The A.B.C. Murders

4 Stars

Book Rating:  PG

Language:  G

Violence:  PG (The most grisly of murders was the second one where we get a description of the dead body. Two of the murders are committed by blunt force trauma).

Sex:  G

Drugs/Alcohol:  G

            Boy, was this book a trip. I actually picked this book up because 1. There was a first edition copy sitting in my parents’ basement, and 2. I was required to read a book by a British author for my Brit Lit class—so really it was destined to be.

            I really enjoyed this story because of the enigmatic yet engaging characters. This story was driven by character and dialogue which I believe is what makes it so unique for a story written in the first half of the 20^th century. I’ve read a lot of stories written in the early to mid 1900s and what comes to mind are authors like William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Jack London all of who heavily rely on symbols and motifs to tell their stories. The thing about Agatha Christie is that her stories are told through hearing rather than seeing. The dialogue is what drives the story forward which is incredible considering the amount of characters that are used as valuable players in the plot.

            

            The premise for the story was exquisite. I love a good psychological tale that makes you question who the murderer is, what the murderer’s motive is, and how the murderer was able to let him or herself get to the point where they were able to kill without any sense of remorse. Agatha Christie was so ahead of her time as far as delving into the mind of a madman. The only real reference she had for serial killings was Jack the Ripper in the 1800s. The notes from the killer to Poirot were reminiscent of the killers of the 70s like The Zodiac Killer or BTK. She was writing about a killer’s signature before it was even a common term. The novel explored the mind of a serial killer before the name was introduced.

I went to see Murder on the Orient Express last year and loved it. Other people didn’t like it because it seemed to drag on. The fun part about Agatha Christie’s stories though are that despite surrounding murder and mayhem they are not grisly but instead are conscientious of minor details and building relationships before cracking the cases wide open in the final few chapters. The A.B.C. Murders was exactly that. What was interesting was that the murderer was brought into close contact with Poirot and Poirot even learned to trust him. I never suspected the true killer until it was revealed in the end. Christie does such a marvelous job with her reveals. They’re lengthy, but everything is explained before being tied up with a nice little bow. Sometimes mystery authors have trouble tying down their big reveals without it being a total information dump. Agatha Christie’s novels should be used as a point of reference for writing really satisfying reveals. I didn’t feel like it was too much, it managed to stay casual, and it completely took me by surprise. (I somehow fall for the Agatha Christies plotlines all the time).

      

      Plus Poirot in and of himself is entertaining. He and Captain Hastings are just like a modern Sherlock and Doctor Watson.

“To say a man is mad is merely unintelligent and stupid. A madman is as logical and reasoned in his actions as a sane man—given his peculiar biased point of view.”

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Into That Forest by Louis Nowra

2 Stars

Book Rating:  PG-13

Language:  PG-13 (Multiple uses of sh*t and b*tch, the only two that really stood out)

Sex:  PG (The girls witness a man doing “something rude” to himself. They witness the tigers mating. A man exposes himself to a young girl several times over)

Violence:  PG-13 (Grisly descriptions of killing animals and blood lust as the tigers and girls tore into carcasses. Whaling descriptions)

Drugs/Alcohol:  G

            

            I wanted to like this book. I really did. I spent money on it even when I told myself I couldn’t buy anymore books. It was an interesting premise and the cover is gorgeous, how could I resist? I’m weak, okay? It just didn’t do anything for me. It was difficult to get into, it was difficult to keep going, in fact, it was difficult to finish. I debated putting it down and never picking it up again at 50% through. 

         

            I have a lot of beef with this book, but I didn’t hate it. The problem is, I can’t decide what exactly made it redeemable. It might have been the fact that it wasn’t afraid to talk about touchier subjects? I don’t really know; I’m just spitballing. Maybe I just feel like being generous.

          

            My first issue with the book was the dialect. The dialect was ridiculous. I hated it from the moment I started the book. The whole premise of the book was that when this woman, Hannah, was younger she lived with tigers in the wild and lost her language. Sure, that’s happened in other stories. Children are lost in jungles and found again, they have to relearn the norms and language of society. I just felt like Hannah definitely had enough years to learn how to speak properly. She was found again when she was about ten. She wrote down her story when she was in her seventies. Sixty years is plenty of time to relearn a language. She was around people speaking properly for years. She was around whalers in a city; she lived with a man, Ernie, until he died. These were all people who could speak. My problem with this was that she was talking about not having good grammar and language but the only bad things about her language were when she used me instead of my and were in place of was. AND THIS WAS THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE BOOK. It was constant and annoying.

            

            I get that this story was supposed to be an honest and realistic, but there’s a line. This book made me sick. The descriptions of the girls as they tore into their fresh kills were sickening. I usually have a pretty strong stomach, but I was disgusted. The girls would shove their faces into the bloody necks on the animals and tear out their throats and then the tigers would have their turn. I hate books and movies where all the animals die so this was a really difficult book for me to finish, especially because of how grisly the deaths were in nature.

            

            On top of the animalistic nature of the story, I wasn’t able to connect with any of the characters. They annoyed me more than anything. Hannah’s narration was draining and it just felt fake. I didn’t like her in the beginning when she was normal and I didn’t like her when she was feral. I felt like she was forcing Becky into doing the things she didn’t want to do time and time again. I didn’t like Ernie or Mr. Carsons. Becky was alright. I just wasn’t attached to any of them and really had no sympathy for any of them either.

           

            Lastly, the lack of chapters drove me nuts. I felt like I was forcing myself to get through something I didn’t want to get through. There were no definitive breaks in the story. I get that this is supposed to be a stream of consciousness type of thing and I’m cool with that as long as it’s a short story. But with this, a book that is less than two-hundred pages felt like it was twice that. It was just not a fun read altogether.

            

            ALSO. It took Hannah so little time to become feral. It was like two weeks and she was running around on all fours and tearing into the throats of animals. After the flood that strands the girls, Hannah automatically adopts the two tigers as her ‘parents’ and doesn’t even give a second thought to the issue that she and Becky are stranded in the jungle. The timeline for Hannah and Becky turning feral just doesn’t make sense.

           

            I feel like this is such a mess of a review, but this was a mess of the book.

“The lean-to were filled with tiger skins all nailed to the walls of hanging from the beams—all in different stages of curing, so it stank like a swap filled with rotting animals. I think I lost most of me language there. I mean, where are the word to explain what I saw?”

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I Was a Snob...I'm a Little More Chill Now

              

              Recently, I had a conversation in my British Literature class that really ticked me off. We were talking about book to movie adaptations. If I were talking to these people five, maybe six years ago I would have vehemently agreed with them that movies desperately need to stick to the books and there is no room for interpretation. It should be the book in movie form and nothing else.

           

              Here’s where I disagree as my twenty-three-year-old self. I enjoy movies. A LOT. Films are made for entertainment. When I go to a movie, based off a book or not, I ask myself, “did I enjoy this movie?” If the answer is yes, then I say the producers succeeded in a job well done. For instance, superhero movies are a BIG thing right now. I’m not a huge fan because it seems like many of them are just constant streams of battle. (This isn’t true for all superhero movies, because Wonder Woman was lit and I will stick with that opinion until I die. I might even post a love letter to it). The point is, not all popular movies are enjoyable to me.

            

              Now, you might be asking yourself, why was Lauren so ticked off in British literature? What made her feel so passionately that she had to sit down at her computer and write up a blog post that no one may ever read?

           

              THE FREAKING HOBBIT MOVIES.

            

              As I stated earlier, I wasn’t upset because the people were talking about how good the movies were like most would assume. No, I was irritated because everyone hated them with a passion I didn’t know existed. I’m just gonna come out and say it. English literature majors are snobs. I’m two years away from getting my literature degree, I WOULD KNOW. People are entitled to their opinions and I support that wholeheartedly. You can hate The Hobbit movies, that’s fine. I happen to love them. Just give me valid arguments as to why you hate them. All my fellow classmates could come up with was that they didn’t follow the book as closely as they should have. That’s not a good enough reason.

            

              I could seriously write an entire post that would probably end up being five or six pages in standard MLA 8 format on why The Hobbit movies are great (I still might), but this isn’t what this post is about. Take a movie for what it is—a form of entertainment. How was the characterization? How did you feel about the acting? Was the movie split up well enough into action, comedy, and emotional response? How did you feel after it was over?

              I’m not saying that all movies based off of books should be more than just how accurately they portray that book, but other aspects need to be taken into account. For example, I find The Hobbit movies forgivable because the book literally had no characterization whatsoever and there was no real suspense. The movies added that. Then you look at Eragon which could have easily stayed in line with all the plot twists of the books, but instead the movie took an entirely new

direction that made it impossible for the events of the second book to occur. I still enjoyed the movie, I still watch it every once in awhile because it’s entertaining. Alternately, I love The Maze Runner movies. To be honest, the books bored me a bit. The movies get so much flak for not following the books, but I think they do just fine. It’s all about context, I suppose. (Plz don't come for me).

            

              I still think that movies should follow the books, but if the book itself is seriously lacking in characterization, action, and even the basic adventure structure, then I feel like it’s alright if aspects are added here and there. I enjoy movies. I enjoy books. I enjoy movies based off of books. I just feel like I’ve become more relaxed when it comes to movie adaptations because if they are enjoyable, who am I to judge? I can still read the book if I’m not satisfied in the end.

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Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

5 Stars

GET READY FOR MY FAVORITE CLASSIC

Rating:  PG

Language:  G

Sex:  G (Pretty blase. There are stolen kisses but it's all innocent)

Violence:  PG (I wouldn't say it's necessarily violent, I would say it's more intense than anything else. It deals with dark themes and has instances of physical and emotional abuse).

Drugs/Alcohol: G      

           Wuthering Heights has been my favorite classic for years so it’s very strange that I haven’t been able to sit down and write a review detailing everything I love about it.

           

            It surprises me that when the novel was first released it was ravaged by unconstructive criticism. For instance, in a review for the newspaper Atlas, an anonymous reviewer stated that it “casts a gloom over the mind not easily to be dispelled. It does not soften; it harasses, it extenerates….” (Extenerate, I just learned, is a term that means to eviscerate—which is also a term for disembowelment. This reviewer was ruthless). My only explanation as to why the book received so much hate in its early years was because the novel explored themes of darkness that they were not used to. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s novel, received praise upon praise. Though it still dealt with a serious subject matter and had its good dose of darkness, it was a book the people could still relate to. Wuthering Heights seemed to drip with darkness and despair and the people of the mid-1800s did not appreciate it in the slightest.

            

            See, I fell in love with this book because of its dark intonations. I loved Heathcliff as the dark, brooding, anti-hero; I loved the setting on the British moors with the wind and the rain; I loved Cathy for how much I despised her. Mostly I loved the forbidden, yet toxic, love between Heathcliff and Cathy. It was a consuming love that drove them both to madness. Logically, they could never be together. Cathy decided to marry for status and Heathcliff married for revenge, but their tragic love attempted to transcend these borders.

            

            This book is not nice. It does not detail the lives of the upper class living in nice sunshiny homes with servants at their beck and call. The Earnshaws have money, yes, but they are separated from society. Mr. Earnshaw adopted a young Gypsy boy and let his daughter run wild through the moors without supervision. These people are so removed from society that they have no real notion of how they should act. I could feel the distance by the treks made between The Heights and the town and between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. There’s rain, grit, mud…all sorts of unpleasantries that make the book feel so much more real. It’s not a happy story, but life isn’t happy either.

         

            Adding to that theme of unhappiness, I don’t quite like the way Heathcliff is portrayed in popular culture. Oftentimes he’s depicted as the brooding, handsome hero who just had all the wrong hands dealt to him in life. He is not this at all. We see Heathcliff as a child, growing up in a family where kindness was hard to come by after Mr. Earnshaw’s passing. The only kindness he received was from Cathy, a spoiled and at times indignant child. We see him grow into a man, in love with the girl he grew up with. We see Cathy marry Edgar Linton because of his social status and we see Heathcliff, heartbroken, fade into the background. In the end of the novel, we’re able to see how Heathcliff became the abusive and angry person he is. He hated Hindley Earnshaw who gave him nothing but years of belittlement and abuse. In the end, Heathcliff ultimately becomes the person he hated. Heathcliff was not created to be a person to be loved and sympathized with. Emily Brontë does something so clever with his character because she helps her audience see a man without any positive relationships for what he is. He’s broken, abused, and has no outlet for his repressed feelings that have only grown over the years. It’s heartbreaking, but did Heathcliff actually stand a chance growing up with Hindley and Cathy?

               

            Cathy and Heathcliff were interesting choices for main characters. They practically have no redeeming qualities, but I’m drawn to them nonetheless because of their horridness. It makes me wonder how two people, so entirely terrible, can find a love in each other. It kept me reading because despite not actually liking Heathcliff or Cathy all that much, I still loved them. It’s such a dichotomy. I hate them because they are both self-absorbed, vengeful, and completely disillusioned, but at the same time, I want to read their story because they’re interesting. They’re captivating characters.

          

              The contrast in this book is what makes it so entirely enchanting. There’s the contrast between the unpredictable moors and tumultuous Cathy (I still believe the moors are in direct relation to Cathy’s character. It’s as if she is the moors). There’s the contrast between Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship that offers no hope in the end and Hareton and Catherine’s relationship which offers recompense for the tragedy that is Cathy and Heathcliff. There’s always hope in the end that the next generation will do better than their parents. Catherine and Hareton are that hope.  

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I Know it's Not 2009 Anymore, But I'm Still Team Jacob

           

           Team Edward versus Team Jacob might be a blast from the past but all the feelings came rushing back as I watched Twilight this weekend. (Plus no one else will listen to my Team Jacob rantings because they all share an endless love for pasty vampire, Edward Cullen. And that's what this will be. RAMBLINGS). Jacob would have been so much better for Bella and things could have been radically different if Edward didn’t decide to do something stupid and turn himself into the Volturi because he took something out of context in New Moon. But on a sidenote, I don’t think Bella deserved Jacob in the first place. He was a little too good, a little too trusting, and a little too sensitive to really deserve Bella’s wishy-washyness.

            From the beginning, since they were little, Jacob and Bella were friends. When Bella returns to Forks, she rekindles her friendship with Jacob. This way she knows that there’s more to their relationship than just physical attraction and the fact that he’s a super strong, sparkly vampire. When Bella gets to Forks, her friendship with Jacob grows. It’s playful and Bella can actually feel like a human being when she’s around him. She doesn’t have to worry about Jacob killing her in a frenzy, she doesn’t have to worry about how he’ll react to something she says or does…she can just be Bella. Bella and Jacob’s relationship has much more of a base than Edward and Bella's does. It’s great because she and Jacob have things to talk about, more than just vampire conflicts, Romeo and Juliet, and their love for each other.

            Jacob also isn’t a controlling sociopath. Edward listens in on all of Bella’s private  conversations, he watches her sleep at night just for some strange gratification because human slumber is somehow “fascinating,” he gaslights her all the time, and even goes as far to disconnect the battery from her car because he doesn’t want her to visit Jacob because it’s “too dangerous.” Edward is also attracted to Bella in the first place because the smell of her blood is irresistible. He gets to know her because of her blood (and the fact that he can’t read her mind which in unnerving in and of itself). Now is that any basis to build a loving relationship?  

            But Jacob Black is an entirely different story. He’s the opposite of Edward in every way. He lets Bella have her friends. He may not like that she hangs out with vampires, and he tells her that all the time, but he also doesn’t sabotage her relationships by cutting the wires in her car. Jacob likes Bella for her. He likes Bella because she’s comfortable. He likes Bella because she’s beautiful. He likes Bella because when he’s with her it’s easy. This isn’t to say that Jacob doesn’t have his faults—he certainly does—it’s just that his faults are less pronounced and less damaging to Bella in the long run. He has outbursts of anger, mostly with Bella’s preoccupation with Edward, and he likes to get under Edward’s skin, but he never takes it to the point where it causes his main girl any harm.

            Can we also mention that when snuggling or hugging Jacob it would actually be WARM?? And not ice cold. Like Edward. The old man. The vampire whose coolest trait was that he killed rapists in the 30’s. (Which is cool. Like, bro. Keep doing that).  PLUS, Bella wouldn’t have to feel like she had to change for Jacob…just saying.

            I know Jacob gets a bad rap for the forced kiss in Eclipse and I’m not forgiving him for that. (You know, the one where Bella broke her hand hitting him)? He was kind of a jerk both times, you know? BUT. Bella is at fault here too. She told Jacob she loved him and gave him hope that there could be something between them. So he kissed her because he thought that maybe she felt the same way. She punched him; he said that he wouldn’t kiss her again until she asked. I feel like Jacob was too sensitive to get involved with a girl like Bella who thrived on the drama. And her boo, Edward, wasn’t much different. Edward waited until Jacob was listening to talk about his and Bella’s future wedding which was a real jerk move.

            I think what really gets me though is that Stephanie Meyer wrote off Jacob and Bella’s relationship and feelings for each other because of a non-existent baby that may or may not have even happened. After everything that happened between them, their feelings for each other, and everything Jacob went through for Bella, their relationship was just completely devalued. For everyone who loved Jacob Black and thought he should have ended up with Bella, this was just like a slap in the face.   

            So ultimately, yes, Bella and Edward probably deserved each other because they were both kind of terrible people, but Jacob deserved better. And if better was Bella, so be it. He deserved more than to have his love for Bella diminished. He suffered because of her and his love for her became nothing which is so incredibly frustrating. Jacob was sensitive, he didn’t expect Bella to change, he didn’t stop her from living her life because he believed in her probably more than anyone. Jacob was a gem and was really done a disservice in the last book.

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The Viking by Marti Talbott

2.85 Stars

BEWARE:  MILD-TEMPERED VIKINGS WITH ITALIAN LAST NAMES AND SCOTTISH ACCENTS AHEAD.

Book Rating:  PG

Language:  G

Violence:  PG (A man is whipped, the Vikings invade Scotland, whatever. Not much blood)

Sex:  PG  (Light on the romance, but there are a lot of allusions to different men bedding different women. There are references to rape as well as a sentence in the very beginning which says something along the lines of “It takes a man only a few minutes to pleasure himself….”

Drug/Alcohol Use/Abuse:  G

          I didn’t hate this book, but I definitely didn’t love it either. I actually contemplated giving up on it three chapters in. (More on that later). Ultimately, this is a story that follows the Viking Stefan through four years of his life (ages 14-18) after he is abandoned in Scotland during a raid gone wrong. To save himself, he masquerades as a distant Scottish cousin of two kindly Scottish ladies, Jirvel and her daughter Kannak. 

          There were some really great things about this book. I felt that Stefan was a strong narrator and the plot kept me interested and reading. The writing flowed well and was easy to understand and I give Stefan all the props for the compelling plot. The writing was very simple, juvenile at times, but I felt like this book was written overall for younger teens/pre-teens so I can forgive it. I felt like the story as a whole was well-written, but there were some definite issues.

To start:

1.  Stefan is a Scandinavian Viking with the last name of Rossetti. ITALIAN. ROSETTI IS ITALIAN. But that’s cool. Stefan is only the Viking leader’s son with no connections to Italy…I’ll just let myself out.

2.  My favorite Viking adventurers talk with Scottish accents using “dinna” for “didn’t” and calling each other lads (even the full grown Viking warriors) as well as saying “ye” and “aye” way too much for comfort. I have trouble anyway reading books in full-on accent mode, but then you add to that Vikings who are speaking like they’ve never stepped foot in Scandinavia and I was done. NOTE: This is when I was seriously thinking about stopping and throwing this book into my “no, thank you” pile. I’ll admit, it does get easier the more you read if you don’t dwell on the fact that Stefan is in fact a Viking and NOT a Scotsman. But whatever, I finished it.  

3.  I know this con is actually a good thing, but it’s just so unrealistic. You have Donar, Stefan’s Viking King father who says that he made a promise to his mother never to “force” a woman. Now, this is great, a Viking who doesn’t rape and pillage. But for that time, I just didn’t believe it. I would have much rather have Donar be a true Viking warrior and hate him for what he did, than to think of the entire Viking Squad as a fairytale. 

4.  Stefan’s mother was captured by the Vikings and made Donar’s wife and she had absolutely no qualms about it. HER ONLY DEMAND WAS THAT THEY TAKE HER SISTER TOO OR SHE WOULDN’T GO WILLINGLY. Homegirl just threw her sister under the bus, pointed out where she was hiding, and had her captured by the fearsome Vikings as well. I just…Stefan claims it was to save his aunt from an awful marriage. But, to quote Joseph Conrad, would being married to this Scotsman really be worse than being surrounded by “lusty, red-eyed devils” whose only real love was raping and pillaging western Europe?

5.  The plot was good, but it wasn’t GOOD. Sure, it kept me reading, it kept me interested, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere substantial. From what I read, I guess this is a prequel to some of Talbott’s other series? But coming from a reader with no connection to these other books, the plot seemed to go nowhere. I wanted to know what Stefan’s part in the story was. He was a good narrator, but it just seemed that after he was left by his people, he kind of flopped. He had no drive or purpose. I’m kind of shocked that I was kept interested throughout the entire story because usually those kinds of book have trouble keeping the attention. So Marti Talbott is definitely doing something right.

6.  Stefan’s a Viking which means he was most likely a Pagan, but he seems to be very in tune with God and Catholicism. He crosses himself a lot, prays a lot…but who am I to say he’s not a Christian Viking? It happened to Ragnar in History Channel’s Vikings.

          So there are my big issues with the story that made me contemplate giving it only two stars. There were enough eye-roll moments to really make me question my sanity. BUT. It was fast-paced, I liked Stefan overall (though he was kind of flawless), and I liked the premise. I’m a sucker for some medieval drama, so you had me at the word Viking, Ms. Talbott. Hats off to you for creating a main character that had little motivation but kept me rooting for him nonetheless. Stefan was kind, noble, strong, and valiant. Everything I could hope for in a hero. 

“It also occurred to him (Stefan) that the old man had the answer to loneliness. There was someone he could talk to in his oppressive world of silence. At first he felt too shy to talk to God and said all the things he was taught to say by the priests. But he soon found those words had little meaning when what he really wanted to do was talk to him man-to-God.”

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The Diviners by Libba Bray

5 Stars

I'M DONE. OFFICIALLY MY FAVORITE BOOK OF 2017. EVERYONE ELSE CAN GO HOME

Book Rating: PG-13

Language:  PG  (Uses of d*mn. Uses the word negro a lot which is acceptable for the time period, but still). 

Violence:  PG-13  (Brutal murders, descriptions of ritual sacrifices. Dude, I was freaked).

Sex:  PG  (No sex, but there are lusty inner thoughts).

Drugs/Alcohol:  PG  (It was the time of bootlegging and speakeasies. Everyone drank. Evie has a deep love for gin and is obviously inebriated in several scenes). 

          Lemme tell you, I have never read a book that left me as scared, intrigued, and in love than this one. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love this story. It had a dynamic main character, no cases of insta-love, a bad guy with cult-like beliefs and a dark childhood, secondary characters that I loved equally, and the enchanting background of 1920’s New York City. 

          I have to commend Libba Bray for the amount of obvious research that went into The Diviners. It felt like I was in 1920’s New York with the speakeasies and mob bosses and religious and political turmoil. She researched the slang and language of the 1920’s that made it so much more realistic and believable. I think that if anyone else had tried to write a book using 1920’s slang, it wouldn’t go nearly as well as Bray’s. I would have had so much more trouble deciphering it if it weren’t for the immersive writing and captivating characters. 

          You don’t even understand how grateful I am for the lack of insta-love and for an unobvious love interest. This is so rare in YA fiction so The Diviners was like a breath of fresh air. At one point or another, I thought Evie would end up with Sam, T.S. Woodhouse, Jericho, or Memphis. My favorite romances are slow-burning because it is literally the slimmest of odds that you meet someone and decide they are your forever love in the first day, but literally every person in YA seems to have this happen to them. I was so happy when Evie happened to befriend three out of the four main men in her life and each of the friendships kept me guessing on where they were going to go. And it wasn’t just the relationships between Evie and the boys, but also the strong female friendships.

          Upon coming to New York, Evie reconnects with her old friend and pen pal, Mabel. Mabel is the daughter of two social justice warriors and sometimes feels small and insignificant. When Evie comes along, her world becomes one of intrigue, parties, and adventures (something I love about Evie). Then the girls meet Theta, a Ziegfeld girl, who lives in the same building as they do. Evie instantly wants to befriend her, but Mabel is hesitant because Theta is otherworldly, tall, beautiful, graceful, and famous. What I love is that Theta could have easily been written off as a bully because she fits the typical girl-bully image of insanely popular and beautiful, but instead, she becomes one of Evie’s closest friends with her own tragic back-story. Bray humanized her goddess-like qualities which made me so happy.

          Now, Evie. She was deep and complicated. She was shallow at times, but as Jericho put it, had “an unusual kind streak.” Sometimes she was scared and a little bit ditzy and she drank a little too much, but that’s the thing about compelling main characters. They have their flaws and their flaws are the forces that make them relatable and lovable and passionate about certain aspects in their lives. I wasn’t so sure about Evie in the beginning because she was so shallow and had a very London Tipton-esque YAY MEEEE attitude and only desired to be the center of attention. But Evie grew as a character and became someone whose spunk I really came to admire. She still liked the attention and was still a little shallow, but it came to be something that enhanced her character instead of detracting from it. I love me some main character growth.

          I AM ALSO SO HAPPY WITH THE PLOT. I’ve always been interested in the psychology of serial/rampage killers (I was a forensic psychology major at one point) and this book just had me hooked from the beginning until the very end. It honestly terrified me at points and my heart was pounding heavily in my chest. Naughty John’s ritual murders were terrible and horrifying, but fascinating in the way they adhered to each ritual sacrifice in the cult bible, The Book of the Brethren. There were nights when I would put the book down at about 11 o’clock at night and then have to watch an episode of The Office just to get my mind off of Naughty John and the ways he would string up his victims before trying to go to sleep. The plot was riveting as the characters slowly tried to untangle the mystery behind the ritual killings. 

          Ultimately, this book has officially made it into my “favorites” list. I’ve heard some very questionable things about the second book in the series, but I’m excited to read it nonetheless. This book is everything I could have hoped for. 

“The land was a pledge, and the land was an idea of freedom, born from the collective yearning of a restless nation built on dreams. Every rock, every creek, every sunrise and sunset seemed a bargain well-struck, a guarantee of more.”

And for my favorite quote:

“…She can’t even keep up with her own children, who run around like a bunch of fools in a foolyard.”  

Good ol’ Aunt Octavia

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adjö,
lauren.