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looseleafellie's reviews
250 reviews
Shattered by Teri Terry
3.0
Most of what I thought about this book has already been said by many other reviewers, so I'm just going to point out a couple of things which I can comment on.
First of all, I would probably have given this book two stars if it hadn't featured the Lake District. I love the Lake District, and I go hiking there a lot with my family (and yes, I have climbed Catbells ... in the snow ...). Also, part of this book, and most of the other two books, were set in Oxfordshire, which is where I live. Wahey!
Secondly, the romance.
I just can't believe that Kyla and Aiden fell in love, because it was so sudden. One moment he's barely in her mind at all, and then WHAM -- fully-fledged love interest (also, isn't Aiden five or six years older than her? That just seems a little ... weird). Maybe I could have accepted it if Kyla had expressed feelings for Aiden in the first or even the second book, but that just didn't happen.
A final note about love triangles -- why does the girl ALWAYS choose the second guy to come along? It happens every time, and honestly I'm sick of it. Actually, I'm sick of love triangles, period. I think this book could have made 3.5 or maybe even 4 stars if the love triangle had been left out of it and Kyla had ended up with Ben.
End of rant :)
First of all, I would probably have given this book two stars if it hadn't featured the Lake District. I love the Lake District, and I go hiking there a lot with my family (and yes, I have climbed Catbells ... in the snow ...). Also, part of this book, and most of the other two books, were set in Oxfordshire, which is where I live. Wahey!
Secondly, the romance.
Spoiler
From the look of the other reviews for this book, Ben doesn't get a lot of love. But I actually really liked him. I thought he and Kyla were well matched -- and Kyla seemed to think so too, for 99% of this trilogy.I just can't believe that Kyla and Aiden fell in love, because it was so sudden. One moment he's barely in her mind at all, and then WHAM -- fully-fledged love interest (also, isn't Aiden five or six years older than her? That just seems a little ... weird). Maybe I could have accepted it if Kyla had expressed feelings for Aiden in the first or even the second book, but that just didn't happen.
A final note about love triangles -- why does the girl ALWAYS choose the second guy to come along? It happens every time, and honestly I'm sick of it. Actually, I'm sick of love triangles, period. I think this book could have made 3.5 or maybe even 4 stars if the love triangle had been left out of it and Kyla had ended up with Ben.
End of rant :)
Morium by S.J. Hermann
3.0
My feelings about this book are mixed. There were some things I loved, and some things I didn't like so much.
First of all, I feel like Morium could have used some better editing. Even though the author appears to have a wonderful way with words, there were several typos and grammar mistakes that I felt distracted from the story. Also, the book insisted on using every dialog tag other than 'said' -- quipped, hissed, stated, growled, spat, etc. Ideally, for me at least, dialog tags should be restricted to 'said' and 'asked', with the occasional 'replied', 'whispered', or 'shouted'. Anything else should be used very sparingly, otherwise the dialog tags get really distracting.
The other thing I didn't like was the ending. It just felt like it stopped in the middle of the story -- the bad guy still hasn't been defeated, and there are loads of questions to be answered (is Renee inside Stacy now? Is there any hope for Nathan? Will Robert earn enough money at the Sweeny's cafe to pay the bills? Is Stacy a lesbian? Has Lexi really retained control of The Gift?). I mean, I understand that there have to be some loose ends to keep people reading, but there also has to be a satisfying ending. This ending was not satisfying.
Now, on to the things that I liked about Morium (save the best for last, amirite?). I felt like the characters were really strong and developed -- I especially liked Stacy's character, with her spunk and sarcasm. The story was immersive and fast-paced, and would have been perfect if it weren't for the choppy ending. This is the very definition of a page-turner.
But the thing I loved most of all was the thing that made this book different. The "Kids find an alien object in the middle of the woods and gain magical powers" plot has been done to death, but this book introduces a level of moral dilemma which makes it fresh and exciting. Also, it tackles the issue of bullying very well. Bullying does not end once you get out of middle school!
So, all things considered, Morium was a fairly good read. Will I read the next book in the series? Probably. Especially if it's on sale :P
First of all, I feel like Morium could have used some better editing. Even though the author appears to have a wonderful way with words, there were several typos and grammar mistakes that I felt distracted from the story. Also, the book insisted on using every dialog tag other than 'said' -- quipped, hissed, stated, growled, spat, etc. Ideally, for me at least, dialog tags should be restricted to 'said' and 'asked', with the occasional 'replied', 'whispered', or 'shouted'. Anything else should be used very sparingly, otherwise the dialog tags get really distracting.
The other thing I didn't like was the ending. It just felt like it stopped in the middle of the story -- the bad guy still hasn't been defeated, and there are loads of questions to be answered (is Renee inside Stacy now? Is there any hope for Nathan? Will Robert earn enough money at the Sweeny's cafe to pay the bills? Is Stacy a lesbian? Has Lexi really retained control of The Gift?). I mean, I understand that there have to be some loose ends to keep people reading, but there also has to be a satisfying ending. This ending was not satisfying.
Now, on to the things that I liked about Morium (save the best for last, amirite?). I felt like the characters were really strong and developed -- I especially liked Stacy's character, with her spunk and sarcasm. The story was immersive and fast-paced, and would have been perfect if it weren't for the choppy ending. This is the very definition of a page-turner.
But the thing I loved most of all was the thing that made this book different. The "Kids find an alien object in the middle of the woods and gain magical powers" plot has been done to death, but this book introduces a level of moral dilemma which makes it fresh and exciting. Also, it tackles the issue of bullying very well. Bullying does not end once you get out of middle school!
So, all things considered, Morium was a fairly good read. Will I read the next book in the series? Probably. Especially if it's on sale :P
Lucid by Adrienne Stoltz
3.0
I mostly liked this book, but I'm docking one star because I found Sloane kind of annoying, and I'm docking another star because the ending was a bit lame. Brilliant concept, though.