Entertaining Disappointment
343249
Although I am impressed by John Hart's talents as an author, I was disappointed in his work in Iron House.  He is capable of much better writing, as evidenced in his former excellent novels.
This story is somewhat complicated, but the saga of a "bad man-gone-good-because-of-true love" is familiar, and in Hart's hands the old story gets an entertaining treatment.  My reservations lie in the credibility of many aspects of the story.  Michael, the hit man and beloved "adopted" son of a feared mobster, falls for innocent Elena and wants out of his life of crime, for which his dying boss/father-figure grants permission. However, the reformed Michael must flee the wrath of the other mobsters, two of which are potent enemies: Stevan, the actual son of the dead chief, insanely jealous of Michael because of his father's favoritism, and Jimmy, the sociopathic henchman who has trained Michael since his entry to the gang as a lost teenager.  Michael's plan to escape with Elena is complicated by his need to say farewell to his brother Julian, who was a child with Michael in a hideous orphanage, Iron House, buried in the mountains of North Carolina.  Throughout the story, with its many violent convolutions, Michael sails on unscathed. The reader sympathizes with Julian, a schizophrenic suspected of multiple murders, who flees into a dense forest with the aid of a feral girlfriend.  The reader sympathizes with the wealthy mother of the adopted Julian; she is the prisoner of deadly secrets, and is vulnerable before her jealous, power-crazed husband.  The reader sympathizes with innocent Elena, pregnant by Michael and kidnapped by the bloodthirsty gang of mobsters.  However, it is hard for the reader to sympathize with Michael, whose decision to be good somehow ignores the murderer he is, considering he was so deadly even the insane Jimmy fears him.  Michael never shows a grain of regret for the murders of his past, and the reader must accept him as having converted into a noble champion for lost brother (whom he has not seen for twenty years) and kidnapped, terrified lover/fiance/whatever.  Michael goes from place to place in the spooky mountainous setting, not knowing "why, but he must go"--and in each place finds exactly the right person to speak with in unraveling the mysteries of the past.  The mysteries eventually come to light: cleverly woven into the fabric of the story with a few clues dropped along the way.  ~~ The story is a good read, a page-turner at times.  But this fact is unfortunately balanced by the need to constantly accept incredible coincidences, and the fact that the reader never worries about the protagonist.  He rides over the tempest with hardly a scratch (even a gunshot seems to heal overnight) and actually `gets the girl in the end'.  A book that simultaneously entertains and disappoints, which is a kind of accomplishment. I guess.
4758894
I bought this book with the hopes that it would be much like the first- witty, charming and personal with plenty of side tidbits such as the little bios, recipes and film reviews as were written into the first book.

Instead, this book drones on and on without a hint of the fun spirit as was found in the first. French women like to flirt- we didn't need a 20+ page chapter detailing the the way the French flaunt their sex appeal and how Americans are, by comparison, snobby and hostile. Please. This book was a wasted opportunity to have fun with what really is a light subject, and somehow the author managed to make it as exciting as reading the phone book.
2259154
This is not the Alan Dean Foster who wrote the far superior "Splinter In the Mind's Eye". This reads more like gun-for-hire fanfic with very little emotion or creativity in play. The characters are all one-dimensional with no internal dialogue or backstory to provide motivation for a thin story that's basically a checklist of what made A New Hope work. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I sure hope that the cinematography, acting, and effects are able to do something with this disappointing plot. What a waste of an opportunity. Heir to the Empire was a far more entertaining, interesting way to continue the Star Wars story.
1903881
I wanted to love this book and hoped it would be worthy of its origins.  It is not.  However, it is an entertaining piece of fluff with none of the merits of Nabokov's "Lolita".  The prose is not at all believable  as the words of a teenager and there was little of the girlishness of the  "real" Lolita.  Still, I have to admit, I read it in one sitting  as one does with any mindless book.  Pia Pera had a brilliant concept, but  she blew it.  The Foreward by Dmitri Nabokov is warning enough.  So, if you  can put your purist literary opinions aside, this is a fun read.
1927445
I purchased this book after seeing it had 4 out of 5 stars from other amazon book reviewers. I wanted a fun read from a new chick lit author. However, this one really disappointed me. It's clear the author has talent and a really good sense of humor, as there were parts of the book that were amusing, but all the humor and possible romance got buried by a revolving door of characters, poor main character building and a wandering plot line. I ended up skipping huge chunks of the book desperately trying to finish as I hate quitting a book once I've started. It was running a never ending marathon of weddings trying to figure out the plot line. More focus and better character development would have brought this story to life.
83348
I wanted to like this, the blurb sounded interesting, the cover was attractive and it has a cool '@' instead of an 'a' in the title. It suckered me in with the some decent, easy to read text. The illusion didn't last long though as the journey through the book had many bumps along the road.

The basic plot is fine, although it is a little bare boned. The first real problem was the principal characters. Not in themselves, but in their interactions with each other. First they have a tendency to congratulate each other for stating the obvious. Although that's probably a good thing as they tended to make some very dumb decisions. They then fail to see the obvious as events unfurl from those decisions.

There were other annoyances and yet I continued reading. Normally I'd just give up and start reading the next in my list, but it kept me involved in the story. I didn't understand why until I approached the end and the villain was laying his dastardly scheme out in the open for the heroes of the story. He was a Bond villain and I'd just read a cyberspace version of a James Bond film.

So was it a good read? Not really, but it was a surprisingly entertaining one.
3686832
I had high hopes for this book, but they were summarily dashed when I reached the latter half of the book. Quickly and without warning, the writing took a dismal turn for the worst. The character portrayals went from interesting with a slight complexity to shallow cutouts. The plot twists became so predicatable they were pointless. The scene transitions seemed fixed like a cheap movie with the hero suddenly feeling compelled to travel to a random location where another character just so happens to be in trouble. While this coincidence is occasionally justifiable as a plot mechanism, it becomes so common in this book it's almost like the author was trying to make a joke of it. If this book was written as farce, the latter storyline would have much more entertaining. As it is, this book is simply a letdown. I invested so much time in the story and characters and am disappointed to have it hijacked mid-story to by juvenile happenstance writing. If you want a quick read with minimal character and/or plot development, then this book may be worth your time. Otherwise, avoid the disappointment this book becomes.
3081450
I wanted to like this book  I really did. I had not read the first book in the series and there is a lot I apparently missed but don't think that fact took too much away from this story. As an anglophile and fan of mysteries, I thought this book would be right up my alley. Turns out, I was just glad it was free and all I wasted was my time.

The heroine, Harley, is supposed to seem strong but her whining drove me crazy. I kept wanting to reach into the page and slap her silly. The character talks tough about past experiences but in some cases, she is quite a wimp and I had a hard time respecting her. Her various justifications for poor behavior and dangerous actions were, at times, ridiculous.

There are also a lot of inconsistencies throughout the book. One of the characters corrects the grammar of another character and then proceeds to use poor grammar later in the conversation. I suppose that is the editors fault as much as the writers fault. While this is a fictional book, I found some elements highly implausible and suspension of disbelief was hard to achieve.

I was also disappointed in the ending. I cant go into any detail as I do not want to give it away but I disagreed with what happened (choices made).

While some parts of this book were entertaining enough (I was enticed to at least read it all the way through  though under some false pretenses), I highly doubt I will read anything by this author again.
1772902
This is romance and I certainly wasn't expecting fine literature, just a bit of easily digested entertainment. Erastes has a good reputation and I thought I'd try one of her books. It starts well enough, and there's some nice bits of description, especially of the frost fair, but overall it quickly detoriorated into clichs, with absolutely no depth to the characters. The Gideon character acted so much the Damsel In Distress that it made me cringe. I was quite disappointed.
1010827
The book was a fum quick read, with some interesting ties into d.c. symbology. Unfortunately this fun is ruined by a predictable storyline and blunt plot devices. I felt like the only point of some of the characters was to simply advance the plot. Meh Is a perfect description.
3864191
I review books and products as a hobby.  This author provided me with a copy of her book in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

I pride myself in choosing books that I enjoy; unfortunately, I missed the boat (no pun intended) on this one.

This book grabbed me with an intriguing beginning; however, it slowed into a thin, choppy, disjointed and less than believable storyline with by-and-large uninteresting, poorly developed characters and ended with a fizzle.

It piqued my interest intermittently; however, the novel felt like a forced story secondary to the authors agenda to promote her environmentalist efforts to protect ocean ecosystems.  Occasionally, the author stereotyped Vietnam veterans and denigrated a living President.  I read for therapeutic entertainment, yet found this novel lacking in my expectations.

I expected a solid action-packed mystery by a bestselling author, but this did not fit that bill.

The Emissary was my first exposure to bestselling author Patricia Cori, but it will be my last.

Caveat Emptor!
2676200
I had loved the boy in the striped pajamas, however I am somewhat disappointed by this Boyne novel.
As entertaining as it might be to some, it gave me a very quick and shallow sum-up of the history of Europe in the last three hundred years more than follow a clear storyline. Some chapters were totally irrelevant to the main plot and the two phases of his life, its beginning and end, on which the author puts most weight, were quiet honestly, boring.
I had bought it along "Mutiny on Bounty" and hope that the second book won't disappoint me like this one did.
2222401
Published in 1960, "Dance With the Dead" is the 21st book in the Shell Scott series by Richard Prather, one of the best-selling detective series of all time.  In all, there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 Shell Scott books published.  Scott is a Los Angeles area private eye, somewhat of a goofy, screwball, campy version of Mike Hammer.

I listened to the audio version of this book and found the narration disappointing.  The narrator seemed to read in a goofy manner and was especially annoying when he used a falsetto voice to make women's parts of the conversation.  Generally, as one listens to an audiobook, one tends to get used to the narrator's voice even if it is not how you would have imagined the character to sound, but no so here.

The story concerns a friend of Scott's, who happens to run a men's magazine featuring monthly centerfolds.  That friend, a playboy in his own right, is murdered within hours of getting married in Hawaii, and Scott takes it upon himself to chase down the killer with his only clue being that the woman his friend married was one of the twelve centerfolds and a photo from his friend's camera displays some freckles on the wife's derriere.  Of course, Scott is now stuck with tracking down the twelve centerfolds and determining which one had the freckles and this involves countless drinks and innuendo.  Meanwhile, a bunch of hoods, including one named Biff Baff and one named Slobbers O'Brien are chasing Scott down and generally beating on him.  The goings-on here are sort of an Austin Powers meets Phillip Marlowe kind of affair.

The book is filled with wisecracks and double entenderes and is quite juvenile in places, particularly with Scott at one point falling out of a treehouse in nothing but a grass skirt and getting chased by the police.  It all culminates in a party in Medina (which has to be Pasadena) where all twelve centerfolds are to pose for a photo wearing a sweater and matching heels and nothing else.  Yes, as he salivates over the possibilities, Scott realizes this is his chance to figure out who the bride was.

All in all, it was not terrible, but perhaps too over-the-top campy for my taste.
683331
Publisher's Weekly's "immensely satisfying reading experience" ain't really all that. This is not commercial fiction with an easily-understandable beginning, middle and end. It is very entertaining and it certainly lingers in the mind long after a first reading, because it is so unsatisfying. Like life. The black help who we want to believe has special virtue turns out not to be of much real help (quite the contrary) but only as flawed as the white characters. Surprise, surprise. The original question is left unanswered and new ones have arisen to clutter up the plot. Would it all have gone the same way had the "little friend" of the title been successfully denied contact with the family in the first place? Or would it simply have all gone wrong in some other way? And would that other way have been as entertaining as this one? We can only hope.
4765553
Entertaining scenes with a talented cast were undermined by weak storytelling in this movie. The main storyline was predictable. Worse, subplots were either dropped without being resolved or wrapped up impossibly easily.
3375320
I will give great credit to the performer of the audiobook for this work: he effectively bounces between a variety of accents to bring life to the host of characters.

However, his performance doesn't allow this book to recover from a jumble of bad jokes and half-baked motifs. This work is a good idea with a pathetic execution, providing neither a careful analysis of Greco-Roman mythology nor a satisfying story to cover for its shallow intellect. The work isn't horrible, but it is disappointing.
4622341
This "mom-lit" book provides an entertaining enough read (though certainly not an escape!), though a pretty predictable one. I expected it to be filled with more child-oriented anecdotes, or at least entertaining "cutesy" moments. Unfortunately, this was more of one mother's overly introspective gaze about her conflicted role as a stay-at-home-mom. Her dissatisfaction with her life became a little trying at times, and while I finished the book, it is definitely one I would never pick up again to re-read. It wasn't terrible, just not the light, fun book that I was expecting.