Book Review: Whisper Me This

Title: Whisper Me This

Author: Kerry Anne King

Format: Amazon First Reads Kindle Edition

Published: 2018

 

I love, love, love, LOVE, my Amazon Prime membership benefits!  This month I selection Whisper Me This which comes out on August 1^st and I am telling you, it is priced right at either $4.99 Kindle edition or $9.99 hardcover, SO PRE-ORDER NOW.  Why?  This story actually had an ENDING.  Yes, the story satisfies you with not an open ended, wishy washy ending, but, a solid, you know what happens ending.  Thank you Ms. King!!

The story starts off a little iffy where we meet this wishy-washy woman who cannot make a decision to save her life, Maisey Addington.  Next to the word indecisive in the dictionary should be a picture of this character!  She has an estranged relationship from her parents which I blame on all the pressure her mother kept putting on her to do more with her life.

We find Maisey has a child and an ex-boyfriend (aka baby daddy) and gets along amicably.  There’s not much too exciting going on until her mother falls ill and she gets a call from the police telling her she should come right away.  Her and her daughter hop on a plane and travel all night to get to her mother to see what exactly is going on.

Her father is fraught and one would think he has Alzheimer’s from his sudden, erratic behavior.  What we find out is that the noisey neighbor noticed no one was going in or out of the house for a few days so she called the police.  What they ultimately found was Maisey’s mother laying unconscious in bed with a head injury. She had been there for 3 days.  Yeah.

Her father insists that she wanted to die at home but a living will can never be producted.  When Maisey makes it home she finds her father throwing papers into a fire in the living room and immediately calls 911 thinking the whole house is on fire and here we meet Tony.  The small town hero who is there and befriends Maisey and helps her with her mother’s sudden downfall.

Enter the twist.  Going through all of her mother’s things she stumbled upon the fact that she has a twin sister, Marley.  She used to play with an imaginary friend named Marley until her mother scolded her and told her to stop.  Was she imagining things?  Did she really have a sister?  Read to find out!

This book touches on a lot of abuse.  When they find her mother and examine her they discover she has had a lot of broken bones.  They accuse her husband of abusing her but Maisey defends her father and could never imagine him hurting her.  So how did she get all of the broken bones?  Tony does his best to stay away from Maisey as he himself is haunted from an abused past as well.  Although I absolutely love and adore Tony and his family, they are truly genuine, great people.

Maisey starts to learn to stand up for herself and grows a backbone and starts to make decisions.  I love this.  She truly grows throughout the book with the help of her daughter, Elle.  I don’t think Maisey would have been able to survive her trip without her daughter.  She is done with her ex-boyfriend controlling and ruining her life (he always seems to show up when she has a date, despite the fact that he’s married with a newborn baby now).

Overall, this book earned a solid 5.  It is rare to find a book that ends on a SOLID note and this one did just that.  I would classify this book as mystery with a touch of romance, not too much.  The mystery takes the fore front and honestly, I didn’t see the twist that came at the end with Marley.  But the book ends in the future and we can get closure on what happens to everyone, yay. Tune in next Thursday for my review of I Wish You Happy by Kerry Anne King (I told you I was blown away by the writing, I had to immediately read another one of hers)!

Book Review: The Boy At The Door

Title: The Boy At The Door

Author: Alex Dahl

Format: Advance Reader’s Copy Paperback

Published: 2018

Thank you, Penguin Random House, for the advance reader’s copy of The Boy At The Door which is out in just a few days on July 24^th!!  I love my psychological thrillers and this one had some unpredictable twists and turns.

Imagine a picturesque lake in Norway with a beautiful mansion on the edge with the perfect husband and wife to the townspeople.  Throw in 2 semi-lovely daughters and there you have it.  Except just because you can have it all, doesn’t mean you really do.  Meet Cecilia Wilberg, the woman who easily could have it all.

I really started to dislike Cecilia.  She drinks a lot, takes quite a few prescription pills, seemingly ignores her daughters Nicoline and Hermine, and doesn’t always treat her husband, Johan, the nicest.  Cecilia works part-time as an interior designer and keeps up all social appearances by regularly holding social events at her house, as well as attending them.

Enter Tobias.  A little boy left at pool class which one of Cecilia’s daughter attends.  The receptionist begs her to take him home and she begrudgingly obliges.  When she arrives at his house she finds that it’s abandoned so she takes him home with her for the night.  He says he goes to school in the next town over so she decides she’ll just take him there in the morning and they can sort out where his parents are.

The next morning, she gets a phone call from the school wondering why she dropped this little boy off as he doesn’t attend school there.  Insert the jaw drop now.  Cecilia ends up taking care of the boy as the authorities try and figure out who his parents are.  Little do we know that Cecilia will figure it all out before they get a chance.

Cecilia goes on with the authorities with an, “I’ll do whatever I want because I get out of anything,” attitude.  A typical rich person attitude when money can buy the finest lawyer if need be.  Does this come back to bite her in the butt?  Only at the very end of the book, you’ll see.

Cecilia is also best described as a compulsive liar and it kept me guessing what was the truth and what wasn’t.  As the story goes on with Tobias’ parents the author does an AMAZING job at having me second guess what really happened.  In fact, I believed a lie to be the truth (and then was angry when it was only a lie).  You’ll have to pick up this book to find out more.  But let me warn you, once you pick it up you will find it hard to put down!

Overall, I give A Boy At The Door a rating of 4.  The ending satisfied me as I felt Cecilia got what she deserved.  The book kept me guessing and I can always appreciate that.  In fact, I read this book throughout my amazing Mediterranean cruise, even waking up at sunrise in Barcelona just to fit a few more chapters before seeing all the sights.  A book that kept me wanting to hang out in a chair on vacation instead of partying it up says a lot.  Do yourself a favor and seek out this book to read it.  Let me know when you do!  Tune in next Thursday for my review of Whisper Me This by Kerry Anne King!

Book Review: Baby Teeth

Title: Baby Teeth

Author: Zjoe Stage

Format: Advance Reader’s Copy Paperback

Published: 2018

 

Thank you, St. Martin’s Press, for the advance reader’s copy of Baby Teeth which is out July 17^th!!  It kept me entertained on the sad journey back from my amazing cruise to the United States.  After reading this though I feel like I should sleep with one eye open around my kids…

Baby Teeth starts out with the image of a perfect family.  We have the father, Alex, who works and has a great job with the mom, Suzette, who stays at home to take care of the baby, Hanna.  Let’s just say that Hanna makes Rosemary’s baby look like an angel.

Talk about a twisted, semi-horrific book.  Behind closed doors the perfect family is not so perfect.  Hanna doesn’t talk.  Hanna has been kicked out of any school she has gone to due to behaviors.  Around her father, Hanna is the perfect angel.  When her dad is gone, all hell breaks loose.

Hanna starts to say a few words to her mother.  This wouldn’t be bad except she’s out to kill her mom so she can live a happy life alone with her father.  She tells her mother that she isn’t Hanna, but she’s a witch that was burned at the stake.  Suzette starts to tell her husband about all the, let’s call it satanic things, that Hanna starts to do.  She doesn’t like to burden him with all of the negative things because that’s his angel.  Put it this way, he has blamed all of the schools for the reason why Hanna has been kicked out, not her one time.

Have I mentioned that this girl is only 7 years old?!?!

The book carries on and this devil child tries to take her mother out one day after her father left for work.  She came up with a plan and almost got away with it.  I won’t divulge how she tries to do it, but, dang Zjoe, what an idea the initial plan is!!  Yes, I said initial because there are multiple attempts at taking Suzette’s life!!

I think the scariest part of this book for me was how real I felt it could be.  As a special education teacher, I have seen children with many, many various disabilities and clearly this child has a few issues.  I have known some children who have been violent and do try to hurt their parents.  This book isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem to some!

Overall, I am giving Baby Teeth a rating of 4.  It kept me turning the pages nonstop and jumping a little when my daughter would need to grab my attention.  This is a true physiological read.  I am hoping with how it ended Zjoe explores the idea of a sequel set years later into the future.  At least my fingers are crossed for that!  You won’t be disappointed to put this on your to-read list!!  Next week I will be reviewing yet another advance read; The Boy At The Door by Alex Dahl, see you next Thursday!

Book Review: The Kissing Booth

Title: The Kissing Booth

Author: Beth Reekles

Format: Kindle E-Book

Published: 2013

How does one plan for over 13 hours on an airplane?  Sleep would have been a great choice; however, I can never fall asleep on a plane.  Before I left for my magical, amazing, Mediterranean cruise vacation I was seeing a lot of ruckus over a new Netflix original movie, The Kissing Booth.  After I looked into it I discovered it was based off of a book written by a 15-year-old girl (yes, just 15 years old!!!!) and was getting rave reviews.  I wanted to join the party (and I love reading books and then watching the movie) so I downloaded the movie to my phone and the book to my Kindle and off to Rome I flew!

The Kissing Booth took me back to high school when I would day dream about how I would talk to my crush and what would happen.  As a high school student, your imagination can go crazy and think of some unrealistic situations.  I felt this is how the book went.  You could tell it was written by a teenager.

The story takes us on a journey with Elle and her best friend Lee, two popular high school students.  They have been inseparable for years and are essentially twins (both have the same birthday).  Lee has an older brother, Noah, and he and Elle have a love hate relationship at least until the school carnival.  Elle and Lee have come up with the fundraising idea of a kissing booth and somehow Elle and Noah end up kissing.  What happens now?  Well Noah is the hot, older brother with a player reputation so let your old teenage mind take that where you want it to.  Don’t forget to include drinking and sex in your thoughts!

I will say they hide their relationship (ut oh) and when Lee finds out, drama alert.  I didn’t particularly care for this part of the book.  It felt rushed and the characters just did their own thing immediately.  I felt like it was missing a lot of substance during this part and I could not understand why Elle and Noah had an issue with each other.  It got awkward.  But as any teenage dream prevails, they’re all awkward.  How does this all end?  Well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

Immediately after I finished the book I watched the movie.  I wasn’t too choked up over the book until I saw the movie.  Woah.  It made me appreciate the book a lot more.  Maybe if I was a teenager I would be going crazy over both, but, I’m not.  I will say though for a 15-year-old girl, it was written nicely.  A little farfetched, but, it’s what teenagers day dream about and she put it into words decently.

Overall, I am giving The Kissing Booth a rating of a 3.  If you stumble across this book go ahead and read it, but, I wouldn’t go out of my way to. I’m going to recommend you not watch the movie.  It follows the book along for the most part, but, I didn’t like how Elle was portrayed in the movie as opposed to the book.  If you have read the book and/or seen the movie I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!!  Come back next week for my review of Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage!