Seemed like a good plot
347250
Very slow movie.  Seemed like a good plot, just never got too exciting.
207115
The plot was good however the way the story was put was a little scattered brained. Either way I am anticipating Book 2.
267062
Came up a little short.  Characters needed a little more fleshing out, and the plot got convoluted at one point where I had to reread three times to get an idea of what the author was intending.

Good potential, though.  Perhaps the rest of the series would show improvement...
4817154
This book had a lot of potential. The idea with the photo is intriguing, and Rowan's whole situation sounded interesting to read about. The plot is what kept me turning the pages - I loved the plot twists and the many ideas - but I had quite a few problems with the rest of Broken Soup.

I think my main problem was that the message got lost in the many aspects of the plot. I don't mean that a book shouldn't have many storylines, but they should support each other to make a whole and create a message to convey to the reader. The different storylines in Broken Soup - Jack's death, Rowan's morhter's depression, her friendship with Bee, her romance with Harper, her role as the responsible one in the family - all seemed to be conveying different messages that had nothing to do with each other. Maybe that would have worked if the book were longer and the storylines were elaborated on more, but like this it just left me confused about what Jenny Valentine wanted to say with this book.

The writing isn't great, but not terrible, either. There was nothing all that noteworthy about it. At parts it sounds like the author wants to sounds poetic and deep, but that didn't fit to the rest of the style and Rowan's voice and seemed contrived.

The characters are okay. Rowan's character is pretty good, and I liked reading how the situation in her family affected her. For some reason, though, I never really connected with her, and for me, if I can't relate to the main character, that takes a lot from a novel. Some of the secondary characters are better: I loved Harper - how he helps Rowan is really cute. Jack is a good character, too; easy to imagine. Bee's characterization is lacking, though. Rowan always tells us she's so special, etc. but the reader is never really shown what's so great about her. She seemed pretty average to me. The parents didn't really seem like characters, more like plot devices, but I guess I can't really criticize that - they're never around, and that was the point of that storyline.

I don't usually comment on the cover of a book if I don't like it, but on this one I have to. Not only is it ugly (in my opinion), it also doesn't fit the story whatsoever. It looks like something someone doodled during class without a care in the world, which is the opposite of Rowan's situation. It doesn't show the reader anything about the seriousness of this book.

All in all, this book was pretty disappointing. There were a lot of good ideas in there, but the execution is clumsy. The writing and the characters are only okay, and Broken Soup fails to convey a message with too - it seemed like the author wanted to pull the novel in too many directions without elaborating on the different storylines. Most of the other reviews I've read for this one, though, are positive, so maybe you'd enjoy it more than I did.
4900462
I downloaded the book because it was inexpensive and had a five-star rating from all of the first dozen or so readers.  The author can write interesting scenes, and I found the book readable enough.  However, stories like this need to be believable enough in order to be thought-provoking about how a world political situation (the Middle East in this case) might actually play out.  This one was a bit far-fetched for my taste.  For example, one of the main plot lines was that you can use genetic engineering to develop a bio-weapon that will assassinate just the intended victim without harming anyone else.  The author never convinced me you can do this, or could likely do it in the future, so it seemed more like science fiction than a current-day thriller.

If you are just looking for an action-packed story to keep you turning pages, this one is good enough.
4855023
The author has a nice way with a plot, and I enjoyed reading the book. Unfortunately, his character development skills need lots of work. Here, being rich always means you are a villain. It would have been nice to get to know the people better, so I didn't feel like I was cheering for or against  a stick figure.
1474147
This was quite a good plot, mostly.  The end was a bit too convenient, though.  It's as if the author couldn't figure out how to have poetic justice happen to get rid of all the "bad guys," so he just completely changed the personality of one of them to do in the other.  Meh.  Not a great ending.  It felt like "cheating."
The book is also in 3rd person omniscient POV, so the reader must bounce from focusing on one character to another every chapter.  This can be annoying.
Overall, it's quite good, but it's hardly up to the standards of a truly great crime writer, such as Ian Rankin.
4867146
This one was just okay for me. The idea behind the plot was good, but it covered only a couple of days and most of it was filled with long political descriptions and dialogue. There wasn't enough action to support all those slower passages. The book did advance the overall storyline, and further developed several of the characters (while adding more), but it wasn't enough to overcome the "bogginess" of it. Hopefully the next one will be better.
4079387
I liked the characters, but the plot was not believable.  The author also did too much foreshadowing (a lot of "death follows me")
65689
A good intro sentence that catches immediate interest is always an asset, and Half-Inch had one. The story is built upon a woman who has fantasized of killing her abusive husband for years, and finally comes up with a plan to do so. Although I am aware of the psychological hold abusers can have over their victims, simply giving me fact after fact of what Bobby did, and what Pammy allowed or was forced to endure didn't gain my empathy, so she never became a sympathetic character. When she begins meticulously detailing her plans to murder Bobby, it actually seemed a kind of overkill to me, and I questioned her sanity and some of the other people around her.  But maybe that was the point of the story, the improbability of it all, because otherwise the premise didn't seem realistic to me, and Pammy's mentality seemed very immature and conscienceless. I can deal with having no remorse or feeling, but I have to experience a connection with a character to make it an "allowable" and justifiable act.

Other details just didn't work for me either, the outstanding though perhaps minor one was of Pammy slamming into the steering wheel during a car crash and she screamed. I broke several ribs in a similar accident and know that you cannot scream, you can't take a breath, because you have none to do exhale. Also, if you've slammed into a steering wheel as described in the accident, you will not be up doing the things Pammy did immediately following, nor even five days later appear to be perfectly fine.

Half-inch read like a newspaper article detailing the inside or back story of a convicted murderer and their rationalization of their crime, and in somewhat the same tone. I know it's fiction, but it all seemed improbable to me, law enforcement right there and absolutely nothing being done, no suspicion or anything else. I think it's a good story idea, but  with a different level of characterization it would have had greater impact to me.
149820
I know nothing about the convoluted American political or legal system - BUT -The plot seems basically unlikely and too contrived to be considered as remotely likely. The story does not really flow - it was heading in one direction that sounded interesting, but then took off on another tangent.
Still - the tale held my attention enough to read until the drawn-out ending!
4433869
The story had enough intrigue to keep me reading, and I really liked the resolution of the plot with one exception, which I won't reveal.  The characters, however, were not consistent.  They would jump from weak to strong, flirtatious to coy, likeable to immature.  As earlier stated,  had it not been for the interesting plot, I doubt I would have finished it.
4908408
The plot on which this book was built was rolled out in meticulous detail, but for me, painstakingly so. I lost interest twice. But considered it a worthwhile read in the end
3582689
good plot, lousy development, did not like any of the characters, self-absorbed types and quite implausible. Far too long, filled with too many meaningless descriptions, very predictable outcome. Two points for the plot idea - really had to push myself to finish it.
1409788
Finding Me by Kathryn Cushman starts with a promising plot. The idea explored in the novel is interesting. However, by the time I reached the first quarter of the book, I knew what has happened, and just waited to see how the characters will react to the whole thing. I loved the idea of the novel, but somehow, the more I read, it became somewhat flat. All in all, it was an interesting book. The plot was what gave it gusto. It is a quick read, it gives a nice image of a small town, America, and it has the potential to be an intense read and make you wonder what will happen next.

But! (These are spoilers from the book, so for whoever wants to read the book, it would be better to not read them.)

The plot: the "bad" character in the book, David Waters/ Don Huddleston stole money from the company he and his best friend had in order to facilitate his escape and build a new life in another state with his mistress and his one year old daughter (he actually made everyone believe he and his daughter, Kelli, died in a boat accident). Over twenty years later, when he and his mistress-turned-wife die in a car wreck, Kelli finds out there is another family she knew nothing about - her mother, a sister and a brother. The novel deals with Kelli's search for her family and her attempts to get to know them better.

For starters, I didn't necessarily feel the characters to be so well developed, if I can use this word. That character, Beth, Kelli's sister, was especially annoying, although she "had a good heart". The main character, Kelli, was OK, but towards the end of the novel she becomes annoying, but this is probably understanding considering the circumstances that brought her there in the first place. For someone who claimed from the very beginning she was pretty strained financially, she did OK with paying two rents, do a TLC on the store she worked at, with money from her own paycheck, and make three trips California-Tennessee. I probably liked the old man, Kenmore, the best. He seemed authentic. What really bothered me was that the characters didn't "speak" that much. Most of the things you found out or learned about, as well the events of the past and what they felt were given straight forward by the author. I would have liked to hear the characters talk more about what mattered, not the silly things they seemed to talk about for half the book.

As I read more and more, the chapters started to be divided in shorter sub-chapters and each sub-chapter seemed to have a last sentence that summed up the feelings, the events, or gave a sort of conclusion. It felt a bit just thrown in there, although I see how they were meant to create the suspence and drama.

And speaking of this, in the last maybe 20 pages of the book, everyone (that is, the other family) learns the truth and all are OK with this. Kelli's fears that they might react badly are understandable, but the suspence was in vain as they all accepted it and simply put it under the label "something to process and think over in time".

I received an ebook copy of this book from Bethany House Publishing in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts expressed here are my own.
1499653
This story had a really good plot. It had a lot of potential. It just fell a little short of what it could have been for me. The main characters, Maya and Rick, meet when Rick shows up to rent her family home for 2 weeks to take a much needed break from work. Hes been instructed by his doctor to take a break before he works himself to death. Ricks got some emotional baggage. Hes recently lost his father. He has no relationship with his mother, and he just ended things with his fianc. Maya has thrown herself into her work after having her heart broken the previous summer by a visiting tourist. She doesnt want to open herself up for that kind of heart break again with another person who won't be in town long. She just wants to focus on work and her family.

The attraction between the two is clear from the very beginning. They start up a flirty banter right away. But they also immediately start with the misunderstandings. Maya had a tendency to get mad very quickly over the smallest things and came across as immature at moments. Rick had his moments as well where he would over hear or assume something and get upset about it and I just often felt like the author was attempting to inject drama or angst in the story, but it was over petty or small things that didn't really seem like a big deal. Rick also had plenty of good moments though where he was doing sweet or thoughtful things for Maya and her family that helped to balance out those less than endearing moments. I found it very hard to really connect with the two main characters at times. However, Rick was easier to connect with and like then Maya. And the only secondary characters I liked were Pilar, Mayas mom, and Jason, the would be love interest of one of Mayas twin sisters. The twin sisters were not cast in a good light at all as they did some things that made me question their love for their siblings. Especially Cara. Their good sides or qualities weren't shown at all other than being beautiful and smart. This isn't enough to make me like them.

In the end though this was a quick easy read that certainly had some good moments. I am still interested enough to want to see what happens in the next book of the series, I just hope that the characters are a bit more developed and maybe the drama will be a little bit more substantial or relatable.
3254038
Good Potential, but...
Story began with good details, and a plausible plot, however, like way too much sci-fi, the ending was abrupt and left me feeling unfulfilled...like the author was just tired of this tale and wanted to move on.