I really wanted to like it
588255
It is a good solid pillow, but it maybe just a bit "too" solid for my preference.  This is a heavy pillow and woke up 2 nights in a row with stiff neck and going to buy the usual store bought pillows.  It did sleep cool just to dog gone stiff for me and I'm a side sleeper.  It seems to feel and do well when laying on my back watching TV.  That maybe a hint to others.  This is just an opinion and hope this helps.
4105316
Really had to force my way through this book. I love the idea behind the story and really wanted to like it. Unfortunately wanting to like it didn't work like it was supposed to.
1127588
I really wanted to like this book but it was all I could do to finish it.  I did enjoy the creative environments and the characters, but it just plodded along and I can't remember feeling any type of emotion.  I kept looking to see if I was almost done yet.
4924778
I've encountered a problem. John is such an awesome guy, and he went through all of the trouble to mail his book from England! But I am not a huge fan of it- which disappointed me.

I really wanted to like it. Here are my problems with it. The chapter headings are confusing because it is just a magnifying glass, no number- just the image. The characters fall into moments where they don't speak like kids and the context isn't necessarily age appropriate to what the cover suggests.

That being said, I loved the idea of story. I'm a big fan of ice cream. I also wanted to see the kids actually work on the case for longer than like five minutes, which is what it felt like. They didn't really follow any leads or get the feel for being a real PI, just sort of jumped in with both feet and there you have it.

This book wasn't for me, but it might be for someone else. So give it a shot.

*I received this book in exchange for an honest review*
1367989
I wanted to like this book. I REALLY wanted to like it. As others have said, it seems like a lot of the book is style over substance.

I understand the author's intention behind everything he did from the footnotes to Truant's rambling to the layouts, I just didn't care. There just wasn't enough character development or a story for me. I don't read books to say "Oh, that's a page cleverly designed to make me feel claustrophobic, even if it doesn't!" I read them so that the words and my imagination will evoke that emotion. Putting the words cramped on the corner of a page didn't do anything for me. Now, had there been a character I cared about and was invested in emotionally, then yes, I probably would have gotten a lot more out of this book. In my opinion, though, the characters were just too flat to engage me. Truant probably had the most depth but, unfortunately, I just didn't "click" with him at all. If anything, I was happy to be rid of him when I finished the book.

That said, I know this book has a lot of fans, so it must work for some people, it just didn't for me.
983679
I really wanted to like this book. I enjoyed Niven's previous contemporary YA, ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES, but HOLDING UP THE UNIVERSE left me feeling pretty indifferent.

The premise intrigued me. I was very interested in learning more face blindness and what that felt like, but unfortunately, the portrayal failed to move me. If I didn't know prosopagnosia was a real disorder, based on the portrayal in this book, I'd have thought it was made up. I didn't ever feel like I understood or sympathised with Jack and how he saw the world, specifically because of one development towards the end of the book (I won't spoil it). I desperately want to feel for him--good or bad--but I just didn't.

I did feel for Libby, on the other hand, but mostly frustration. I felt like her character was such a contradiction of emotions. One second she's this tough as nails, ballsy character, and the next she hovering close to a panic attack and wanting to hid in her room with her cat. I get that people can react differently in various situations, but with Libby, she'd be fine with big stuff and then overwhelmed by comparatively little things. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for either response. Sometimes she--and therefore the reader--was hyper aware of her 350+pounds, and other times, like when she's running down a fleeing fit male athlete and leaping easily over fences after him without batting an eye, it's like her weight had no bearing whatsoever. I believe that she has worked incredibly hard to lose the hundreds of pounds she'd already lost to be at 350+ pounds she is in this book, but I still thought scenes like chasing the guy down--and gaining on him!--were unrealistic. Even a fit female athlete wouldn't have been able to do that.  I also found her incredibly childish, especially the way she'd start twirling like a little kid in public as a way to make herself feel better.

So with characters that I felt indifferent to or frustrated with, it's no surprise that the romance was a miss for me. I didn't feel any chemistry between them (I did between Libby and the foreign exchange student, but not with Jack). It was all a little too Shallow Hal for me, because of course the guy could only fall for the obese girl because he can't really see her...bleh. The whole thing felt very forced and way too easy all around.

I struggled with this book from start to finish and can't say that it ever really worked for me. The premise had potential and the writing itself was good, but the characters and plot left me cold.
4304603
I really wanted to like it, but it was too odd even for me. So unrealistic and strange, a kid could've written it.
3391149
I REALLY, REALLY wanted to love this series. After reading other reviews I just knew I would because I generally love all things Austen and English. I wanted to love it so much that I bought the DVD from Amazon because it was a "very long wait" in my Netflix queue. However, I was a bit disappointed in the end. I understand that it takes a drastic turn from the Pride & Prejudice novel I know and love, but I totally get what it is trying to be. I just didn't find that I liked the main character or Mr. Darcy very much. I found humor in certain scenes (the wet shirt/lake scene was absolutely hilarious), but other scenes made me cringe a bit (the "landing strip" comment at the beginning for example). In general I feel that Lost in Austen is an interesting idea and look forward to another Lost in Austen which I hear is coming out in the next couple of years (hopefully Sense & Sensibility). However, I feel this particular series just didn't live up to my expectations and I doubt I will ever watch the DVD again.
4797814
I wanted to like it. I wanted to finish it, but it just wasn't engaging enough, and given the premise, that surprises the life out of me. Great premise! I shouldn't have been able to put this thing down. It had a lot of cute things going on in this crazy world, but we are told about them more than showed. That would have been fine if everything else jelled, but it didn't.

I read 100 pages and then quit. Not much happened within those pages, at least, not enough to keep me from giving up on it. There are thousands of books I have to get to and I can't waste precious time reading something that isn't really capturing my attention. It takes a real talented writer to pen a good, decent, PI mystery and I guess KJA is not one of them. I'm glad I got this free.
3866575
Really wanted to like the book. I truly liked the concept but the storytelling just could not bring me into the book as it should have. I couldn't connect with the main character or heck any of them really and maybe to many were in and out of the book quickly. It skipped around a lot for me and sometimes that got confusing. I never truly liked the main character just couldn't connect with her, which is what the book is about as you read in the blurb and that for me was the worst of it because I did try to like her and I have read many books that I don't care for many characters but when you don't like the main one I dunno, it just wasn't for me I guess. I found myself dreading to read it and took many times of just putting it down and coming back to finish and even some skimming here and there and that is something I try to never do! But I did finish it but it took a long time as I would have to just put it down and go back later hoping that is was going to get better but it didn't I was never so glad for a book to be over, sorry it just wasn't for me.

I see the book has quite a few great ratings, I think they way its written is sometimes so over the top I just couldn't "like it" . I was given this book as a Reviewer from Book Review  22 for my honest Review and nothing else.
3858847
*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

I really wanted to love this book.

While there were things that I did enjoy, I think there may have been more that I didn't which was a shame.

I really did like the plot. The nurse who is travelling the world to gain new experiences and meet new people..I loved it, because once upon a time that was something that I wanted to do. Anything that involves travel has my undivided attention. I also liked that these odd occurrences were happening far enough apart that in the beginning you could just put them to being coincidences, it wasn't until towards the end that you thought that there may have been something more to it. In that sense it didn't drag or go too fast, it was a great speed.

Now to the things that I didn't love.

Unfortunately the writing style itself wasn't up my alley. This is not saying that it was bad, just that it wasn't my kind of good. I don't normally mind books written in the first person, as it gives a good insight, but this one seemed a little forced, especially when it came to the conversations between characters, there were so many exclamation points, which sounds silly, but it just made it read more juvenile than it should of  if that makes sense.. Also Natalie herself was hard for me to read after a while. She was a little bit pathetic in ways and this turned annoying the more that I read. She is convinced that she is going to die young and is therefore determined to keep travelling so that she doesnt have the chance to get close to anyone. This was working until she went to Arizona and she met an amazing man who was more than perfect for her. She travelled more to try and deny what she felt but in the end she went back to Arizona. They started a relationship but of course Natalie pushes him further and further away. I found this really annoying! I just wanted to shout at her (I think I may have been in my head).

Overall, it wasn't a bad read, but I cant say that I loved it.
711795
I tried.  I really wanted to like this book.  I tried to listen to the audiobook 3X over 2 years.  I never made it past chapter 4.  What I do like is the world setting.  I'm a geneticist and a professor in a sustainability studies graduate program.  So the topics here are on my mind often.  The ideas are provocative.  The story and the characters are flat, for me.  I just couldn't get into it.
2328958
I wanted to like this book I really did.  The artwork is amazing and the concept is interesting.  And thats's where it fails.  For a romance between two people who are NOT teenagers the characters sure act like teenagers.  Ed must be the healthiest senior citizen in the world considering her age never impacts his sexual adventures.  He's never tired, or struggling with pain, or even just not in the mood.  He may look to be in sixties but he clearly has the body and stamina of a 18 year old porn star.

That's the other thing.  I have no idea why there characters are in love.  They certainly like having sex as that's pretty much all they do, but despite reading the book to the end I still have no idea who these characters or what drew them together.  While there a few moments of bonding I wish the characters would TALK to each other and give me an insight into what is going on in their head.

What drew me to this story was getting to see a relationship through the eyes of people who've been around the block before.  But you could change out Ed and Lucardo for any two characters from a YA paranormal romance and they would still fit.  The author doens't use the concept the way they should and the work shows this.

Letters for Lucardo is a beautiful, inclusive [I love the variety of vampires] and lazy.  It's worth a read but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it and I wish I could.
2524964
It is different...I'll give it that. To me, though, it was just missing something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it didn't leave me wanting more and at the same time it didn't go far enough. I wanted to really like it. I just didn't.
3840790
This book captivated me with its beautiful, poetic language and descriptions. I really wanted to love it, but in the end language alone wasn't enough to save it when there's no plot or character development. I think I can see what Banville was trying to do here by exploring the overlapping of memory and grief, but in my opinion he hasn't succeeded. Too many pointless diversions and descriptions and characters I couldn't bring myself to care about caused me to give up on this one. It got to the point where I was forcing myself to pick it up. Maybe it's the type of book you can only appreciate at a certain point in your life but I hope I never reach that point.
3815968
I bought this book because it sounded like something I would really love, but I just couldn't finish it. I really tried, since I paid for it, but it was SO BORING. There was a lot of potential, and I'm sure someone might like it, but for me it missed the mark.
4918174
I must say, I really wanted to like this book.  Before I say why I did not like it all that much, I'll give the positives.  The author is extremely good at writing dialogue, which is very rare in a "Star Trek" book.  The author also does a good job of setting up the potential for a really good story.
I was really hoping for a genre-bender here, given the cover and description of the book--something between Original "Trek" and "The X-Files."  Instead, the book is filled with self-referencing "Star Trek" trivia that span far more than the Original Series.  There's some "Enterprise," some "Deep Space Nine," and some "Voyager."  Not what I would call Original "Trek."  Instead of all this self-referencing there could have been a really cool and original story about the crew of the Enterprise encountering Gray aliens, Men in Black, and flying saucers.  Spock could have been abducted and given an implant.  Chekov could have received an anal probe, which would have allowed for his trademark scream.  Seriously, this could have been a really great book mixing the "Star Trek" and ufology mythologies.  But no, just self-referencing.  And talking in place of action, telling instead of showing, for hundreds of pages.
I can write a better "Star Trek" novel and someday I intend to prove it.