Erika is not the one to give up on things just because they are not easy... 

 Exit West

by Mohsin Hamid.

 

I enjoyed this book in a way you'd enjoy a difficult, long walk uphill to see a view worth seeing.

And this book is well worth reading, for it makes you stop and hold your breath for second and think of all the things that you can count as your blessings, it also makes you see lives and feelings, and fears, and love beyond daily statistics of the news reports with better, sharper understanding. Refugee crisis... "Crisis" is a wrong kind of word, it is rather a tragedy.

“We are all migrants through time.” That is so true! We often forget that no matter how settled and comfortable life we lead, we are all only visitors in this world. Moreover, little we do realise (or perhaps chose to forget and try to convince ourselves that our stability is depends on us entirely and once we want stable, safe life, then it will be there for ever) how fragile our lives are, more so nowadays, when the boundaries can get blurred so rapidly and safety is really only an illusion.

Back to the actual book though.

The Night Stalker

By Robert Bryndza.

 

 

 

Woo hoo! DCI Erika Foster has done it again!
This time even better than before!
This is the second book in the series about Detective Erika Foster, and I Liked it even more than the first.
So Erika is trying to figure out who is a mysterious Night Stalker who has killed three people one after another in similar pattern. There's no obvious link between the victims. They don't seem to have enemies as such, those who'd wish their death bad enough.
The killings are quite brutal. The killer is smart and seems to be untraceable.

My Husband's Wife

by Jane Corry.

I was quite hesitant, whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars.

It kept me on the hook, and that's a good reason to give all 4, yet the twists and turns of the plot made me want to ask: "Really?... Does everything have to be so messed up? What happened to good old simple stories, those ones where enough secrets and thrill and mystery but without all those "special" effects that make you think you are reading a textbook chapter on clinical perversions... " And those moments were enough to strip an extra star off.