Skip to main content

Mini Reviews (11)



This was the strangest book I have read in a long time.  I'm still not one hundred percent sure I understood the whole thing.  I expected it to be a lot scarier and while there were creepy parts, it really wasn't scary at all.  It was just really weird!  I feel like I'm still trying to process what happened.  I will say that it was well-written and was a quite the page turner; it just ended very strangely and I didn't feel like I had all my questions answered.  I'm giving this 3 stars as a neutral rating because I can't decide if I liked or disliked this book.




I'll start by saying that I didn't dislike this book but I was disappointed in it.  It seemed like there was a lot of hype surrounding it and I just thought it fell flat.  The story did suck me in and keep me interested but most of the characters were not likable at all so it was hard to relate to anyone or feel sympathetic to them.  Also, throughout the whole story, I knew there was going to be a big twist at the end and when it was revealed, it made me really mad.  I really couldn't believe that was the direction the story took and it made dislike one of the characters even more. 3 stars.  




I really love reading about Russian history!  One Night in Winter is set in Stalinist Russia at the very end of World War II.  It's an interesting look at the world of the elites in Russia at that time and showed how, no matter where you stood in the hierarchy, you could be brought down by the Stalinist machine.  There was a beautiful romance as well as a lot of heartache.  I knew this book wouldn't have the happiest of endings but it was still a really good book.  4 stars.


Comments

  1. The mini reviews are good. They give us an idea of the book without too much additional information or spoilers! thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "Oleanna" by Julie K. Rose

Synopsis:  Set during the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905, this richly detailed novel of love and loss was inspired by the life of the author's great-great-aunts. Oleanna and her sister Elisabeth are the last of their family working their farm deep in the western fjordland. A new century has begun, and the world outside is changing, but in the Sunnfjord their world is as small and secluded as the verdant banks of a high mountain lake. The arrival of Anders, a cotter living just across the farm's border, unsettles Oleanna 's peaceful but isolated existence. Sharing a common bond of loneliness and grief, Anders stirs within her the wildness and wanderlust she has worked so hard to tame. When she is confronted with another crippling loss, Oleanna must decide once and for all how to face her past, claim her future, and find her place in a wide new world. My Thoughts:   I was very surprised by what an absolutely beautiful story Oleanna is.  The ...

Review and Giveaway: "Distant Signs" by Anne Richter

Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over...

Mailbox Monday (49)

It's time for another Mailbox Monday post!  Once again I could not resist the cheap ebooks that Amazon and Barnes and Noble were promoting this week.  I really need to stop!  I already have more than I can read.  I also was able to spend a little time browsing at the library and I came home with a nice stack of books.  These days, I hardly ever get to spend time at the library by myself for more than a minute or two so it was wonderful to have time to just wander and see what I could find. Purchased (for kindle): The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford The One I Was by Eliza Graham House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty   Purchased (for nook): One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore  Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams From the Library: The Messenger by Daniel Silva   The Ripper's Wife by Brandy Purdy Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Brazen by Katherine Longshore What books did you get...