The blog of author Stacy Kingsley

Book Review - THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J. Finn

12/1/2019

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn will feel familiar when you start it, especially if you read The Girl on the Train, which this can be compared to. It is not like Gone Girl, which I will admit I totally hated.

Anna Fox is a former child psychiatrist who is now an agoraphobic who can't leave her house without passing out. If you know nothing about agoraphobia it is the fear of open spaces, or spaces you can't control and is often brought on by trauma or anxiety. Her and her husband, Ed, and daughter, Olivia, have separated, possibly due to the agoraphobia, possibly due to other reasons. When the Russell's move in across the street Anna finds herself drawn to the family, especially the teenage son, Ethan, and the wife, Jane. However, nothing is as it seems with the family, and once Anna hears a scream and believes that she sees Jane murdered things go sideways. Anna finds that no one believes her, and due to her condition and her reliance on both alcohol and prescription drugs she starts to not believe herself.

The story has two twists in it. One did surprise me and I was a little shocked, because I should have seen it coming, the other was foreshadowed and I could have guessed if I wasn't so into the story. The story itself was slow at times, and the pacing could have been a little faster. There were times when I felt so bogged down in Anna's feelings and life that I wanted to skip it and get to the story. I also wish that the author had focused a little more on the other characters on the street that Anna watched.

My biggest issue with this novel was with Anna herself. She continually repeated in the novel that she knew she shouldn't be drinking while she was taking her prescription meds, but she continually did just that. I would have liked a character who wasn't drunk all of the time, and I feel that she could have been seen as unstable just with her misuse of the prescription drugs that she was prescribed for her agoraphobia issues. I feel that the alcoholic female lead who isn't going to be believed has been a little over done at this point. There are other ways to create a believable unstable character without the use of booze or meds.

My other issue was with the character of Alister Russell. He was portrayed as a hard ass man who was overprotective of his family, but neither he nor Jane were developed enough to really add to the story. When you have important main characters in a novel they need to serve a purpose, and I feel that neither Jane, who we see little of, and Alister, who we see only when he is angry, aren't used to their full advantages.

I do recommend this, it wasn't bad, and I didn't hate it as much as I did Gone Girl, nor did I dislike it as much as I did The Woman on the Train. Plus, it looks as if a movie is coming and I find it is always a good idea to read the book before watching the movie.

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Book Review - YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Nicole Baart

10/28/2019

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You Were Always Mine by Nicole Baart is about a woman who learns that life can change in mere moments when she learns of her husband's death. Evan and Jessica Chamberlain have been separated for a few months, leaving her life with her two sons in turmoil. Things get worse when Evan is found dead, and the questions keep piling up and keep Jessica awake at night. Everything seems to revolve around their adopted son, Gabriel. Gabe's mother wanted a closed adoption, and Jessica was fine with that, but when she stumbles upon clues that things weren't as they seemed, she becomes suspicious that Evan's death was not an accident at all.

I actually quite enjoyed this novel. This is the first book I've read by Nicole Baart, and I might in fact try to find another by her to see if her books stack up to this one. There are some issues with this book, but the characters were interesting, and Jessica was realistic in her grief. I thought how she went from day to day and through each step felt true to what someone does go through. Trying to pull herself together enough to deal with her children and continue to take care of life as things come and go.

When Jessica finds that a lot of things were not as she thought they were she realizes how much she wanted Evan back, and how little she knew about what he was trying to do. In the end Jessica learns that those who she trusted were the ones who betrayed her, and that her husband was doing more good, even though he was keeping some serious secrets from her..

The family dynamic was interesting, yet is was clear that the family loved each other. The ending wasn't quite what I expected, but I did in fact see it coming, in some of the ways that it did. One of the characters I thought suspiciously about from early on in the novel.

It was not a bad novel at all, and I thought it was a good read. It was an interesting book, with a lot of secrets to figure out. I'd recommend it to people who enjoy Jodi Picoult, as this did seem a little along the lines of the few books of hers that I have read.

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Book Review - THE LAST TIME I LIED by Riley Sager

8/5/2019

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The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager is a novel that takes you through the game "Two Truths and a Lie" several times.

This novel follows Emma, a young woman who is haunted by the disappearance of three girls when she was at Camp Nightingale, fifteen years earlier. Emma, a painter who has just gotten her first art show, is an up and comer, who is afraid that people will find out not only what she has done in her paintings, but the lies she continually attempts to cover up with her paintings. Emma is most often haunted by Vivian, the girl who took her under her wings when she arrived as a scared 13 year old at Camp Nightingale. Now, the Camp is being opened back up, trying to start over and forget about the disappearance of the three girls fifteen years earlier. Emma is invited by the owner, Franny, to come be a an art instructor, teaching a new batch of campers to paint. When tragedy strikes again, and Emma falls under the suspicion of the police, she must decide, is it time to tell the truth, or has she just buried herself too deep under her lies.

This book is in the same suspenseful vein as Sager's first novel, Final Girls. It has a build up of suspense as the reader needs to decide what is going on, and who they should believe. There are a few twists to make the reader relax, and feel as if they do know what is going on, before it twists again, telling the reader how wrong they are.

Emma is an unreliable narrator. She is a woman who went through and didn't get over, something traumatic that happened to her when she was still a child. She is crazy, and continues to try to convince herself, and the reader, that she isn't crazy. In reality, she likely is since she hasn't really dealt with the trauma, and doesn't seem to be over the disappearances that happened. Most of the other characters are limited in their development, as the reader doesn't get enough information to make judgements for themselves about whether they believe a person is guilty or not. I would have liked a little more development of both Theo and Chet, Franny's two adopted sons. I would have liked to know a little more about their history, or something that could have added a little to their characters. This was especially desired because both boys played very important parts in the story, both in the past disappearances and the present trauma.

Other characters that could have used more development, were, well, most of them. There were characters from the past when Emma was a child at camp, and they weren't given much development, except to say one was an excellent photographer, and the other was a constant smoker. Also, the only character that got development in the present was Chet's wife, Mindy, who was able to tell part of her story when she was in a room with Emma.

The ending of this was a little unsatisfying. I wanted something more along the lines of Final Girls, but instead got something that was trying too hard when it didn't need to. I didn't think the ending was good enough for the book I was reading, and for me, it left me feeling like I had read the book expecting something that was never delivered. While the ending of Final Girls fit the book, the ending to The Last Time I Lied didn't really seem to fit, and it was trying to hard to place the blame on someone who wasn't guilty. It was, in the end, annoying and unsatisfying.

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Book Review of THE OTHER SISTER by Dianne Dixon

7/29/2019

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The Other Sister by Dianne Dixon was a quick read, but it was also an unsatisfying read. I read this over a few hours, and was incredibly disappointed that I wasted my time with this novel.

The plot of the book sounded interesting. Morgan and Ali are fraternal twins. Morgan feels Ali has had all of the luck and that maybe, just maybe, life would be better for her if Ali never existed. The end of the synopsis adds, "As their lives spin toward something neither one of them can control, a terrifying crime reveals how those who know us best can destroy....or save us." This made the book sound like a crime thriller, which it was not. It wasn't a domestic thriller either. I don't think this book knew what it wanted to be.

The character of Morgan was an annoying and underdeveloped character. She had only part of her own self in this story, and most of the time she spent was feeling angry or jealous of her fraternal twin, Ali. Part of this is understandable. Ali is engaged to and eventually marries a man named Matt. This man met Morgan first, and he was interested in her, until he met her sister, Ali, then he fell in love quite quickly. Morgan feels like this sums up her life with Ali as her sister. Everyone loves her Ali and Morgan is always second best.

When tragedy strikes and Morgan feels that her sister has abandoned her, things begin to change. This is really where the story got dull. In the beginning it seemed like it would be a story of revenge or of sisters who eventually learn to love each other, despite the terrible things one sister has done. Then it acted as if it was going to be a thriller or mystery, as Matt left and was discovered the next day looking beaten and abused, by Morgan. Then it changed again after the tragedy happens and Ali has several decisions to make. It never really makes up its mind what genre it wants to be, or what story it wants to tell. Instead it tried to accomplish too much and became very dull.

In the end several things happened, and a few of them didn't seem at all realistic, or even true to the story. The crime committed seemed to be put into the novel only to force something bad to happen to a character, and for another to discover what everyone would eventually know before she breaks her silence. It also made several of the female characters look dumb, like they all only cared about one thing, money, not love, or their children, or even what was going on in their marriages.

Of course, there is a lot of stuff around the husbands, and the secrets every is keeping, some of which are really stupid.

So, after stating all of this, would I recommend this book? No. Nope. Zero percent. Skip it, this is one book that is just too frustrating to read.

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Movie Review - FIFTY SHADES FREED

4/25/2019

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I just finished watching FIFTY SHADES FREED and I've decided not to review it, because it wasn't any better than the other movies. The plot was iffy, it was all about sex (duh), and the "thriller" aspect was so, so, so very dumb. I mean *and here is where I insert spoilers* this entire thing was about revenge because the wrong kid got adopted and another kid got adopted. I mean, does this happen? Do kids look up their foster siblings when they grow up? Do they get jealous of ones who are adopted into wealthier families? I don't know, I didn't think the reason behind the suspense was realistic. Plus, again there was no chemistry between the two main characters.

So instead of reviewing the movie I decided to talk about what I am doing.

I am going to be at the Hanover Book Festival in Mechanicsville, VA. I will be selling books and bookmarks! So come and join. The festival is this Saturday, the 27th, from 10am-2pm!

And next Saturday, May 4th, I will be selling at a comic festival held at the Howell Library: 806 Lyons Boulevard
Fredericksburg VA 22406.

This event is from 1-4pm, and I will have my books and bookmarks there as well!

Some and see me. I love talking to horror and pop culture fans! Plus, we can talk about the awesome new things I have in development!

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Book review - GIRL OF NIGHTMARES by Kendare Blake

10/12/2018

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I didn't realize that I had this book on my TBR shelf. I received it for free, exchanging it for another book I had. I wouldn't have exchanged it if I had read Anna Dressed in Blood first. I didn't like Anna Dressed in Blood, and I didn't like Girl of Nightmares.

Now am I saying that Kendare Blake is a bad writer, no, I am not. I am only saying that these books weren't good. I thought the main character was conceited and annoying. He had friends and yet he continually states, "You don't have to do (blah) with me." He, Cas, knows full well that his friends are going to join him no matter what. Another problem with this book is that the setting in some parts just don't make sense. At one point they are walking through the Suicide Forest, and everyone knows that the Suicide Forest is in Japan, yet the characters are not in Japan. It didn't make sense, and I wonder if the author knew what she was doing at that point.

Another thing that annoyed me, these kids are under the age of 18, yet no one seems to care when they jet off to England, or that they skip school, or that they continually put themselves in danger and get hurt.

I also disliked the characters because none of them were really developed, again, and I didn't care that they were looking for Anna. I didn't care about Cas and his nightmares or desires because he is NOT a nice person. There is nothing about him that I like. Zero. The only character I think has any redeeming qualities is Thomas, and he is constantly put on the back burner, forgotten and left to whither.

I am not a fan, and after reading that this was the last book in the series (of two books) I am also frustrated. I feel as if Blake has so much more that she could say, and more to develop so that readers will care for these characters, yet she leaves things hanging and says there won't be a third book.

Meh. Not for me.

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Book Review - FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager

10/10/2018

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For the book Final Girls bu Riley Sager, I was torn about reading it. On the cover I have it has a quote by Stephen King, "If you liked Gone Girl, you'll like this." I almost didn't buy this book, only because of that quote. See, I hated Gone Girl, hated it with a passion. I hated it because there was only one character to like and he wasn't int he book enough. Otherwise, it was overrated and not at all interesting. Plus, I don't mind a twist, but I don't want to read an entire book of lies (which almost half of Gone Girl was). However, this isn't about Gone Girl, this is about Final Girls.

This book revolves around Quincy, a young woman who ten years earlier survived one of the most horrific experiences of her life. A night that was supposed to be fun turned into a night of betrayal and tragedy. In that night, Quincy and five of her friends, including her best friend, Janelle, were staying at a cabin. At the end of the night, only Quincy survived. Now, years later Quincy is pert of a group of three girls called the "Final Girls" all surviving a night of horrific tragedy, where several others were killed and they were the ones to survive. Suddenly, the original "Final Girl" is found dead of a supposed suicide, and Quincy's life is dramatically changed when the other "Final Girl" Sam shows up wanting to talk. What does Sam want to talk about? Not the death of Lisa, no, she wants to help Quincy remember what happened that night at Pine Cottage.

This book started out strong, and for a while kept me going, wanting to find out what happened to all of the girls and why Lisa, the strongest of the three, would kill herself after all of this time had passed since her tragedy. All three girls, Lisa, Sam, and Quincy, had been in a situation where they had become a "Final Girl," and in fact Lisa is the one who came up with the name. I didn't start getting frustrated with this book until Sam starts pushing Quincy, and her maybe Fiance, Jeff, keeps telling her that she is fine. How could anyone thing she was fine, and how could he have been so blind to what was happening to her? Sam, on the other hand, was too pushy and her personality was so abrasive that it started to wear on me.

I, throughout the book, also found Quincy to be too much of a pushover. I don't know how I would react if I had survived what she had gone through, but for me, I didn't think she was realistically written at certain points in the book. I found the younger Quincy, the one in the flashbacks, to be almost the same as the older Quincy, as if the tragic events of ten years earlier didn't affect her, but there was no telling how she was dealing, or how she did deal, other than she was put on Xanax. This to me, seemed unrealistic. I doubt that she would just find Xanax to be the cure, and that she would show other destructive behaviors. However, I did the book and the final twist at the end.

One other thing that bothered me about this book, was the time it took to develop anything. There was so much in between the first and last scene that I felt a lot of it was filler. It was almost as if Quincy was standing in a room, just spinning around, and that was what the reader was seeing. I would have liked a little more involvement from the outside characters, a little more to make me feel something deeper, some sense of urgency or, well, anything. As with other books I have read recently, the only character that stood out was Sam, she was well described, and I could see her each time she appeared, often disheveled and awkward. None of the other characters stood out to me, and I didn't even get one bit at the end because I couldn't remember it being described much in the beginning.

Of course, this doesn't mean I disliked the book. I was thrown off by the ending, and not expecting it at all, and it really made the book much more interesting. It was something that I didn't see coming at all, and was happy to have the surprise, especially when most of the book I've read recently were obvious where they were headed.

I do recommend this. I would love to be able to give it a strong recommendation, but can't because of the the slow parts and the fact that none of the characters were really developed (Jeff was super flat).

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Book Review- SCARY MARY by S.A. Hunter

10/7/2018

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Scary Mary by S.A. Hunter is a pretty good novel. Mary is a young woman stuck as an outcast in high school. She is called a freak by almost everyone, until she meets Cy, a new kid who doesn't seem to care what anyone has to say about her. Mary's best friend, Rachel, is away on vacation when Mary is invited to Cy's house. Mary isn't sure what to do, as Rachel has been her only friend for several years. Once at Cy's house things don't go as planned, and Mary finds herself once again the outcast. See, Mary can't see them, but she hears ghosts, and there is a nasty one in Cy's house.

This was a fun, fast book to read. The book is only 14 chapters, although I felt it could have been a little more to it. We don't get a lot of backstory on Mary, or Rachel, so I didn't really care about the characters as deeply as I could have. Another character who could have used more development was Mary's grandmother, or Gran. Gran is a fortune teller and the reader doesn't quite have a clear picture of what she looks like, or even how the house they live in is set up.

I would have liked a little more descriptions of several things, since after reading it (and I only finished about 3 hours ago) I can't remember what any of the characters look like. None of them really stuck with me, and I would have liked a little more from the teens who were terrible to Mary. There were more than a few, but the only name I remember is Vicki, and again, I can't quite picture what she looked like.

Now, just because I didn't care for the lack of description, and character development, does not mean that I didn't like this book. I thought the idea behind it was interesting, and found it delightful that Mary had a characteristic that I hadn't seen in a lot of other books, being able to hear but not see the dead. In the end, I thought the most delightful character was Chowder, a ghost dog who comes and goes into Mary's life. And to be honest I can remember more about him than any of the other characters (seriously, what color hair did Rachel have? I want to say red... Maybe).

I may or may not read the next book in this series. I have to think about it, and maybe get through a few more novels on my TBR shelf before buying anything new.

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Book Review - A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by Paul Tremblay

10/3/2018

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I just finished A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, so I decided to review it, since I had a moment.

The book follows the Barrett family as they struggle to find out what is wrong with their fourteen year old daughter, Marjorie. At first they take her to a psychologist to get her help, thinking her issues might be mental health related, and then, due to the father, they pull in a priest. The father doesn't seem to have much pull with the family until one night in particular, and in the end they decide that Marjorie must be possessed and needs an exorcism.

For me there were moments in the book that really bothered me. The blog written throughout by Karen Brissette seemed very unnecessary. It was in each part telling the author why the television show based on the Barrett's life was unrealistic and fake. The reader doesn't need this information, as they should be able to read the book and decide for themselves if the possession of Marjorie was in fact a thing that happened, or something that a struggling family made up to make money. The blog didn't add to the story, and it was distracting.

The novel began with a strong look at the characters, and in the house where things had happened, but it didn't explore this setting as much as it should have. Merry, Marjorie's little sister, is the one who is really telling the story, and if she is back in the setting where everything happened, I would have liked to see more of the house and Merry's reactions. This was especially true as I looked back at the beginning after finishing the book. I wanted there to be more, and I wanted there to be something to bring this book in a circle, but it is abstract and there are things that don't seem to connect.

There are also characters that seem important, but in the end the fade into the book and don't have any presence when they should. The ending was a little bit of a surprise, something I wasn't expecting, but it is the only part of the book that stood out to me. The ending stood out because it made me question what was going on in the house, was Marjorie possessed, mentally ill, or an average teenage girl? Was there something wrong with her father that caused him to need the church and believe that nothing but the church could save his daughter? Was the mother absent in their lives because she didn't want to be married, or did she not see what was going with her family? Was Merry the antagonist of the story?

Most of the time the characters fell flat, and having an eight year old Merry be narrator, to me, made her an unreliable narrator, especially since the reader has no idea what she actually saw, or what she really knew or remembered.

The last thing I'd like to say is that this book did not scare me. I don't know what most people who were scared found frightening in this book, because honestly this seemed like an amalgamation of a bunch of other stories and novels. It is almost as if Tremblay did decide to read all of the books and watch all of the movies mentioned in the book and take pieces of each one to put in this novel. I wanted to be scared, but what was I supposed to be afraid of? An abusive family? A family in chaos? A little girl who ends up doing something terrible and never getting caught? So much is left unsaid, and nothing is really developed.

The only thing that did stay with me was the ending, like I mention earlier, because it wasn't quite what I expected. I expected Marjorie to die a horrible death during the entirety of a book, and I expected something bad to happen to the family, but I did not expect what actually happened.

I am happy I read this, but it wasn't as great as I had been led to believe, and I'm not sure I will read any more of Tremblay's books, only because his writing style didn't quite work with me.

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Book Review - I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS by Iain Reid

9/16/2018

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I really wanted to like the book I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. I really did. Unfortunately, I did not like it, I did not like it at all.

I really hated this book. At first I enjoyed it, I thought it was interesting to hear the girlfriends thought, even though they were repetitive, and she got to be a little annoying. Then I just got bored.

Over and over the girlfriend repeats things in her head like: I should tell him I'm going to end things, I should tell him about the caller, Who is the caller, should I answer the phone. I got tired of it all and just wanted to kick her. She never changed her tone, until the end when we find out the huge secret. I also have to say I hated the ending. The last half of the book felt rushed, even though I knew what was going to happen (it was easy to figure out and no, I didn't read any of the reviews before hand). I would have liked it to go in a different direction, and not leave so many loose ends. I would have like it to be more cohesive as well as I found the way things developed was a tedious, time suck.

I don't like hating books. I want to support authors, but I don't get how this has so many good reviews. I think that because it is "literary" that may be why it has garnered so much attention. In my view, it was a book that didn't deliver what was promised, and in the end it left too many things open. I understand that the caller was an abstract idea to some, but to me it was a suspenseful element that didn't add anything to the story.

Not a fan. Not a fan at all. I wanted to like this book so much because of the title, it really drew me in. But, it just couldn't get there and lost me along the journey.

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<<Previous

Book Review - THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J. Finn

Book Review - YOU WERE ALWAYS MINE by Nicole Baart

Book Review - THE LAST TIME I LIED by Riley Sager

Book Review of THE OTHER SISTER by Dianne Dixon

Movie Review - FIFTY SHADES FREED

Book review - GIRL OF NIGHTMARES by Kendare Blake

Book Review - FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager

Book Review- SCARY MARY by S.A. Hunter

Book Review - A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by Paul Tremblay

Book Review - I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS by Iain Reid

Stacy Kingsley

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