Great concept!.... Terrible Execution
357494
I went into this book almost blind. I'd seen it appear in a few Tumblr and Facebook posts, so I thought sure, I'll read it!

I was hooked early. The story was great. The 1st-4th waves? So cool. And... Then... It all fell apart.

This became your run-of-the-mill good guys infiltrate bad guy base and blow it up story over. Except between page 100 and page 400, they're literally sitting on their butts doing a whole lot of nothing. Cassie is goo-goo for Evan, Ben is goo-goo for mystery girl, little kids act like war-hardened soldiers after suffering months of people dying around them.

Cassie, the self-described normal girl with a normal life, unrealistically becomes the clichd "lucky hero" who plan has zero flaws and even when things go wrong, they still go right. Blah.

And for an alien invasion book, there were no aliens. None. The alien-in-person concept wasn't convincing whatsoever, and the book even points out that flaw: "If their just consciousness, and they've been living like that for at least 10,000 years, why do they need a planet?"

I don't know, book. I don't know.
2689006
Terrific idea, terrible execution.  Bought as a Christmas gift, and if it really worked well, was planning to order several more.  Bad news - it doesn't work.  When I tried it on several lamps in a variety of outlets, trying lamps with different types of metal and plastic and different light bulbs, all it did was make the bulbs flicker.  It did allow me to turn lamps on and off by touching them, but the plug-in unit makes the bulb flicker at a low brightness.  Very, very disappointed.  Don't waste your money or time.
1799105
I really wanted to like this one but it was just sooooo bad. The writing was terrible. The conversations were so awkward, as we're the love scenes, it just makes me cringe thinking about it. I had to just stop reading it because it was not getting better. I really liked the idea of the story and it would be good if it was written well....
4135372
While I thought that the concept was great, when I got into reading this book, I found that it was very poorly written.  The story is loaded with plot holes and bad transitions.  In addition, the errors in grammar and punctuation were truly inexcusable.  No decent writer and/or editor would ever let that kind of thing pass.  There were also many incorrect word choices.  For example, in one section a character was described as having one eye "have opened."  I couldn't bear reading it any more, so I returned it.  I can't actually believe someone published it in this condition and I would not recommend it to anyone.
3824455
I love the idea of the DoubleFlex Gym. It's such a smart concept. Unfortunately, we pay for the product, not for the idea. And the execution of this brilliant idea is...abysmal. I don't know about other users of this product (ones who have written reviews), but I used to use this product every other day after I bought it. I actually saw an increase in muscle, I felt myself working and sweating. Just by following the workout videos for twenty minutes a day would give me a good workout.
My first week I used two of the "Flexpacks", the orange disks in the front that add 5 pounds of resistance each. Upon purchase, the third disk was broken, which is apparently not uncommon because other reviewers complained about that as well. Not a big problem though, with a little bit of very strong glue, I was able to fix it. By my third workout with this product I was using all three Flexpacks.
About three weeks in, the ends of the DoubleFlex near the orange balls you hold cracked and broke. Why? Although they say that 3 Flexpacks or 15 pounds of resistance is perfectly safe, apparently the cheaply made plastic device can't handle it. So it cracked from the pressure, when I "pushed" it or folded it with my hands (the whole DoubleFlex name is because you do two actions with it: push and pull). No worries, epoxy to the rescue.
A week later the three Flexpacks flew off the DoubleFlex and across my room. The little hooks holding the second disk to the first broke. Again, out comes the incredibly strong glue. A week and a half later, while on vacation, the third disk's hooks broke.

I'm going to fix this unreliable piece of garbage again just because it's kind of funny at this point to see how many times it can break in different places. So far that's four.
Now, besides being an extremely infuriating and unreliable product, after a few weeks it becomes useless. I've literally been using it for a little over a month and it's already reached its full potential. As I said, I started using the maximum amount of resistance by the third workout, and I am NOT AT ALL a muscular person. When the guy in the workout videos says "Let's get those arms ready for the beach", I cannot for the life of me picture that in my head. And especially muscles like his are unachievable with this thing. This product will get you started. You'll see a bit of muscle growth, but to do anything more, you have to do more serious exercise. The only thing it's left for is those times on vacation where you can pack it in a suitcase and do a quick cardio workout with it. Because that's what it is. It's more cardio than strength, but even that's not enough. I do double the number of circuits in a workout with it, so I basically play a workout video twice, but without proper cardio and strength training I'd be at the same point I was at a month ago.

All in all, I think this is a great idea, but I absolutely discourage anyone from buying the product. I would pay at most five dollars for it if I knew how unreliable it was. I'm happy to buy a poncho for four dollars, and even it doesn't tear after its first use in the rain. But for a hundred dollars?! You could get a year's membership at a gym for that price. It's disgusting and absurd that the company could charge such a high price for a cheaply made piece of trash. If you exercise with it while sitting at your desk with 5 pounds of resistance attached, it's the perfect thing for you. But if you think this is a serious piece of equipment that you could exercise and grow with, then you're in for a disappointment. This is the first review I've ever written and the only reason I did was because of how appalled I am by this product, how mad I am that mid-exercise it just decides to break and ricochet all over the house. And also, I'd rather go to the gym twice a week and jump rope in my corridor for fifteen minutes a day because at least this way I see progress.
4455555
Frist let me say that this product could have been a real winner.  The basic idea is great, but the execution is terrible.

Pros:
1) The molded plastic iPad holder is perfect.  It fits the iPad to a tee and makes it extremely easy to take your iPad in and out of the case whenever you wish to.
2) The easy flip open concept is super.  Makes accessing your iPad very easy.

Cons:
1) The front covers are pitiful - many of them look warped.  Some bend in, some bend out some flip up at the long opening end.  This makes your $49 cover look real cheap.  More so however is it looks awful, and you have to look at this everyday.  I ended up searching through over a dozen at many local retailers to get one that looked half decent.

2) To make matters worse, the magnets by and large don't turn on the iPad like they are supposed to. So, I had to look through another couple of dozen to find one the had a fairly flat cover that would also turn my iPad on. (Why doesn't Targus make these retailers take the defective units off the shelves).

3) Okay I finally find one I can live with (even with a spot of glue on the back from the manufacturing process), I buy it.  Use it for a day, pretty good so far.  The bends in the cover bother me a little, but I can live with it, except the second day when I touch the screen in the  standing up position, the whole thing falls backward. The case won't keep standing when the iPad is touched.  Grrrrrrr!

Needless to say it is going back.  Hope you have better luck....like I said, great concept, extremely poor execution.
203056
I am sooooo glad I only borrowed this book, because if I had purchased this I would be really upset. I thought this book was terrible. A great idea but terrible execution. Who wouldn't want to read a book about a murdered girl looking down at the life she left behind? Sounds so mysterious and intriging... but this was awful. It went on and on and on and it was just weird.

I have nothing else to say beacuse this book was just too bad.
1919667
I wanted to love this and the concept is great, but this product was terrible. The first time I tried to use it for pumpkin muffins. It wouldn't squeeze out and I ended up just scooping the batter out of the top with a spoon. The second time I tried it with a basic vanilla cupcake batter thinking maybe my previous was just too thick for the gadget. Same issue. It barely came out and took forever to fill one cup. It broke the third time I tried it on pancakes. The bottom handle detached and no longer pulled the hatch open. All this thing did was double my work and my dishes. Speaking of dishes, it's terrible to try and get clean as well due to the nature of the bottom mechanism. Save your money. I just threw it away.
4300709
This case looked amazing and had a great concept. However it felt understated & flimsy. The construction materials seemed cheap.

Worse, the area that snaps to the back of your iPad was Unpadded!!!

Then the last straw, the holes for the volume controls and mute switch were completely off and cut wrong.

As a result you could not even snap an iPad into the unit

 Disgustingly disappointed. Am sending it back.
1537241
I had to return this for a refund. I just could not finish it. SPOILER ALERT!!

The premise was excellent! The author is in control of her writing and this story had such great potential. Unfortunately, it fell flat. There were too many questions I just could not seem to get past. If she was smart and never wanted to marry, why wouldn't she have saved a bit of her pin money? I understand that she is reckless and impulsive, but it simply didn't make sense for her to determine she would never marry and would live comfortably on her own merely because her aunt left her a house! All of a sudden, now she has a house and refuses to sell it even though she has no money for the upkeep. Also, the banter back and forth between the hero and heroine was exhausting. "I'll give you 450 pounds" "No, I'm not selling", "500 pounds", "No, I'm not selling", etc., etc., etc.

Then, over and over the following two lines (written in a different way) kept popping up OVER AND OVER AGAIN "I'll take you because you won't find anyone in town who knows where it is. They think it is haunted", "No, I'll find someone else. I don't want to go with you." There were pages of this from the beginning and kept going through the middle of the book. If she wanted to see the property before her father discovered where she was, why on earth would she not just go with him!!!

Also, how did her aunt manage the trek back and forth from her home to town if it was so treacherous, especially since no one knew where her home even was. This leaves the reader to believe that she was forced to walk back and forth quite often for supplies and to take care of the town. How can an old woman make such a treacherous journey as often as she would have needed to in order to live?

There is just too much to the story that is unbelievable and I simply could not finish it. It drove me crazy.
1760058
I hardly ever write reviews.  I just don't have the time.  But this one was quite awful....in the sense that I couldn't even get through the first few pages before I returned it.  The book description caught me and I wonder if the storyline could have been really good.  But the writing was just awful.  The author switched back and forth in that one paragraph between past and present tense more times than I can count.  And sometimes in the same sentence.  I just couldn't take the time to try to decipher what I was reading....no matter how much potential the storyline might have.  I highly suggest a very thorough re-editing of this ebook!!
2828175
Hate to jump on the 2-star bandwagon here, but the reviews are right.  This is such a great idea for an adult coloring book -- but the drawings are laughable at best, embarrassing at worst.  I bought several to give as gifts to theatre friends, but they've unfortunately become unintentional gag gifts.  I hope someone will come up with a professional looking version of a Sondheim Coloring Book.  As I say, the concept was terrific.  It just about completely fails on execution.
2889974
I liked the concept (romance / time travel), being with your future mate as she grows up and parts here and there but not enough to recommend it.

Henry and Clares incessant groping (even during church services) and constant stripping off of clothes to have sex got old real quick.  And then it got repulsive and flat out vulgar when they have sex when Clare is just weeks away from giving  birth to their daughter. This pregnancy btw is her seventh pregnancy! All past pregnancies have ended in miscarriage, three requiring blood transfusions. SO why in the bloody he!! would they risk it? PLUS the baby was kicking away in the womb at the time. I put the book aside for a few days in an attempt to forget that vile scene.

Screwing in your parents house, especially when they put you in separate rooms, is so cheap and disrespectful.
Come on have you no restraint.

Oh! and a couple months after Henry is dead Clare goes over to her best friend's house and screws her husband Gomez at the kitchen table (no integrity, no class) Charisse and her 3 kids sudden appearance sends Clare flying into the bathroom to redress and pick the Cheerios out of her hair. Pathetic. That shows me just how much she actually "loved"  Henry or any one for that matter except herself. What a selfish vulgar person she is.  She screwed Gomez before years ago and didn't like it, why go back? Is she that desperate to have someone fondle and admire her.

And let's not forget about Clares stunningly beautiful, thick,  heavy, long red hair.

Henry goes back in time and has sex with his 15 y/o self and gets caught in the act by his father.  Yo! where'd that come from?

How could Henry of ever held a job,  popping in and out naked, sick and a lot of the times with serious injuries;  being a filthy, hungover, chronic no show?
People see him pop in and out all the time but he never seems to make the news.
When he does get "caught red handed" at his place of employment they take it as tho it's no big deal. Still no headlines.

Henry says he has no control over his time travel. Yet he gave Clare a List with the exact dates and times he'd be back so she could meet him.

He said travel to the future was extremely rare and of course unpredictable but here again, when he wanted money to buy a house he - boomp right then and there- fast forwarded into the next day, got the winning lotto numbers and came right back and bought his winning ticket. Easy peezee. He also kept himself and all his friends rich via the stock market. I don't think he did anything for his friend with AIDS but I might be wrong there, I don't remember.

Henry, Clare, their friends, Clares sister, Clares family servants were all one and the same personality.  Henry and Clares contemporaries weren't real to me, none of them had real jobs.
The endless lessons in paper making was ridiculous.  The pile of clothes and the nauseous naked Henry repetitious.

Henry, Clare and their friends came off and scummy uninteresting people. Raunchy. There wasn't any love in this book,  just sick obsessions.

Henry seemed to be always on the run (i don't mean his jogging). He doesn't spend a goodly amount of time anywhere. Clare sets around making paper.

Contrary to one reviewer I loved it when Henry duck tapes that jerk to a tree for beating up Clare. I've got someone, as I'm sure most women do, whom  I'd love to do the same.

Try OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon. You'll fall in love with the Scots warrior Jamie Fraser.
1686511
Great concept, poor construction! So I read the reviews and said "well I will give it a chance" got it home and was so excited to try it out.  Couldn't get the 2 blades I tried to stay open so that they could cut.  Then held them down to keep them open and "made" them cut a piece of printer paper~ the trimmer wouldn't even cut printer paper. So sent it back, asked for a replacement.

Got the replacement in, same thing but even less of a cut on the printer paper....didn't even bother trying regular paper...the more you try it the faster the blade pops back into its container...

Not fun, lot of problems with it.  If they could only have some kind of switch to keep the cutters in an open position, may cause less headaches...but then they don't cut anyways...but I love this idea just too bad it didn't work either time
4012913
Absolutely terrible design! It works okay for the first day,  after which parts start falling off and the ones that are attached to special rubber bands (the tail section) actually go flying across the room somewhere and then the hunt is on.... Because your finished if you can't find them, as they don't give you any extra "hooks" in the package! The main problem lies within the design.... EVERYTHING is held onto the balloon with very NOT so sticky double sided tape, and then what appears to be scotch tape strips over top to double up the holding power (NOT).... so picture this for an evening of fun.... You blow this thing up with helium, after which you have to stick a dozen or so of these items into a balloon... That constantly wants to "Get Away" from you (it's a chore even with someone helping).... Then you have to go back to all of those items and peel and stick flimsy scotch tape (which also wants to fight with you) over the top of them, which at least a couple have already fallen off of the balloon! So once you get this all done and your ready to fly this thing, you realize that it needs more helium (even though it looks like it is going to burst) so you fight with the tail section and you wrestle more helium into the a## of this thing! OK so now the grand kids have gone to bed disappointed because you didn't realize that this was going to be an all day "project" to put these things together (I bought two of them :-( ), so finally Grandpa fly's it around and tweaks the weight with the provided puddy and everything is working "kinda" OK, the controls are clunky to get the hang of, and you always have to be within 5 feet of it for it to get a signal..... So it's bed time for ole grandpa... The kids will be really excited to play with them in the morning....... So here we are.... The next day, I get the kids all reved up at breakfast, you know, for the big fish debut....I go into the spare room where they are "Docked", thinking I'm going to fly it over there heads at breakfast AND....WAH....Wah....waaaaah....NO JOY! The damned little sticky hooks that hold the tails on had popped off, and went to play hide-in-go-seek, so here we are again, chasing parts down and " re-sticking" them to the balloon (another two hours of my life I will never get back)! The long and short of it.... Until they make all of these taped on thingies PART OF THE BALLON.... It is just not worth the aggravation! Once you get it together and flying, it is actually pretty cool, but expect to go thru the same aggravation every couple of days of re-sticking the thingies on, AND buy stock in batteries and helium.... Because these things eat BOTH!
If you don't head my warning and stay away from this evil torture device..... Then you get what you deserve!
Good Luck!
4324048
I wanted to like this movie.  I really did.  The idea was a good one - unfortunately it is poorly executed.  From the slow moving script, to the 70's era back music, to the bad acting - it was all just too much to suffer through after about 30-40 minutes.  I'm sure there was redemption but I (and the rest of my family) needed to be redeemed from the agony of sitting through the entirety.  It was that bad.  Every stereotype is overdone and the guy who's supposed to be the most sympathetic character comes off as a scary stocker.  He's begging everyone to give him a chance to do an honest day's work to earn a meager wage, with an appropriate bible verse ready to roll off his tongue at all the right moments,  but he's confrontational, aggressive and nearly yelling at everyone he's asking help of - most of whom are the among the most downright heartless people imaginable toward him.  Even so, I would call the cops on him too if he persisted in my personal space after ambushing me at the back door of my business - yes, even though I'm a Christian.  It was almost laughable. Though we didn't make it to the end, I'm confident that everything was wrapped up in a neat little package and everyone lived happily ever after.  Surely there are more excellent modern day representations out there.  Much more enjoyable, with still not the greatest acting overall, was The Secret of Jonathan Sperry.  Our 10 year old son especially enjoyed that one.  I imagine I'll catch flack about this review but I'm sticking to it.  It could have spread what Jesus in action looks like today in an excellent way but it falls short.
704542
This book had so much potential. I wanted to like it. I really did. Unfortunately, I just didn't like it at all. The idea is great, but the writing and flow need a lot of work.

I would have liked a lot more information on the world before everyone disappeared. The description mentions the soaring population and the outlawing of birth control. I would have liked to know why and how this happened; it sounded so interesting.

I've read several reviews that said the beginning of the book was slow. Yes, in a way it was, but the beginning was really the only part I liked. Once Darrel and Felix met up with Maggy, things went way downhill for me. I struggled to finish, and if I didn't have the nice personality quirk of having to finish books I start, I probably would not have finished this book after Maggy came into the picture. I didn't like her a bit. The nicknames were cruel, and in Felix's case, racist. She seemed very annoying in general. I also, honestly, just despised the "alion" thing and how she pushed it on everyone they met. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe a 17 year old would correct a military official on something so superficial, and even more unbelievable that these adults would just accept this and not wave her away like the pest she is. I mentally corrected it to alien.

Darrel is really not much better. The...sound...he makes all the time is just annoying. Every time the group stops for a few minutes, it seems he's eating or thinking about eating or wanting to eat...it gets old, fast. And really, I don't need to know every time he wets himself. Ick. I get that they're scared, but some things are better left unsaid. Also, the "bromigo" thing was just irritating as all get out. Apparently, when I got the book, it had been edited to remove 75% of the bromigo/bramiga's. I am so thankful for this. The 25% that were left were still WAY too many, though. I found myself rolling my eyes eventually.

The main characters are supposed to be 16/17. If this had not been stated outright, I would have put their ages at about 13. They act younger and more immature than their ages. This really took away from the story for me.

Honestly, there were very few characters I liked in this book, and one of those few ended up dead. Though, since the book is VERY "video game"-y, I can say I seriously would not have been surprised one bit if he had re-spawned. Seriously. "Xxxxxx screamed as the massive paws and powerful jaws of the feline extraterrestrial ripped into his body. Our faces went slack with shock as we simultaneously wet our pants. I reached for my inhaler, sucking on it like a crackhead trying to get as much of the last hit as possible. We sighed in relief a few minutes later, when he re-spawned several yards away." *not an actual quote, though had it been, I wouldn't have been even mildly surprised* I'm not even joking: it wouldn't have shocked me one bit.

The book really does read like a sub-par first-person shooter. Maybe this would make a decent video game; I don't know. What I do know is, in my opinion, it does not make a very good book. The ending seemed completely unrealistic and rushed. It seemed like it needed a little more thought, a little more time.

I won't harp on the spelling/grammar issues. Others have done this already and probably did a better job than I would. It did get a little distracting, though. The book needs more editing, to catch those mistakes.

Again, I really wanted to like this book. The summary made it sound so interesting. However, the writing style was just not something I enjoy, and the plot went in an entirely different direction than I'd expected, and unfortunately, I did not like that direction.

Oh, important information: I am WAY out of the target demographic for this book. I read it because I just flat-out love YA dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction. Perhaps if I were still in junior high I would enjoy it. Younger readers may enjoy it; I, however, did not.

This review originally appeared on GoodReads.