KP's 2 stars was too generous
359505
I thought KP, author of the first review of this book, must have misread something when he or she pointed out the error on the malaria map page.  That's just too glaring an error.  Usually I find Lonely Planet guidebooks to be very good but I won't be buying this one.  Thanks to KP for pointing this out.
4126461
I looked at this sequel to Kilo Option as a dubious option.  Kilo had some great moments but overall was one of Flannery's greatest disapointments.  Could he redeem himself?  In a word - Absolutely.  Achilles Heel brings back all the major players, good and bad from Kilo Option for one final showdown.
The Ukrainian villians steal an old Romeo class sub, believed to be scuttled in a Russian submarine graveyard, hide it in the English channel and wait to sell it to the highest bidder.
Subplots - meticulously crafted by the author - bring two investigations together, that of the protagonist, Bill Lane, who thinks there's been a submarine theft, and that of a joint CIA/MI5 operation into thefts of Russian expatriate fortunes.  Before long bodies fly, chases abound, and shootouts occur in Swiss banks.  All delicious fair that complements one of the best plots Flannery has devised in years.
Characterizations:  Some good, some not so good.  Bill Lane and his side kick, Frannie are a bit cocky.  But they have glib moments that draw a chuckle, too.  Yernin - the Ukrainian sociopath, and Morgan the whinny Brit are a bit shallow - two dimmensional.  Masslenikov, Yernin's control in the novel is nearly a masterstroke.  A bit more complex than the other characters in the novel.
Pace:  Nearly perfect.  This is where Kilo Option fell short.  Clear shot at redemption and he zeros in on the target...bullseye.
Final analysis:  By far better than Kilo Option, nearly as good as Winner Take All.  Ranks among Flannery's better works
Questions?  Email me
4574624
I'll start off by saying I enjoyed the first book and was looking forward to reading the next installment of the story (which took forever come out). I hate to say it...but this book was definitely not worth the wait. It was so slow paced, boring, predictable, and unrealistic. Nothing really happens, no on the edge of my seat moments, definitely not a page turner. It was one giant yawn.

*****The following is a bit spoilery******

I really hated Kennedy in this book. She ends up dating another guy and really uses him. She treats Mark so bad that I felt sorry for him the entire book. She gets mad about the stupidest stuff--like when he googled "rape victim" and she said that was like reading her diary. What? if anything that was a nice thing to do so he could be more knowledgeable and sympathetic to her situation. Kennedy pined after Graham the whole book, cheats on her boyfriend with him (just a kiss but still), and then she gets defensive when Mark isn't ok with how friendly she is with Graham. Why didn't she just break up with Mark sooner instead of stringing him along for almost a year? Her behavior was so selfish, uncaring, and rude.

Graham was a tool as usual. Parading many women in front of Kennedy and sleeping with multiple women right after he had broken up with her after her rape. Nice guy, right. Yuck. I can't stand him and was rooting for Mark the whole book but Kennedy was too stupid to see what a good thing she could have with a much nicer guy (Mark).

I found it cheesy and unrealistic that Kennedy would forgive Amanda, the girl who was horrible to her the year before AND who she caught Graham hooking up with the night she was raped, and become one of her best friends. Yeah right. that would never happen. Not in a million years.

I cant recommend this book because it was boring and I ended up hating the H and h.
809220
After the mixtape, I expected much more....I was really disappointed in this album.  I'm going to give it a third listen, but the initial two times were pretty tough not to toss it in the back seat.  Koopsta seem to have lost all lyrical skill that he ever had or his vocals are too low to understand what the heck he's talking about.  Krunchy is still Krunchy...Enough said.  DJ Paul tried to save as much as he could, but even if the song was cool, the odd chorus made it bad.  Fiend did good on his featured songs, which made me wish that they do another Da Headbussas album.
1564046
I stopped reading the Kay Scarpetta series after the first three books, and after reading this, the worst so far, I remember why: because I don't like any of the main characters. Which is a shame, because the author is skilled, the plot lines are really good, and the forensic medical detail is fascinating. Unfortunately this latest effort quickly degenerates into a weepy, whiny pity party for Kay Scarpetta, with everyone explaining everyone else's inadquacies by forcing their own patronizing pop-psychology 'insights' down other's throats. Way too much of the book is taken up with this nonsense, and the dialog becomes totally unbelievable. A hasty last-minute grafting of an international plot twist late in the book does nothing to mitigate the soap-opera quality and irritating personalities of all the people in it.

Lucy, who started in the Scarpetta series as a brat who needed a serious spanking, has developed into such an angry neurotic that it's beyond comprehension that she passed the FBI / ATF psych tests during the hiring process. Of course, Lucy is now a stereotyped lesbian as well. Lucy's subplot in this book is a clumsy and needless complication that serves only to fill a lot of boring pages and never goes anywhere beyond the requisite awful-parent issues.

Marino has also degenerated from an annoying but harmless redneck to a truly wacko jerk. How someone so ignorant, narrow-minded, and incompetent could make it to the ranks of detective is also beyond comprehension. In Black Notice, Marino has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and Scarpetta herself keeps telling him to be quiet and go away. Obviously she doesn't think too highly of him either, so why does she waster her time with this clown? The promising subplot with Marino's new supervisor quickly goes from being his problem to yet another poor-Dr-Kay, being betrayed by her own people issue(yawn) - the sudden resolution of which is a total cop-out, excuse the pun.

And then there's Scarpetta herself, who used to be interesting in the beginning of the series, but changed into a self-pitying, sanctimonious rich witch who is more concerned with her status toys (BMW, expensive house, antique furniture), and safeguarding her official power than with doing her job, except as a boost to her overinflated ego. This is not a character your average pay-check stretching, just-getting-by reader could identify with. And it took her far too long to figure out the 'long, soft baby hair'clue - she is supposed to be a hotshot medical examiner, after all. If she spent less time trying to get back at people out to ruin her, and more on working her actual cases, she'd get these insights sooner. Of course, in a story with so many tangled, unnecessary and ultimately unresolved subplots, it's hard to imagine anyone getting anything done at all.

It's a shame that this book was such a dog. I have great respect for this author's writing ability, which kept me turning the pages even when I wanted to throw the book across the room. I just hope that her future efforts focus more on plot - her great skill - and ease up on the annoyance factor of her increasingly strident characters. Surely they have some redeeming qualities. It's far past time to let them shine through.
1009299
It's hard to rate this book--partly because I haven't finished it, though it's possible that after the unfortunate first impressions fade I will. And I might even enjoy the experience. So this review is actually about the importance of first impressions on a reader.

In this case, my first impression was that our hero detective was an insufferable, egotistical, bullying, misogynistic bore. That's a lot to saddle a character with. But there's worse. When he's not smirking at his female boss and recommending she pretty herself up for the media, he's ridiculing his young sidekick's attempts to make sense of the case and wowing the poor kid with his "genius."

 Here is an example of his genius: He explains that the man seen hanging around the kidnap victim's backyard couldn't have been the kidnapper because he wore a camera. Obviously, he was a "paparazzo" not a kidnapper because the camera "would constitute a considerable encumbrance." The kid subsides, "somewhat chastened. It was an inarguable point."

Seriously? Why wouldn't a kidnapper pretend to be with the paparazzi? It would be a great cover for why he was hanging around the celeb's back yard. And why couldn't he have ditched the camera at any time? What's inarguable about it? Except that the author knows the actual story, which is how his alter ego detective, Worral, is so certain and all knowing. At this point I was thoroughly disgusted and thinking, what a sham of a shamus.

But then, because the writing was actually not bad, I kept reading. And something curious happened. I found out, for one thing, that his girlfriend was even more insufferable than he was (she treats him like a pet), so I felt sorry for him. Then I started to get with his dry, twisted sense of humor which was actually quite entertaining. The banter between him and Sam, his young sidekick, oiled the wheels, making the pages turn. Here's a couple of brief examples:

Worral: If he had more sense he would have got out fast.
Sam: Or faster.

Worral: I won't describe it any further except to say it was a pervert's paradise.
Sam: So that's what took you so long.

I also liked Worral's home and the way it broadened his character. And sharing it with Sam made for a nice bonding moment. Unfortunately, as much as I liked all the later parts, the mystery itself wasn't compelling enough to overcome the lingering bad taste of the opening, hamfisted pages. This is where movies have the advantage over books. If Worral had been played by an actor who could get his underlying appeal across despite his obnoxiousness, the first impressions wouldn't have been so damaging.

If I get back to this book, and I hope I will, I'll add to this review. Hopefully, as it now stands, it will help other readers to get past those first impressions and enjoy the rest of the read.
168523
This book was a collaboration between Blake Crouch and J.A. Konrath.  This book is the 3rd in the trilogy from Blake Crouch about the framed writer Andrew Thomas, and was supposed to be the climactic and triumphant end to the series.  Instead, this book is a disappointing mish-mash of 2 different author's voices, each clamoring to be the alpha story teller and for each to allow his favorite villain and hero to take center stage.  And, in the midst of this clamor, Blake Crouch knelt before Konrath, handed him his balls on a golden platter, and simpered, "Here.  Destroy my story.  My readers won't mind.  Your readers are more important, anyway."

Let the blurb on the front of the book be a warning.  It refers to itself as a Luther Kite and Jack Daniels book.  This is true.  Any semblance to the original heart of the story Crouch began, with Andrew Thomas as a hero fighting not only outside villains but his own nature, is completely destroyed beyond recognition.  The gentle and brave heroine Violet who runs away with Andy at the end of book #2 to start a life together with her unborn child?  She receives barely a mention on less than two pages, described as grotesquely obese, a chain smoking alcoholic shut-in who lost her child.  Andrew Thomas, our original hero and the first person voice from the first 2 books in the series?  He does not appear until the last few pages of this 491 page monstrosity, and when he does, it is a crippling and cruel aberration to the character Crouch had built for him over the previous books.

This book is instead an homage to Konrath's favorite villains and his heroine, Jack Daniels.  The story is told in first person with Jack Daniels being a pregnant, selfish, whiney and angry main character, supposedly the heroine of the story.  The decisions she makes are irrational and seem to be centered on proving herself independent and not needing the care or help of any man in her life, even when trying to solve crimes during the last 3 weeks of her pregnancy with eclampsia, a condition that could be fatal to both mother and baby.  Instead of the original voice of Andrew and the intense suspense the trilogy has held up until now, the story deviates to the extreme with several different serial killers from Konrath's writings each vying for center stage, and Jack Daniels and her boyfriend and co-workers snarkily and sarcastically hunting them down in one final search for Luther Kite.

And here is where the authors completely misunderstood their audience.  For those of us who are fans of Blake Crouch, this is an Andrew Thomas series, not a Luther Kite series.  This book takes the focus of our first person hero and puts it all on Luther Kite, who loses all originality and simply copies Konrath's killers.  I closed this book feeling so let down, and so disappointed by Blake Crouch, that he would sell out his entire trilogy in such a sad, confusing mess of an ending.  I wish I had never read any of it, rather than to read book #3 and be bait and switched like this.
4828217
l have read approximately half of the KGI series and enjoy the Kelly brothers. Donovan has been an intriguing secondary character and the plot summary sounded interesting. WHAT a letdown.
First, the heroine has endured years of stress and fear for her family's safety. When the worst finally occurs she takes off with no planning or resources. Ok, fine. Not everyone is a planner. Whatevs.
Second, Donovan takes one look and in traditional Kelly fashion falls head over arse for her and her sibs. His family is understandably worried but only for oh, 30 seconds. Then Donovan makes sweet love to a overstressed, malnourished woman with a HEAD INJURY and informs her and her siblings that (insert uplifting music) they are all a great big family. Love, hearts, butterflies. Whoopee. I think this is on day 3.
The amount of inner dialogue involving how much she wanted to trust/love/believe in him plus adding in his internal monologue wishing for her trust/love/safety...got a tad wearing. The book included ALL of the previous characters in a shallow name drop sort of way then the plot rushed off to a glossy unsatisfactory ending. Yay! Eve has survived her mind-rape! Yay! Watch Travis (who should be in therapy for years) score a touchdown as a high school hero!

If you hate to leave a series unfinished, head for the library. Just not worth the $.
2985928
I thought I loved Klosterman's writing so much, that I would like reading just about anything he had to say.  This book proved me wrong.

It really, really feels like the book was a cash grab.  Klosterman is on a road trip for a series of articles for Spin magazine and he's essentially pulling double duty by using the same experience to write a book.  The premise of a morbid tour of dead rockstar's death sites is promising, but doesn't really go anywhere.  The author even points out how he doesn't have much to say and repeatedly tries to convince his boss to let him cut the trip short.  A lot of it feels like filler material, like it's literally some person's diary entries or blog posts about staying at a hotel some uneventful night.  Without much subject to cling to, much of the book ends up being self indulgent musings about his love life.  A lot of the rest of the book is equally self indulgent, including the conversation he writes at the end of the story which itself is designed to preemptively defuse critics who will say that the book is too self indulgent.

Regardless, Klosterman maintains his reputation as "the cool guy you meet at a party who has really interesting conversations."  He has interesting takes on KISS solo albums, a New York City blackout, and some random hypothetical thoughts thrown in for good measure.  At times its as interesting as Klosterman's other material, but there is a lot of unpacking of personal baggage in between the good parts.

If you're a Klosterman diehard, check it out, but only after reading all his other nonfiction works.
740317
What is happening with all my favorite authors?  It seems all I do is write negative reviews these days.  Has the pressure to publish become so great that they don't take the time to craft a good story with believable characters?  Like other reviewers, I love KPs other books.  But this one felt like it was written by someone in high school.  I'll give a Spoiler Alert here, although there really is no plot to spoil.  They meet, there is instant attraction, but they don't get together for three years??  They live in a small town - how does that happen?  And then there is the issue of her anxiety.  She is an OB/GYN.  How has she not dealt with this problem before now?  I pre-ordered her next one before I read this.  Hopefully, it will be back to her usual style.
3794951
I, like everyone else anticipated the release of this game. Being a Knight Rider fan probably since I was a year old in 1982 I was excited to hear that this little unknown company called "Davilex" was going to make a KR game for the Playstation and PC. I thought "Heck yeah! This will sure beat having to use add on KITT-cars in NFS4!" I got my golden opportunity when I saw KR for PC selling for $5 at Game Stop.

But I was only to be let down by this shoddy representation of my fave 80's TV series. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are hella awesome and it runs incredibly well, but the gameplay and the missions are total crap. There is very little challenge at all except for those few times when you can't beat a part because your confused about what to do. You gotta go around scanning/micro-jamming things. You have to chase down suspect vehicles and bump into them to lower their "health" bar so they'll stop moving.. but where's the visible damage?

KITT is also not quite as fast as he should be (or able to jump as high). He had a normal speed of 200MPH and a top speed of 450MPH in Super Pursuit Mode. In this game you're lucky to hit 180 in SPM. The most idiotic thing about the game is having to turbo-boost from rooftop to rooftop. Hey programmer guys, wouldn't it be easier to just have Michael get OUT of the car and WALK up the stairs? Y'know he DID get out of the car quite alot in the tv show. And he had that wristwatch that KITT used to scan safes and electronic doors.

The short, enclosed battles are pretty lame too. You don't have any weapons so you just end up playing bumper cars with Goliath, whom is suprisingly easy to kill for being a huge semi with KITT's molecular bonded shell. This is of course, if he doesn't run over top of you and sit on you. Should a semi be able to rest on top of a Trans Am and it not flatten like a pancake?

Baaaaaad physics.

The battle with KARR is just as lame and his moves are as predictable as a Megaman boss. Why doesn't KARR use turbo boost, ski-mode, or any of those other things KITT has? Where's the laser they used on him in the episodes "Trust Doesn't Rust" and "KITT vs. KARR?" Where's the two drunken hobos who accidentally re-activated KARR in the first place? Y'know, Tony and The Rev? Or that guy who's girlfriend KARR threatened to suffocate by removing all the oxygen from the vehicle interior?

Then there's the voice acting. Michael and Devon sound okay I guess. KITT doesn't sound quite like he should. And KARR sounds suspisciously similar to Freeza from DBZ. Nothing at all like Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime). I think the reason this game isn't that great is because Davilex probably spent the majority of their money paying the liscencing fee for the rights to use Knight Rider for their game. After that they didn't have enough left over to hire good production staff.

They kinda figured most KR fans out thre would buy the game simply for nostaglia purposes and wouldn't be all that critical if the game sucked.
874345
I hate to give a bad review to an author who, until now, I quite admired but I really didn't care for how she changed Kricket in this book. The previous books Kricket was strong and empowered and dealt with whatever life threw at her. In this one I couldn't help but feel sickened by her choices, especially with Kyon.  I am trying not to spoil the book, but I guess I should've known when in the first chapter Kyon all but rapes her...and she doesn't do anything. I guess I figured she'd find a way to escape or at least avoid his advances and I wish I had known before I bought the book that she eventually gives herself willingly to such an abusive man and in the end loves him. I don't care that he's "damaged"...it's the age old tale of the battered woman returning to her abuser because he apologized and said he'd change only to have him beat her again. I know the parallels aren't exact, but that's how it left me feeling. I kept hoping she'd have the courage to do something...anything...or at least loved and respected all that Trey did enough to remain true to him. To put it bluntly...in this book, Kricket is a total knob-knocker.
4705370
So, Ive tried with this author in the past and just couldn't see what all of the praise was about, so seeing the absolute hoopla and controversy that surrounded this book I was expecting the author to knock this story OUT OF THE PARK! Because that is the kind of talent and story you need to pull what she did to her fanbase. If you're going to change their minds you need to have the kind of talent that this author just doesnt. I would say that unless you're a Stan and you were on the fence about this book than I would steer clear. Im one of those silly people who believed all of the ARC reviewers and Stans and decided to give this book a chance. Its worse than you think. There was little to nothing to enjoy in Puck and Gillians story, just the destruction of a beloved character for the propping up of a new romance (a common trope in YA fiction not PnR) that readers were promised we would love. I didnt. There was nothing endearing about Puck, he was a bland hero and not what I thought the heroine needed and Gillians transformation seemed entirely too forced, typical of an aging author trying to catch up with the hip Millenials after creating a character over 14 books with little to no growth. This was not a book, it was Showalters bowing to the dollar and giving an inferior book and a way to ruin the trust so many long time readers had put in her as not only an author but as a person.
2436225
I heard so many good things about Kristen Ashley over and over that I decided to give her writing a try.  From reading the other reviews (which I did not read prior to the book), I can see that I simply picked the wrong place to start.  I'm not going swear off all Kristen Ashley books but if you are like me and you want to know where to start reading KA, do NOT start here.

I just....ppudfdjfldkldhfksdfiofuh

Ok, Anya, the female H, is emotionally immature, completely unaware of herself or her environment and home girl can cry and cower with the best of them.  It is so hard to appreciate the female H character when she is portrayed as being not just weak but completely illogical and simpering.  Anya is one of those characters who is stunning but is the last person to find out.  I found myself wishing someone would have also informed her that her behavior was pathetic and embarrassing to women across the world.

Knight, the male H, has a serious aversion to possessive pro-nouns and sometimes verbs.  For example if Knight wants to say "I have things I need to do" he will say "Babe, shi@ to do"...Da fuq???  This goes on throughout the book and is done so frequently it's distracting.  By the end of the book, I was rocking back and forth pulling my hair by the roots and reciting sentence structure in my head just to maintain my sanity.  Grammar variations can be appropriate to add description to a character but these characters talked in such long stanzas that it was really really strange when Knight failed to use...any grammar at all.

Also, the relationship between the characters....Alpha male, I'm cool with but there is a line (not even all that fine) between an Alpha and a Neanderthal and Knight's character kept crossing on to the knuckle dragging side of the line. It was too much growling, grunting and sociopath, too little romance.  Also, if you are not creeped out by the use of pet names in this book...well you just have a much higher threshold for creepiness than I do.  When Knight said "My Baby wants her Daddy" I was first, shocked by his use of pronouns and second, skeeved out.  Just, no.

Another note, Anya's dream sequences are...stupid and don't make sense in the context in which they appear.  I said it, it needed to be said and I said it.  I was especially stricken by the one sequence in which Anya noticed the presence of "HOMEYS." Homeys.....I had to keep re-reading to make sure I saw it right.  I don't know this author maybe it's normal for her to refer to people as "homey" but the way she did it in this book was super awkward.

Final point, if you have not read this book and insist on doing so (against my advice), I will not ruin the end for you but I would be remiss if I didn't say something about it.  Starting at the 80% mark for you Kindle readers, the book really takes a turn for the worse, or in the case of this book the worst worse. Knights business ventures, the reveal to Anya and her reaction are all ridiculous. Knights explanation for one of his revenue streams is unintelligent at best.  Anya's understanding of Knight's explanation is either inexplicable or indicates that she is totally lacking in independent thought processes. Also, the issue that Anya has been keeping secret, Knight's outlook on marriage and the use of the term "brothers" to refer to Black men all provided several WTF moments to close the book out.

This whole book was a bad trip for me and the ending actually left a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm going to try the Rock Chick series and try to forget this ever happened.
1829844
Samantha Brewster loves her family, but they are driving her crazy with their various match making schemes. The latest scheme involves hooking her up with Greek tycoon Demetrios Karas, whom Samantha envisages to be a balding boring business man. Nothing could be further from the truth as Demetrios Karas turns out to be the smoldering hunk whom she runs into at her sister's party. Would she be able to maintain her professionalism when she is engaged by him to be a translator for a series of negotiations for three months?  How can she break the news to him (a commitment phobic individual) of an unintended consequence of their affair?

Utterly disappointing.  The book started off rather promisingly, but after the party scene, it just went downhill thereafter. The filmsy plot is severely hampered by unlikeable characters -  Samantha acts like a spoilt shrieking shrew and Demetrios, instead of coming off as a confidant, protective lead, gives the impression of a male chauvinist pig. It's just chapters of fighting, shrieking, stomping off, here and there, before they somehow clumsily end up together. I'm not expecting Jane Austin and am a fan of many harlequin romances, but this was just a bad read.

An example of a much better read with similar plot lines would be&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Billionaire-s-Pregnant-Mistress-Mistress-to-a-Millionaire-11-of-37/dp/B003R4ZZTM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress (Mistress to a Millionaire - 11 of 37)</a>, and if you have the time, a really good bundle to read is&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Royal-Brides-Trilogy/dp/B000MAHAS8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Royal Brides Trilogy</a>. Both are harlequin romances which have solid plots which tug at your heart strings and with much more likeable characters.
1758805
This is the only book I've read by Kleypas that I didn't like, and for several reasons.  1) The plot is contrived and incredibly far-fetched.  I know that, with this genre, we are often asked to suspend belief, but this book really takes the cake. Among the plot devices are: married heroine is still a virgin, heroine doesn't recognize her "hero" as the twin of her dead husband because he has a beard, hero has to pretend to be his dead brother, dead brother actually loves someone else, thereby absolving hero and heroine of any guilt for betraying him...the list goes on.  2) The characters aren't...good.  Celia is all over the place.  She hates him.  She immediately loves him.  She slaps him.  She cries.  She hates him again.  She can't live without him.  She hopes he dies.  She needs him to comfort her.  She needs to be comforted because of something he did.  She loves him again.  She hates him again one breath later.  Most of the time she's inexplicably using exclamation points after each sentence.  She's manic.  I can't imagine that any man would enjoy being around her.  I guess she has pretty hair and soft hands, so that makes it okay. Justin is a straight up a-wad.  And not in an interesing, redeeming way.  He doesn' care that his brother is dead.  He takes whatever he wants (and I do mean "takes"...more on that later).  He isn't charming in a rogue-ish kind of way.  He's just gross. 3) The hero rapes the heroine.  I don't care that this took place in the 1800s, or that he's a pirate, or that, later, she started to "enjoy" it. It was rape.  It's not hot.  It isn't cute.  It certainly isn't romantic.  It's insulting and so very stereotypical and sexist.  I can just hear the date-rape chorus in the background: "She said "no" but she really meant yes.  She was asking for it.  Deep down, she wanted it.  She was playing hard to get.  I just wanted her so bad that it didn't matter.  I'm so hot, how could anyone really mean no?"  I don't give a fig that they eventually fell in love. It's disturbing and pathological.  I'm so tired of reading/watching women fall for their abusers.  Kleypas, I know, is better than this crappola.
3010362
I am not overly fond of this series because it seems the entire stalking plot is not as important as what Keatyn is wearing or who she's having sex with, or thinking about having sex with. Seriously. The author spends too much time describing clothes, hair, make-up, (spoilers ahead) the NYC loft, the cars, etc. and avoids telling the actual story. The entire series could have been a trilogy if she avoided half of the descriptions.

Keatyn is not as likable as the author tries to make her. She's wishy-washy one minute, strong the next. Super slutty one minute, super prude the next. She lucks out on way too many encounters with her stalker. The adults that are supposed to be protecting her seem to be bumbling idiots that just do whatever Keatyn wants to do. Put yourself in danger thinking you're protecting your family? Okay, sounds good to us!

Support characters are okay, but there are too many of them to keep straight. It seems any mention of her school friends are simply to mention who is sleeping with who.

I also don't understand how if Keatyn is supposed to be hidden, why is she allowed to talk with Brooklyn and Damien? Why is she still called Keatyn? It is mentioned several times that Keatyn is a dead ringer for her mom, Hollywood actress Abby Johnston. Surely she would have been seen in tabloids as she grew up. So are we to expect that a bunch of teenagers that LOVE Abby wouldn't know she had a look-alike daughter named Keatyn and wouldn't Google her? The author glosses over concerns like these because she needs them to work this way to tell her story. Which makes the whole series even more ridiculous.

There are also glaring errors like using you're when the word should be your (and vice versa), or saying "Him and I did XYZ." No, no, no. An extra round of editing would help there.

I have a bad habit with series. And it's good for the author's bank account. I read one and I HAVE to know how it ends. So I've read them all and will purchase the last one just so I can finish the story.