Flawed idea. Easy, enjoyable, readable story
919668
There is a fatal flaw regarding how he approaches car repairs.  He only looks at the starting circuit.  Any car made after 1979 has electronic ignition and many before that time did.  By 1990 almost all cars had computer controlled carburetors or fuel injection.  Strictly following his advice would only fix the starter circuit, allowing the engine to turn over but never start .
648551
This novel is readable and entertaining. I enjoyed it and will probably read the sequels (and I'm one of those who will quit after fifteen minutes if a book fails to engage me or isn't reasonably well written). It's clearly a first novel and has some of the typical shortcomings, but he has promise. The writing is a good bit better than a lot of first novels that I've read, and better than some high-selling well-known authors that I can think of (who shall remain nameless). I'd recommend it for a pleasant read with one major caveat: if you have no interest in role-playing games, it's probably not the novel you are looking for.
55727
I did enjoy this book - it's well crafted and original. The story's premise is generally believable, but skitters off course a few times. The main character's dilemma/ problem is compelling, but it's resolution is too easy, too cute almost. The sex scenes are generally good, but the women's repeated need to have their partner "inside" seemed a bit too hetero.
1323340
Annoyingly the story leaves off mid-chapter. I'm not sure why you would even publish a book without some halfhearted attempted of finishing a storyline. The book is an easy, quick read and only $1. I enjoyed the story and probably will get the second book, but there are a few things that made it difficult to read. The book is about Jane, a freshman at an elite east coast school. She has a rough childhood, but has risen above and was valedictorian. It is written from Jane's point of view, but sounds more like an 8th grader. Sometimes she comes across annoying and frankly unreasonable. If there was a drinking game related to how many times the author mentioned 'rules' for Garret, you'd be drunk by chapter 2 (ok, an exaggeration, but you get the idea).

I am on the fence about continuing the series. Mainly because I wonder how many books I'll have to read before a resolution to the story. Making a reader buy 7 books is a sneaky way of paying a lot of money for one story.
3222917
Enjoyable story and easy to read. But the incorrect word usage and spelling mistakes makes one wonder if anyone cared about the author enough to actually proof read the story. These mistakes take away what would otherwise be a good flow in the story.
Absolutely a good holiday read and well worth buying, but don't expect to rely on the historical fact in the novel, it is a lovely fabrication and not based on known history. This doesn't lessen the pleasure of the read.
1524952
I could only in all good consciousness give this read a three star rating, and I have a history of being generous but fair in my ratings. This was an easy story to adapt to, it was in every meaning of the word, just a romance. It had a certain simplicity, however, that almost became boring at times. The idea of family was certainly portrayed, and again almost overdone.  Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it but probably would not be considered one of my personal favorites or recommendations.
3442634
To me, the COVER looks like the target audience is meant to be a teenage boy.  However, as a middle aged woman I found the book to be completely enjoyable.  It's easy to care about the heroes.  It's also not possible to guess all of the villains until the end so there's a nice plot twist there.  I read the second book in the series and liked that enough that I will continue with the rest of the series. There were no disturbing levels of violence. Sadly, like many indie writers, there was inadequate proofreading.  Sometimes it was hard to understand a sentence because of incorrect word usage, missing words, or typos.
1646878
I really wanted to give this a good review because it's written by a fellow author on the fanfiction archive Ghosts of the Vanguard, and I definitely don't want to discourage anyone. The story is very short and simple, which isn't a bad thing, but the characters don't make up for it. They're one-dimensional, even Gina Torres and Maureen Grey. The story itself is a well-known one: Wife is domestically abused, kills husband during attack, is acquitted under self-defense and moves away. The abusive husband was set up with a back story that would leave people saying, "It was obvious he'd be a wife beater." It seems too easy.

The story is littered with typos, redundancies, and grammar mistakes that could easily be fixed simply by carefully reading through the piece. The first one to jump out at me was on the very first page, which read, "After about five minutes of ringing the bell for about a minute." "About a minute" is used often for actions that don't actually take a full minute to complete.

I feel like this story can't be a reflection of Ms. Johnson's ability. This story seems hastily thrown together as a "safe" first publication. It is need of some serious fleshing out, and a few more plot points.
4441299
This is a book I picked up in the store because the cover looked intriguing, no other reason. The writing is average, and the overuse of rather ordinary description hinders the text. It also suffers from lots of plot holes and some rather convenient plot contrivances. But, the story does move along rapidly and keeps your interest.
I am really not sure what to make of Albert of Adelaide. I enjoyed reading it; the ending is appropriately untidy and open-ended and seems to work. But the novel is not that great. The text is a blend of genres: western, fantastical, mixed with conventional buddy story. However, it does not say anything really new or even that profound about any of those topics. The most moving aspects are the moments in the text when the focus is on loneliness and the need for friendship.
Albert of Adelaide is a typical surface level western. What has made it stand out for people is that its main character is a platypus and the other characters are all animals in the Australian Outback.  So my question is how does changing the characters from human to animal enhance the book? Other novels with animal protagonists use that device to enhance understanding of some human trait or serve as satire of humanity. This novel does neither. It has some heavy handed moments, one such example being how dingoes become a metaphor for aborigines or Native Americans. Thought to be one thing, but really just a misunderstood culture, blah blah...okay we get it.
I think this novel had a lot of potential. As it stands it is just a fun read with some shallow metaphor thrown in to make you think a little. I would teach it to high school students, where it would not come across as trite, and I would also read it for a quick fun diversion. But I would not expect any more from it than that.
Enjoy the novel for what it is, a quick story with some clever and likable characters, and put it down and move on. To approach it as anything more will be setting yourself up for disappointment.
48433
The review title says it all, a great movie premise that doesn't work as a novel.  The thing is, the reasons it didn't wind up working as a novel are so easy to fix with some good editing.

The premise is pretty interesting:  An island in the South Pacific ignored through time by humanity.  All too easy to believe, that and the fact that it's animals and insects might have evolved differently given that isolation, most of them into lethal predators.  Those who come across the island over the centuries don't make it out of there to tell the tale.  Again, we're rolling here, and it's after a reading of this premise that the Jurassic Park comparisons come.  The stars of the book are the creatures, and it's clear that Warren Fahy has quite an imagination for these types of things, and I was glad that he included drawings as well, as some of his descriptions were very complex.  He's got a great imagination, there's no denying it.

That said, a story needs interesting characters, and Fragment doesn't have any.  The novel is populated by stock characters, including every scientific geek possible, none of whom make an impression.  Indeed I got some of them mixed up by the halfway point, including the deputy hero and the ostensible villain, something that you don't want to do.  The real issue though was the dialogue, as it was almost uniformly bad.  Fanfiction dialogue is better than this most of the time, sometimes a lot better.  Characters all too often acted like drama queens, for no other reason than they could, and there was a lot of shouting where it didn't seem called for.  I say that because there seemed to be just as many sentences ending in exclamation points as in periods.  This all could/should have been fixed in the editing process, and it's hard to get mad at Fahy for it.  Hopefully this gets fixed for the promised sequel.

Was it a waste of money?  Not really, not for $8.  I'll also have a leg up on most when the movie comes out, as I'll know about the creatures.  I can't wait to see what WETA or ILM does with them.  Just, and I'm begging movie studio X, gives us halfway decent characters.  Please?

Two stars.
3818660
OK so the idea of this story is great. The characters Zion & Aubrey are easy to like and Grandma Maureen & Eddie Echo are great fun.

Aubrey and Zion are young and although Zion is part of The Wolves MC Aubrey is in a bit of a limbo not of her making. Her parents have made bad decisions and unfortunately she is paying dearly for them. She has no time for a relationship, she has a life plan and it does not involve finding a boyfriend, least of all one that is an MC member.

There is a mystery element to this story too which means Zion & Aubrey keep finding themselves thrown together whether they want it or not.

Overall I enjoyed the story, but it did keep switching between the 1st and 3rd person POV which I found a bit hard to follow. In saying that, it didn't take too much away from the overall tone of the book.
If you like MC books and don't mind the change in 1st and 3rd person POV then this would be worth checking out.

Reviewed on behalf of FMR BookGrind
2039092
*Written By Connie Nicols*

 Let me start by saying that I liked a lot about this book despite a less-than-stellar rating. The premise was interesting--the main character had a lot of disappointments all at once and decided to kill herself and donate her organs to do some good in the world. Sounds depressing, but it was actually written well and handled, believe it or not, light-heartedly. She gets pressured into an organ-buying scheme which gives her some cash and some time to fulfill her bucket list. Since she has lived a very sheltered and ordered life, most of the items on her list are easily accomplished but way outside her comfort zone.  We follow her antics as she attempts to try new things, usually with over-the-top difficulties arising from her inexperience and naivet&eacute;.  Her former coworker becomes a mentor of sorts who encourages her to grow and helps her to lighten up quite a bit.  The title is a clever play-on-words based on the well-known phrase of Carpe Diem or Seize the Day.  What took away so many stars in my review was the main character herself. Because she had been so sheltered growing up, she had turned into a very small-minded and judgmental adult.  Not her fault, perhaps, but most of her comments and criticisms about other people were just downright petty and mean. It was too bad, really, because otherwise the book was enjoyable. But I couldn't relate at all to the MC, actually disliking her on many occasions.

Because this is Part 1, we are left hanging in mid-story, with no resolution to Emilys major decision and the resulting problems.

PLOT: 3.5 stars

The premise of this story was, oddly enough, death and suicide.  When Emily faces a number of problems in her life, she reacts (make that OVER-reacts) strongly by deciding that shed do better to die and donate her organs, thus leaving a positive legacy to the world.  No one would expect this plot to be enjoyable, but it somehow works, drawing us in to her thought processes and forcing us to wonder how we would handle the same situation.

WRITING: 4 stars

Fords writing is light enough that she takes what could be a depressing premise and turns it into something quite amusing and very readable.  Her jokes are frequent and fairly off-color which often made me cringe with their raunch, but many readers might find them funny.

COVER: 3 stars
Another graphic cover, this one shows Emily in one of her out-of-her-comfort-zone activities once she has made her decision about donating her organs.  Its well-done, suggesting a sense of speed as she rides a hog for the first time.

CHARACTERS: 1.5 stars
The characters were the biggest disappointment with this story.  Emily is judgmental and provides such a sense of entitlement that I couldn't warm up to her.  She even alienates her boyfriend and the one friend shes developed over the years.  Her coworker, however,  is friendly and warm, despite Emilys off-putting attitude.
4532577
I accidentally found this book while searching for something on Google. It seemed interesting, so I looked at the sample on Amazon, and then checked it out in Overdrive.

I was held fairly well throughout the story. It was easy to read, conversational. I had hopes of a spectacular ending, a twist that would make me rush out and find another book in the series. Unfortunately that didn't happen. It felt forced. Like the author just sort of tapped out at the end. I had a difficult time suspending my disbelief in the out-working of the conclusion. I could think of about six different ways it could have ended but didn't.

It was fun to read, but anticlimactic. I'd like to give it 3.5 stars, but I can't, and since it was fun to read, the story had an excellent premise, I decided to rate up rather than down.

If you're familiar with southern (USA) culture, you have a decent vocabulary without an insistence on complex paragraphs and letter-of-the-law grammar, and you don't expect a thrilling twist at the end, this story will be worth your afternoon.

I will likely pick up another in this series eventually, but I'm still undecided.
4301282
The story's concept was really great. I don't know why it has never been used before. There were very few typos and mistakes, rare even in books from very small presses such as this. The main female character is strong and focused on her  objective...I liked that.

For my personal taste in zombie novels and other end of the world stories, I was happy that the story started at the beginning of the outbreak. Personally, I like it even better when the story starts a little earlier, but few do. The main female character was very focused on her big objective, and I liked that. She was so focused on it, that it caused problems for others, which made me want to smack her. I don't know if this was good or bad, in terms of story quality. Selfish, certainly. Bad, very bad from some of her companions, very much so.

Room for improvement. The story follows several small groups. Each story segment is told in first person from the point of view of that segment's primary character. I did not like the shift in POV...I just find this technique jarring.

The author seems to leave out tiny little transitional details. Example, the main heroine is moving a piece of equipment around, and then suddenly is at the stairwell door - without the equipment. The heroine has a habit of endangering others in pursuit of her goal, which appears hopeless. It is fine for a lead character to have an annoying trait or set of actions. But this didn't seem to have a realistic impact on the other characters. If I were in that situation, I'd be darn mad her the heroine, I wouldn't continually let her put me in danger, and I'd be spitting mad at her for putting my loved ones in danger. That doesn't seem to happen.

I purchased this book on a day it was deeply, deeply discounted. The kindle price now is $7.99. It *is* nearly 370 pages in length. But,for me, I probably wouldn't pay quite that much for it.

I love that the main character is female, I love that she is strong, yet flawed. She is a nurse, and I think the author must have a medical background -- the first few pages of the heroine's story have such great detail of that profession, it adds a lot to the story.
331495
There are mild spoilers contained within this review.

Firstly, the good: I liked the story. It was a solid plot line with suitably likeable and hate-able characters. The imagery didn't leave me wondering what the surroundings were like, but at the same time didn't go into too much boring detail  leaving nothing to the imagination. The main character had enough flaws to make him believable, but not so many that he was annoying; his self deprecating sense of humor was just goofy enough to make him likable without giving the impression that he's a halfwit. There were no important loose ends, since it is obvious that this is the first of series and anything major left unanswered could be picked up in the next installment.

The bad: If felt that a good editor could have polished this story a little better. There are no overly glaring grammar mistakes or misspellings, but there were rough parts where the POV changes so suddenly that I had to go back and re-read the preceding paragraph to make sure I hadn't missed something. Mort (the main character) achieves many milestones in this story and is gravely injured more than once, but it seems no one thinks to send for his adoptive parents while he is on the brink of death--this just felt left out, and it would have been so easy to mention that someone had sent word to them and then a suitable excuse made for their absence if their appearance didn't fit in with the story. Also(this is my own personal opinion), in a fantasy story I prefer the world to be less paralleled with ours. It's hard to explain, but the use of common vernacular and swear words, common English names (there was one from Greek mythology, too), and other small nuances could have been changed to make it seem like the author created this whole world from scratch, instead of making me think maybe this is just an alternate version of Earth.

All in all it is a good read, and none of the faults I found with it would keep me from reading the second installment. If you are a fan of fantasy and adventure novels, this one would fall nicely into that category.
801821
The idea is great, the story is good, but the writer lucks talent. I didn't like her way of writing, too simple and full of inconsistencies.

This is a very easy read, I finished it the same day. As I said, it is a good book, but far from being a masterpiece.
4155251
"The Princess of Dhagabad" surprised me with its engaging story and lovable characters--particularly as I picked it up for free.

Despite my love for the story and the characters of Hasan and the princess, I cannot give this story any higher than a 3-star review due to the grammar issues throughout the book.  The story often makes abrupt perspective changes (from princess to Hasan and back) without properly setting up for them.  Yes, the idea was to slowly let you realize who is speaking in italics, but for the first few chapters, I thought her dead grandmother was talking to us in italics instead of Hasan due to lacking even a guarded hinting towards it.  Intended or not, it came off as sloppy at first and heavy-handed later.

Also, there were missing words and blatant grammatical errors throughout the work.  Though they were not nearly as abundant as what is normally seen in books downloaded on free giveaways, it truly is depressing that someone who can so wonderfully craft  such lovable and wonderful characters cannot bother to find an editor with even a college student's grasp of grammar to read over her work.  My hope and prayer is that her second book is reviewed by someone with a better grasp of tense, word order, and with an eye for missing words.