In The Finalists by David Bell, six college students show up to try to win a scholarship to Hyde. They must stay in the building for eight hours. If they leave, they cannot win. When one of the six is found dead , is anyone safe? People are also protesting outside and tension is real high. This was pretty good though I would have liked more character development. The storyline was just okay but the ending was good! (Gerard's review, 4 stars)
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The String by Caleb Breakey is about a very creepy, mean guy who calls himself "The Conductor" who creates a string of people he controls to do bad things through manipulation and threats. I almost gave up right at the start when he abused a dog, but kept reading and he didn't do it anymore after that. People do not have any choice if they are chosen to be on his "string" although Haas, one of the Trenton University cops is determined to break the string. Can he do it?
I was eager to see how this dark thriller would end but did not like the ending. It has quite a bit of action, suspense and mystery. It is written so the reader does not find out who the conductor is until almost the very end! In some ways this reminded me of The Chain. I thought The String was even creepier, a bit too much for my taste.
(Karen's review, 4 stars)
Gerard's review:
The String is about a man who gets people to do things they would not normally do because he has something on them that makes them have to do it or their loved one will have something bad happen to them. He calls himself "the Conductor." I could never really get into this book. I never had the moment that would get me caught up in it! The premise was good enough, but I do not think the writer brought out as much as he could have and I did not like the ending. (3 stars)
Teaser from page 23: "You catch on fast, you officer, SWAT team, professional, you. One moment you're ready to unwind and let all that stress melt away. Then the next you're making a deal with the devil, yes? That is the power of the will."
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Watching (The Making of Riley Paige—Book 1) by Blake Pierce is a thriller about a couple murders on a college campus Both victims were friends of Riley Sweeny, who tries to figure out who the killer was on her own by pretending to get into the killer’s mind by re-enacting what the killer probably did. Riley, a senior psychology major becomes a target herself.
This book has a lot of grammatical errors and moved along fairly slowly. I thought it was okay but did not care for all the bar scenes, and the story line wasn’t very believable. I don’t know if I want to continue reading this series or not.
(Karen's review, 2 stars)
Teaser from page 9: And Riley could see at least one thing that was wrong. About halfway down the hall, a girl was collapsed on her knees, sobbing.
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Educated by Tara Westover is her memoir of leaving her Mormon family in Idaho to pursue a formal education. This is a long journey. Tara is from a large family whose father owned a scrap yard and who kept her working for him as long as he could. It is an amazing story of how she was accepted at BYU and went on to Cambridge and Harvard without having graduated high school! In fact, even her "home schooling" was not at all regular.
I found this book very hard to read. The father and brother made me very angry and it was difficult to fathom how dysfunctional this family was. In some ways it reminded me of The Glass Castle and A Child Called It. The domestic violence and abuse is heart wrenching. I did enjoy Part 2 better when she got away from her family and into college. I was never engrossed in this book and for the most part had to plow through. I would have liked to know what kind of actual job the author wound up with after all that education.
(Karen's review, 3 stars)
Gerard's review:
Educated by Tara Westover is a true story and what a story it is! Tara first stepped foot in a classroom at the age of 17, but now she received a BA degree from Bringham Young University and a scholarship to Cambridge in England where she was awarded a PHD in history! WOW! She tells her story so well. She wanted more of a life than her family could give her, and overcame long odds to do it. She went through a lot both in and out of the classroom! I highly recommend this memoir, don't miss it! Put it on your TBR list right now! (Gerard's review, 5++ stars)
Teaser from page 39: There was never any more talk of a hospital. The moment for such a decision had passed, and to return to it would be to return to all the fury and fear of the accident itself.
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In If We Had Known by Elise Juska, Maggie has been an English composition teacher for a long time! Her life now is anything but stable and the same goes for her daughter, Anna. But Anna is going to college soon and Maggi has hopes that both of their lives will be more stable. Then there is a shooting at a local mall--three people and the shooter are dead. The shooter was a boy in one of Maggie's classes. Turns out he wrote a paper that his classmates found troubling. Could Maggie have done something to help this boy? The internet is a buzz! Can Maggie and Anna handle the heat that is coming their way?
I thought this book was really good! The main characters were really good and I liked them both!
(Gerard's review, 5+)
Teaser from pg. 208: "I fail to see how, at any point, this essay wouldn't have raised alarm," Bill interrupted. "A student wrote about weapons, Maggie, in elaborate detail, and you ignored it."
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The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown is a non-fiction novel about the personal journeys of the 1936 USA rowing Olympic team. Through personal interviews, the author writes an amazing story of perseverance, overcoming obstacles, teamwork, humility and competition. I enjoyed reading about the coaches and how the team was assembled as well as the races. The parts about Nazi Germany hosting the Olympics actually made me mad. I acquired a new admiration for the sport of rowing after reading this book. I thought the first part of the book was very slow but then the rest of it picked up.
(Karen's review, 4 stars)
The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown is such a good book! It tells the true story of a bunch of young boys from Washington University who competed in rowing during the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. One of the best parts of this book was the stories about the boys’ personal lives and their coaches too! The races are very exciting as well. I gained a whole lot of respect for what it takes to row when I read this book. Loved it and recommend you read it too! You will be glad you did!
(Gerard’s review 8/24/13, 5+ stars)
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The Good Goodbye by Carla Buckley is about two young girls, Arden and Rory. When they wind up in the same college, it looks like good times are to be had. Then one day, their parents are told that both girls are in a coma. When the facts and truth come out as to why they wound up this way, their families will be rocked to their core.
I enjoyed this book. It moves along and the stories the two girls told was interesting.
(Gerard's review, 5 stars)
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The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins centers on Joe Talbert, a college student, who has an English class assignment. This leads him to a man called Carl Iverson, in a nursing home, whose past is just the thing Joe is looking for. I thought this book was pretty good. Joe was a very good character and the other characters were well brought out too. The only bad part of this book is I thought it was too predictable.
(Gerard's review, 4 stars)
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Vicious by V. E. Schwab centers on Victor and Eli. When their research moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong! The first part of the book concentrates on Victor and the second part on Eli. This book goes back and forth in time, leading up to a fantastic ending.
This is some book! I enjoyed it right from page 1 and thought the characters were very interesting. Here is a teaser I chose from it:
He hardly felt the cold through his coat. He was too busy trying to picture what Eli's face would look like when he received their message. [from p. 26]
Gerard's review, 8/21/15, 5++ stars)
Here is the spoiler-free review we saw on YouTube that convinced Karen to read the book too:
Karen's review (8/28/15):
I started Vicious by V. E. Schwab expecting it to be great based on this video and my husband's recommendation; however, I only read a little over half and gave up on it. I didn't care for it at all. I didn't like either of the main characters and thought the whole premise was ridiculous. It is like a contemporary fantasy or science fiction, not sure which. In my opinion, it's like the old Twilight Zone TV show! The writing really annoyed me a lot too because it kept jumping all over the place. It's in the present, then 10 years ago, last night, 3 nights ago, back to the present, 10 years ago through the whole book. It only gets 1 star from me.
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Chasing Jenna by Micki Fredricks is about a young girl who goes to college and is befriended by two young men. For the first part of this there is a love triangle story where Jenna is torn between the two guys. The second part is more exciting because the action picks up. I understand that the first half sets the scene, but I thought dragged on too long but I loved the ending! It's well worth reading for sure, glad I stuck with it.
(Gerard's review 12/18/14, 4.5 stars)
Chasing Jenna is written by Micki Fredricks an Iowa
blogger and was just released last month. I received an ARC of this
from the author when I offered to review it. It is about Jenna, a poor
girl from a small town who grew up in an abusive home but is excited about
going off to college away from her hometown. As she is moving in, some
boys come by to help her with her things and show her around. Jenna and
her roommate immediately fall for them and find out that The Brotherhood they
belong to is not a fraternity, nor is it a house of nice guys who do volunteer
work in the community like Cale told them it was. This shows how easily
it is for girls to be deceived and misled. Jenna was used to going
unnoticed, but since she started college, she has two guys clamoring for
her.
This is a good story that would be good for teens to
read. It is scary that this type of thing actually happens but I don’t
want to ruin the book for you be saying too much. It has romance,
suspense, action and mystery. I liked it because although I thought Jenna
was a nut case and really didn’t care much for her, I was hoping she would be
okay so the story kept my interest.
(Karen's review 12/11/14, 5 stars)
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Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore is told by Mabel, a young college student who is befriended by Eve, a wealthy young girl. Mabel joins Eve in Eve's family summer estate and loves it! It's everything that she does not have. But at what price does all this wealth come?
The start of this book just plodded along so much that I almost dumped it but a reviewer on Amazon said it starts slow but to stay with it, so I did. It did pick up and then got really good. It's well worth reading and there was a dog in it with the same name as our dog--Abby. I loved her!
(Gerard's review, 4 stars)
Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!
The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day is
about a woman professor who is shot.The
shooter is dead.The professor comes
back to campus to continue her teaching career and to find out why she was the
one shot.When a young male student
wants to help her, is he doing it for good or does he have other motives?There is not much action in this, just the
mystery of why she was shot and why the student wants to help her find out.It’s not bad, worth reading.
(Gerard's review, 4.5 stars)
Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!
Good, Clean Murder by Traci
Tyne Hilton is indeed a plain Jane mystery. It is about Jane, a
20-yr-old college student hoping to go to the mission field and cleaning
houses to earn her way. Unfortunately, she gets involved in a
big mess because she refused to listen to her parents. Although it
started out with the murder which captured my interest, it quickly went
downhill from there and I found myself plowing through. I do not
recommend this one—didn’t care for it.
(Karen's review, 2 stars)
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The System--The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian is an outstanding eye-opening look at college football. It tells how it works and in some cased, how it doesn't work. This goes beyond the scoreboard by dealing with coaches, players, the athletic directors and even people outside the program who make a big impact off the field. I LOVED it and learned a lot!
(Gerard's review, 5++ stars)
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Warrior Girl by Matt Lazar and Amanda Thomas is about a young girl from Korea who goes to Oxford to better herself. I enjoyed reading about the people who she met and the plot is pretty good too. I got into it right away and it goes quick! It's very well written.
(Gerard's review, 5 stars)
(We received a review copy of this book which did not influence our opinion in any way and received no compensation for this review.)
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Game Over by Dave Zirin gives an eye opening account of things that happen in sports off the playing field. For example, Oregon University is struggling to pay their teachers, but that has no bearing on a brand new sports complex costing $41.7 million for their athletes to train in. At Texas, undergraduate tuition increased 4%, but their football coach got a raise of $2 million. This book has stuff like that which you don't always read in the sports pages. I enjoyed most of it and give it 4 stars. This is NOT a page-turner, more like a plow through. I almost gave up on it at the beginning.
(Gerard's review)
Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!
The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day is
about a woman professor who is shot. The
shooter is dead. The professor comes
back to campus to continue her teaching career and to find out why she was the
one shot. When a young male student
wants to help her, is he doing it for good or does he have other motives? There is not much action in this, just the
mystery of why she was shot and why the student wants to help her find out. It’s not bad, worth reading. 
Warrior Girl by Matt Lazar and Amanda Thomas is about a young girl from Korea who goes to Oxford to better herself. I enjoyed reading about the people who she met and the plot is pretty good too. I got into it right away and it goes quick! It's very well written.
