I wanted so badly to like this
920784
I knew it was going to be antiquated when I read the part about the texters and Freddies terrible joke about no more LOL, no more BRB, just CUL8r.... but I tried for a while longer before giving up.

I tried so hard but I quit after the first text message between Genevieve and Freddie. U r 2 good 2 B true????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its an inside joke  from that first awful conversation.  I bet it comes up again later and I cant even handle it.

This feels like it was written for early 2000s, not 2012. I know weve come a long way in the past 6 years, but in 2012 I was not laughing about that shit, since my friends had been loling and brbing since the mid 90s on AIM.

The dialogue is sticky and forced.
Boring jokes that I don't realize are jokes until another character laughs (things about the bad food in the cafeteria or stupid freshman, etc)...

There are people winking at each other (seriously... who winks?), discussing technology and programming numbers into their phones, over-explaining things that don't really need explaining (like herding cats, this statement is false, vicious circle).

Throwing in words like epic and sick at strange times just makes me aware of the authors presence.

The storyline seems interesting, but I really cant handle the writing. Its another great idea written poorly. :(
3789520
I wanted to like this because the concept was so interesting.  And I really tried.  But even on CD I didn't have the patience for it.

On the plus side, I can say it's beautifully written.  Lovely prose, lovely metaphors, very rich and ornamental. The story is told largely though whimsical metaphors and the imaginings of the characters.  It's very psychological and fantastical.

On the negative side, the story is just so bogged down in all this stuff that there really is no story outside of it.  The story is as much fantasy and metaphor as it is real plot.  This is certainly a valid kind of book, and for someone with more patience, might be a great book.  I just didn't have the patience for it - I prefer an easy, straightforward read.  Strictly entertainment.  This was just too haute literature for me.
704542
This book had so much potential. I wanted to like it. I really did. Unfortunately, I just didn't like it at all. The idea is great, but the writing and flow need a lot of work.

I would have liked a lot more information on the world before everyone disappeared. The description mentions the soaring population and the outlawing of birth control. I would have liked to know why and how this happened; it sounded so interesting.

I've read several reviews that said the beginning of the book was slow. Yes, in a way it was, but the beginning was really the only part I liked. Once Darrel and Felix met up with Maggy, things went way downhill for me. I struggled to finish, and if I didn't have the nice personality quirk of having to finish books I start, I probably would not have finished this book after Maggy came into the picture. I didn't like her a bit. The nicknames were cruel, and in Felix's case, racist. She seemed very annoying in general. I also, honestly, just despised the "alion" thing and how she pushed it on everyone they met. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe a 17 year old would correct a military official on something so superficial, and even more unbelievable that these adults would just accept this and not wave her away like the pest she is. I mentally corrected it to alien.

Darrel is really not much better. The...sound...he makes all the time is just annoying. Every time the group stops for a few minutes, it seems he's eating or thinking about eating or wanting to eat...it gets old, fast. And really, I don't need to know every time he wets himself. Ick. I get that they're scared, but some things are better left unsaid. Also, the "bromigo" thing was just irritating as all get out. Apparently, when I got the book, it had been edited to remove 75% of the bromigo/bramiga's. I am so thankful for this. The 25% that were left were still WAY too many, though. I found myself rolling my eyes eventually.

The main characters are supposed to be 16/17. If this had not been stated outright, I would have put their ages at about 13. They act younger and more immature than their ages. This really took away from the story for me.

Honestly, there were very few characters I liked in this book, and one of those few ended up dead. Though, since the book is VERY "video game"-y, I can say I seriously would not have been surprised one bit if he had re-spawned. Seriously. "Xxxxxx screamed as the massive paws and powerful jaws of the feline extraterrestrial ripped into his body. Our faces went slack with shock as we simultaneously wet our pants. I reached for my inhaler, sucking on it like a crackhead trying to get as much of the last hit as possible. We sighed in relief a few minutes later, when he re-spawned several yards away." *not an actual quote, though had it been, I wouldn't have been even mildly surprised* I'm not even joking: it wouldn't have shocked me one bit.

The book really does read like a sub-par first-person shooter. Maybe this would make a decent video game; I don't know. What I do know is, in my opinion, it does not make a very good book. The ending seemed completely unrealistic and rushed. It seemed like it needed a little more thought, a little more time.

I won't harp on the spelling/grammar issues. Others have done this already and probably did a better job than I would. It did get a little distracting, though. The book needs more editing, to catch those mistakes.

Again, I really wanted to like this book. The summary made it sound so interesting. However, the writing style was just not something I enjoy, and the plot went in an entirely different direction than I'd expected, and unfortunately, I did not like that direction.

Oh, important information: I am WAY out of the target demographic for this book. I read it because I just flat-out love YA dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction. Perhaps if I were still in junior high I would enjoy it. Younger readers may enjoy it; I, however, did not.

This review originally appeared on GoodReads.
3737064
I really, really wanted to like this. But the writing just wasn't there.
132581
I tried to like this book. I truly did. I got it from the library and tried to read it. In six weeks I barely got past the first 100 pages. But then advertisements for the next season on Starz renewed my interest and I purchased the first book in the series. Four months later and I was barely past 150 pages. I can devour a Game of thrones book in less than a week - Philippa Gregory novels usually don't last more than three or four days before I have consumed every last word and they always leave me begging for more. Even when parts of the books I'm reading get bogged down in detail or minor plot points that don't seem to have anything to do with the main story, I can power through based on the extreme interest to see how it all will end. I love historical novels and Scottish folklore and time travel so this seemed tailor made for me.

But nothing could keep my interest in this book. The characters are barely developed and difficult to like. Claire seems to barely blink an eye at learning she's traveled back in time and Jamie flips between being a noble do-gooder and a smug jerk. Every other character seems to be just background noise and the author shows a slightly disturbing fascination with descriptions of violence against both men and women. While some of what is described might be chalked up to historical accuracy, some of it is just plain unnecessary and the reactions of the characters unlikely and unbelievable.

But not one to give up easily, I thought that reading some reviews of the book might give me better insight to why this series is so popular and might help motivate me to get over the hump and find that part that will hook me. I read dozens of 5 star reviews talking about the engaging characters and the "love story." But since I like to get multiple opinions, I also looked at some of the negative reviews. And reading those made my decision to throw this book in the trash extremely easy and almost satisfying. I am happy to say I didn't make it to the part where marital rape is celebrated and will be eternally grateful for that. The beatings and near rapes I read in the first 180 pages was enough for me and this book is now resting exactly where it belongs - in a landfill.
3844187
I wanted to love this so much. It doesn't fit me at all.
738372
First off, I REALLY wanted to like this show. I knew it would be prime-time-pg but still I expected thoughtful writing at the very least. This show introduces more questions than it answers, continually goes back in its decisions, and apart from one adhd character it's cast is lifeless and droll. The main character is barely likable, and after a few episodes it didn't get any better. Moreover the whole show is built on fairy tale lore, which a darker version of it would be really great, but it's lore that feels like it was written on a paper napkin by a 6yr old - and that's also a dig on how much actual lore they share with you, barely a napkins worth.

I will say that the "Bluthbadt" character (Silas Weir Mitchel) is hilarious and got at least a good chuckle out of me each episode... but then I realized it was the only time I liked the show. An episode before the last I watched they dropped a whole character plot arc altogether and left him in a basement to, presumably, die of starvation. It's negligent writing at its best to fill a prime time slot, and it's too bad because it had real potential.
2076196
I wanted to like this so much. I support the cause. I thought the crystals might be a better solution for my Siberian with abundant foot hair. Not! She tracked this stuff all over my hardwood floors--and the next morning, my bare feet felt pretty bad. Like walking over rock salt. Terrible, terrible, terrible. This product survived for less than 24 hours in my litter box--back to something else.
2928930
I really wanted to like this.  My family is from the Buffalo area, near where Electrohome is headquartered.  Unfortunately, I'm glad it was on my wife's amazon prime so we could easily return it and I now have to admit she was right and I should have just paid the $20 extra bucks for an iHome radio.  I hate admitting when I'm wrong but in this case it wasn't even close.

The main issue is that it is incredibly bright, even at the lowest setting, and (especially annoying) even when you set the display to off, it lights up a little beacon light that is small but shows at full brightness.  Let's think about this, if someone is bothered enough by the brightness to set the screen to dark (not dim, screen is off), why would you then turn on a power light at full brightness?  They may be headquartered in North America but I think the design work is either Chinese or done by people with brain damage.

That bad design continues into the functionality.  Using the directions, it was easy enough to figure out but I guarantee my parents/wife couldn't figure it out without the directions handy at the nightstand.  For me, this would have been forgivable if they had better dimming options.  At the dimmest setting it should be barely visible in a dark room, middle should be clearly visible in a dark room but still probably too dim for daylight, and bright should be clearly visible in daylight.  In full daylight, the dimmest setting is still easily visible from across the room.

Last thing, the speaker is on the lower back of the clock, so you are getting reflected sound from what has got to be the cheapest speaker you could find.  I bought this partly because of the radio reception so I could get a clearer signal.  The signal isn't any clearer on the faint station I want to tune in (PLL sounded good, turns out to be the same as a $12 alarm clock I have) and the sound on stronger stations is so bad it wouldn't make any difference anyways.  I am not expecting anything special here; it is after all an alarm clock.  That said, I have heard a lot of cheap alarm clock radios and this one is definitely the worst.

We have a (now discontinued) Sony that works with 30-pin iPods and the sound is great, the functionality is clean and simple, the screen is too bright but at least it isn't like someone's playing a joke on you, and the price was less than this.  If they made it with a lightning connection, I'd be buying it but the new version looks like a tube that will roll right off my nightstand and costs a lot more to do things no one really cares about anyways.

I guess I'll be ordering one of those iHome alarm clocks and telling my wife she was right (again).
209569
Magic + alternate dimensions + rebellion against a totalitarian government + kids ruling the world + love +etc. Sounds like a good combination for a great book right? I wish. You can't write a book based on a formula of things you think young adults like. You actually have to connect it all. This book and series had so much potential. It could have been soooo good. I looked forward to reading it, instead I found myself smacking my forehead in frustration and disbelief over and over again.

I don't mind the short chapters or the fact that the chapters alternate between the point of view of the two main characters. A lot of great books do that very well. What I do mind is that the two main characters are so flat and undeveloped that without the character's name being stated at the beginning of the chapter, most of the time I didn't know whose point of view I was reading: the brother's or the sister's. Almost all of the characters are completely 2-dimensional. All of the dialogue from the evil adults consists of them yelling. They're all so angry, and well, evil, which again makes them really hard to tell apart. None of the characters are realistic. And I am not talking about being able to use magic. I am talking about how people do not talk or act like this. No matter how apathetic or lazy you think teenagers are, I think they'd notice is such a completely radically and repressive government had taken over of their world. Kids have been going missing for sometime before the book starts, our two main characters notice this. But when they're abducted in the middle of the night by government agents, they have never even heard of this government. They've never even suspected that they might be different, let alone that they have any powers. And yet when they meet up with other kids, those kids know everything: about magic, about the world of the dead, about the government, about the prophecies. (Can someone tell me why the prophecies appear on the wall of an upscale department store and only there?) These two main characters will often spend a paragraph in denial insisting that they don't have powers or that they can't possibly go on/can't win, and in the very next paragraph they have complete control/knowledge of their powers and are determined and confident in what they're about to do without anything in between showing how they got from point A to point B in their thinking.

The entire book, and series, felt like the authors were feeling particularly lazy. As if they sat down over a weekend, churned these out, and had them published without any second thought. I wish I could remember any of the many pages where a character tells us that "you wouldn't believe it if I told you" and therefore they don't even bother trying to describe what they are seeing or how they moved from one city to another in a matter of seconds. Further, consider all of the consistencies. The so called "Lost Ones" in the world of the dead. At first they're described as humans who got lost in the "Shadowland" (world of the dead) for too long and began to mutate and now chase after anyone alive and wandering around Otherworld. They desperately want to go home. Later on, all of a sudden, they're actually dead people who were bad when they were alive and this is their punishment. Now they can talk, think, cook and eat humans, and work for the evil government leader. Did I miss something?

I actually like a lot of YA books, but these seemed like they were written by authors who don't remember what it's like to be a YA and therefore vastly underestimated their readers. It even seemed a bit disrespectful that they put so little effort into it. I'm not the kind of person to quit reading a book without finishing it, but every step of the way I kept wishing I was. It was definitely a page turner in the sense that I wanted it finished with as soon as possible. And unfortunately I had already bought the next two books without starting this one, otherwise I would've been able to quit after the first book. And no, the next two books don't get any better.
806165
I feel like this album could have been good. It had some good parts, and I liked the atmosphere that it was trying to bring. I really did try to like this. But it sounded like they were focused way too much on adding way too many layers complexity to all of the songs. And I don't mean musical complexity. There really isn't any of that here. I just mean a mess of different synth loops all layered on top of each other.

Now I appreciate that they're trying to make something different, and I really love all kinds of bizarre music, but a lot of this album was downright obnoxious. They'll play the same damn synth over and over again, even though it doesn't even mesh with anything else in the song at all in the first place. I get that they're trying to be psychedelic, but that's not how you do it. More sounds doesn't necessarily mean better. The sounds need to work with each other, otherwise it's just random noise.

So all and all I'm pretty disappointed. I was pretty psyched when I saw a bunch of positive reviews popping up for this, hoping they might have produced something amazing again. But I felt like it was a chore to listen to and I was glad it was over by the time it was done. I'll admit the last song wasn't terrible, and many songs had good parts to them. It's just that they were few and far between, and often stuff that could have been decent was masked by an excessive amount of obnoxious sound effects.
1609920
I wanted so badly to like this book. The author is a very talented writer and her use of unique alliteration gave me hope that the story was going to be great.
However, halfway through the book I came to the repulsive conclusion that it draws a ton of parallels to the aquarium-gravel that is 50 Shades of Grey. Elle's "relationship" (if you can even call it that) with Penn has all the makings of an abusive one. He stalks her, demeans her, treats her like garbage and EVEN THREATENS TO KILL HER. The way Elle repeatedly convinces herself that she's going to tell him to leave her alone, and even when she does and he refuses, is a classic sign of a controlling, abusive relationship. I kept hoping the story would turn around, but as the ending hangs on a cliff I wasn't able to justify any of the horrendous abuse caused by the abomination of Penn Everett.
So to sum up: don't have sex with someone who hurts you. Get the cops involved as soon as you feel unsafe with any guy. And if you EVER meet a man like Penn Everett, kick him in the throats and run in the opposite direction.
Pepper Winters, I'm super disappointed in you for romanticizing yet another abusive relationship.
1797230
I wanted to like it. The premise sounded good and the bit that I read from the preview intrigued me enough to grab it. Joe's character in the first part totally grabbed me and I wanted to find out more about him.

And then he'd become a complete jerk and I couldn't figure out how anyone would fall for him. He wasn't the mysterious jerk, he wasn't the guy whose inner thoughts made me hope for him. Oh no. No, his inner thoughts after meeting the heroine just made me dislike him so much that I couldn't stand reading about him.

I'm all for "hate each other at the beginning, fall in love later" stories. Those are fun. This one just wasn't. Not a book for me.
4683978
I so wanted to like this book! It sat on my shelf for a few months,and i  was convinced it would be a treat.... sadly, it had me gritting my teeth by  the end of the first chapter.
  Somewhere, buried beneath the accents  which dominated every page, was a good book trying to get out.  It could  have been so much more than it was, but when faced with shallow stock  fantasy characters who all spoke in an indecipherable mock-scottish burr,  it didn't stand a chance.
The main emotion Isabeau provoked was to make  me want to throttle her for being so stupid; and if one more person said  "Och, aye ken she be a bonny lass," I really felt i would have  screamed.  It was all so trite.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't dreadful.  But there was so much potential there which just was wasted. The unsubtle  hint that the concept had its roots in scifi was unnecessary; the fantasy  concept didn't need justifying, and it just added to the general  clutter.
I wouldn't mind reading the sequels - but i'm not about to rush  out and spend more money on them.  But other people obviously love this  stuff, so maybe i'm just fussy..!
3855548
I really wanted to like this book. The cover is mysterious and draws you in and Nova's writing is artistic and unique, but that's where the praise stops. The story basically makes no sense. There's direction or meaning and everything seemed so random and pointless to me. I seriously struggled to get through this book, my OCD about having to finish a book whether good or bad getting to me, otherwise I would've dropped it after the first couple of chapters. I was stuck on this book for quite awhile, often wondering if I should finish it or give up on it, but like I said, I had to know it ends. The end wasn't even really an ending.

This book is filled with idealizations of Ruby by her sister Chloe, a weird and mysterious event involving a seemingly dead body, and a town that was apparently obsessed with Ruby like she was a goddess or something. Nova filled this book with the most random thoughts and events in such a confusing way, I honestly couldn't see where she was going with this story. Even though I finished the book, I was mostly skimming through the pages after about half way because I just wanted to get it over with. I guess that might mean I didn't really read it, but honestly, I don't know how I could've gotten through it otherwise.

The characters were uninteresting, to say the least, truly adding nothing to the plot or my interest. The story was not only slow and confusing, but what was supposed to be eerie and awe-inspiring turned out to be dull and ordinary. I found no appeal to this book whatsoever, maybe because I'm not into that artistic, conceptual writing that's supposed to be astract and mean a hundred different things. I really don't know what else to say except that this wasn't for me. I have to say, I'm so happy I won this in a giveaway because I would've kicked myself in the butt if I had actually paid money for this book. Sorry Nova Ren Suma, your writing is just not for me.
3256982
I really wanted to like this book and given all of the initial glowing reviews - I wanted to like it even more. At the end of the day I read 2.5 books in the series and had to throw in the towel -

The good -

A new twist on an old plot complication - I like the insertion of new a species rather than just the typical werewolf vampire scenario

The Bad -

Romance - I dislike novels where animal/magical magnetism seems to be the only thing driving a relationship. Ember and Eli hate each other in one paragraph and in the next they are wildly groping. I also could not figure out if Ember was a 19 year old virgin or a 40 year old cougar

Decision Making - Ember keeps making the same bad decisions. Come help us destroy the world or we will hurt your friend (I guess agreeing is supposed to come across as compassion - but it feels more like stupidity and selfishness)

Repetitive - The author uses the same plot device (kidnapping friends) at least 4 times - The third time is the worst - "oh no! I forgot where the safety boundary ended and walked right out because I needed some fresh air" That coupled with the fact that the bad guy just always seems to be in the right place at exactly the right time - without any real reason drove me nuts!

Timeline - Brown makes a horrible mistake when trying to create 2 different time zones - A day in the otherworld for Ember turns into 3 years while a few days/months there for her friends is the same as the real world - It wasn't bad a first but once I realized the conflicts it made everything the queen and her minions did silly.
2462543
I've had to come off coffee (even decaf) recently because of a caffeine intolerance, and miss it.  So in looking for alternatives, I saw that many people reviewed Roastaroma positively as a possible stand-in.  I wanted to like this, really I did.  But I could not make myself like it.  I tried different amounts of steeping time, adding milk, even steeping it entirely in milk as one reviewer suggested.  No dice.  I'm halfway through one of six (unreturnable) boxes.  Maybe I can stomach it eventually as a tea, brewed weakly- I really don't want to throw away so much tea.  But the last time I drank the stuff I had to go brush my teeth just to get rid of the aftertaste.

If you like very weak coffee, and make this with a lot of milk and lightly steeped tea, you may like it.  But I like very strong coffee (and tea) and just couldn't recommend Roastaroma, made strong or weak.