Search

A. Rowland Book Reviews

A regular girl with an insatiable love of books

The Girl On The Train

This books has been highly anticipated, and one that I needed to read prior to watching the movie. Coming off a Harry Potter high, this was a complete change in direction and a much needed escape.

As a fan of Gone Girl, I was hoping this book would live up to the hype. It definitely delivered. I was hooked from the first chapter, trying to see how the lives of the characters all intertwined together. With each perspective, the reader can see how they meet and how their lives intersect each other. I was on the edge of my seat, almost completely convinced of who the real killer was. Even the last few chapters had me questioning everyone. Neglecting reality, I was completely immersed with the lives of Rachel, Tom, Anna, Megan and Scott. It is impossible to feel sorry for any of then, yet you find yourself caught off guard by the end. I can see why so many of my friends recommended this book. If you are looking for a story that twists and turns and keeps you guessing until the very end, then this is the book!

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Featured post

National Book Lovers Day

Good morning Book Lovers. It’s been a few months since I’ve posted any reviews and honestly, it’s been hard to summarize the latest book I have read. 

Currently I’m reading “A man called Ove” and it’s been the perfect summer read. In honor of National Book Lovers Day, what are you reading? 

That Night by Chevy Stevens

That Night

Chevy Stevens has become one of my favorite thriller Fiction authors. Her stories have kept me up at night and have invaded my dreams. Her characters are rich and twisted and nothing is as it seems. I like it a little dark and twisty. My escape from reality is in those books who show me the darkness of a person without having to fear them. This is my fourth book of hers and I have delved into everyone of them and eagerly devoured them. I finished this story in two days. Out of all of the ones I have read, this was the first time that I did not like her characters. They all were very hard to like or root for. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe sometimes we don’t have to like the characters to have a good story.

What I did not like about this book was the rush at the end. The last two chapters summed up the book, gave us a reason to like Toni (the main character) and hope for a happy ending. But it did not do it for me. I felt empty. Like the author either didn’t have anything else left to say and rushed us through or spent so much time explaining Toni’s life on the inside of prison that the ending was almost an afterthought. There was only one “OMG I didn’t see that coming” moment but very little time was spent explaining that. And the reaction of the parents at the end was unsettling. Why wasn’t this bit of information shared with them? Why did they not know what was going on? So many questions with no answers or closure.

Don’t me wrong, I will still recommend this book. I love her stories, and I loved the story line. I just wished for a little more explanation at the end. Give me a little closure before I move on. Chevy Stevens ranks up there with Gillian Flynn. If you like all things dark and twisty, I high recommend her books.

A Thousand Splendid Suns


After reading The Kite Runner, I couldn’t imagine a more eye-opening, heartbreaking story of life in Afghanistan. Then I read A Thousand Splendid Suns. The story of Afghanistan’s fight for freedom as told through the eyes of two very different women who end up sharing the same dream. A life greater than what they have. The richness of history and the complexities of life for women in this country when under vastly different rulers show the strength of the characters and the hardships they endured. This story will open your eyes to what women face in a war torn country where they are viewed as less than property. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Kite Runner

kite_runner

*Disclaimer: This is not a book review of “The Kite Runner” yet. I am beginning to read “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and want to do a compare and contrast of both books.*

With that being said, if “A Thousand Splendid Suns” wrecks me anything like “The Kite Runner” did, I should probably not be reading on my lunch breaks at work.

With our current state of affairs politically, these stories remind me that despite the anger and distrust and progress or lack of progress we have in this country, we are still extremely fortunate to live under a democracy, even if we don’t agree with the outcome.

Reading stories like these, I have more compassion for those who are suffering in other countries. My heart breaks for them, for the innocents, for the ones who follow along because they don’t have a choice, for those who so desperately want to stand up for freedom and justice, but risk death of themselves or their families if they do.

Lumping groups of people together because they share the same ethnicity, homeland, religion or gender does none of us any good, and it just gives us an excuse to look away.

I highly recommend “The Kite Runner” but will hold off on my review until the next post. Please share your thoughts on this book!

Blog post title

This is an additional placeholder post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post.

Blog post title

This is an additional placeholder post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post.

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑
https://arowlandbookreviews.wordpress.com/
arowlandbookreviews.wordpress.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-34
65242
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:FLYDBJNE5ITUPOZU7ICPRUMA7QP7TPSA
<urn:uuid:6b7679a2-c645-43c1-be0e-5d631adf6b18>
2017-08-17T23:19:37Z
192.0.78.12
text/html
sha1:Y6A4JTXLAWCY4STQ3QQA2ITC5SRGMT6U
<urn:uuid:312e94f2-315c-4958-8db0-671780c61bdf>
https://arowlandbookreviews.wordpress.com/
length
response
<urn:uuid:e47f31c7-4ffc-47e0-a5ed-205f90ac386b>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-233-154-15.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-34
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf