Diabolical and shoddy
593313
Purchased on of these from Target, but much like most of the reviewers here we'd had it less than 1 month before it stopped working, so figured I'd share the experience here too to deter others from wasting your money on a very poor Oster product that's proven to fail time & time again. Spare yourself some frustration and spend your money on a more worthwhile product from a better manufacturer.
3199215
This is badly written base spew. It should carry a caveat emptor  from Amazon as poisen pen potraits written by a seemingly self hating Irish woman. It pounds and pounds its anti-Irish message so repetively that initial gasps of incredulity at such base bias by a suppoused Historian gives way to eventual boredom.  Unable to finish it.
4095108
Imagine a second grader writing a book report on The DaVinci Code, and if you can buy that book report, buy it.  But don't squander your hard earned bucks here.  I am not accustomed to not finishing a book that I start reading but this one was just so bad I had to give it up.  Poorly written, poorly conceived, poorly executed and thoroughly underwhelming, it makes me wish I could get my money back.  This story reads like something written in great haste, almost as if the draft was published without editing of any kind, almost like a description of a book as opposed to an actual book.  The hamhanded prose style, in which the author seems to be in a rush to get to the next part of the story, indicates the work of a lazy writer more interested in getting this drek cranked out quickly than in telling a story well (much less cohesively).  There are no surprses in this book.  The good guys are obviously the good guys and the bad guys are obviously bad (and, apparently, all members of the Catholic Church).  Rather than build characters, Hansen just jams a black hat on someone right off the bat, and rather than describe an action he just declares it a done deed.  On top of this wretched stinkathon is the putrid cherry of Hansen's obvious hatred of Catholicism.  Whatever your opinion might be of Christianity in generl and Catholics in particular, the level of bigotry in this book is really astounding.  I cannot imagine such a book being written about any other religious group and getting such a pass.  if you are looking for a thriller, this ain't it.  Likewise for exciting plot or action, well-written prose or characters, or accurate portrayals of historical fact.  Huge waste of time and money.
2382852
I looked at the reviews and am shocked there are so many good ones.  This review applies to all three because I stupidly purchased them all curious for the ending.  The story is convoluted, twisted, and NOT even remotely romantic or sexy.  Beware "spoiler alerts" below.

There were several technical/grammatical/spelling errors in the books.  Stationery - what you write on - easy way to remember "ery" and "lEtter"  Misspelled through all books.  "I hasn't fired"  I wish I could get a refund on those things alone!  This is my first one-star review ever.  Words like "sit on your face" when referring to sex do not belong in a romantic novel.  The characters aren't even likeable.  People have been brutally murdered and they are having sex, like right after the murders.  The crimes in the book are so diabolical, as is the book.  Ash is diabolical and I never believe he's even nice.  They throw the word "love" around meaninglessly!  The sex scenes are the most unsteamy I've ever read in any novel anywhere.

Please don't waste your money, and please don't call this "romantic suspense."  I've never been so blindsided by a book trilogy before, and I have over 300 books on my Kindle.  Oh, and after everyone in the world dies, brutally, with disgusting descriptions, they are honeymooning with no residual effects of any of these deaths.  Maybe it's just too what real life could be.
1421657
Don 't waste your time on this massiver stinkeroo!

There is not one original idea in this mess. The "writers"  steal ideas from a half dozen classic English novels.
They combine them, and not at all successfully, into one big steaming pile.

What incredible arrogance to think they can "improve" these novels.

We end up with Frankenstein's monster, Dorian Grey, a Vampire, and God knows what else.... All existing at the same time in Victorian England. Add a cowboy sharpshooter, played by a semi comatose Josh Hartnett.  Then add  Eva Green playing one of the most repugnant females since Grace Jones annoyed Conan the Barbarian.

 The result is a joke which insists on pretending to be "art".
4821440
This book is an self-indulgent rant. It's telling that it was published by the Human Givens publishing house (i.e. presumably the authors self financing) because no decent editor would accept such rot. The 'Human Givens' concept is repeatedly bandied about, but the whole concept is really a mishmash of psychological concepts that fits the authors pet views. This book has nothing to add to knowledge. It references the absurd, and leaves giant statements hanging.... like 'givens'.  Avoid this book, unless you need source material about how not to write about something. Truly dreadful stuff.....
3853804
This book is at the top of the list of worst books I've ever read.  The situations are incredibly convoluted and the many coincidences completely unbelievable. The characters are barely two dimensional and the author reiterates the theme of the story so many times and with such a heavy hand that one rapidly stops caring.  Most of the men in the book are portrayed as awful and callous abusers of women and the few who are not so portrayed come off as totally saintly. It reads like something written for a high school English class. Utterly awful.
4810619
I just saw this greedy nut on the Raymond Arroyo show. Carl Jung observed insightfully that people can't help but leave clues as to their true nature psychologically, and this guy bears it out strenuously. When asked why he wrote this book, literally the first words out of his mouth was "Money!". Then he augmented this insight by burbling on about Random House's greatly needing his further animadversions. Oy vey! Let us stipulate that Christianity  has had, and continues to have have brilliant defenders. It is just that Mr. Coren is not remotely one of them. When asked how he defends the  doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus, he flipped instantly  into a little spiel about all Jesus' friends being a lot of street toughs and -- his words -- a "former terrorist." I am not kidding when I say that he averred that this made them more credible sources because they were more streetwise as to what dead looked like. This is the level of this guy's thinking!  Also, it is hard to figure who in Jesus' group would fit that modern title  of "terrorist" without the most violent hyperbole. But then, this guy Coren is clearly into violent hyperbole thoroughly . The very opening of his book disgustingly uses the horrible massacre in Norway in the most base and vile way to make a cheap and off-base point,  and traffics in the most grotesque falsehoods and generalizations to boot. He seems to have studied zero history. He seems unaware that hateful rhetoric is ALWAYS overly broad and contradictory. Thus, the whole excuse and premise of his  ghoulish use of this terrible tragedy fails to even grasp the essentially polymorphous nature of all hateful, jingoistic rhetoric. It is an equal opportunity abuser of all sorts of decent groups -- including Christians. But in Coren's paranoid universe it is all aimed at his choices. It is amazing that this hateful piece of careening apologetics got published. And shame on this publisher for inexcusably using this demented man to make a few bucks.  It is not even a good defense of an ancient faith.
1999018
What a disjointed and poorly executed lol at this tragic event.
4489850
author is as pompous as she is insane.  her insanity level is over 9,000.  this book is as poorly written as a bowl of alpha-bits.  it can only make you dumber.  save yourself.
4159998
Sometimes you wonder how something as badly written as Stomping the Goyim, a drug-addled nightmare of a cowardly, gay Jewish kid conceding to his inner demons, gets published.  I tried to give it a chance.  This proved foolish.  Disend's book -- if it can be called that -- prompts one to proseletize about the poor state of story.  There are some books that are nothing more than a waste of a processed tree branch.  This incoherent, undeveloped, utterly confused tripe is the worst book I have ever read.
3837604
How can anyone see this book as anything but the marriage of current American christian theology to an arrogant neurosurgeon's insecurities about having been "given up" for adoption?

If your brain was dead, good doctor, how on earth were those parts required for memory functional enough for you to actually remember any if it? Granted, the bizarre explanations of the place with the girl and the butterflies is as vapid as it gets. It isn't even good fiction. And the girl turns out to be his dead sister? Good grief.

Eben is convinced he's made the greatest discovered in history, that he was chosen to go deeper than most claimants of NDE.

What we've learned here is that one who knows how to cut a brain is not cut out to tell us how it actually works.

Pure rubbish. This is a tragedy for humankind and deserves only ridicule.
185282
I am never sure how a book this poorly written gets published.  It is filled with phrases like "grappled with a world that had turned against them." or "armada of men going to the mill", just to name a couple of endless number of heavy handed phrases that make you wish an editor had read read this book.  I found it painful.
4642040
The reason I even bothered to stop by and donate one star to this book is because the Man Formerly Known as Shantaram is an undeniably gifted writer.

Which is also why this book is so infuriating: 840 - plus pages of Nothing in Particular.  Very occasionally, you may find some amazing analogy, insight or turn of phrase that reminds you why you began this book in the first place.

But alas, not only is The Sequel not Equal to the first book, it cannot even be called a novel.  It reads more like an anthology of conversational drivel spouted by the book's rather less than magnetic cast of characters.

Really, it is hard to discern what the point of the book is, underneath all the profanity, mindless machismo, the tedious and self-absorbed vignettes of violence and pretentiousness.  Reading this is about as rewarding as spending hours watching flotsam being carried along a river.
3286054
This book is a train wreck.  The storyline is ridiculous; with the medical plot line not remotely grounded in reality (a burn victim with a face transplant is stunningly beautiful, multiple methods of birth control fail at once, not to mention the embarrassingly unprofessional and just plain cheesy behavior of nurses and doctors).  The primary character is unlikeable, possessing personality traits associated with several negative stereotypes about women (shallow, wishy-washy, martyrish..to name a few). The secondary characters are poorly developed, not-believable, and difficult to distinguish from one another. Not a good read.
2124957
A ridiculous story, a total waste of time and money
2729913
This collection of words and sentences must be one of the most blighted, poorly conceived stories I've ever witnessed. I would watch "The Human Centipede" for the rest of my life than force myself to digest this frat-bro inspired, pseudo-end times debacle again.

I vastly preferred this story when it was "Darksiders" and a videogame.