From promising to horrible...
343190
Spoiler alert...If you want to read about about a man who's good looking and confident by day and a powerful monster by night while the woman is a simpering whiner by day and a slutty nyphomaniac who can only be subdued by S&M at night then this is a book for you. Couldn't even finish the intelligence-insulting mess. Yuck.
61098
This machine, at first, had me actually excited about vacuuming my home. The brush action got up all errant fluff/cat-hair/dirt, and the edge-getter(tm) was the best I've seen.

Then the honeymoon ended. It's plugged up and no longer sucks.

Keep in mind, I have the geekitude necessary to take apart most appliances with ease. This machine is a nightmare of unneeded hoses and odd screws. It has failed me to the point where I actually picked it up and threw it in anger.

I'm sure the base motor is a good one. I'm sure the brushes are firm. But this Altima vacuum cleaner will no longer suck; its motors whine in protest, and I hope only to get my $100 back.

Most flagrant? The capture cup (thingie, bag, whatever) is supposed to come out for cleaning: except this machine is designed so that the filter holder dirty bits CAN'T come out. The empty-out basket is held in place by two plastic prongs off the main chassis of the vacuum cleaner so that it cannot be removed without discombobulating the machine permanently.

I support good products for good honest folk. This machine will erode all hope for the future.
1926636
This book started out terribly; I exclaimed several times "this is horrible!"  In the end, however, it did redeem itself somewhat, though it is still just an ok book.  Much of the plot has to do with Jane vacillating back and forth between being able to fully participate in Austenland, and feeling stupid and NOT being able to do it. You think I'm kidding?  A sampling:
page 31: "She was ready to plunge."
page 33: "Now that it came to it, she didn't know if she could role play with a straight face."
page 38: "You can do it, you can do it, she chanted silently" [to herself]
page 43: "She was completely ridiculous."
page 48: "She still felt dried up and brittle in this new pretend skin, and she really didn't think she could stomach false declarations..."
page 51: "I don't think I can do this."
page 53: "I can do this; I want to do this."

You get this idea; that's 20 pages with several swings, and I skipped some.  There is a similar back and forth over whether or not she needs men in her life.  So there's very little Austen wit here (though it is better than some of the other Austen-related attempts), mostly you're just thinking "this is bizarre" and "this is inane".  Don't try applying logic to the premise, it will start to fall apart.  There's not much chemistry between the characters and not much immersion in the time period (other than costumes).  Jane doesn't really even feel very likable, she is so unsure of who she is and what she wants, too focused on someone else making her happy.

All of that being said, I did rather enjoy the ending, and was pleasantly surprised by how it wrapped up.  It is a very quick read, so if you are looking for some light fluff that has bits of P&P association, give it a whirl.
1125428
This is an edited version of my first review. After thinking about it, I decided I'd really been way too kind ("if you can't say something nice...."). I also took it down from 2 stars to 1 because I had to admit that it was profoundly bad in every way.

I've always look forward to a new "Odd" book coming out - or at least I did for the first few. But this one was downright terrible.  Proselityzing (sp?), overblown prose, long-winded passages that seem like they should have a valid point, but upon further examination, have none. One thought leads to another which leads to yet another until we're left having absolutely no idea what anything means.  It's one thing to meander in your thoughts - plenty of great creative ideas can come out of that - but if you're going to put things on paper and try to tie them together into some cohesive plot, you'd better do some editing.

Mr. Koontz, you've me given lots of good books to read (and not a few bad ones).  I'm thinking it might be time to take a break.
4025523
The premise of J. F. Gonzalez's "Survivor" will seem familiar to most horror fans - a young couple off for a romantic weekend run into a bunch of lunatics who get the husband arrested for a traffic violation so that they can kidnap the wife for a snuff film. OK, that could work for a graphic torture porn novel! The trouble is the most graphically disturbing scene in the entire thing happens on page 6 (I won't spoil it for you, but it's definitely a gross-out). After that, there's plenty of torture and rape and murder, but none of it is graphically described and almost all of it is summarized after the fact, rather than described as it's happening. If you're reading this for the violence, something's definitely missing.

The worst part of the novel, though (as others have mentioned), is the really horrible writing and plotting. First, the kidnapper (who nabs poor Lisa at a motel) tells her right out that she's going to be raped, tortured, and killed in a snuff film - where's the sense in that? And he says this all very matter-of-factly, as if he is reporting the weather forecast. Later, after Lisa has witnessed the rape, torture, and murder of another woman, she has a long conversation (15 pages of it) with the rapist/torturer/murderer (who goes by the name of "Animal") about why he likes ripping people apart and having sex with internal organs. They have a very involved conversation, as if they are two people meeting for drinks after work. He tells her his whole life story. It's all very civilized. "I get a strange sense of power," he tells her. Hey, great - thanks for sharing, Animal. Now, can we have another drink before you start ripping my arms off?

Not once in this novel does anything feel believable or real. Lisa's sudden plan to get herself out of the mess she's in comes completely out of left field, and has been orchestrated to be some sort of "moral dilemma" - you know, how far is it permissible to go for self-preservation? Well, Lisa goes a bit further than makes any sense. But that's pretty much par for the course with this novel. If you enjoy this genre (and I must admit I do), try one of Jack Ketchum's novels. They won't disappoint.
3420325
After having spent alot of fun hours playing Stronghold Crusader with my friends on a LAN, we were really looking forward to the 'improved' version 3 after the version 2 disaster. The promise of taking into account user feedback over the years to make a peoples game sounded very promising. After all, is been 10 years since the original release.
Amazon ROCKS with the quick delivery and the game (along with Steam) installed smoothly with no glitches. There was already an update via Steam which took an additional 10~15 minutes on a 6mb DSL line so all in all, install was about 25 minutes long.
Being the first in my group to get it, I must say that it's a huge let down and will advise my friends against buying it. The gameplay is extremely slooooooow (and game speed is no longer adjustable), the graphics don't really add to the fun and there is no skirmish mode. There is really no point in spending the money for this game unless Firefly makes significant improvements via a patch - and that is questionable at this stage of the game (pardon the pun). 10 years in the making.... I find it very hard to believe that this is what the faithful wanted. Its no longer fun or as customizable as before. Extremely disappointing m'Lord.
3507654
I tried, I really did. Within the first few pages after the foreword, I knew it was going to be bad. But I (really, very wrongly) thought it was an interesting premise so I kept going. I forgave the reason for the evolution of the sopaths, reminding myself about suspension of disbelief and magical thinking and all that good stuff one keeps in the the back of one's mind when reading certain kinds of fiction. The pacing is an unrealistic mess; everything that happened in the span of the first day should have happened over months, if not years in the course of the story. I almost couldn't, but I put that aside and kept going.

This brings me to the end of chapter one and characterization. I should have stopped at Chapter 2. I truly don't know what I was thinking, because GAH!!! WHAT A PIECE OF GARBAGE!!!! Has the author actually met and spoken with a real woman? Or just a real person... of any age? With actual emotions and a working brain?  I don't care if it's fiction. It's beyond insulting and the rationale behind the actions and reactions of the characters that the author interjects is potentially dangerous for developing young minds (this is NOT a kids' book, but I was reading Stephen King at 8, and now I'm 43, so...).

Yeah. I feel like I just read a book published by a men's rights association. (By the way, that was not a compliment.)
3319647
I wanted so much to like this and it started off with promise. Unique circuitry that clarifies dialogue, 5 front firing speakers and a small but
adequate "subwoofer" mounted underneath. The bass was OK, the dialogue amazing but the unit  had nothing that could be considered "surround sound" despite what the remote said. I would have kept it and given it a 4.
However within a few days the complete sound track would go dead from what sounded like a skip to a full 2 or 3 seconds of no sound at all. Checked everything, Reconnected my old Vizio soundbar and it worked fine, put ZVOX back  and the sound loss continued. A few days later the entire circuitry critical to the performance of this soundbase failed. Yes, sadly, it was the ZVOX and it had to go back.
Moved up to the Bose Solo 15 Series II, a little pricier, and it has been performing well. I  think I just was unlucky and got a bad unit from ZVOX.
4241847
I liked the premise of these books and felt that they had a good deal of potential.  Their original approach added a fresh feel to a frequently covered subject.  However, the books went downhill rapidly.  Characters have now betrayed themselves by undoing their original values, morals, goals and even personas.  The writing is atrocious and inexcusable for a professional author.  I understand that people are claiming this to be intentional for the purpose of sounding like a teenager.  Perhaps I read more than they, but I have never found it necessary for a author to include misspelled words, incomplete and run-on sentences, poor and often missing grammar to sound like a teen.  This is successfully portrayed by the way of speaking, mannerisms, behavior and subtext by authors with skill of any professional level.

Zoey is a highly unlikable character.  To me, the fact that she becomes so powerless when around any man of decent looks made her a weak character.  If she does not even have the strength of will to make a choose and stick to it, why should I believe her capable of all she is "chosen" to be?  A heroine needs to have strength of character, will and a sense of morality - Zoey is lacking in all areas.  I want a character who is empowered and strong - especially in a series such as this.  Instead, we are faced with a young woman who cannot make any decisions nor stick with them and who is continually stuck in a perpetual state of self pity.  I feel little pity for someone wallowing due to circumstances they created themselves.  She is the worst heroine I have ever encountered...

The "friends" are such stock characters, which was forgivable in the first book (somewhat), but certainly should have been sufficiently remedied by the second book.  We never see below the surface to the souls of these characters.  We never get the depth that would allow us to care for them and hope for their success and feel the same friendship for them that they main character is (supposedly) feeling.  The twins are unbearable.  I found myself skipping over every interlude they had due to the trite verbiage - truly, they need to broaden their vocabulary.  Also, if I were gay I would most certainly not appreciate the stereotypical view of the "token gay friend".  Makes me wonder how many gay men this author knows.  Again, they author(s) show a severe lack of skill and/or consideration by not taking the effort to more deeply define these characters.

All-in-all a very disappointing read, one which I had to quite literally force my way through.
780095
I was happy when I found a bunch of new additions to streaming. Until I started to watch 'em. Geez... man, how easy is it to get your flick out there these days??? Movie making used to be a complex undertaking. You have lots of different elements that need to be executed, coordinated, put together, and then finally distributed. Not for the faint of heart! But it must not be that way anymore, judging from the latest batch of secretions up for our viewing pleasure! I will admit I did not put myself through to the end, not even the middle. I immediately noticed that the camera work was subpar, well below even soap opera standards. The acting, if you can call it that, well.... sorry, no. Once we got to the screaming, 'possessed' kid, I bailed. No friggin' way! Seriously man. Just no!
2015266
I read Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley Confidential and wish I hadn't.  Sweet Valley has gone sour in a big way.  Most of the characters have changed so drastically that they are not credible as any vestige of themselves, and none of them are remotely likable (which is probably why none of them have any friends anymore).  Yes, I know that people grow and change, sometimes a lot, in the ten years following high school, but many have turned into their total opposites, and few if any have realized any of the promise of their younger days.  It's as though the author is taking a malicious pleasure in using the absence of constraints around YA fiction to write something bitter, ugly, disillusioning, and tedious, full of gratuitous sex, substance abuse, shallow relationships, and potty-mouth dialog.  And while I knew better than to expect great writing, much of this is stand-out bad, so much so that it often detracts from the story (and I use the term loosely) by drawing attention to itself and how bad it is.  By the time I got to the end, I felt like I needed a shower.

I quit reading the series after the first three dozen or so books, as I felt the story lines were getting desperate and the quality deteriorating (and yes, I was outgrowing my interest in it).  But this is a new low, the absolute worst book I can remember reading in a long time.  I was looking forward to the movie, but I can't imagine it being anything but terrible given this book as a starting point.  If you loved the early books and characters, cherish the memory and don't waste your time and money on this piece of garbage.
3582195
I'd like to start out by saying that I read the good and bad reviews of this book here on Amazon before purchasing. A lot of the bad reviews sounded extremely... condescending, so I decided to give the book the benefit of the doubt, and purchased it. I've now read it and decided to try and write a review that, hopefully, doesn't come off as badly as some of the others.

First, the good: The premise of the story is a good one, and I feel that everyone acts (for the most part) in character in the story. This, alone, is a feat that many fanfiction writers are unable to accomplish, so hats off for that.

The bad, though, seems to outweigh the good here. The main problem is the grammar/punctuation/organization/etc. It is just poorly written, to be perfectly honestly. Please don't think I'm some sort of writing Nazi, either. I don't especially care for perfection. If someone uses a colon instead of a semi-colon, or speaks in passive voice or whatever, I don't really care. This book is, however, in parts, really reeeeally bad. The author switches back and forth between characters without any warning. This results in a person having to read some substantial part of the paragraph to deduce who, exactly, must be speaking. She also switches back and forth between third and first person perspective, which is SUCH a big no-no. I do have to note, however, that these issues seemed to improve as the book progressed - either than, or I just started to ignore it automatically.

There was what I saw another reviewer refer to as "stream of conciousness" writing in the book. This came in form of large italicized portions of text, I assume to give the reader direct insight into the thought process of the characters. These were especially poorly written, punctuation and grammar wise. After awhile, I began to completely skip these portions, because they would often make little sense - they were strung together THAT badly.

Besides these issues, while the premise of the story was good, it wasn't executed terribly well. It suffers from a problem I feel like a lot of fanfic shares - rushing. One gets the impression the author just wanted to be somewhere else in the story, and neglected to develop the plot enough to get there comfortably. I noticed that towards the end of this book - I won't say in regards to what, exactly, to avoid spoiling it for anyone that still wants to read it.

Finally, the ending is unsatisfying. I realize that this is a series of books, but that does not mean that each book should have a conclusion that can stand on its own. It doesn't even seem like a logical place to stop. I have to assume this entire series was written as one story (or at least this first book was written along with something else), after which it was then chopped into parts to make multiple books from, without much thought as to the organization.

All in all, I really wouldn't recommend this. I am fairly new to the Phantom fanfic community, but other communities (like Snape fandom in Harry Potter) have much higher quality work available online for free. I hope the Phantom fandom is the same... but then I'm left to wonder, since this series seems to have a lot of very positive reviews.
905856
I had really high hopes for this movie when I heard that it was coming out. The teasers gave it just the right edge, but the reality was different. Making this movies was one of those ideas that seems better than it actually turns out to be. I could have said the same about "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans", but that's for another time.

We start with Selene recaping the Lycan/Vampire war leading up to her meeting Michael. Then it's like "Houston, we have a problem--The Humans are trying to exterminate the Lycans, the Vampires, and us along with them." Selene & Michael are captured, and spend the next decade or so on ice until they are able to escape, helped by the mysterious "subject 2"  Ok---no more spoilers.

As far as the film itself, Kate Beckinsale starts strong, but gets bogged down trying to figure out where/when she is, and trying to find Michael. Michael appears in a couple of "blink & you'll miss him shots". It turns out that "Michael" is actually Scott Speedman's face digitally superimposed on a stand in. The production values seemed dark--Not grim & serious, but "who turned out the lights?"  Were they trying to save money? This is not to mention that some of the most important dialogue seemed forced and awkward.

A lot of important details were either glossed over or omitted entirely. But then, what do you expect from a movie that's only 78 minutes long??? I'm hoping that an extended cut of this film will be released at some point. Maybe that will fill in the gaps until the next sequel.
2933172
Oh my God, where to begin? This film started off with a genuine sense of foreboding and enough gothic atmosphere for ten films! But then, all too soon, you painfully start to realize that none of the filmmakers connected with "The Boy" have a clue about the importance of pacing and how to build and sustain suspense. While the story had potential, and considering how badly the film was written and directed, the able cast elevates it slightly above a ranking of celluloid-sludge. But if you're wanting something fresh and actually scary, just watch the trailer instead. I'm not sure I have ever seen a trailer promise so much and actually deliver so little in the end. Adding insult to injury, at some point you come to find out that nothing is as it seems, and the intended clever 'twist' has already been done more than once before, and you can't help but feel cheated. While there is at least one good 'jump' scare and the first twenty minutes is actually pretty creepy, the film falls apart quickly, becoming confusing, annoying and in no way shape or form, delivered what the trailer promised.
3273370
"The List" by J.A. Konrath started out very promising.  It was engaging and really kept me clicking the pages forward for about the first third, until the story  became clear.  It was easy to figure early-on out how the author could extend to a sequel, which I highly doubt I'd read.
There's just too much far-fetched about this story - not in the premise itself, but in the actual execution of the story - to be enjoyable.  There are military, medical, and political inconsistencies that detract from the novel.
Worst of all is this inane "punching game" the main characters play when the see certain vehicles, such as a yellow VW Bug.  These are cops and professionals on the run, supposedly fearing for their lives, ripped out of their daily routines, yet they stop throughout the story to playfully carouse with another?  Ummm, no.  These interludes were terribly out of place in this story.
Anyhow, at the current Kindle price, it's an "OK" deal.  I certainly would not pay more for it.  This story had a lot of promise, but just didn't come together nearly as strong as it could have.
832709
What a relief! I am finally finished with this disaster of a book. It could have been good, but for the staggering number of grammatical errors within each paragraph. I don't normally write a negative review, but this was ridiculous. A third grade child could write better than this. Some examples are "to " instead of "too ", mixing up "your '" and "you're ", the constant use of "I seen " instead of "I saw ", and so on. NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD, PEOPLE.

The story and characters were promising, which is the only reason I finished this book, however, there were so many errors, that I was completely taken out of the story.  By the time I was nearing the end, I was skimming along, looking for highlights that might give me a clue as to what happened to the characters.  Yes, the book needed several edits, but I am appalled that someone would write so poorly, even for a rough draft.  It pains me to be so blunt, especially to an aspiring author, but I seriously hope that she takes this criticism as a clue to go back and take a few basic grammar courses before writing another book.

I must say however, that I was highly entertained by everyone else's reviews.
2615312
This had so much promise and the idea sounds so nice but it lacks in one crucial area and several irritating areas.
Reliability is the largest and most crucial problem. For the first month it was okay and would only occasionally freeze up and not respond to anything except the pulling of the power cord. Now this happens twice a week. I don't know if this is due to overheating but it is very irritating. This alone makes me suggest that you don't buy this item.

Another issue are the notifications that pop up. They stay on the bottom of the screen for a long time and there is no way to get rid of them.
Another issue is the sound quality. For some reason the sound quality over the HDMI in certain apps is unbearable. I don't know if this is the app's fault (YouTube and others) or if this is hardware issue but it is pretty brutal.
Another issue is that absolutely absurd size and configuration of the remote. I have had no problems with remote orientation and using both sides but the keyboard on the back is quite awkward to use because of the remote's total bulk.

I realize this is an entry-level Google TV and that it is only 100 dollars but I would avoid this and suggest that you buy another item. I think that VIZIO was so close to making this useable and a household product but there are some really serious issues. </rant>