Friday 18 July 2014

He's a Bad Boy by Lisa Jackson

He's a Bad Boy (Mavericks #1)He's a Bad Boy by Lisa Jackson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this book at the moment, I had a bit of a rocky start with the beginning. 

I didn't buy Rachelle (our heroine), being ok with wet hugs just after being assaulted.  I was also laughing at her amazing first time, where she soared all sorts of magical heights - several times - with our resident bad boy Jackson Moore, (our hero).  I it was kinda a dick move on his part to keep going, even though he felt bad about 'taking advantage' of Rachelle.

I quite like both of the main characters, both likable enough, I was a little annoyed that Jackson felt the need to over exaggerate all the other negative aspects of the other characters, namely Roy Fitzpatrick - local asshat and our number one bad guy at start of the story.  All his friends are similarly painted, none of Roy's friends have any redeeming qualities, even when we meet them 12 years later.  This aspect of the story didn't feel real to me.  I felt like Jackson wanted me to know these were the bad guys and so she made a list of things asshats do and made sure they had all those traits.  I don't like being told how to feel about a character, I like to make up my own mind and I'm sure I would've come to the conclusion that they were not nice.

Overall, this was pretty predictable,  I had an idea of who the killer was and I was on the money. That being said I did enjoy listening to it once I got past my issues, plus I always have such fun listening to these older Harlequin Loveswept titles.  Would I read it again.  No.  But would I read the other three titles in the series.  Yes.



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Until next time, happy reading :)

C.

Saturday 5 July 2014

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wow.  Just wow.  This kinda blew me away.  My first book for the Writers of Colour group on Goodreads and we are off to a cracking start.  I thought it was well written, I loved the humor and pop culture references, (although I didn't get all of them).  I bonded with Oscar, Junior and Lola, I cared about the characters and I wanted them to be okay.  I really enjoyed the magical realism aspects of the story, the theory of Fuku and the rich history that the family had.

My only negative - and it's entirely a fault of mine - is that I don't speak fluent Spanish, so some of the story was lost on me, and sometimes that pulled me out of the story.  I have a basic knowledge of Spanish and was able to understand parts, but most of it went over my head.  Further proof that I need to start learning it again!

What this book has pushed me to do is look into history outside my normal sphere, I know next to nothing about the Dominican Republic, and I often think being so isolated from the rest of the world (I'm in Australia), we don't learn about much about the world outside of our little bubble, it wasn't on the school curriculum and English was the language that most people spoke, at least when I was at school; that of course is changing as more immigrants arrive here.  But generally I was taught a little Australian history, but the majority was English History.  The first time I went to Europe it became glaringly obvious just how sheltered we are, a tour guide that we had in Italy spoke five languages.  Five.  Not all of them fluently, but enough to get by and I'm not saying everyone in Australia only speaks English, but we don't feel the need to learn other languages, unless we have that particular background.

My audio request of this arrive before the print copy, and it was great to listen to.  Lin-Mauel Miranda was the narrator, he was brilliant, it was like being there with Junior and I got more out of the Spanish language when it was being read to me, rather than me reading it off the page.  The story was truly bought to life.

Definitely not my last Junot Diaz book. Have you read this, lets chat!

Until next time, happy reading :)

C.



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