Not Terrible, but not worth 5 stars
934242
When purchasing this textbook it stated that it was in Good condition. Previously, I have brought several books and when they stated that it is in good condition, it was practically brand new or minor damages. This book on the other hand is only in acceptable condition! It is very dirty, spills all over it, and cover looks terrible. Shipping was fairly fast, but I don't know if I'd every purchase from this seller again in the future.
2632758
*** some plot synopsis follows, but I will try to avoid spoilers***

 This was not a terrible novel, but I couldn't bring myself to give it more than 3 stars. The concept sounds great. Anita Blake is an animator, meaning that she can raise the dead as zombies. Animators are somewhat impervious to the mind-clouding abilities of vampires, so Anita is also a vampire slayer. Vampires, however, have recently come into the public eye and have become legal citizens, so killing them is murder unless one has a warrant. This means that Anita must suffer their existance and sometimes work with (or, even, occasionally for) the vampires of the city. This is a really interesting beginning.

 The problem is that this is about all you get in this installment. All of this is explained in the first couple chapters and you get almost no other analysis of the situation for the rest of the book.

 My biggest problem with the book is how much is unexplained. We never really find out how Anita became an animator, how her power works, why she should be immune to vampire's powers, how she knows her friends, who half the people in the novel are, why Anita has the religious persuasion that she does, and what the heck a "mark" is anyway. I assume that the author is trying to begin the series in media res, but the end result is that I find it difficult to care about these characters who have been dropped in my metaphorical lap. In particular, one person who is in peril and another who plays the Judas role fall completely flat with me (the peril and the betrayal happen in the first few pages and it's really hard to care about characters who have had only a few lines of dialogue so far).

 Many of the plot elements seem to spring forth at random with very little internal logic, and to me they didn't seem to come together convincingly by the conclusion. In short this has the feel of a first novel. Some of the writing is clumsy, some of the grammar poor, and some of the similes over used (every time anyone notices the heat they "melt").

 That said, the experience was not completely unenjoyable. It felt to me much like listening to a good joke told by a poor joke teller. The timing may be a little off, the delivery may be a little awkward, but sometimes you can tell how good the joke would be if told right and you laugh anyway. Ms. Hamilton's writing may be somewhat amateurish in this outing, but the concepts of her story are good enough that you occasionally glimpse a brilliant story through the misplaced words.

 I'll give the next couple a chance, because if she improves her technique this series could be dynamite.
2602813
It wasn't terrible. I mean, it's a free novel, and that needs to be taken into account, but I really didn't think it was bad. I haven't bought the next book, but that's just because I'm currently reading something else. It won't win any prizes, and you certainly won't have any profound life changing moments whilst reading this book, but it's light and fluffy and fills a gap.
4535250
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Valerie

Abandon tries to recreate the tale of Persephone in the modern day. Meg Cabot attempts to craft this story with graveyards, the Island of Bones, a convict of an uncle, a diamond necklace and more. She doesnt meet my expectations. Sure, Abandon is definitely a solid read, but solid is just okay.

The main problem I had with this book is the detached feel Pierce tries to give off. I can definitely  tell Meg Cabot is shooting for the unfeeling character who happens to be nice at the same time. Pierce is a selfless person in Johns opinion. Me? I think Pierce is a confused girl who could not possibly exist as a real person.

As for John, Im so done with him. We all get John is a poor, depressed soul. We all understand that John is so taken with Pierce after about five minutes that he wants to marry her and dress her up. That does not make John crushworthy in my opinion. It just makes him a bit creepy.

Meg Cabots writing in the Princess Diaries is enviable and readable. Her writing style in Abandon falls short of my expectations for the writer of this series. Meg, I feel like your writing just gets a little worse with time. Can you please write like Mia and not like Pierce?

I usually love far-fetched novels, but in this case, it just doesnt work out.
3504144
I know this must be one for the ages because all the pros told me so.  The National Book Club told me, Newsweek told me, The New York Times Book Review told me, of course Oprah told me, and every other profesional critic out there told me.  I was interested therefore to see that out of 305 reviews (clearly a pretty broad sampling of Amazon readers), the average review was only 3 stars.  I guess that the pros must have different standards and criteria than us hoi polloi.  I gave it 3 stars as well, but not perhaps for the same reasons that others were critical.
I had no problems with the disfunctionality of the family.  Nor was I troubled by the unlikability of virtually all of the 5 protagonists or the fact that whatever redeeming virtues they each may have had were overwhelmed by their negative qualities.  I could also live with the fact that the story is almostb relentlessly depressing. The fact is that, notwithstanding all of that, the author has presented us with an absorbing and thought-provoking portrait of a family in chaos and disarray.  Each of the 5 Lambert's was incredibly well carved out, almost as if the author was right inside their heads.
My major complaint however is that the book was just too darn long and, in my view, could have been told just as well in about 350 pages rather than 568 pages.  The result of this surplusage is that there are numerous portions of the book which are simply boring or added little to the story and which could have been excised altogether.  By way of example, I felt that the "At Sea" portion was way too long and almost all of the material on Chip' adventures in Lithuania was just boring.  Clerly, the author feels that he has certain points that he wants to get across and it goes without that he thought that everything in the final draft was worth including.  I simply don't share that view.  I also felt that the substantial unnecessary length of the novel was a fairly serious shortfall.  For that reason, and only that reason, 3 stars.
2385589
I think this actually rates about 2.5 stars, because it's not that awful, but it's not that good either.

The light is very harsh and bluish -- one of the nice developments in recent LED lighting is towards warmer lighting. Also, there is no side shading whatsoever, so unless you turn the light away from you to illuminate a wall, for example, instead of a reading/writing surface, you get the lights shining right in your eyes.

The switch sometimes works fine and sometimes requires several taps to activate.
2137957
This book is pretty good for what it is: fun, light reading. I enjoyed it, but was often annoyed with its many flaws. The characters are totally one dimensional, the plot is trite and predictable, and the writing is often clunky. Historical details are worked in without finesse and in a tiresome manner.

The good characters are too good and the villains too evil. The mystery surrounding Hestia's, the female protaganist's, birth is interesting, but her personality and actions are not.

One character's over-the-top portrayal that particularly bothered me was that of the main villainess, Melaina. There are several times when she mentions famous Greek plays, and every time, without fail, she describes to the reader why the murderous actions of each play's villainess are understandable and proper. This is probably nitpicking on my part, though.

This being said, I still want to read the rest of the trilogy.
3614884
I made it through this book and the second in the series, so it's not truly terrible.  In fact, the author isn't a bad writer, but this series suffers from what I call a 'god-hero complex'.  By the end of the second book, the protagonist, Chris, has become so over-powered his biggest weakness is that he has to eat so much to fuel his super-human abilities.  It turns a story that had potential into something that's no more exciting than playing a video game while using cheat codes to make your character invincible.  If you enjoy that, you'll probably enjoy this book.  Otherwise, you should stay away.  Perhaps the later books in the series improve, via some type of Kryptonite arrives to knock Chris down a dozen pegs or so.  While there's a few likable characters in the first couple books, it's not enough to keep me reading to find out.
862548
Why did Amazon re-published 'Sacrifice' and what is their reasoning behind the pricing of $5.99 ? Unknown author that published one book in 2009 and then disappeared pops up again with a glowing reviews to boost the sales.

I finished the book so for that alone: 2 stars. It is not a terrible book, I am just not sure what type of reader it is targeting. I think, it will be easier for a romance loving girl to skip a battle scenes  then for a boy to ignore all the romantic scenes just to get to battle parts.

'Sacrifice' have a really good bones for a space fighter story but rest is laughing-out-loud silly:
- beer drinking 30 something 'Top Guns' talking about their love interests like a high school girls
- being (or looking 21) is supper important
- military discipline is not a requirement but a suggestion and orders are routinely NOT followed
- occasionally, dialogue and events are identically told by two or more people

... and it goes on but I can't be bothered to naming it all.

Do you like a fairy tales? This one is definitely for you!
4877440
I don't think the book was bad, but there were definitely times that I considered putting it down and finding another.  It's difficult to connect to any of the characters because of all of them only one is what might call honorable. The protagonist seems to have no conscience; there are a few times you see him struggle with a decision, but never once does he choose the more moral decision.  There were times in the book that I got a little lost, the story didn't flow very well, and at that point I didn't care to go back and read what happened. If you're looking for something to read there are worse things you could pick.  I'm not sure if ill read the second book or not.  I am interested to know what happens, but I don't know if it's worth reading a whole book to figure it out.
3169499
It's not really bad, but it's nowhere near as good as one would hope or even expect with that price tag. This book is more for novices, whom I can't imagine would shell out fifty bucks for it. Those already familar with Italian horror will learn nothing new here. To make matters worst, the book is full of errors, some that even the most casual reader are likely to know to be wrong. Two examples being misidentifing one of the characters that Anna Falchi plays in Dellamorte, Dellamore (Cemetary Man)and the idenity of Asai Argento's mother. All this plus unwaranted critisim of the films themselves. At twenty bucks, it would be worth adding to any serious collection of books relating to horror films or films in general, at fifty bucks, If I could do it over again, I'd pass
191596
Not bad. A solid 2 and a half stars. I the story itself was decent, but the writing style I didn't like. The writing is a little juvenile and the sentences are short and choppy.  The further into the book you go, the less this seems to be an issue, as if the writer finally finds her stride about halfway through and isn't as awkward as she was at first.  I was going to recommend that she hire an editor for future sequels, but I saw in the acknowledgments that she thanked her editor.  So my advice would be to hire an editor that isn't a fan, because she clearly is more focused or reading the story than catching the errors.
****SPOILERS****

As for the story itself, it has potential.  Again, beta readers that aren't your mom and grandma would help tons here.  First there is this incredibly unbelievable instalove between Cassidy and Killian that occurs while she is supposedly still mourning the loss of her grandmother and boyfriend of four years.  Then we hear nothing more about it for over half the book while the author develops the friendship between Cassidy and Casper, and Cassidy's life with the other Demon Hunters.  Then all of a sudden we are supposed to believe that Killian is in love with Cassidy too even though they have had no interaction with each other for most of the book.  Right.  No, that just doesn't work for me, and the interaction between the two "lovers" was forced and awkward.  It didn't work.  They had no rapport.

The love angle aside, the rest of the book was good.  It had action and adventure and a decent plot line.  Again, the love stuff should have been caught and fixed by a GOOD EDITOR! I can't say it enough, this series needs a better editor, and it has the potential to be great.  The storyline is there I think, it just needs to be polished.
2786590
It's not terrible, but it really didn't pull me in either. There are two characters in the book that the story jumps between, and I didn't find them distinctive enough to easily differentiate which one I was reading about at any given moment. Beyond that, the story uses a very long build-up followed by a rushed semi-climax that makes the whole thing feel like an extended prologue rather than a complete story.
2260437
I long ago gave up trusting all the five-star reviews on Amazon; sometimes they're right on, but other times--like this one--they're really off the mark.  Lizzy does have an interesting voice, but by the end of the album it starts to grate on the nerves due to her lack of range.  There are some nice songs here that I'll probably put on a background playlist ("Video Games," "Off the the Races," but all in all I was more disappointed than impressed.  And who the heck thought it was a good idea to put that hip-hop "hey" and high-pitched yell (for lack of a better word) over and over again on so many songs (like "Diet Mountain Dew").  That's a major annoyance that makes me delete a song immediately from my computer because it completely detracts from the actual song that I'm trying to listen to.  All in all, it's okay, but nothing at all special; I think that most of the five-star reviewers will forget about this one when the next awesomely fabulous "new thing" comes along.
1747896
I bought the "stuffs" series, fortunately for a small amount, as I won't read the rest of the books.

What I did like, was that the chapters were short, most if not all of them 10 minutes or less, which makes for easy reading.  The main characters are best friends since third grade, if I remember correctly.  They have a lot of history going back, and it seems the author did spend some time developing back stories etc.  I did find the book to progress at a comfortable pace.

Now, the big turnoff was the cursing - 95% + of the time blasphemy, which as a Christian I find offensive.  Also, it turns what could have been well developed characters into more one-dimensional characters, as they all have similar speech patterns and seem to have the need to curse often.  There would be cursing every 2 or 3 pages, which just means it gets distracting, does not have much effect and makes me doubt the author's creativity, if he feels the need to repeat the same words over and over and over.....

My last criticism would be that I found it predictable.  I won't give a spoiler in the review, but I normally just enjoy fiction as a fun pastime and don't try too hard and figure out the end of the book.  I will take it as it develops.  However, what I am sure is supposed to be a very clever twist at the end has been very obvious from about halfway through the book.  I do regret that I bothered to finish reading it, and I think books with this much cursing should at minimum come with a warning.
1470070
It's just ok. Not terrible but not fantastic either. Not sure that it was worth the money.
1634892
2 stars because it's not the worst book I've read.