April Book Reviews

You may recall that I promised reviews of the three books I actually read in April. This is sure to be a riveting post. That's not true. But I'm posting them anyway, so here you are:


1. The Fiery Cross, the fifth installment of Diana Gabaldon's excellent Outlander series, started out slow for me and took me a couple months to get through (whereas I've been able to finish the other books in the series in just a couple weeks), but once it finally picked up, a little over halfway through, I remained interested throughout and couldn't wait to start the sixth, which I'm currently reading. Gabaldon does a great job making each book stand alone yet seamlessly weaving in events and characters from previous books. Plus, I still love Jaime and Claire, even after five books and about 5,000 pages (seriously, each book is, like, 900 pages). I think I'd get tired of myself after that long, so point for Diana.

2. HeartSick is a riveting thriller about a beautiful female serial killer and her last victim, whom she kidnapped and tortured for ten days before turning herself in. My dear friend and fellow Criminal Minds lover Aubrey recommended this series to me, and I love it. I finished this book in two days. The main character (besides Gretchen, the serial killer), Archie, is seriously flawed (who wouldn't be, after being brutally tortured for a week and a half) and easy to relate to. I mean, I've never been kidnapped and tortured (knock on wood), but I understand the psychological issues he deals with as a result of his traumatic experience.

I've since finished the second and third books of the series. HeartSick remains my favorite, but Archie really grows throughout the next two books. My main complaint with the third book is that we don't see Archie's family---an ex-wife and two kids---at all. They were major players in the second book because Gretchen threatens them, so we got to see Archie as a family man, a man who still loves his ex-wife but won't allow himself to be with her anymore. But in the third book, they're just gone. We know where they are, but we don't really know how Archie feels about them being gone. Maybe we'll hear more about them in the fourth book, The Night Season. Mustang library doesn't have this book, though, which is why I haven't read it yet.

3. For those of you who don't know, Seriously...I'm Kidding is one of Ellen DeGeneres's books. For those of you who don't care, we can't be friends. I saw several bad reviews of the book on Goodreads, but I laughed out loud many times (just ask my brother)---and I think Ellen can do no wrong---so I gave the book four stars. This book was set up in much the same way Bossypants is organized, which is to say there was no real or clear organization. I could have done without some of the chapters (namely, the one in which she simply makes sounds like "mememememeeme" and "bwabwabwa" and the extremely short story about a woman who walks down the beach and sees waves). But I am sure these chapters were a hoot on the audio book. So I won't complain about them. They took, like, two seconds to read, so it's no skin off my back.


And that's what part of my April looked like. May is on track to be a bit more successful, as I'm currently reading three books, have finished three, and have another waiting on my coffee table. We'll see if I can finish these last four in approximately two weeks, though...