kristineisreading's reviews
652 reviews

Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson

4.0

Poe Webb is a podcast host. Her popular podcast features real confessions of real criminals. Poe has real-life experience with true crime herself - when she was 13, she saw her mother get murdered. To this day, nobody, not even her dad, knows that she was a witness to the crime. 

We jump into the story very quickly. There's not a lot of set up here. Poe records one episode of her podcast, so we get a sense of how it's supposed to go, and then shit starts hitting the fan. The next guest is creepy as hell and claims to be the man who murdered her mother. But how can that be? Poe thought she took care of that. The man, Ian Hindley, coerces her into doing a live stream where he confesses to her mother's murder. Then he coerces her into doing a second one where SHE will be the one confessing. The transcript of this second live stream, on Halloween, is interspersed with the current timeline in the weeks before Halloween as Poe reveals the truths of her story to her father and her producer/boyfriend Kip and deals with Hindley's escalating stalking. 

Ultimately this is a cat and mouse game with high stakes. Is Hindley really who he says he is? If not, how does he know so much? What's his end game? What will happen after Poe confesses her own crimes live, to tens of thousands of viewers? 

As exciting as the plot is, I do wish the characters were a little more developed. Is Poe a morally grey badass or just a super traumatized alcoholic? Kip hardly has any personality at all, and it's hard to buy into their relationship. Poe's dad is probably my favorite character. He's loving and supportive and I felt bad for him, from a fellow parent's perspective, knowing how painful Poe's confession had to be to hear. 

Overall though, I really enjoyed this one. It's fast paced, well plotted, consistently tense, and the ending has a great payout. 

The Puma Years by Laura Coleman

3.5

I've been an animal lover for as long as I can remember. I've never doubted that animals have their own individual personalities, quirks, likes, dislikes, fears, etc. The animals we meet in this book prove that. When Laura first arrives at the rescue park in 2007 (I think - don't fact check me, I'm not great with dates), she immediately gets up close and personal with some of their residents, including a couple of traumatized howler monkeys that live in camp. Her main responsibility, however, is to care for and walk a puma (aka mountain lion aka cougar) named Wayra. At first they are frightened of each other, but slowly their bond grows. Laura comes to understand Wayra and becomes so attached to her that a one month stay turns into three months turns into years of repeat trips back to visit. It's a story of self-discovery and finding purpose in life. In many ways, Laura grows up in the jungle. On a larger scale, this all happens against a background of climate change, deforestation, and poaching, forcing Laura and the other volunteers face to face with some dark realities. They fight forest fires, turn away animals that they don't have room for, lose animals to thieves. They battle swarms of bugs, swamps, lack of funding, isolation. It's not an easy way to live, but they do it out of a deep dedication to the animals in their care. 

At the time of this review, the park is still existent and taking sponsorships for the animals under their care, which you can explore here: https://www.intiwarayassi.org/sponsor-an-animal 

The White Road by Sarah Lotz

2.0

What I wanted: a story of horror and survival on the side of the world's most famous mountain.

What I got: a small dose of that, plus a large dose of a very traumatized man acting in increasingly self-destructive ways. 

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective

5.0

Wow. What a magical, imaginative book. I knew this was going to be my first 5-star read this year before I was halfway done. Reading Water Moon is like having the most whimsical dream of your life. There is so much creativity in this book, I don't even know where to start. The pond and puddle travel? The scroll? The Night Market? The trains? I could go on and on and on. Every page brings a new delight. There is darkness in this story too, and the stakes are continuously dangerously high, but the sense of wonder never goes away. This is masterful world building. Hana and Keishin are interesting characters, don't get me wrong. I was rooting for them every step of the way. But the real magic here is in the setting, and the plot that drags you through it, line by beautiful line. This one will stick with me for a long time, I think. I hope. And if not, I pledge to re-read it, because it is worth not forgetting. 

Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre

2.0

I can't believe I spent 9 hours of my life on this predictable, twist-less, suspense-less "thriller". Not a single likable character. And the narrator who voiced Cat was terribly annoying. I might have found her to be a sympathetic character if she had been played differently. I don't listen to a lot of audiobooks and this is a good example of why. The narrator can make or break it. Plus I could have read this a lot faster than I listened to it, thus wasting less of my time. Honestly I probably would have DNF'd it if it was an ebook. I just kept hoping that the story would get better. By the time I realized it wasn't, I had already invested so many hours that I felt like I needed to push through it. This won't put me off audiobooks for good, but it will probably make me less patient with them.

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this. It was atmospheric from the jump, it got twisty fast, and it led to a big payoff. The pacing was perfect, with the pieces of the puzzle steadily being revealed as the story unfolded in the way back past, the immediate past before the solstice, and the current day, after the solstice. Having a hint of what was coming made me on high alert for clues and red herrings, but just when I thought it was getting predictable it would surprise me again. This is a very solid thriller with some creepy elements woven throughout. What are The Birds exactly? The answer is eventually revealed and it's a satisfying one. The whole ending is satisfying actually. Things wrap up without any loose ends. If anything it's a little too neat of an ending, but that's a very minor quibble. 

Something Like Fate: A Novel by Amy Lea

funny lighthearted

3.5

I wanted to read a cute love story for Valentine's Day, and this...kind of fit the bill? I wanted more scene setting. We're told that they're in Venice, and Rome, and so on, and they do some touristy things, but there aren't many descriptions of what it looks like, smells like, the vibes, anything. I also found this to be pretty predictable, and it was hard to relate to a 19-year-old narrator. Those quibbles aside, this is a decent story with some fun characters.  I really like the relationship between Teller and Lo. Their cute friendship bumped this up half a star for me. Lo is bubbly and fun in the best way, and Teller, although the polar opposite, balances her out perfectly. I'm too old to be into a character like Caleb, wandering the world without a plan, but I can see the appeal to someone like Lo, who is feeling lost and aimless. And I really like her relationship with her dad and aunts, who are all so supportive. Overall, I enjoyed this well enough. I just think for my next romance, I need it to focus on older characters. 

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This is a fascinating story of a woman who defies societal expectations to become J.P. Morgan's formidable personal librarian, a role that involves representing him in growing his rare book and art collection and expanding his library into a veritable museum of treasures - and she does it all while passing as white. Belle is way out of her league when she first begins working for Morgan, but her trademark boldness and intelligence quickly gains his favor. She turns out to be very good at her job and her relationship with Morgan grows accordingly. She becomes invaluable to him. However, she must then try to balance her own personal life with the growing demands of working for him, all with the shadow of her secret always in her mind. Belle lives a complicated life and the book uses that to cover a lot of ground, thoughtfully exploring identity, race, classism, family, and gender roles. Belle constantly must fight to reconcile her inner Belle Marion with the outer Belle da Costa Greene she presents to the world, and she must never for a second forget what would happen if her secret were to be revealed. It makes her accomplishments all the more impressive. 

The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal by Vicki Constantine Croke

3.0

As dark as the world is right now, I'm glad that at least we as a country no longer find it acceptable to rip a baby animal away from its mother to put it in a zoo. I just felt so bad for those damn pandas. I don't know that I would have gotten through this if it wasn't an audiobook I could only half-ass listen to. I might have just raged out and thrown the book across the room. The book itself is well-paced and  Ruth Harkness was interesting enough a character. Rating this 3 stars because it's really not fair to the book that I didn't anticipate how I would feel reading this (should have seen it coming, honestly, where were my critical thinking skills going into this one).

Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.

This is so boring. There's no plot, the characters are 2D, and the writing is clunky. I don't even know why this was on my TBR list.