Couldn't even finish it
593183
I went to the library to check this out (just like another reviewer did) and was glad I didn't pay anything for this! It just didn't do anything for me.

I checked out the bonus performance and have seen better dancing at amateur shows, to be frank. She was OK but nothing exceptional by far. Maybe if you saw her dancing at a local show, but to have her own video really got me wondering - why?

She breaks down the moves in little segments, and I got bored halfway through. Plus I didn't like the 'sassy' angle she plays up. Bellydance is sensual, fun, and even can be humorous, but somehow she just didn't portray any of those qualities.

I've got stuff by Jillina, the Bellytwins, Bellyqueen, Suhaila, Mara, Goldea, Dolphina, Bellydance Superstars, Atea and a couple others. And they are all better than this. Some vids make you feel challenged, sensual, are fun, and can even wipe out a bad mood or raise my energy if I'm feeling down or tired out, but this did nothing for me. If you have it and like it, more power to you, but this did absolutely nothing for me.
2994793
Boring, poor writing - couldn't finish reading it.
4019836
I bought the Audible version of Killing Monica because I wanted a fun, well-paced story about fabulous characters that you root for. This book was none of those things.

The principal characters were wholly unlikable. Pandy was an immature idiot. Sondrabeth was a manipulative narcissist, the male characters were all one-dimensionally awful. I hated the whole lot of them! And I couldn't figure out why they liked each other.

The plot was outrageous and at the same time very predictable. A lot of the middle was a plodding, painful account of the deterioration of Pandy's marriage. It was pointless because we all knew where it was headed and the tiresome recount of it only made me impatient and irritable. There was not much humanity in the telling of it-- Pandy was an idiot and her husband was textbook villain.

SPOILER AHEAD:
Oh, I figured out the GRAND FINALE ZINGER halfway through the book. And let's just talk about that plot twist. Really? Are we really trying to keep up with the Kardashians with this? Frankly, I find this book to be rather insulting to the transgender community-- to just kind of piggyback on its recent media exposure without lending any true insights to the experience-- uggh.

What was most disappointing of all is that the premise of the book is a really interesting one, given who the author is. If she had taken the time to write compelling characters and finessing the plot so that it progressed believably in an unbelievably fabulous world, she could have written a fantastic book.

This book was so bad, it makes me wonder if Bushnell wrote it just to piss off her editors. Is Candy (rhymes with Pandy) trying to move away from this book to write more serious literature? Either way, this book left me non--plussed.

PS, can't figure out if the reader made the book MORE irritating.
1399873
I usually read an average of 4 books a week, yes I have my nose stuck in a book most of the time.  I just couldn't finish this one.  The author seemed to be afraid to use the words he, she, him, her, ect.  Everytime a character was refured to the name of the character was used.  On one page alone I counted the same name used 8 times.  I just couldn't get past that.
3761073
Ugh.  I know I didn't pay that much for this book but I still hate it when it's so bad that I can't even make myself finish it.  I kept trying to have empathy for the main character and it just never happened.  I just kept getting more and more frustrated as the plot became even more unbelievable than it started out being.  Oh well.  There really are quite a few good reads in the Kindle collection and I'll just steer away from this author from now on.
3138050
This is an azingly boring book, with a few semi winter eating pages surrounded by a couple hundreds d pages of pointless, rambling dialogue. While some of the earlier books in this series were quite enjoyable, #6, #7, and #8 are extremely boring. The author has turned what should have only been a few chapters worth of story into 3 full books. This book, which was free from kindle library and still isn't worth it, is dreadful and I'm exceptionally irritated that I wasted the time it took to browse through it.
2013222
I was so incredibly bored with this story.  The idea of it sounded interesting, but everything about it plummeted.  Not only were the characters dull, the story lagged on and on, and the grammatical errors were laughable.  Was the editor off duty that day?  Did the author not proof-read his work?  Does he not know when to properly use a period and not a comma.  (Simple grammar, people.) I should have stopped reading it, but I kept thinking that it would get better.  Well, it didn't.  I definitely will not be reading the rest of the series.  Save your time.  Move on to another book.
4957595
To be fair, I want to tell you from the get go that I did not finish this book. The author's writing style was something I really struggled with and it made me not care how good the idea of the story was or what is going to happen to the very unlikable "heroine".
The book consists of so many unnecessary exchanges and scenes. For example when Jessica finds Sal sleeping in the bathtub, only to find out that she forgot to turn the oven on for the lasagna. Why this was important to the story baffles me. On the other hand I found the author running through scenes that could have really added to the story. Like the part where her boyfriend breaks up with her. He just says: "I can't handle this anymore! It's just not normal. They aren't real". No sign of trouble in the entire 6 months of true love and than BAM..this is how it ends.

Miss Taylor also seems not to know when it is appropriate to "chuckle" or "giggle". Alex offers to make Thai food and that resonated a chuckle. What in God's name is so funny about Thai food and why is Jessica so astonished he can cook. She doesn't even know the man.
Another word Miss Taylor seems not to know when to throw in is "stupidly". Jessica "stupidly" says Hi and then when Alex hands her the soy sauce she "stupidly" says Thanks.
I don't know about you, but I find it totally NOT stupid to say thanks or hi. I wish the author knew when to throw in the occasional chuckle or stupidly, because she not only uses these words in the wrong context, but also way too much.

In this book people seem to know each other in and out within hours of meeting. Jessica and Alex go over to Sal's to watch TV and even though nobody utters a word Alex comes to the conclusion that Sal is an awesome person.

This is where I throw in the towel. I am very happy that I paid nothing for the book and that it is so easy to delete something on my kindle. I have 4 children and a very busy life with running a dog rescue and all the life stock we have. My time is precious and I don't have any of it to waste "stupidly".
4258612
This book was so boring I could barely stand it. In fact, I had to abandon ship halfway through. The main character is kind of interesting, as are the two kids, but the story itself is so slow-paced that the characters can't carry the book. I am a huge reader and I can count on one hand the times I've had to quit a book midway, but this one just couldn't hold my interest. I found myself daydreaming everytime I tried to read it. The writing was over the top...the author sounds as if she's writing to try to get an award rather than tell a story. Pretentious readers may try to act like they enjoyed this mess, but don't believe them. One of the worst books I've ever read.
3513035
I always try to finish a novel, even ones I'm not excited about.  I had no desire to finish this one.  I gave up after about 20% (per the Kindle).  I found the language stilted, even archaic.  I couldn't get into the characters, and found the plot line tedious.  Based on the previous 5 star reviews, I kept waiting for things to pick up.  For me, they didn't.
3949343
Struggled to finish! One of the worst books I've read.
4971806
I wanted to like it, and it showed potential.. but once I got past the first book I bogged down in the second. I just kept waiting for something to happen, for the plot to stop thickening and start being edible, but that never happened. I actually stopped reading and deleted the book from my Kindle, something I rarely do. I also rarely leave two star reviews, but sadly this book just couldn't hold it together.
2380063
This is a book that I could not finish. Unlike some, I do not see the nobility, merit, or value or spending my limited time on earth finishing a book that is not engaging. So -- this did not pass my "10%" test on Kindle. i.e. if I've reached 10% of the book and do not care to know where the book goes or how it ends by that time: the book is a "DNF." The main character is extremely poorly developed. The entire development pretty much consists of enumerating all of the times that she "lights up" another cigarette...gross and disgusting. Fortunately, this was an Amazon prime freebie for me, else I'd be extremely disappointed in the purchase.
75156
The book certainly had an interesting premise, but unfortunately, I couldn't handle reading it. Each sentence was so overloaded with unnecessary adjectives that the average word length for each sentence was about 20. In several cases, the sentences rambled on so long that they became paragraphs.

I learned long ago that once you get past about 14 words, most people tend to lose interest in the sentence, whether spoken or written. After 10 pages, I couldn't tell you more than two things about what I read, other than there was a truck, and a helicopter. Considering that I've read thousands of books over the last 40 years, and have only found a few that I simply couldn't be bothered to work my way through, that's saying something.

I feel like if I could have gotten to this manuscript in an editor's capacity (a job I had for a Navy contractor for a while), I would have divided most of the sentences into two, and perhaps been able to finish this story. Apparently, those that managed to finish it quite enjoyed it. :)
4230778
I lasted through 16 pages before I grew disgusted and deleted it.  When it became clear to me that the author hadn't even taken the time to decide whether the protagonist's field trip was taking place in a bakery or a candy factory (she switched it three times before I stopped reading) and when she had the adult tour guide of the trip flirting with the "Hot Jock" love interest, I gave up.  I won't waste my time on a first draft.
(Also, the author needs a refresher course on comma use.)
869
I wanted to like it, but i found myself cringing and forcing myself to finish it.  I suppose it had potential, but the writing was very juvenile and not engaging.  There was absolutely no motivation for the characters and more than once I caught myself saying "seriously?"  How are these people supposed to be in love when they've said a grand total of two hundred words to each other?!  This book will just leave the avid reader frustrated that you wasted your time.
3624588
I couldn't finish it. It was like reading something a 6th grader had written, both in the story and the way it was written. It was just so terrible.