Decent but  disappointing
351703
I adored the other Fox books. I enjoyed this one but it left a lot to be desired. The entire book seems rushed and the plot is only about a third of the book. The rest seems to be filler
593425
The plot is decent enough, but the story-telling is disappointingly rushed, it definitely needed a lot more fleshing out.  I rarely leave a book un-read and managed to finish this one, but I did check frequently for how close to done I was because I wanted to move on to something more well written.
3793160
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Spells of Old is a decent book, but it isn't great.  It suffers from "Middle Book Syndrome" in which a lot of stuff happens but it doesn't really progress the story all that much.  Subplots that were introduced in this book weren't extensively developed except for Queen Diane which was left hanging. The subplots carried over from book 1 only progressed by a small amount and the only book 1 subplot I recall being resolved was Daniel and Sina.

It is important to note that there are two stories being told.  The first continues our Sistina story from book 1. The second story being told is Kelvanis vs. the elven kingdoms.

The Sistina story is a slice-of-life with almost no tension.  She has her dungeon, her residents and despite what the book's blurb may imply Kelvanis does not threaten the dungeon.  It does scout but then they back off.  I thought perhaps there would be conflict with the adventurers.  Nope.  Anything that does occur is minor at best and easily resolved.  Overall that meant the Sistina/dungeon storyline failed to grip.  Oh, the things that did happen will be important for book 3, but within book 2 itself it fell short.

The Kelvanis story is much more interesting.  It's a struggle for the elves to hold on and the corruption were well written.  Queen Diane's slow fall is well written and interesting, but she must have failed Intrigue 101 and as a person she was less interesting than the event surrounding her.  But what did this elf vs. human conflict add to the overall story?  Kelvanis has more slaves (not a shocker), the elf are fighting back (same as book 1, again not a shocker).  The goddess is still captured, but not yet corrupted.

The characters were interesting, but several times the elves in the dungeon blurred together and I couldn't recall who was whom except for Phynis, Desa, and Lily.  I'm glad the adventurers weren't clich, and they had their subplot going within Sistina's, but the two didn't interact all that much.
1316079
The series up to this point has been pretty entertaining, and though I was disappointed by this entry, I will probably still go for one more to see if the author can get back to what worked well...  The problems with Knights Magi are pretty severe, there are some major plotlines that aren't internally consistent, and I wish that wasn't the only issue.  The female characters are caricatures, props for Tyndal and Rondal to argue over and about.  Previous entries in this series have told a good story, developed characters and the world, and generally been pretty decent fiction, make you look forward to the next book kind of stuff... this entry tells three stories poorly, and makes you want to close it and put it out of it's misery.
3666000
If you've read any Christian books on the differences between male and female, you'll find precious little to interest you in this one.  I was disappointed that the author left out the effects of contraception on marriage and did not include any of the wonderful writings of John Paul II on human sexuality.  A shame, really, because there is much good to be found in them... they've revolutionized my own marriage.

Overall, the book is decent.  I read the first few chapters and skimmed through the rest.  As I stated, little here that I haven't seen before.
3828635
It took a while to get through this book because I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Priest came highly recommended from fellow readers so I was anxious to jump in but ended up disappointed. I felt minimal connection to the main characters, and felt the sex scenes were there to get as much butt slapping, oral, dirty talk and raunch as possible, and none of it added substance to the book or character development. It started picking up at the end but it was predictable so no big surprises there. I love a good erotic novel but this missed the mark.

Despite my less than stellar view of this book, the writing itself was fine and felt polished from an editing standpoint (save an issue or two, but that's to be expected as I've come to see in numerous books!) I'll give Sierra Simone another chance, this book has potential and fell short, but I have hope for her other work.
3957198
I liked the prior books, but I was disappointed with the lack of development in the plot when it came to this one. I liked the plot, but it felt rushed and quickly reached the climax without much building. The characters are difficult to follow if one hasn't read the prior books recently. Time has no meaning and there are numerous leaps without substantiations when it comes to travel. People seem to appear where they are going without the journey having any reference frame. People can make epic journeys while other characters spend a day or so under guard. A couple of the characters don't seem genuine as inflated as they are. Conversation lacked flow. The end of the book appeared without any meaningful resolution of the climax. This could be due to there only being one major story arc for the artifacts of power trilogy. I felt cheated when there was no resolution of a minor storyline within the book. I would recommend a content edit for conversations and a few orphaned plot lines. Needs more development, but has a good start so I will give it four stars.
2560297
PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S SPY is a decent enough read. However, overall, I was disappointed. There aren't many surprises in this novel; I was hoping for a bit more twists and turns but instead found it predictable. I was not a fan of the way the narrative jumps around; I'd have preferred not to know who was working with the Nazis before Maggie did. The "mystery" was weak, and there were elements that made me wonder how suitable Maggie was for a spying life because she missed a lot of things. All this I could have lived with, though, had there been depth to this novel. The characters and the relationships were flat. I didn't care about any of them, and I didn't think they cared about each other either, regardless of what they might say. You always hear "Tell, don't show," but I don't think I've seen such a perfect example of WHY you should tell and not show until I read this book. I don't even have much of a handle on Maggie; I had no idea how she felt - except when the narrator informed us that she was "surprised", etc - and she's the main character. Additionally, the historical aspect is not woven into the narrative seamlessly but is more dumped, and it just hardly ever felt like the forties, although I did enjoy the quotes from newspapers/radio/etc that MacNeal included.

I read this book quickly, so it was a pleasant read and honestly, I think it'd make a considerably more enjoyable film. Also, I have not read the first book in this series. It's clear that I missed out on some of the backstory, but I had no problem catching up. Unfortunately, I have no interest in backtracking or continuing on with the series.
129642
This is the only book in this series or by this author that I have read.  I found it a little lacking.  A decent premise, a decent plot, a requisite love-interest, and other standard elements of a private eye novel combine to create a... standard private eye novel.  The only thing at all unique was the setting of central/southish Louisiana.

On that note, the Cajun element of the story disappointed me.  It seemed to reflect a somewhat well-informed perspective and representation but came across as slightly clichd and stereotyped, as if the author was relating something he'd read about rather than experience firsthand.  I have lived in Louisiana and expected better from a Louisiana native, perhaps he was taking artistic license.  This could also explain why I found the plot predictably unpredictable and a bit mundane; maybe living there jaded me.

I will say that the character Pike was memorable and laconically hilarious.  However, I do take exception to the omnipotent Man With The Rifle (silly author, only Chuck Norris is that good).  Finally, the title Voodoo River set a high standard which this book sadly failed to live up to.  Perhaps involving Voodoo or a river in the plot would have helped, perhaps not.
2543637
Overall with Max, Patterson has produced a decent story. The plot line is decent (much better than the last book I think), and there is still the characteristic humor that I have come to associate with this series. Nevertheless, Patterson overall lack of facts is what really annoyed me through out in the novel. I am in the Navy, and the portrayl of the Navy through out this story has so many holes in it, it's distracting....
To begin with, there are no LT Col. in the Navy... There equivalent is a LT. Commander. Second of all, A LT. Col. would never  call a LT Ma'am , as a LT ranks below a LT. Col. Third of all the training that the kids had to go through to get on the ship doesn't exsist. Atleast not what they went through. Fourth, the navy doesn't have tanks... The army does, and the marines (which IS a sub section of the navy, but they are on a different base in Hawaii). Fifth, Kids would not be issued khakis. Sixth, at the time of this novel, no women were allowed on Submarines, and one of the techs was a woman on the sub.
I know these things are knit-picky, but because Patterson's overall portrayl of the Military seems to be kind of downcast, I felt that he should atleast get the facts right. It screws up his credibility of the save the environment messege.
3855571
I love the Sci Fi genre and eagerly anticipated watching this movie on Blu Ray after I missed it in the theater. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed.

The acting, for the most part, is top notch, with Joel Edgerton (Lucas), as the conflicted but loyal sidekick to Michael Shannon (Roy) being the standout in my opinion.

The story however was somewhat lacking. I'll stay away from spoilers but the plot revolves around Alton (played by Jaeden Lieberher), a boy with apparent special abilities. He is "abducted" by his birth father, Roy and Roy's high school friend, Lucas, from a religious compound run by Calvin Meyer (Sam Shephard). The cult run by Calvin believes that Alton's special abilities are messages from God and could be foretelling the end of the world (with the belief that Alton will protect the cult members as long as he is with them). With Alton on the run, the cult and the Government (who have also been alerted to Alton's abilities), are in hot pursuit to capture him. The story builds suspense as the viewer is intrigued by what exactly Alton's powers are. The long pursuit has some decent moments but I felt like it dragged too long.  I was also disappointed with the periodic moments where Alton couldn't control his powers; without any real explanation of why and to be honest, pretty vague displays of what his powers actually were.  The story also had a lot of moments of, what felt like, forced foreboding.

I won't give away anything more. The story kind of reminds me of a M. Knight Shamalan movie, where a lot of the pay off to the movie is the "reveal" at the end. I also think Starman was actually a better version of this type of story. And to be honest, even Powder, had the viewer more emotionally invested in the "gifted" character on the run.

Jeff Nichols appears to be getting a lot of praise for this movie. But, to me, it had a tremendous amount of plot holes and one story line basically ends with no real payoff or explanation. Adam Driver, who is very good, is terribly underutilized as well.

All and all, a decent movie, but not the Sci Fi masterpiece I was hoping for.
1355361
I wouldn't consider this book a letdown, but mostly because it never got my hopes up very high.

There is some promising stuff here. The little touches of humor worked well, the characters didn't feel like tired old cliches dragged out of cop shows and horror films, and it got somewhat more interesting as it went on. Unfortunately, that was not near enough to make it good.

The first problem is the main character, Parker Saint. The side allusions to his televised ministry, his expressed desire to "save Jesus" from the ber-conservatives, and the "destiny" drinking game suggest that we're supposed to find him shallow, absorbed with fame, and theologically questionable, but that's all the evidence we're given. I'm not sure someone outside of evangelical Christianity would get why we're supposed to consider Parker's ministry bad. His return to a deeper faith is as flat and meaningless as it is predictable.

I give Pastor Bartels kudos for making his militant Jesuits interesting and believable, at least within the context of the book, but he never used them to their full potential. Honestly, considering how he ended their storyline, i'm confused as to why he included them at all.

His female characters felt pretty well-developed, but almost immediately after an important plot point, i was thinking about women in refrigerators. Was there any point to in what happened to her besides giving Parker angst? Why did the other female character more or less drop out of the story halfway through? Actually, that applies to almost all of the side characters - the really interesting ones drop out partway through the story.

Entering spoilery territory -- i won't give much away, but i'll definitely hint at it

There was a bit of mystery and surprise with the identity of the "Blackjack killer", but honestly i'm not convinced that the bad guy could really have been as convincing as he was. If we're going with a form of demon possession based more on Biblical record, demoniacs didn't exactly blend in with the rest of the populace. And while i'm no expert on the aspirations of demons who possess people, i find his motivation and methods both puzzling and unconvincing.

The worst part was the ending. The 'climactic' final battle between "good" and "evil" was about as dramatic as watching paint dry, and took about as long. Nothing about it was convincing. The villain was not believable or a threat, and the hero's change was as superficial as his perceived flaws. And while i appreciate that the demon-possessed bad guy didn't act like someone in a cheap horror film, if your final battle is going to be resolved with strategy and guns, why are you including demons in the first place?

The epilogue was a bloated bit of telling that was probably largely unnecessary. I can't say for sure, as by that point i was skimming just to get to the end of the darn book.

Playing Saint avoids many of the problems Christian fiction is accused of having, such as the cheesy conversion scene or an abundance of cliched characters. Unfortunately, in my opinion they were not replaced with substance or quality.
1328150
This collection from 2011 was not one of the most effective of the Best series, and it was disappointing in many ways.  That said, there were some moments that stood out as masterful - Englander, McCracken, and Saunders were some of the most notable and pleasurable pieces in the book, but some of the other pieces felt as though they were included to pique the interest and tastes of all audiences, and I felt like Brooks' editing was all over the place in tone, scope, and even the general ordering of the pieces seemed not to make much sense.  The central thread seemed as though there was a non-fiction journalistic sort of approach, and while I tend to normally enjoy these books, this collection was disappointing in this manner as some of these choices weren't very pleasant or refreshing.  I felt some of the pieces were bland, and I was not enjoying getting through them.  I felt like it was a classroom of writers exercise in collection, rather than an exercise in editing and choice.  This is one of the few times I have been disappointed in Best American, so I will certainly continue to read them, but the energy that is normally infused in these collections is simply a cold rubber bladder rather than something I enjoyed.
2595817
I picked up this first in Grossman's series of "Magicians" novels because I enjoyed the TV series. The book is neither as compelling nor as "diverse" as the series. While there is some good writing, the overall story is very white boy-centric. A decent read but overall, disappointing.
1421169
Slight Spoilers

The first Others novel is wonderful, really a treasure.  The second was good, the third was fine, and this one...  I truly hate to say it, since I looked forward to it so much, but it was disappointing.  The trouble is that the scope of the story has grown to cover a large expanse of Namid.  In order to describe the situations in various parts of the world, Bishop introduces new characters and relies more on side characters from previous books.  These characters are  underdeveloped to the point where I couldn't keep their names straight because I lacked personal information to attach to the names.  Functionally, those characters were there to serve as eyes for the readers, revealing the crumbling human/Others relationship in various areas of Namid, but they offered little else.

It's frustrating, because those characters could have been developed more if Bishop cut out some of the novel's internal repetition.  The various Courtyards/Intuit/terra indigene settlements communicated frequently throughout the novel, forcing the reader to re-read the same information as it passed from place to place.  There was one point in the story where Simon made a plan, shared it with two different groups, then had it parroted back to him, forcing the reader to receive the same information four times.  I'm trying to appreciate the realism of that, but it's simply not fun to read.

This is the fourth book in the series, and at this point, we know what happens when humans attack the Others: the Others retaliate brutally.  This book showed that pattern again, but simply on a larger scale, and without the delightful character develop and interactions from the first book.

At this point, I'm invested in the world of Namid and in the characters in and related to the Lakeside Courtyard.  I still liked the book, because they were around and had nice interactions during the last fourth of the story.  But the repetition is becoming tedious, and I'm hoping that the events of this installment force a different plot for the next book.
1118254
Lawheads newest endevour unfortunately fell short for me.  The overall plot line of The Skin Map is interesting and has potential.  However, the majority of the characters fall flat and lack real development. The plot frequently jumps through both space and time, which made the story hard to follow at points and hard to believe at others.  The antagonists repeatedly show up with no explanation as to why or how they appear, and while there are hints that this may be explained in future books, one is left to wonder.  Like many fantasy or historical fiction writers, the voice and tone  of their novels drastically changes when they move to a modern fantasy world.  Suddenly the depth and richness disapear from the worlds we are used to seeing them create.  Unfortunately, this is the case here.  As a final weakness, Lawheads trade mark spirituality and richness of character seem lacking here.

On the upside, the writing is fast pace and the action fairly brisk.  A significant side story involving a modern character traveling back in time and opening a coffee shop is amusing and the most interesting arch of the story.  One can only hope that the story improves through future novels.  I was estatic to hear that Lawhead was returning to fantasy from a long stretch of historical fiction.  Unfortunately this was my least favorite of his books, having read every novel he has written.
2198644
While I did enjoy this book overall, I was dissapointed in a couple of area's.  I understand that this is a series, and I understand why there is little background for the main character; however, I am dissapointed in how underdeveloped he was.  Additionally, I did not feel that he was a compelling protaganist.  Also, the antagonists were meh.  All of that being said, there are some interesting aspects to the book, not wanting to spoil anything I won't be more specific.  I may read the additional books of the series in the future when I want a quick read, but I have already switched to a new series.