Wanted to like it, BUT...NO
932457
first let me say that i really don't appreciate people who post reviews without trying any of the recipes [and that happens alot on Amazon]...that being said, i have to mention how disappointed i was in some of the recipes that i tried...e.g Cauliflower and Oyster Mushroom  Tacos...sounds GREAT, right? WOW so FN terrible i had to throw it out...I LOVE to cook esp vegetarian recipes and have a pretty good feeling for a recipe just from reading the ingredients...I also have a rule that when you try a recipe for the first time, you follow it exactly even if you question the ingredients and their quantities.  Well, i DID question the enormous amount of chilipowder and smoked paprika in this recipe but i followed it anyway.  What a mistake!!  WAY too much of ALL the spices/seasonings...the final product was as if you had mixed all the chilipowder/paprika/coriander/cumin in a bowl and sprinkled it on ur tongue...NOT what anyone would want in a taco [or anything else for that matter]...seasonings should enhance the ingredients, not overwhelm them...this was simply AWFUL!!  Wanted to post this so no one else would have to waste their time [and money] on such a horrible recipe...So maybe u shouldn't judge a whole book based on one recipe but with sooo many wonderful vegetarian cookbooks out there, why would i try another one from Food52 when i can just go to The First Mess or At Home In The WHole Food Kitchen and hit it out of the park every time??
3994880
Totally wanted to like this, but it just didn't pull together for me.

Likes:
1. Edgar Brimm is a wonderful character.  Going through about ten years of his life, you really get to know him.  He is very closed off but transforms into a brave hero that is worthy reading about.
2.  It remind me of Gothic horror novels.  With just a few differences, it is a good example of a modern take on that time period of entertaining reading.
3.  The writing is actually well done and the author stays consistent without transferring points of views.

Dislikes:
1. Pacing.  This book is super easy to put down and forget about.  It starts off strong, but after about 50 pages in, it starts to drag.  Once the mystery begins, you'd think that it would pick up while searching for clues.  It doesn't.
2.  There seems to be unnecessary parts that could have been cut out completely.  I don't think that they are even setting you up for future books.  They didn't further the plot or character.  They just seemed like a few extra steps to increase word count.  No one needs that.
1086920
Wanted to like this, but couldn't... ordered after reading the previous reviews... just couldn't make myself keep it only after 30 mins trying it out... Very heavy for one thing...weighs more than the phone...  Unit is a "Love Mei" see many using different names... Once phone installed (after having to unscrew and rescrew 6 real tiny screws) seemed solid enough and nice screen and had no problems with the side buttons as other reviewers but the main problem was the home button... it kept double clicking or sticking causing siri to keep launching, even in my pocket...the bottom charge flap has some cheap sticker on it and very tight hole as most charge cables had to be forced to fit in. Didn't notice any signal problems nor any problem hearing people/them hearing me while using the case...Phone comes with a strap, a few tools to get the screws out and a few spare screws, and a carabiner?? there is nowhere to attach it so unsure where it would be used and didn't seem to go with the strap. Very little rubber - only tiny strip on the edge which doesn't offer any protection from any impact and seems the case would be scratched easily.
392405
I really tried to like this book...really! I struggled through - hoping it would get more compelling. Too many characters, too many shifts in time, too many plot twists - some of them impossible to follow, all of this leading to an implausible ending. After sampling the multitude of 5 star reviews, I expected better.
3083296
I really wanted to like this book! Based on the glowing reviews, and the fact that I tend to like curmudgeons and tales of redemption, it seemed like a perfect choice for me. But, try as I might, I just couldn't get into it. I found the syntax and writing style simplistic and distracting, and the characters flat and predictable. I did learn that Kindle books are returnable within 7 days of purchase. Unfortunately, I didn't learn this until 9 days after I purchased it.
674908
I wanted to like this book.  I really tried to like it.  I read through the first third of it quickly, intrigued, but then, much like the automobiles on the highways of America described in this book, it came to a sudden, screeching halt.

First of all, there was too much swearing.  I am not offended by swearing, and I don't mind swearing in a book if it is part of realistic dialogue, but this was ridiculous.  Every character used "damn" over and over and over again- it was so distracting!  The druggies and gang members and other unsavory characters had their speech peppered with obscenities. It did not sound natural, it sounded...absurd!

And then there was the overuse of adverbs in the dialogue.  I know this was mentioned by quite a few people, but I'm sorry- it was so annoying!!  Everyone replied sharply, coldly, quietly- or else they "quickly interjected," that was a good one, too.

Another thing that bothered me was the repetitiveness of the "We were Americans once," theme.  I can't even count how many times he went to that well.  "I never thought this could happen in America!"  "This is America, damn you," he said coldly.  "This isn't even America anymore!"  Ok, ok, we get it.  For crying out loud, stop saying it over and over again!  Same thing with comparing the situation to something out of the Dark Ages.  The last 20 pages or so kept on saying that the world had gone backwards, that it was like medieval times, on and on and on- WE GET IT!  Can you please just assume that your readers have a little intelligence and can figure this out instead of telling us over and over again?

The characters in this book were either extremely unlikeable (John, Tom), or woefully underdeveloped (Jen, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Washington, Makala, everyone else in the book LOL) or both.  Even though John was in every scene of the book, he was a very wooden character.  All I know is that he smokes a lot of cigarettes, responds coldly to everything, vomits or feels like vomiting on a regular basis and checks out and has fantasies about pretty much every female character that crosses his path, including the wives of his colleagues.  Nice.

I could go on and on.  This book had the potential to be wonderful but it fell completely flat.  It feels like this writer was in a big hurry to get this book written and sacrificed plot, consistency, character developement and just plain old grammar in order to get it out on the market.  I wish someone else would take this same subject and write a good book about it!!
3815968
I bought this book because it sounded like something I would really love, but I just couldn't finish it. I really tried, since I paid for it, but it was SO BORING. There was a lot of potential, and I'm sure someone might like it, but for me it missed the mark.
2573223
I really wanted to like this.  I wanted to like it so much.  There were just 3 things I really wanted from this watch:  Selectable watch face, notification for txt messages, & notification for phone calls.  Other features would have been nice, but if all it could do was those 3 things I'd have been thrilled.  Well, it can't do any of them well, or even reliably.

Text & Phone notifications - These work 1 time.  Then I had to re-pair if I wanted them to work again.  It was still paired, as other functions continued to work, but notifications wouldn't.

Select watch face - This should be a slam dunk.  How could it not be?  Really, it's an AMOLED display tied to Android OS, how can you get this wrong?  Here's how:  Let the user select a watch design, but only make it visible when the watch is "awake".  When the watch is "dim" or "asleep" it defaults to a different display.  Turn off the sleep mode, or at least extend it?  Nope.  It's 5 seconds.  Enjoy your selected watch design for 5 seconds, 'cause then it's gone.  Pitiful.  I don't care whether that's the fault of Android Wear or Huawei's implementation of it, it's pitiful.  Only good in this whole experience is Amazon made it relatively easy to return it.

Oh, it gets 2 stars because it does actually work & tell time.  Doesn't justify the expense, or my time & frustration tho'.
3274642
I wanted to like this book...the concept seemed so fascinating!  However, the more I read, the more impatient and frustrated I felt.  I kept wanting the book to just "get to the point" of the story, and there seemed to be a superfluous amount of detail devoted to tangential topics that failed to hold my interest.  Halfway though the book, I began skipping over whole chunks of text when I felt myself getting bored by the content, and this made getting through the book a bit easier for me.

This is a book written by people who are not authors by trade (a fact of which I was aware before picking it up) and it reads that way.  At many points, the language and style come across as vapid or juvenile, akin to having my 15-year old cousin relay a story to me.

Nonetheless, I think that this could be an enjoyable, feel-good book for a casual reader, or for someone who may be in a similar situation as the authors. If this sounds like you, then it may be worth a read.  However, I would recommend checking it out from the library instead of buying it. If you really like it, you can always purchase a copy to keep and re-read later.  Would not recommend this book for avid or high-level readers.
4969636
I wanted to like it- I really did, I just couldn't get close to finishing it. Boring, slow, no connection to the characters- a big disappointment.
2392161
I was so, so excited to read Lie. The cover is gorgeous, and I love the idea - what could get someone to commit such a terrible crime is fascinating, and I thought Skylar's conflict of what to do about it would be too. I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get into it.

What first surprised me is the high number of points of view. I thought it would just be alternating perspectives, switching between Skylar and Sean, but there are ten different points of view. In my opinion, that's just too many. What annoyed me about the points of view isn't really the mere number, though, it's the way the perspectives are done. Most of these characters aren't even real characters, more like plot devices, the only purpose of their passages being to give more information about the main characters. Basically, all of them (except for the brother and mother of the hate crime victim, of course) talked about how they're a good person and how it's not their fault while expressing totally racist ideas. That just really upset me.

The characters are flat and have no real personalities. There is no showing, only telling. I don't usually mind telling all that much, since I'm a lazy reader, but in Lie, that was too extreme, even for me, since it's seriously all telling. That made it basically impossible for me to get to know and relate to the characters. And what I did know about them, I didn't particularly like. I especially hated Lisa Marie - she's a terrible friend. I keep thinking of a scene in the beginning, talking about how Skylar didn't want to go out or do anything right after her mother died, which annoyed Lisa Marie, who compared it to how she was only sad for a day when her dog died. How could you possibly compare those two things? That made me dislike Lisa Marie, right from the start. Skylar is a character I think I could have related to and felt for, especially about her mother's death, but we get to see almost none of her grief, or any feelings, for that matter, and she's underdeveloped too.

This book should have made me feel for the characters and understand why they acted they way they did, but it just didn't work. Throughout the entire book, I just thought the whole thing was so, so wrong. I should have gotten why people followed and looked up to Jimmy, but he seemed like an ass to me the entire time. Everybody always said 'beaner-hopping' was just for fun, but... really? I can't imagine how no one could say anything against that, and how they couldn't see what was wrong with hurting hispanic immigrants for fun every weeked. The way they justified it, saying they were keeping the town safe and protecting it from immigrants and helping, doesn't even make sense - how does beating up people help anyone? I just never understood their reasoning, and since that's the main part of the book, it didn't really work for me.

The plot is... well, not too much happens, and the whole plot is really slow. The ending is another thing that frustrated me, since it says so little. I would have liked a stronger positive message to make up for the homophobic way of thinking of almost all of the characters.

I really wanted to like this book, but choppy writing, characters I couldn't relate to and too many different perspectives made it hard for me to enjoy. I don't particularly recommend Lie, unless the topic is something you're really, really interested in.
711795
I tried.  I really wanted to like this book.  I tried to listen to the audiobook 3X over 2 years.  I never made it past chapter 4.  What I do like is the world setting.  I'm a geneticist and a professor in a sustainability studies graduate program.  So the topics here are on my mind often.  The ideas are provocative.  The story and the characters are flat, for me.  I just couldn't get into it.
3093723
I wanted to like this book, and I read all the way to the end hoping that the book would do something, *something* interesting to redeem itself and deserve the high praise from other reviewers. Sadly, it didn't.

The writing is technically good--I thought the author's style was enjoyable, and the grammar and syntax were compatible with Jane Austen's world. However, there was very little plot to speak of--nothing interesting happened, except Darcy jumping to some crazy conclusions and in general being an unlikable character. Elizabeth and Georgianna speak of his goodness frequently, but the story doesn't provide much in the way of evidence. At the very beginning of the story there is a major plot deviation (Elizabeth is in Ramsgate with Georgianna, befriends her, and warns Darcy of Wickham's scheme), resulting in Elizabeth having a positive opinion of Darcy, instead of the prejudiced perceptions she had in the original. However, everything else appears to progress as normal--Bingley meeting Jane at the assembly, the stay at Netherfield, Elizabeth going to Kent--the only difference being that Darcy never makes his infamous "tolerable" statement, so no one in town thinks of him as an abnormally proud jerk. Throughout the story the author continuously drops in references to famous Darcy and Elizabeth conversations (although we are not shown them in the book), but considering the major plot change it's hard to imagine that these conversations would have taken place, and certainly not with the same wit and carelessness that Elizabeth first exhibited due to her dislike of Darcy.

Georgianna was a stronger character here than in other JAFF offerings, but ultimately had little to offer the plot other than as a pen pal to Elizabeth.

I really feel that the author has the skill to write an excellent story--if provided with a more interesting plot.
2554947
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I tried until I reached about chapter 40 and just couldn't go on anymore. (In fact I am currently returning it.) The start, while slow, intrigued me for what was to come. A notorious assassin placed into a competition to have the chance to gain her freedom? Sounds great, sadly that is not the focus of the book. No instead what's important is the love triangle, and I can't stand those. Especially when it's written this way. I'll admit there were some amusing bits of dialogue between the main character and the two male love interests (can't even be bothered to use names because I've already forgotten them.) But I had some glaring issues with this book. Why is a trained assassin, someone who kills people for as a way of life, living in comfort in a castle during this competition, in fact why are a bunch of other murderers, thieves, and other criminals just allowed all of these comforts while doing this competition? Why is the main character so vain? Why does she want to be recognized as the assassin she is? Isn't the point of being an assassin to stay hidden?

What I wanted out of this story was to see how the competiton unfolded. And see round after round as the main character advanced through. Maybe breezing by some challenges and scraping by some others. Sadly I did not get what I wanted.

A big issue I had with this book, and this wasn't something I realized until well into the story, but not a lot happens. Hell all of the action seems to be off screen. Many of the Tests are described in small paragraphs, detailing how time has advanced and another competitor is gone. We get a small spar between the protagonist and the captain of the guard, then we have an archery competition, and then a climbing competition, and finally a poison competition, and not a whole lot in between. Also there's someone murdering the participants in between the challenges but who cares at this point?

So many of these test are off screen and we don't get to see many of the other competitors. I would have liked to have seen the main character get through each challenge and how she interacts with the rest of her competitiors as they advance through the competition and more people fall off at the end of each challenge.

Instead most of the development is flirting between the prince and mc. Her budding friendship with a foreign  princess. And some back and forth between her and the captain. The rest of the competiters were hardly footnotes. One character who the mc forms a small friendship with, barely shows up except for a scene where she saves his life part way through the climbing test. Would have been nice to see more stuff like that. But nope...

Honestly there are a lot more bad things I can say I dislike. I know it sounds like I'm bashing this book, and I am, but I had high expectations that were not met.

I will say though that the writing was relatively solid. It was easy on the eyes and I never lost my place. I also did like how in the first part of the book the main character kept coming up with ideas on how to escape. But that is about all I can say.

In conclusion this book was not for me. I can see how it's popular and I think everyone is entitled to like what they like, but I sadly did not like this.
4154275
I wanted to like this author, and this novel, but I couldn't finish. The premise was fun and presented in a unique way, but the author didn't deliver. The story seems to fast forward in places, so that the reader is running to catch up with a character's change of heart. The heroine is mean for way too long and with too little motivation, making the sweeping together and wrapping of the conflict rushed, confusing and unsatisfying. The final straw was the heroine constantly complaining/agonizing/feeling ashamed of her weight. Thanks for including a voluptuous female, but her hatred of it and his constantly having to prop her up over it stole that thunder, driving home that a full figure is something to be ashamed rather than proud of. At no point does she ever seem to feel good about herself, and I can't feel good about her either. First and last novel by this author.
1077558
I wanted to like the book. Every time I start a book I am eager. At first the story seemed intriguing to me. The narrator was a ghost. She was watching her husband and children.  So I read and read learning the names of all the characters. But I couldn't identify with any of them.  None of the people touched me. The author failed to make me care about them.  Still I read on hoping as the story developed that I would begin to feel something. I usually do. But in the rare case sure h as this I just didn't.  I wonder if it's just me. Maybe others loved this book. I haven't checked any other reviews.  I can't even tell you about it because I feel as though my dislike would shine through. My advice is to read at least 5 or more reviews to gather insights into whether or not you wish to try this out.
3737064
I really, really wanted to like this. But the writing just wasn't there.