Nice idea...but simplistic and patchy
357440
I like the concept of this book. Combining a whole bunch of ideas that these days are well proven and likely to result in well written software and productivity gains.

Agile, Java, Eclipse, Hibernate, Spring. All stuff that I am working with right now. Seems the perfect book to fill in the gaps in my current knowledge.

Unfortunately, though the author may be a fine developer, he is not a great writer. This book to me had serious flaws, and unfortunately, I learnt oh so little.

The book barely scratches the surface, glossing over any real detail and bringing not much more than what you'd get reading the home page of the respective products.

Some may like the ultra-casual writing style, but I found all his diversions and personal asides distracting. Granted, it's easy to read when the writing resembles that of a spoken conversation. But I found the book to be disorganised, fragmented, and having a rushed quality to it. And just too lacking in depth.

I realise that the author was attempting to cover a lot of ground (as he points out more than once) but this book could have been so much more concise. For example, he wastes his (and my) time reviewing alternative IDEs when already admitting he is totally smitten with Eclipse. If the author just hadn't been so keen on personal asides and spent a bit more time getting the structure of the book right, he could have covered the subject matter in much more detail.

OK, so this book might be good if you want a crash-course in all those fantastic open source products. It might save you some time in getting your basic application up and running, if you've never used any of these products before. But if you're already familiar with them, or don't mind reading some online documentation, or don't mind having a quick play yourself, then your hard earned cash may be more wisely spent elsewhere.
1093612
Simplistic, but kinda fun. Might be good for kids to build vocabulary
3694595
This book seems to just be a patchwork of literary (and film) concepts that have made other works successful. What the reader ends up with is a sappy, Twilight-esque hybrid of Hunger Games and The Walking Dead... yet this book doesn't fully commit to any of those themes, prefering instead to sample them all. Nothing really unique or inspired here; skip it.
1069322
This  is perhaps more suitable for young adult or even pre-teen: well executed, but relatively simplistic. I'm a fan of most of LWE's novels, in part for their immersive detail.  It doesn't work as well for a short story.  The intriguing premise & slowly developed foundation lead to twin points that are wrapped up explicitly & rather laboriously. And they are neither new sentiments nor a surprising ending.
583699
If only this book had lived up to the promise of its cover. The covers suggests a joyous tale focused on an adorable little farm girl. The story is predictable and a bit dull and the art is heavy and clunky. Sadie Rose is an eight year old. Though small and sickly, she is spunky, smart and kind. She assists her forgetful neighbor, an old woman who hosts the weekly Sabbath services at her house. When disaster strikes, the community is at a loss until Sadie comes up with a (rather obvious) solution that pleases everyone. There are occasional Yiddish words and a single page glossary in the back.

Although the author's notes indicate that this story was based on the Jewish farming communities located in Connecticut, there is really no sense of place. The people seem like peasants and there is a vaguely Eastern European feel. There is nothing to indicate that a community of this type existed in America.  Similarly no time period is given although the lack of modern conveniences and the dress and mode of transportation suggests the 1800s. There is no diversity, everyone is white and Jewish. Perhaps talent would be a better word than strong. The main message is good. Everyone has something to offer the world. Although Sadie does not possess the physical prowess that is useful in manual labor, her intelligence, resourcefulness and kindness are also to be valued. It's not a bad book, just not as much fun as the cover suggests.
4144892
The time travel idea within the restored 1909 house was an interesting hook, and connecting it to (spoiler alert!) a real-life train wreck was an excellent premise for a novel, but this book didn't really do it justice.  The whole thing seemed like a nice first draft, but certainly not a well-developed, polished novel.  The character development was weak, the plot lines meandered about, symbols were left dangling and unsupported, and loose ends were not resolved.  Georgie?  Mrs. C?  Father Gabriel?  And how did the newspaper headlines fit the chapters?  This book could have/should have been much better.  A few strong sessions in a writers' seminar or with a competent editor would have certainly helped guide this effort to a more satisfying result.
3159215
I was looking forward to reading this: a nice modern day story and learning more about the Underground Railroad.  Sadly, I found it very unsatisfying.  The historical part was very shallow - nothing I hadn't learned back in grade school.  There were a few bits about communicating through quilts and rugs, and 1 journey downriver, but I was hoping to learn more.  The story with Liam, Hannah & her father was also spotty at time - the author would drop a few details, but then jump to another point in the story without developing those little tangents.  If they're not worth developing, why mention them at all?

The modern element wasn't handled well, either.  I had the most problems with the character of Emily.  One moment she's emotionally devastated and literally curled up in the fetal position, and then an hour later she's mostly OK?  The timeline with pretty murky - it was hard to tell if weeks had passed or only a few days, so perhaps making it clearer that her recovery took more time would make things more believable. There was a fair amount of info on her friendships with several women, but how were the issues between them resolved?  Again, too much time spent developing a little offshoot but then dropped.  Jake was a little too good to be true; a "flaw" would have actually improved his character.  I also don't understand why the idea of "ghosts" was repeatedly introduced.  After the rambling of the book as a whole, the ending felt rushed and superficial.

Yes, there were some formatting/spelling issues with the Kindle version, but much less than I've encountered in other novels; it was mildly annoying, but if the story had actually been more engaging, I probably wouldn't have minded.

Bottom line: not the worst I've read, but wouldn't recommend to anyone.  Deleting from my Kindle library so I don't make the mistake of picking this one up again.
3430693
I wanted to like this, but I'm afraid it just isn't that good.  The problem for me was that, despite some truly wonderful, strange images (something like 80% of the movie takes place in Carrey's head while he's asleep and supposedly being deprogrammed of his memories of his girlfriend), what's delivered to us at the end is a very simplistic message: it's hard to live with someone.  I guess what I'm saying is that the stakes are too low here.  That question -- how do you make love stay, since people will inevitably get on each others' nerves -- is pretty realistic; the film then yokes it to a very Philip K. Dick-ian premise of a company that can selectively erase memories (the company's name is "Lacuna").  It's unclear to what extent this is supposed to be humor, but it's certainly absurd enough that we're unlikely to take it too seriously, even if it seems the actors are (and Jim Carrey does a whole lot of emoting).  All this adds up to a story that is interesting in lots of ways, but just doesn't hang together tonally, or intellectually.  I rarely get bored watching movies, but I was checking my watch about an hour into this one.  It's confusing to watch, and I think unecessarily so.  It's just that if the story-telling were less disjointed, the underlying banality would be apparent.
2594469
The idea is cute - poorly executed, though. Not as much substantive connection as I was hoping for.
402342
Here and Now begins with a promising premise. A very pregnant Suzanne McDermott, who's just tossed out her unfaithful husband, rescues a mysterious man from the river who, in turn, helps her give birth and heal her broken heart. Charles Garrity has been thrust from the Roaring Twenties seventy five years into the future and has his own broken trust and anger to deal with. Will Suzanne and Charles be able to overcome their emotional baggage to enjoy the true love they slowly find together?
The novel suffers mainly from being overwritten. I don't mind much the mundaneness or even the absolute predictability of the plot. But the bland, wordy dialogue and the endlessly repeated emotional descriptions should have been cut drastically: at least 50 of the 351 pages could have easily gone and left a better novel.

Also, the characters are largely bland and two-dimensional. If they displayed a more complete past, more complex emotions and a livelier feel, then the novel could have been interesting. For example, Suzanne and Charles both describe the other as funny, but there is no humor in the novel, just a bit of annoying sarcastic corniness.

If you're suffering from recent marital breakup, Here and Now may provide some comfort. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
117427
I picked up this book because I thought it sounded like a clever idea and a new wrinkle on urban fantasy. Unfortunately, the characters were all fairly flat, with the plot often being based on characters being dumb on purpose. The female lead kept getting captured and rescued. An allegedly evil goddess spent most of a chapter weeping on the shoulder of the male lead.

About midway through, the author crossed one of my personal thresholds by having the female lead naked (except for a trash bag over her head) while the so-called good guys have a long conversation all around her and not one of them offers her his shirt.

Sadly, I will not be finishing the book.
449267
I want to like this because the idea is much desired, but it is hard to use for lack of a proper legend or features key, and what's more, the contents are thin.  This gives suggestions of where to go and why, which is valuable, but is not a true guide to flip open when you do see something moving in the wild.
3330787
I quite e joyed this book. The idea is ingenious and it went well at first , but little by little the chief characters became more and more tiresome. It is difficult to decide if the author wished to expose the shallow mind set of the people or the era .Certainly she illustrated how their over formal exterior was indeed a shield for their dark interior true personalities
The last part was quite disappointing , simplistic and no unexpected revelations .In fact I thought the book personalities were so slow catching up on the obvious that I felt quite impatient. I put it down to the effect of a few families intermarrying for two hundred Yeats , as mentioned in the book.
There is quite a lot of embedded humor which may or not be intentional .I hope it is intentional .
2622420
Ruby is a short and sweet novel that could be a promising start to an intriguing series. However, the novel felt very unfinished and could definitely use some key pointers.

PLOT:

To me, Ruby was a non-plot kind of book. Not much happens in the book in my opinion, and I considered it an introduction to a series rather than, well, the first book of a series. However, the synopsis did intrigue me enough to agree to join the blog tour, and the idea was original enough for me to want to continue reading.

A large portion of the novel was predictable. For example, I knew exactly who Ruby would consider as a romantic interest as soon as he was described. Perhaps it's my knack for seeing things, but I sincerely think that I wasn't the only one who caught this as soon as it passed by.

This novel definitely lacked in action and romance. There are few action scenes in the novel, and they certainly weren't very well-described nor realistic-probably because there's usually more resistance to the protagonists when they're fighting. (They can't win everything, you know.) In addition, the romance felt very one-sided: Ruby seemed to have an insane crush (yes, notice that I wrote the word "crush," not "love" or "obsession") for the guy, but he seemed to be entirely impassive. But in the last chapter, he suddenly had a change in heart. This simply is not realistic; there was no build-up in the romance, and I felt incredibly disappointed because of that.

CHARACTER:

Ruby is certainly a Mary Sue. She is the granddaughter of a wealthy witch, she is uber nice times ten billion, she's gorgeous, and she has powers greater than any others'. However, she feels very flat. She never considers her friends (if she even had any) in her previous hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, nor does she dwell more on the fact that her father was murdered. She obediently follows strange requests from letters written from her father, and she is surprisingly willing to accept her role as a powerful white witch. All of this that I'm listing? Unrealistic. Human beings freak out. Big time.

Blaine is the epitome of a bad boy sweet inside. Because he drives a motorcycle and has a bad reputation of being a murderer, he could be considered a literary "bad boy," but he has the guts of a teddy bear. He might act all tough, but when it comes to a girl that he likes (coughcoughRubycough), he melts like chocolate.

WRITING STYLE:

There were numerous grammatical mistakes in the novel, and they unfortunately distracted me from the overall plot and writing. Spelling typos and forgotten punctuation marks abounded in the book, and every time I found an error (which probably happened every page), I cringed inwardly.

I will give Amanda Burke some credit for being great at description. Her incredible detail helped me picture the scenes in my mind clearly, and I was able to follow along easily. Her diction was also superb.

I would like to note, however, that teenagers like Ruby tend not to speak so formally. (Sure, some do-coughcoughmecough-but they are rare exceptions.) Most people don't speak in that fashion if they're from the twenty-first century.

Another problem that bothered me was the frequent change in point of view. I assume that the author was using limited omniscient point of view, but she often shifted into another person's thoughts without warning. I would definitely recommend breaking into different scenes if the author wished to change perspectives.

Overall, Ruby was a promising book that might interest me in the future, but it felt raw and unfinished. Perhaps through a few more edits, I might be more excited to read it.
3070041
I really wanted to like this book: I love wine, the French countryside and mystery novels that do not rely on excessive violence. It therefore saddens me to admit that the book fails grossly on execution of the good idea. My main objections are:
1. The book is very short. When you feel it finally gets off the ground, it ends.
2. The book is littered with page-filling "lists" in a very indifferent manner. For instance, when the characters enter a new room, they list every item in the room in one sentence without adding any comments or meaning to it.
3. The end comes without any build-up of suspense and is solved in 1,5 page with the use of clues which we never had been presented before.
Once again, I really like the concept, but the authors need to put more effort into their writing.
1518973
Not being a huge fan of YA, I almost passed this book up.  Downloaded and read the sample and thought that perhaps this book would be a sophisticated and smart read. I was disappointed to find that all of the cleverness of the story was used up in the first 4 chapters and I was left with a simplistic story of supernatural girl meets supernatural boy who quickly fall madly in love, become horney, and overcome all obsticals in a blink of an eye (or turn of the page).  Wow. How unfortunate.

The good points: Although there are a lot of books, YA and adult, centered around the supernatural, this plot concept had some teeth and originality to it. There were no obvious grammar issues or egregious errors.  The main characters had potential.

Negatives: The characters had potential, if they were allowed to be developed and molded, but unfortunately were one dimensional and flat. Everything about the plot was hurried and/or tossed aside. What was the rush...deadlines? The climax of the story was very weak.

Did I struggle to read it... no.  In fact it was such a simplistic and effortless read that I just blazed through it in two short sittings with the same fervor as one would read the sports page of newspaper- reading one event and moving on the next without reflection.  Interested but not captivated and ended up being too immature for my taste. I think that if parents did not mind the sex (there was nothing graphic about it) then this would be on the reading level of say a mature 10th grader who probably has been exposed to more graphic stuff in movies.
4685258
This book has a great premise that it simply doesn't live up to. The new characters are one-dimensional, and they get as much, if not more, time than the beloved characters. Also, the book drags out a fairly simply story. After a while, it becomes repetitive and dull, and you wish the author would just hurry it up. I forced myself to read the whole thing because I don't like to *not* finish books, but the temptation was definitely there to abandon it.