Welcome to Litsy!

I struggled with this book, once you put it down there wasn't much incentive to pick it up again. When a body was discovered in an unusual position I believed that an interesting story was about to be revealed. What transpired was a tour around the outskirts of Birmingham visiting AA call boxes and not much else. It became quite obvious how the body had been transported and that all the cases may eventually be linked. It was a monotonous read.

It left me so depressed. At times, I felt like George - aggravating everyone around me, being callous, and just plain hateful. Most of the time, I felt like Jenny - being an enabler because he doesn't know how hurtful he is, or finding the bright spot in a bad situation. I stayed mad the whole time. Mad at George. Mad at me. MAD AT MY HUSBAND. And, now I canceled plans because I am choking with my own depression. Thank goodness for my therapist.

Bad. So bad. Title and author shall go unnamed.

This was a rather dull book about a rather narrow-minded man. Perhaps it was supposed to be witty, but it just fell flat.

Apprentice gemmologist Murdoc Jern's master is killed as a sacrifice. Can Murdoc escape from Koonga and find out why?

A strange mixture of fantasy faux-mediaeval tropes (apprentices, arcane rituals, quests, rings of power) set in a science fiction world of spaceships, rockets, spacesuits, interstellar travel, and aliens. There were too many threads left hanging and unexplained. They may be explained later, but I'm not sure I will bother.

New to me author #OffMyShelf

The tagged was almost painful to read. Overhyped, boring, and disappointing. No character development, no world building, & not really a cozy fantasy. I skimmed most of it & still@knew exactly what was happening.

It‘s off my shelf & onto my PangoBooks bookshop.

But at least this book did finally get me my first #2025OffMyShelf bingo!

This should have been a DNF. I couldn't make myself interested in Grace or Becker. I did love the descriptions of Eris, the remote Scottish island where a famed artist moved. All of the people involved were shallow, selfish, and petty. The second someone pursued a bit of freedom or was happy in their lives it was shown as a bad thing.

"All is fair in love and war, and friendship is love, too, isn't it? And a kind of war sometimes as well."

2 stars because at times the mystery did spark to life, but I couldn't say that made up for the characters. Non of whom were worth the trees who died for this book. There is a world where a love story between a 15yrold and a 30yr old could be part of an interesting nuanced exploration. But here it is handled so incredibly badly. The author turns himself inside out to justify the unjustifiable. So many moments I was repulsed by this story.

2 ⭐ This is a colon response picture book. I‘m reading it in Board book version, and I do not think it works very well. The colon response nature for kids who can‘t necessarily answer doesn‘t work for me. The story is typical and so are the illustrations. The story is nice, but it‘s nothing special.

#IllinoisReads

I‘m not sure why I finished this one… I wanted to set it aside, but I guess I wasn‘t ready to have my first DNF of the year… This romance just didn‘t do anything for me. Melody and Zac grew up together—he‘s her twin brother‘s BFF, but he ghosted her in high school & now it‘s been ten years & Melody returns to her hometown after a breakup with Connor, who she somehow managed to not see was controlling… drawn out & with repetitive words, not for me!