Interesting story, but....
595871
This is a very interesting story and easy to read, but I would have enjoyed it more if some of the characters didn't remind me of real media characters (not a fan of Nancy Grace in real life or the version in the book) and if certain aspects weren't quite so contrived.  I thought the concept was brilliant though and that made it worth my time.
3973710
I gave this book 3 stars because I thought it was okay. Although I enjoyed the story, it seemed the author overdid the main character's sympathy for the injustices suffered at that time in our history. It was slightly irritating.
940203
This was an interesting read, one that for a non-fiction book moved along at a fast clip.  the descriptions of the smokejumper's life are visceral and b/c they are writted so close to the action by one who is in the action, they really take you right into the fire line.  There is a good deal of description about the smokejumpers' culture as well, the bravado and loneliness, which i thought took a glorified (deservedly so) profession and demystified some of its elements.
a major problem with the book, enough to lose probably one and a half stars (if there were halves) is the love story the author attempts to weave in and out of the piece.  It seemed as i was reading it, an add-on, a nod to the movie adaptation or an attempt to capture more women(?) in his audience.  and if not that, then represented the authors' own preoccupation with finding the woman who will understand him.  this was a bit too much and didn't seem true to the rest of the project.
1313331
A good story (that is of personal interest to me) with lots of good & particular history, but unfortunately marred by gratuitous profanity and gratuitous swipes at religion that portray a certain lack of depth in the author; ditto for his psychoanalysis of his relationship with his father.
4968209
The author writes well and the story was interesting enough that I kept reading.  Even still, I noticed that some situations seemed out of character for both time periods.  The group of people stuck in the early 1900s, are written as a godless group of people, which does not match US history at that time.  Regarding Lux's time period of the mid to late 70s, I found her continuous use of "Jesus" as a swear word as well as the "F-word,"  to be off-setting and even irritating.  This extent of swearing (by supposedly decent people) was not widespread during the 70s, and no one let their children talk to them that way.  It cheapened what was actually a rather sweet story in places.  I don't think I will be reading any other books by Melanie Gideon, as the theme seemed to follow the line of "Life is hard, and then you die - the end."
3610568
Interesting story but I don't like the authors writing style. Its too much details and reminiscing about everything that pulls away from the story. I was skipping pages to see what will happen as I was not interested in reading the same blabber over and over.
1378533
I did enjoy this book, found it to be a compelling story, but had several frustrations:

 The first chapter was overwritten, but it leveled out with some great prose thereafter.
 How old was the feral girl?  Didnt find out for many chapters.
 What era was it? Didnt find out until some technology was used several chapters in (it felt like the 20s or 30s and felt that way all the way through. Thats partly my own sheltered upbringing; hard to believe people live like that today).
 What ethnicity were the main characters? Black, white, something else? Never could tell.
 Some actions were so over-the-top it was crazy and seemed out of character.

Despite these issues, I was drawn through the story. I do feel a historical setting would have made some of the confusion go away. Im guessing the concern was that human trafficking is a problem now, but it was also a problem back then, just not as publicized.

Dont get me wrong; this was professionally written, it just needed an equally professional editor to catch these issues.
2160042
The story is more than interesting, but at times I felt the authors got bogged down in meaningless detail (do readers really have to know every street address of every character?), and the way narratives describing individuals in the book were embedded in stories-within-stories was, at times, confusing.  I frequently lost track of characters.  About half-way through I definitely thought it a three star book. Three things changed my mind: the remarkable (and remarkably written) final paragraph, which sent me a shock of recognition of the implications of the tale, the final pages, which placed the tale in context, and the afterward to the second edition, which describes the art of doing and writing history so well.
1190495
I debated between 3 and 4 stars for this because I actually did enjoy reading it. BUT -- and it's a fairly significant "but" -- since I keep coming across this book as an "RV memoir" of sorts and the description's first sentence speaks about their RV trip, it's potentially important to a reader to understand that the vast majority of the book (like, 80%) is the life story of her husband. It's an interesting story, in fact, but has NOTHING to do with their eventual RV-ing. THAT part of the book fills the final very minimal bit. So, an interesting look at how a seemingly "good guy" can actually fall pretty far down the rabbit hole into a life of crime, but this is only extremely-barely an RV-ing story. Buy and read accordingly.
3188479
Parts of the story are interesting, but it seems to drag on a bit.  There was a bit too much repetition for my taste.
1422360
Building Beauty has an interesting story but could definitely have been edited better. Punctuation is a problem in this ebook, and I'm not sure why the main character is named Alexander in the synopsis but called Alejandro in the story. Also, I'm torn on the subject matter, but I won't say why because of spoilers. Suffice to say, the protagonist won't appeal to everyone. If you want a different type of steampunk, you could do worse than to pick up Building Beauty for $0.99.
4867405
I liked the story, however I found not using the correct words perplexing.  Such as, conscious instead of conscience. That is the only one I remember now, but there were several others.  Also, there a lot of misspellings, which I know can happen when using a computer program that sometime substitutes one word for another and it might not be the correct one.  I do think someone who professes to be an author and might have gone to college to become one should know correct word usage.
382640
Interesting story but the author goes into painful levels of detail for things that weren't that important to the story.  Ends up making the book much longer than necessary.
1720273
The story itself is good, very interesting and well-researched. However, there is very little character development, and it's hard to remember who is who. The story covers several generations of the de Cuille family, and it's hard to tell them apart.

Also, if I remember correctly, the grammar was terrible. I'd recommend the author get someone else to proofread the story!
3137800
I found Part Two to be an engaging story, that unfortunately tends to get confusing because of the Authors writing style.  He uses Archaic words that become blatantly cumbersome and slow the story down considerably.  While the Author may have thought it neat to use the old words, I found that a dictionary was necessary to clarify the meanings and even that didn't help at times.  It simply made reading the story tedious and laborious.  The ending is another area where the Author just decided the story was done.  The story is worth reading even with the faults.  Make up your own mind.
3557475
The story is interesting overall, and I thank the writer for sharing. As with real life, there is a lot of repetition with the same mistakes made over and over followed by thinking she has things under control. I know that is how it goes, but compressing that and expanding more on the end where the writer discovers the key reason for her issues would be (to me) more interesting and helpful.
305076
An interesting concept, but it is bogged down by a lot of unnecessary or ill-timed exposition. It's clear that the author heavily researched this subject, and the story could have been good, but sadly the execution dragged this book down.