Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Whatever you think Gone Girl is about...you have no idea.

It starts out exactly like you expect from the synopsis on the back, the cover, the hype of the movie, and the chatter you've heard.  Your brain, as it often does as you read, starts trying to piece the puzzle together before the characters can.  You can actually feel your opinion wavering as you get deeper into the book.

This book continued to surprise me until the end.  Gillian Flynn is a remarkable writer with an amazing ability to write a character's thoughts.  She captivates me with her characters and surprises me continuously.

Read this one.  Seriously.

My Blood Approves Series by Amanda Hocking

This review encompasses the series including the books with the following titles:
My Blood Approves, Fate, Flutter, Wisdom...

Do you ever stop to wonder what, exactly, is the pull of writing about vampires?  For that matter, what is the pull about reading about vampires?  Is it their dark nature?  Is it their inability to die?  Do we all just aspire to be blood sucking creatures?  It's a little out of control, isn't it?

But I digress.  Let's talk about this particular vampire tale.  I actually love the way the gay characters are portrayed throughout the series.  Sure, at first, he is the token stereotypical gay character.  But as the series develops these two become the best love story in it.  Their relationship is real, they are strong men, and they are great!

Alice-I like her.  She makes smart choices, she deals well with tough issues.  I like a tough woman main character and Alice fits that bill completely.

There are moments in this series that make me roll my eyes because they have been done before but then I think what more can anyone really bring to the vampire tale.  Honestly, it's all been done. If she tried to interject something really ground-breakingly new we'd accuse her of making up things that don't fit what we think we know about these creatures of the night.

Perhaps because these copies were ebooks I find errors rampant in their pages.  This, on one hand, annoys me.  But they are not errors you can't figure out.  Is she skips a word on a line, your brain simply fills it in. It's not overly distracting it's just vexing.

Overall, I like the twists.  I like the characters.  I personally thought the ending to Wisdom was fantastic.  One can become tired of the cliche happily-ever-after, all questions answered ending.  This was not that and I truly loved it.  Then I did a little research (not uncommon for me) and found something I thought was a bit disturbing...
The author, in what resembles a temper tantrum to me, said in 2011 that she was not finishing the fifth and final book in the series (like I said, I didn't even feel it needed another installment).  She went on to say that the series in finished, in her opinion, and people complaining and sending her hate mail has made her not want to write the fifth.

So, here's my two cents for this controversy Ms. Hocking (if you happen to find this).  If people love your characters enough that they seem so real their decisions actually make the reader feel something...you've done your job.  Get someone to read your mail for you (or with you) to remind you of that when someone presents this love for your character poorly.  If they are reading your material, you've done your job.  You can't please everyone. More importantly, it wouldn't be a very good book if you tried to.

Oh, and this series...3 smiles.