meg reads and reads

Title: Livia Lone Author: Barry Eisler The plot of this novel is great, by turns incredibly moving, immensely devastating, and completely horrifying. Child sex trafficking is not a easy subject to tackle, but Barry Eisler does it convincingly and without holding back. At the beginning, I felt like some of the details were only gratuitous, but as the plot advanced, I realized he had a purpose. That said, there are some issues I have. First, how many times do I have to read the phrase "he panted"? Second, what 8th grader goes to recess? Third, he talks about how the moon was out in one scene, but it was also pouring snow. Which is it? These are three examples of things that really bugged me and that were ultimately distracting while reading. If I ignore those things, it was very enjoyable. I give it three out of five stars. --------- READING PROGRESS: Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon: 50% The Waste Lands by Stephen King: 47% The Warriors Ser...

Title: The Road Beyond Ruin Author: Gemma Liviero I hated this book. This was my December pick for Amazon First Reads , and I so  wish I had gone with something different. I'm usually a huge fan of historical fiction, but this was just not good at all. I'm a fairly intuitive reader, so I usually have a good idea of where a plot is headed before it gets there. I'm usually happy to be surprised. This, however, is only the case if the plot twist is well-executed. This book has a few twists, but they are so poorly thought out that it makes what could have been an outstanding novel absolutely terrible. The twists don't even make sense. My advice to this writer is that if you're going to write from multiple perspectives, at least be consistent with your characters' thought processes. This book would have been far better if only told from the perspective of one or two people, probably Erich and/or Rosalind. If you want to surprise your readers, make it a su...