books_with_brandon's Reviews (230)

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

5.0

tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss

Gloria Vanderbilt, Anderson Cooper

3.0

adventurous funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

The Locked Ward

Sarah Pekkanen

4.0

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was my first Sarah Pekkanen thriller and I was impressed. I started reading this one via digital ARC but found it a bit hard to get into so I switch over to the ALC and listened to the rest which was the best decision! The narration of this book was spot on! Perfect amounts of inflection and not too over the top that it took me out of the story.

I did feel like one of the big plot twists was given away right off the hop but after reflection it was a necessary piece of the story to make known right away in order to help lay out the narrative!

A bit slow overall but I did enjoy this and will give more of her thrillers a shot in the future!

The Locked Ward is out August 5th, 2025! Thank you NetGalley, Sarah Pekkanen, and Macmillan Audio for the ALC. This ALC was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Forget Me Not

Stacy Willingham

4.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: N/A

I enjoyed this Thriller a lot! Fast paced and a strong story line. This was my first experience with one of Stacy Willingham's thrillers and based on reviews of her previous books I had high hopes. The creepy setting of an isolated vineyard really helped set up the story for some solid twists and turns in the storyline.

Overall would recommend this to anyone looking for a solid thriller!

Break Me Down

Anna Downes

2.0

mysterious tense medium-paced

I was intrigued listen to this audio book due to it’s unique format of being narrated in first person and every individual character was narrated by a different person. Although that element was nice I found the plot line and format of this audio book to be extremely hard to get into, follow along and stay engaged with.

It’s an ironic concept that the plot centred around Georgia’s acting career and the acting and narration of this audio book was the roughest part. I’ve heard good things about Anna Downes thrillers but this was just not the vibe for me.