A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Miss Shayne is back with a movie review! Released in 2012, Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in a twisted sci-fi-esque movie. I am a big fan of movies such as these, and, as far as twisted films go, this movie is one of the better ones I have seen. Though it can be hard to follow, the ending is worth all of the initial confusion. Time travel has not been invented yet, but thirty years in the future, it has. To keep things relatively clean, when the future mob needs someone whacked, they send them back in time to be killed by hired guns called "loopers." This is all well and good until the future mob boss starts to "close the loops" by sending back the loopers' future selves to be whacked. Unfortunately, the young loopers don't realize they killed their future selves until they see their payment is gold bars instead of silver. Joe is one of these loopers who is trying to save up enough money to leave this lifestyle behind. Unfo...

Under the Harrow is Flynn Berry's debut novel.  It's a fairly gripping, fast read with chapters that fly by--due in part to their brevity as well as the engrossing story.  Set in England, the story takes place in a small English village about an hour's train ride from London. When Nora arrives to visit her sister Rachel for her semi-regular weekend visit, Nora is shocked to find a brutal blood bath in her sister's home instead, and at its center, her sister's lifeless body, viciously stabbed nearly a dozen times.  Unmoored by her grief and with little faith in the police detectives' ability to find her sister's killer, Nora embarks upon her own investigation to find both her sister's murderer and the man who brutally assaulted Rachel and left her for dead when she was a teenager.  Is it possible her sister's attacker and murderer were the same man? The police investigation reveals to Nora the secrets her sister kept even from her.  There was R...

I told you I've been reading.  I had about three reviews backlogged and waiting to be typed up and posted of which this review of The Siege by Stephen White is the second.  I don't normally read books like this... and by books like this, I mean, high stakes thrillers that feel generic.  I put this book in the same category as the conspiracy theory/intrigue/black ops/historical-discovery-of-global-importance-that-will-shatter-all-our-notions-of-history/religion/life-as-we-know-it thrillers that star spies or other former elite special forces operators.  Not that there's anything wrong with those books, they just usually aren't my bag of tea when it comes to reading, and so I tend to shy away from them.  So why I read this one, I don't know except that it's been on my reading list forever, and I thought there must be some reason why I put it there, so why don't I give it a shot because I'm sure it'll be a quick read.  Well.  I read the first 100 pag...

As you can see by the many months since the last posted review, I haven't been reading many books.  I started this book sometime during the summer.  The morning I started this book, I read the first 100 pages (it's a fast read and a page turner), and then I had to go to work and after that I didn't pick it back up again until Hurricane Sandy blew through at the end of October.  I finished another book during the storm and then finished this one while I waited for the internet to come back. Wide Open is a supernatural, suspense thriller; as far as I can tell, its Deborah Coates' first print novel, although she has two previous e-books that come up in an Amazon search.  For those who liked Wide Open (of whom I am one), there's a sequel, Deep Down , that was set for release in March of 2013 the last time I checked. Hallie Michaels returns home on compassionate leave from Afghanistan and when she steps off the plane, she's greeted by the ghost of her sister,...

I'm always on the lookout for good young adult fiction because some YA fic is just as good or better than some adult fiction I read.  I've reviewed quite a few YA titles in the past.   Project 17 by Laurie Faria Stolarz is the latest young adult fiction title that I've read and it is a quick read with short chapters (my favorite) of rotating narrators.  We see the story unfold from multiple viewpoints, and while this can be quite effective in some novels, it seems to hinder the story development in this one.  This is a spooky, but not scary, eerie read.  The teenage voices of the narrators are differentiated between the various teens, but Stolarz fails to create distinctive, unique voices and when the chapters are right next to each other, it's easy to tell that it's the same person writing all the voices.  The rotating narrators detract also from the atmosphere of what could easily be a wickedly terrifying night in a damaged and condemned state asylum tha...

I know what it means to be set loose in the world. Damaged children are all of the same tribe: I can look at any adult and recognize one instantly ... we're everywhere. Lost childhood lingers like tribal scars ... there's always some sign. from page 59 Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber is a mystery thriller that follows two mysteries that in the end are so closely intertwined that one would not exist without the other; in fact, one mystery spawns the other and only by pursuing leads in both mysteries can either be resolved. The mysteries themselves really take a backseat to the character of the narrator, Lena, a young and expert fingerprint examiner for the crime lab in Syracuse, New York; the meat of the story focuses on the inner workings of Lena's thoughts as she struggles to come to terms with her past. Lena was a foster child, she was raised by Pia and Henry who never tried to legally adopt her. Before she came to live with her foster parents at the age of three, she only re...

In the suspense novel Blood and Ice by Robert Masello, the most thrilling and unique element is the unusual setting of Antarctica. Not many books or movies are set on that continent. Blood and Ice tells the tale of the lovers, Eleanor and Sinclair, in mid-nineteenth century England; she is a nurse and he is a soldier who is preparing for deployment to the Crimean war front. These star crossed lovers eventually find each other again in the midst of the bloody business of war. Ultimately, a mysterious and cruel malady befalls them and as a result an even more horrifying fate awaits them. The tale of Eleanor and Sinclair alternates with the tale of freelance journalist, Michael, who is recovering from a brutal, personal tragedy of his own. Michael is offered an opportunity to spend a month at an antarctic research station and report on his experiences there. Little does he know what adventure and danger he will encounter once he arrives and how his story will intertwine with that ...