Pretty good, entertaining, evocative
584653
I enjoyed it. I read it straight through. The characters weren't shallow, as they often are, the descriptions were clear and evocative, although if I read about the wind one more time I thought I'd lose my mind. I understand the use of the theme, but it was much too present. I liked the listing of places and terms at the beginning, although it was hard to use once I started into the book.
149940
Majix: Notes from a Serious Teen Witch is charming in both senses of the word. Told from the point-of-view of a fourteen-year-old Wiccan, Majix is a funny and heartwarming story about family, friends, and finding oneself. It isn't quite a fantasy novel, though there's arguably a little magical realism in it. For the most part, the "magic" is really psychology. I think believers and skeptics could enjoy this book equally.

It's a little annoying at first. Kestrel "never call me Susan" Murphy comes off as something of a brat, and it takes a while to get used to her slangy narration. Meanwhile, her workaholic father and shopaholic mother are hardly candidates for Parents of the Year. When a row between Kestrel and her father results in dad having a heart attack, Kestrel is sent away to live in the town of Jurupa with her eccentric Aunt Ariel.

Aunt Ariel, who is also a witch, is a great role model for Kestrel, but it takes Kestrel a while to see past Ariel's weight, white-light attitude, and offbeat fashion sense. Then there's Kestrel's new school, which is even less promising: Richard Milhous Nixon Union High, home of the Fighting Orthogonians and a hilarious school song. There, Kestrel encounters bullies, Mean Girls, a tyrannical principal - and maybe a few new friends.

Kestrel starts a journal (a.k.a. the novel), which she intends as a record of her magical progress. Instead, it becomes more of a diary about her life as she finds her footing in Jurupa. For the most part, it's told in ordinary narrative, but Kestrel occasionally transcribes conversations in script format or breaks into the story with a list, such as "MAGICK I TRIED THAT DIDN'T WORK" or "HERE IS WHAT THERE IS ABOUT HOSPITALS THAT MAKES THEM HOSPITALS." I thought I'd find this irritating, but instead it worked just fine and added to the "journal" feel.

Douglas Rees does a terrific job with Kestrel's voice. Who'd have thought a sixtyish male author could conjure up a 14-year-old girl's voice so well? Maybe he has some "majix" of his own...

Kestrel's journey is compelling, and her character will be relatable to young adults who feel like they don't quite fit in - and not-so-young adults who once felt that way. But this is far from an angstfest. Rees peppers Majix with plenty of humor (the chapter "Sticks" is coffee-through-the-nose funny) and moments of beauty.

If there's anything about Majix that I'd complain about, it's that some of the outcomes for Kestrel and her friends are almost too sunny to be believed. This is, however, a small quibble. After all, there are far worse things than spending a few hours in a world where underdogs can triumph by doing the right thing and being true to themselves.
1134524
1) Plot (4 stars) - After his wife cheats on him and his father dies, 30-something Judd Foxman trudges home to face the issues of his past and plan a new future.  Although there seemed to be no macro destination or goal that Judd was trying to achieve, there were enough micro-tensions (e.g., old girlfriends, sibling rivalries, etc.) to keep me turning the pages.

2) Characters (4 stars) - The characters, and their inner and outer needs and frustrations, were the focus of this book, and the author did a good job exploring them.  They were all witty, too, which always makes for fun reading.  My only issue was the lack of diversity in personalities - it seemed very apparent that they all poured out of the same pen.  To be fair, though, they were all supposed to be from the same family and friendship group, so maybe that's okay.

3) Theme (4 stars) - 30-something struggles were the themes of this book, and I felt the author did a good job exploring them, from marriages changing from passionate heat to companionship, to the trials of trying to start a family, to parents getting old, to bodies no longer being the youthful machines of your memory.

4) Voice (5 stars) - Definitely the strongest part of the book.  Jonathan Tropper can write.  The sentences are smooth, the metaphors clever but not distracting, the insights deep, and on top of it, I laughed at least once every 10 pages.  Just enough for the book to maintain its realism, and not fall into satire.

5) Setting (3 stars) - Not really the point of the book, but Tropper did a fine job describing the small town of youth and revisiting the house of your childhood as adults.

6) Overall (4 stars) - I'd definitely recommend it.
1924238
I'm the type that likes those poignant art flicks that Hawke ends up in.  His choice in movies, and often the dialog his characters are given lead me to think he's one of the intellectual crowd.  Thus, I expected the novel to be a bit heavy handed, almost classic in nature and a bit pretentious.  For better or for worse, I found it wasn't.

His style is striaghtforward and down to earth.  At times the sections end like the powerful last line of a poem, as if he wants the last word in an arguement before walking out the door (a common thing in stage and film, so it's not surprising it occurs in his prose).  But most of the time, it's just honest writing.

In a way it owes itself to the pulp writers like Hammet, not that it's full of the vernacular of the noir, but in that he doesn't waste much time defining the settings, the clothing, the articles in the rooms, but more focuses on character development.  And gladly he does a fine job of defining his characters not by telling, but by action.

This is a story about young love, and immature naive young love at that.  About a Holden Caufield in his mid 20's, falling for damaged goods and not having the experience and wisdom yet to see her for what she is.

Mostly I appreciated the novel because of the realistic characters (at least realistic from my own life experiences, yours may differ), and the easy flow of the writing.  At times, also like Hammet, I'd find passages that read like good poetry - bits of wisdom coming from a perspective unique to me, told in a style that is both rough and also graceful.

Much fame has come to writers like Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum, because their plots are strong and intriguing.  However, those airline novelists fail miserably when it comes to voice.  Reading them is like listening to Beethoven performed by a high school band.

This novel reads in the reverse.  The plot is simple, there's not a great amount of complexity or surprises.  However, it's well done, well paced, well performed, like a Bob Dylan tune being performed by a Norah Jones.

The joy is in the style, honesty and the integrity to the writing, even if the subject matter has been covered before, and the chords are familiar triads.
558698
There's enough here to make for a perfectly-watchable evening of home entertainment, as long as one doesn't expect too much.  The story is extremely simple, but thankfully enlivened by good acting and occasional quirkiness on the part of the characters and situations (the kind of amusing quirkiness and humor we often see in this particular director's films).  The scenery is quite nice, too, though undercut a bit by a surprisingly grainy and dull DVD transfer.  The 25-minute or so "making of" documentary is extremely annoying, as 75% of it is basically just clips from the film (to me, that's taking the lazy route), with very little in the way of interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff.  There's also a commentary, but I confess that the film didn't sufficiently interest me enough to watch it again with the commentary turned on.  To conclude with some final thoughts about the movie itself, though I'll grant some points for subtlety, I still would have appreciated seeing more in the way of overt and dramatic examples of exactly how and why our main character stops being a doormat and reactor to the world around him and someone more in control and confident by film's end.  I agree with another reviewer who said that the voice-over narration (especially at the end) comes off as a too-obvious attempt to provide thematic focus that is lacking in the film itself.  So, in the end, the film is worth a look for the scenery, acting, and some amusing character and story bits, as well as some memorable imagery here and there (like the house being dragged across the ice), but you certainly won't kick yourself when it's over for not catching the movie in the theater.
1587295
If you read the back of this book, it sounds like Gridiron Gang, Coach Carter, Remember the Titans or any of a dozen other feel good sports movies that have come out recently. In lesser hands, that's what this book probably would've been (it is after all about a ragtag group of immigrant kids who play soccer and their hard-nosed but caring coach), but the author here does a really nice job at fleshing out the people involved and creating a real sense of backstory for each player and the coach Luma. He also addresses some very interesting bigger questions about immigration, progress, the birth and death of cities, white flight, and the American dream.

There are some more specific problems addressed, too, regarding refugees. I didn't expect a book like this to go into some of the subtler nuances of how the UNHCR (UN High Commision for Refugees) works. To boot, it does so and remains consistently entertaining without getting preachy. I actually learned some things about various African nations from this book.

The characters depicted in the book are great - the kids on the team are an interesting bunch - from Bien from Burundi, Jeremiah, to the rebellious U-15's like Prince (the boy who refuses to cut his braids) and Fornatee and the extremely dedicated Kanue. The mayor, while a tad broad is portrayed in a much more complex light than you usually get for a work like this.

It's not just the characters though, this is an interesting story even if it's a tad familiar. It's also densely layered - there are three groups of kids U-13, U-15 and U-17 with different problems and strengths and weaknesses as a soccer team. There's a great setting, too -Clarkston, Georgia is a real town full of very real immigrants, complete with a good ol' boy mayor. It also has a woman carrying a bucket of water on her head, a supermarket that caters to immigrants and an American food joint owned by middle easterners. Quite a diverse place - the author even mention that according to one study it's actually "super-diverse", which makes it all the more interesting where it's located and how completely ordinary its history was.

Then, of course, there's the coach,and her ongoing battles with the mayor's people who control various fields, and her struggle with her own Islamic culture as a woman in America. She is, also, of course a hard-nosed and caring role model for the kids. There are also numerous interesting asides about how the town of Clarkston itself grew and changed (there's a humrous anecdote about a supermarket owner). And, of course, last but certainly not least, there's soccer with the Fugees playing the role of underdogs more than once. And you're rooting for them. Sure, sometimes it's a little hokey, and sometimes the other team is painted in overly broad strokes as spoiled rich white kids, but it's really not bad for the genre.

It's a quick read, too. It reads like something you'd get out of US News or the New York Times Weekend Supplement. Sure, the story is familiar in some ways, but the formula works, and the way the author fleshes it out with clearly painstaking research is great. I honestly couldn't stop reading it. If the studios have any sense, they'll pick up the movie rights to this.

Very Highly Recommended to everyone, especially if you like Sociology (a la Jane Jacobs) or Soccer.

Quick aside to any other HS teachers - this book is incredibly teachable. It's very positive, it's loaded with information about foreign countries, Luma is an excellent model for character education, there's oodles of diversity, and it has a team you really want to win that would engage the kids, but the reading level is a tad bit higher than most mass market books (it's around 7th) so I probably couldn't teach this in my High School. Obviously, that's not a fault with the book. You might be able to teach it at yours.
4693897
A very entertaining account of an impoverished divorcee moving into a community of the rich, struggling to find her feet and forge a new life in a tumble-down old country house. It's a fun, medium-paced read with some good characters, plenty of animals, good lines and a romance subplot. Well worth downloading for a relaxing read, but I somehow felt the book just missed being as good as it might have been. I thought that there could have been more variance in the level of tension, and also that perhaps the book ran just a little long for its content.

Still, though, it's entertaining and the ending is very, very satisfying.
4001038
I found this book quite absorbing and the characters interesting. The juxtaposition of the two stories (David's relationship to the bedridden Hans in 1988, and Hans's sister Elizabeth's experiences as the wife of a Portuguese doctor in colonial Africa nearly 20 years earlier) is clever and it works. I enjoyed reading the details of life in colonial Africa. Though I found Elizabeth to be a likeable protagonist, I did not find it entirely believable that her sheltered life in England would have in any way prepared her for the hardships in Africa. Just the language barrier would have been daunting, and that's in addition to physical hardship and the very real and frequent possibility of violence. There isn't much early on to indicate that she has that kind of fortitude, yet she deals with her situation remarkably well.

Several of the summaries of this book make much of the fact that the one story takes place in the late 80s and kids wear Mohawk haircuts and listen to music like the Cocteau Twins. This is not a slice of pop culture, and the few references to the styles of the 80s have nothing at all to do with the story. the fact that David is American, the fact that he is in a relationship with an English girl, the fact that his family is mourning a lost child, are only incidental to the story and really have little if anything to do with the plot.

Jonathan Weisman's writing style is smooth, my mark of good fiction writing is when the author's voice is in the background because I am so absorbed in the story, and that was the case here. And clearly he knows enough about the Portuguese colonization of Africa to write about it with authority.
976335
I had recognized Judy Greer from several films and was curious as to her motivation to write a book about her life - which is still quite young, in my opinion.  She's a funny, thoughtful, charmingly-scattered, entertaining woman.

There aren't any mean-spirited gossipy encounters about the movie industry, which may disappoint some prospective readers. Although since she is still very much a working actress, I get the feeling that she knows that less is more if you want to remain a working actress.  There are a few industry anecdotes in the book (including a wonderful story about Ashton Kutcher) but it seems to be primarily a rambling introduction to her ever-evolving life and career. And I had a nice time sharing her journey.

I only have two somewhat negative issues - one being the portions involving random texts and feedback from her friends.  They were unnecessary and a bit indulgent.  We like you - we don't need your friends to convince us.

The second one is a little more personal. I appreciate your love and pride in being from Detroit, Michigan and all things related to this often overlooked, power-house city. However, one thing in your list is not like the others. While the rock group KISS may have written a song called "Detroit Rock City" and have an obvious love of the Motor City and all of their fans - they are not from Detroit. KISS is absolutely, unequivocally and without question a product of the great city of  New York.  My home town.  Just sayin.

After all is said and done, I'm still not certain why she decided to write this book, but I can tell you that I spent a pretty enjoyable day reading it and would absolutely recommend it.
903417
11/22/63 proves that King can still tell a good story, if not one without flaws. The concept, in which a man is shown a doorway that can take him back to 1958, granting him the chance to prevent JFK's assassination and several other tragedies, may seem a bit outside King's usual territory, but he's been experimenting with alternate realities and science fiction-y ideas for a while, so it's not that much of a stretch.

The initial setup feels a little arbitrary, but once the protagonist, Jake Epping, actually goes back to 1958 and begins mucking with a past that "doesn't want to be changed", the reader has a delicious sense of all the places the story COULD go, and King doesn't neglect to string us along, throwing in twists and turns both big and small. The time travel aspects of the plot are well thought-out, and the parts dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald feel impeccably researched, down to the tiniest detail. Though I've never paid much attention to all the conspiracy theories, King's take on the events leading up to the assassination kept me guessing. And one of his strengths as a writer has always been capturing the texture and personality of small town, blue collar America, and he brings the sights, sounds, smells, conversation, and attitudes of the "Mad Men" era right back to life. I enjoyed the trip to a more innocent (though not really) time quite a lot.

On the down side, while I found the main JFK plot and its aftermath pretty riveting, this portion of the book could have easily fit into a novella, and doesn't have a lot of interaction with the various side plots. The somewhat redundant Harry Dunning story was less interesting to me, and Jake Epping's romance with the town of Jodie, Texas and a woman named Sadie Dunhill, while not without touching moments, felt more than a little contrived in places. The protagonist could have been a little better defined, as well -- he's basically just an everyman with a sketched-in backstory (and was not convincing as someone born in the mid-70s). When all was said and done, I came away feeling that it had been a enjoyable ride, but not one I'd gotten anything too surprising or profound from.

Then again, it's Stephen King, and that's about what you expect from his books. 11/22/63 shows he's still a master of popular fiction, and can do the suspense, sentimentality, and Americana that got him an audience in the first place. I can see the novel doing well as a movie, in the hands of a talented director and actors.

3.5 stars.

Audiobook notes: the reader sounds a little old to be a guy in his 30s/40s (as the protagonist is), but injects a lot of personality into the side characters.
4484051
This was an entertaining little coming of age tale.  A trio of young boys spend their nights renting and watching old PG rated movies (remember how lenient and lax those ratings used to be?) that show female nudity, if only briefly.  They also look forward to Wheel of Fortune for Vanna White (this is set in the 80s).  When they hear that Playboy has published photos of Vanna, they set about a scheme to obtain one.  That plan evolves and changes as each attempt proves unsuccessful, until they ultimately decide on an elaborate heist (but they would leave money for the magazines!) from a local store.

A wrench gets thrown into this plan as Billy is charged with getting close to the store owner's daughter, to gain information and access to the store.  Billy soon finds he has a lot in common with her, as they both share a love for computers and programming - and their just so happens to be a programming competition coming up shortly.  Billy works his best to juggle his duty to his friends, while dealing with his growing romantic feelings, all while focusing on a brighter future for himself in the field of computer game programming.

The chapters were very short, and a few of the early pages and scenarios seemed a little repetitive, but overall, this was a very quick, easy and enjoyable read.  There are endless Pop Culture references to remind you that you are indeed reading a book set in the 80's.  They felt a little forced and unnecessary at times, but not so much to take you out of the book.  I would recommend to anyone who feels nostalgic for that time period, as it definitely is relatable for anyone who grew up in the 80s.
2333671
It is always interesting when someone opens up their life and invites us in.  Danny C Hall is a wonderful host, sharing his "criminal" youth with us as well as his foibles, but he also gets out the family photos, tells us about his friends and family and he tells us how he and his wife got together.  Hall's stories about himself and his loved ones are entertaining and made me laugh out loud quite a few times.
Conveniently for our short attention spans, most chapters are two pages long, the longest chapter is six pages long.  This makes the book easy to digest in bite-sized chunks.
Although Hall's personal stories are entertaining, they are also a great record of Alabama's social history.  I hope Hall's local library has kept a copy.  I'm from the UK, so I have a jaundiced and inaccurate view of normal American life.  Through Hall's book I have learned so much about American life, the working poor, the world of work, race relations and community.  Hall talks about the people and places he knows as though he is sitting with them at a family gathering, which holds a unique quality.
Please ignore the typos in Hall's work.  He does speak about his interupted schooling and the fact he didn't finish school so I can let Hall off, but the publisher should spend a week in the stocks for the uncorrected errors simply because they distract the reader from the story.
Hall's book is written in his dialect, but don't be put off.  This is no Irvine Welsh; more JD Salinger, although Hall is much wittier and memorable than both.  Hall's short stories at the back of the book are OK but they would have been much better if Hall had spent a bit more time on them.  I particularly liked Little BoBo Was A Fierce Watchdog!  It's a great idea, but it's over in a flash.  A bit more time spent on it could have taken the story to another level.
Another point that could have been made better if Hall had expanded on it was The Final Word.  Hall tells us that profits of the first 125 copies of the book went to a organisation called Save A Life Foundation that "gives free ultrasounds to women before they have an abortion, so they can see the baby."  That sounds crass and cruel, but if Hall had expanded on this, the Foundation's work and Hall's intentions would have been clearer.  Likewise, when Hall recalls being streetwise when he was young, knowing the dangers of drugs and homosexuals, my gayness shouted, "Eeeeeek!"  Hall is from another generation and grew up in a different culture with different messages than where I grew up.  Having read the whole book, I can tell that there is not a shred of malice in the man.  He is a generous person both with his time and his compassion for people.  I hope Hall takes on board to expand more on his writing to make his writing better because his stories are so good.
Yet Hall tells us he knows he is not a writer, he is a storyteller.  His book was written for family and friends, and has sold many more copies than he thought possible.  I am told another book is on its way, and I look forward to reading that.  I thoroughly recommend Hall's book.  I recommend the warmth, the humour and the bare humanity.  It's a book full of adventures, japes and teenage kicks, a book about dirt bikes, driving at speed while under the influence of speed and having one's knackers fried by ammonia.  What is there not to love?!
1441630
Entertaining, especially if you like the characters and setting from previous experience. A little too predictable and formulaic to get 5 stars, but well plotted, some good exchanges between the aging adversaries, and some light moments as well- the dog parts are good. Worth buying but nor running to the corner to snap up.
95428
First off, it's extremely self-aware, almost to the point of breaking the fourth wall, of superhero tropes. And yes, TV Tropes exists in this world, and is referenced by the protagonist, although fortunately, the tropes are not explicitly called out as such. The protagonist, Merciless, is charmingly morally bent. He doesn't aim to kill or hurt people, but has no problem taking out people in his path and, in one memorable incident, has a bystander's leg broken for cheering on the antihero who's trying to kill him. He believes that the most villains (including himself) are just out for a score or for thrills, that the worst of the worst should be taken out with extreme prejudice, and that some of the worst villains are that top 1% of the wealthy who don't wield deathrays, but nonetheless create pain and loss in their wake (and there's heavy implications, if not outright statement, those most of these amoral millionaires got where they are via diabolic aid). Secondly, it's very entertaining, being set in a world where all of the ages of the comic books from Silver Age wackiness to Iron Age extreme violence to Post-modern merchandising have happened, and Merciless succeeds, as much as anything, because he's aware of the foibles of the setting and uses them to full advantage.

The writing is journeyman level, not extremely polished, but it gets the work done. Merciless feels a tad derivative of The Hood as a low-level guy who lucks into a powerful magical artifact and decides to become a villain, but only in the sense of fitting an archetype (I think M&M called it the "Jumped-up Dabbler" in Books of Magic). We get a lot of human touches in Merciless's character as we delve into his relationship with his wife and past history. The first half is him diving into the criminal world. Halfway through, he suffers a major setback and the side characters of his henchmen and his wife are largely put aside, in my opinion to the detriment of his development. Still, a complete story is laid out from beginning to end, and the end of this book sets the stage for a sequel with, of course, raised stakes.

There is something that I found mildly dissatisfying in the book, but I'm having trouble articulating it. I think that part of it is that Merciless feels a bit more like a character in a story than a person at times. I mean, he feels like a real person, but one who is having things done to him as part of the story. He just happens to get the cloak (as a mistake). He happens to have connections with several prominent heroes of the universe. He happens upon two hyper-competent henchmen. He gets a convenient power-up when the plot demands it. It reminds me a bit of a friend's short story where the main character escapes the attack on his village through a secret passageway and discovers a convenient set of magic items and gear in a chest at the end. I'm being a bit unfair, I think, because Merciless does have miscues and consequences from bad decisions, but and we do learn that he has reasons (whether they're good ones is another question) for doing what he does, but the general impression I was left with was that Merciless is on a narrative railroad of sorts. Which is actually interesting in a way because he continues to be a three-dimensional character despite having what might be considered a very flat narrative track.
3833895
For the most part, I enjoyed reading this novel.

The writing style is slightly strange - first person, told in retrospect, in an ironic way, with lots of sarcastic comments. This style suits the novel surprisingly well, although it reduces the immediacy of the experience.  It makes the story more entertaining than exciting.

Mostly, the writing style is fluent and makes it easy to get absorbed in the story.

However, there are many big chunks of info-dumps inserted, pages of explanations about what happened when in history, which go on and on and on, when I wanted to get on with the story and find out what happened next. Several times, I just skipped some of the info-dumping pages to get to story.

Even worse, some of the dialogue is pure info-dump as well. Sometimes, the characters talk as if they were giving an audio-lecture. They don't talk like real people, a few words or sentences at a time, but pages at a time.

The dialogue feels often awfully unnatural with these people who converse in lectures.  It's boring, too. If someone was talking to me in real life, droning on and on and on and on, I would tune out. The same happens if people hold a conversation in a novel and someone talks non-stop for pages without pausing for breath: I start skipping.

The plot is solid, well structured with a lot of action. Some of the characters are well-developed.

The love story is shallow. There's no real development of the people's relationship, no depth, no meaning. The lover lacks individual personality; she's just a beautiful woman with no genuine characterisation.

The underlying magic system is consistent - not anything like real magic works in the real world, but believable in a fantasy-novel kind of way.

The novel is riddled with spelling errors and typos. For example, the words 'principal' and 'principle' are constantly confused.

The typos should have been spotted by a proofreader: 'thier hands' 'thorough his hands', 'facedm', 'andwould', 'otherprbbls', and a lot more.

There are also formatting problems, with whole sections indented for no reason at all, although I guess that this happened during the Kindle conversion.

I love some aspects of this book and would happily give them five stars; but other parts of the book are so appalling that I want to give just two. So I'm wavering between three and four.

With a little more work  this book could have been a masterpiece.
575352
Even though much of the plot could've been deduced merely from watching the very publicized trailer for the film and the plotline at times requires one to utter lose their disbelief, rather than merely suspending it, I actually was entertained by Hanna, in spite of the obvious flaws that other reviewers have pointed out. Movies fall into two camps that I will define as popcorn-entertainment verses artistic storytelling that tugs at your heartstrings. Hanna falls into the first category without a doubt. It was very aesthetically beautiful, I want their cinematographer if I ever do a film. I felt the music fit the action sequences well, even if the action itself was suspect.

Hanna is an interesting take of the coming of age story mixed with elements of Huxley's Brave New World-the notion of creating perfect soldiers like Hanna drawing parallels with the creation of these pleasure seeking drug addicted ones found in Brave New World. The problem is that I'm not sure we haven't seen this movie somewhere before, and as Ezra Pound once said "Make it New." To question further, the alternative ending might have been a better fit, than the uh, okay, what now ending we got. For my entertainment, I'll go four stars.
373025
I enjoyed this book very much. It's not the best book I've read recently, but it's certainly not the worst. It kept me entertained and I enjoyed the unique storytelling narrative. It could have been a bit more substantial and the ending felt a little rushed, but I'd read it again and I will probably check out Mr. Atkins other offerings at some point.

Positives:
 -- I loved the main character of Wendel and I could picture him clearly. Well defined and a great personality that adjusted (but not much) throughout his life.
 -- I enjoyed the humor. I haven't laughed out loud while reading a book in a very long time, but I found myself doing just that after the first 25 pages or so.
 -- The back stories (and there are a lot of them) are fun and unique. I have never read a book written in this style before and it felt fresh.
 -- The supernatural aspect was interesting, but not overpowering and not so far fetched.

Negatives:
 -- It seems like most every man in this book was mean, angry, violent, stupid, a drunk, or a little of each.
 -- The ending felt rushed. It was a nice, sweet ending that made an attempt at a twist, but it was rushed none the less.
 -- As mentioned in the Positives, the back stories are fun and enjoyable, but there are an awful lot of them. It felt like too many at times and I wish a few of them (maybe Birma Mae, the nut that discovered the Sorrow Wood cave while looking for the arc, or Dixie) could have been dropped and the plot added to a bit more.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I'm glad I picked it up. A nice love story (and that is not my favorite genre by a stretch), some humor, some supernatural and some good characters make it a good read.