What was I thinking...?
343344
They work. They block the weather pretty good and let enough light in to walk into the room. The two stars are because they look like they are from the 70s. Not appealing in the least. I ordered several for the office windows so I am not returning them. I think my coworkers are questioning my decorating tastes :(
501748
I thought this was a GREAT book, but after reading some of the other reviews, I'm beginning to think I have been tricked with this book. I'm new to all this, so if anyone could recommend a good book on the subject,  please e-mail me! Thanx and blessed be all!
1836726
I dunno. Maybe I was expecting a magic formula. I read all the 5 star reviews and perhaps set myself up for a bit of a disappointment. There's nothing specifically wrong with this book, and it does have some great observations that I will use in my writing. Overall though, I just come away with a sense that some people sat around in a room with a bottle of wine and held a brain-storming session. Okay -- how about "confused" ... and then just riffed until they ran out of ideas. I suppose that is what I was expecting, but I just can help shake the feeling of "that's it?" (envision me vigorously shaking book trying to get pocket change to fall out). I probably could have provided a better example. Where's that book, again???
2954865
I'm not sure how to rate this book?  Just like I'm not sure if I liked it and would recommend it?  It was really disturbing.  I found myself thinking about it even when I had finished it.......I feel like it was too dark for me/
341697
Given Albom's reputation and the preview,  it looked like a book that would help people (including me) better understand life.  Frankly I'm a bit embarrassed that I wasn't bowled over by it....maybe I'm too superficial to grasp the great truths that 5 star reviewers found. And I'm not going to read hundreds of positive reviews to convince myself I was wrong in feeling pretty flat at its end. I'm wondering if many of the gushing reviews fall under the "Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome or if others read the book more carefully than I. I'm reminded of a scene in "Easy Rider" when one of the stoned characters (Peter Fonda?) remarks, "yeah man, I'm hip about time!".  Or maybe I'm stoned and "misremember" that.
1363867
But contrived and self-conscious enough that I caught myself watching myself as I watched, wondering what I was really thinking.  Yikes. I think I was bored during a big part of it. The ending was my favorite part. It was beautiful.
1569103
Perhaps I liked them too much?  Or my expectations were too high?  Or perhaps I am becoming (have become) a grumpy old man.  And in support of the case for my own prosecution; I thought that Radiohead's "OK Computer" was a very poor follow-up to their previous work, which probably puts me into a group of one!

As with OK C, I have really tried to like P's 3rd, but just cannot.  And you know there is a problem when you try to like an album!  The recording seems laboured and just trying too much to be different, or challenging or avant-garde, or some such similar.  Now that is my personal taste, of course, and I can fully understand someone desiring a more challenging third album. If you are a commited Portishead fan, and that is what you are looking for, great, if not; caveat emptor!
284715
Well, that was not what I was expecting at all. Wow. I think I need a coffee. Or a nap. I deserve a nap after 460-pages of a book I didn't understand, right??

The "not what I expected" part is my fault because, a) my eyes zeroed in on the "criminal underworld" part of the blurb and skipped the "clairvoyant" part. And b) Paige is 19 so I thought it was a Young Adult book. Ah, no. Maybe it could be YA, but it reads like Adult. (On Goodreads it's shelved as both...because that's not confusing at all.)

My brain died! I just...I just didn't get it. At all. And my bookish soul is weeping because I wanted to like this book so badly. It was so complicated (and huge) and detailed (and huge) and intense (and huge). Right now I feel like banishing myself to the picture book section, because I just felt like a preschooler trying to read an Encyclopaedia. I feel dumb. And I don't like reading books that make me feel dumb.

Part of my problem was we're thrown into a world that basically has it's own language. Even after 100-pages they were tossing words and phrases that I had noooo idea what meant. And then they started abbreviating everything! No! NO. Like this:

"So they're not really numa."
"Still dangerous," Liss said. "Rotties can use them. The last thing we need is an ethereal weapon Scion can use."
Julian shook his head. "Scion would never use numa. They're repulsed by clairvoyance."
"Not by the Rephaim."
"I doubt they like the Rephs," I said. "They're clairvoyant. They just don't have a choice but to obey, with the Emim at their doorstep." THE BONE SEASON (pg. 124)

Okay, sorry, can you run that by me again IN ENGLISH?

But this could very well just be me! I have a looot of friends on Goodreads, and most of them have rated this book 5 and 4-stars! Wow! It's also sold in 20 countries and shortlisted for awards. Sooo...for now, I'm just going to assume it's my brain that rejects this book.

But it did have cool aspects! Like it was sort of dystopian (I like dystopian) and it was set in England (sort of). And...and...it was...different.

Characters? Paige was pretty tough. Okay, everyone was tough in this book. Because if they weren't, they died. Blood splatters, okay? Once they've been flattened with a fist, they get up and are flattened because they've been dream walking, and then they're flattened because they're slaves to sadistic angel/vampire...things. (They're not called angels or vampires...but they appear to drink blood at times and fallen angels are mentioned.) Basically it's gritty. I admire the characters just for surviving.

But you know what? This is a series of...wait for it...seven books! It's pretty heavy on the description and backstory and interior monologuing. If that was pruned a little, maybe it could be two books? Forgive me, I'm in editing mode at the moment.

Okay, self-five for me. I did it. I got through it. I'm just going to take that nap now.
3496156
SPOILERS!!!

I thought it was well-written book (despite the protests for more punctuation) that could have been SO much more. I'm fairly imaginative but I still couldn't wrap my head around "what happened" to the brother... I mean what REALLY happened to the brother. If the brother was, in fact, (SPOILER) missing, and the mother just made up stories about where he'd been... what?! Why didn't they look for him? Did he kill himself? Or we expected to believe LITERALLY what happened to him? She's eluding to something here that is just too vague and strange. (And if I'm not mistaken there is a scene that supposedly took place "two weeks later" which couldn't have taken place based on the rest of the story - seems like an editing mistake or I was just too lost by this point.) I get "magical realism" to a point. This because something different - something head-scratching and strange.

I was lost on so many levels with the characters and their motivations - example - (SPOILER!) why would the mother carry on the affair for so long? Why would the father do nothing about it (except bring her tea outside her door)? Why is everyone in this book just sort of wandering around?

I didn't know the characters, didn't know their motivations, and didn't care by the end. I'm sure this will be blamed on my shortcomings, but I ultimately didn't enjoy it and don't recommend it.
1137252
Just when you think there's nothing more to know about something - boom - someone comes up with something brilliantly new.

I'm not sure how I missed it but I've never heard this info. before.  Now that I have, I'm thinking, "Of course!"  The whole thing is totally wild but it makes perfect sense. Either that or there were a whole lot of completely incompetent, apathetic liars in charge of things, who all happened to be together in a one tiny section of the north Atlantic, that night.

Is it ever possible that NO ONE is to blame when things go wrong in life?  In my experience, yes, it is.  It doesn't mean people don't try to assign blame; they do.  I guess it's easier to think that way than to accept that the sense of control, we so desperately need to believe we have, is all an illusion.  It's amazing to think that a situation SO large and SO tragic could actually be nobody's fault at all!!

My heart breaks for everyone who was blamed outright or, for the rest of their lives,  lived under a cloud of suspicion.  I'm not sure whether that would be better or worse than eternally blaming myself, while on some level knowing that I had done my job competently, perhaps even proudly, and had never lied about what happened and what I had or hadn't seen.  If it were me, I'd go back over the thing so many times in my mind, looking for answers that would never be there for me to grasp, that I'd probably go crazy on some level.  The cognitive dissonance and the magnitude of the loss would simply be too great for me.  I'd battle self-doubt until my dying day.

You know, you just can't make this kind of stuff up.
1788504
If you think you think... You're wrong. Probably you just ponder.

If you want to be sure you think about something, then you MUST read this book.
2357452
I don't really like it, but it's my error.  I guess I just didn't realize what I was getting, it wasn't what I thought it was at all, my fault.
1694369
As a whole, 30 minutes of that movie was great. But the rest were not. What do I do with the rest of my time? For a half hour I was like igght but then I thought what am I doing ? I'm not mad I just feel bamboozled.
3850878
Idk what to think about this honestly. Liked it but at the same time did not. Good idea though. Oh well.
2031698
Mind Blown.  -_-  I began thinking I had purchased a cheap snooze fest.... Couldn't be more wrong.  Drink your coffee, sit in a not too comfortable chair and open your mind.
742862
I should have saved my money....Yuck! !!!  knowing, as I do , that neither couple are my to my liking ... Just thought between the covers, there might be a hint of hope for our country ....there wasn't ! ! ...save your money .. I had to just limp though it
4504601
Great product - I was a bit in doubt first, this looked too simple to be good.