First Star I See Tonight by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

4 Stars

This book was an extra bonus in a care package from someone you’d never expect to send me something. Ha! Just kidding. It totally came from Shelby. Now we’ve both read it so hold on to your butt Susan Elizabeth Phillips . . . .



While this one didn’t get allllllll the starz from me like it did Shelby, it did earn 4 and I also read it a little wrong which I will explain momentarily. (Sidenote for the one of you who might be interested: The Hating Game was the other book sent to me with this one and I creamed my pants all over it. If you want to read what grouchy old twats choose when looking for the sexuals, now you have two options.)

Let’s quickly discuss how I read this wrong. First, I don’t read blurbs. That means I had no clue what this was about and thought it would be a super porno. (Dear Author, your covers are some of the worst I’ve ever seen and you can really write. Make them not ugly. Kthanxbye.) Second, I can’t think of one professional football player I find attractive so having one as the leading male doesn’t get my motor running. In my head they all look like Clay Matthews . . . .



Blech. Or, I guess in this case dude was a retired quarterback so he probably would have looked more like one of the Manning brothers . . . .



Those couple of things aside, this was a really cute book. Piper has taken over her deceased father’s private investigation company and has been hired to keep tabs on the aforementioned ex-footballer Cooper. When her cover is blown Piper finds herself hired by Coop in order to see if the employees of his new nightclub are on the up-and-up. Add in some side stories including potential danger to Cooper (dun dun dunnnnnnnnn), a Middle Eastern prince, a maybe not-so-dead neighbor’s husband and you’re in for some quality fluffy good times . . . .



Piper was a more capable Stephanie Plum (fuck off if you don’t like the comparison – after reading eleventy trillion Plum novels she’s the automatic go-to when it comes to characters like this) and her interactions with Cooper were a hoot . . . .

“Wear that blue dress tonight, and try to look sexy. As far as Logan and his crew are concerned, you’re a special hostess.”

“That makes me sound like a hooker.”

“As soon as he sees you, he’ll know you aren’t.”

She couldn't decide if that was a compliment.

Love hate relationships. I lurrrrrrv them. You know why? Because they lead to angry sex . . . .



Or in this case . . . .

He gave a hoarse cry. And it was over. Before it had even begun.



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Don’t worry, he gets to make up for his shortcomings. Warning: The sex was all fade-to-black style which made me like . . . .



Holy blue balls, Batman!

Anywho, Spring is right around the corner. If you need to add some books to your poolside Want To Reads, this is a winner. I’ll even help you out. Who wants it? Assuming I don’t think you’re a person who is interested in turning me into a skinsuit, I’ll pay this one forward and mail it to someone who wants to save a couple of bucks.

Wait For It by M. O'Keefe

4 Stars

Apparently this is “Romance Week” on Goodreads, but since I was a victim of the Bowling Green Massacre Great Kindle Tragedy of 2017 (and also still addicted to the damn library challenge I already completed) I’m behind on my game. Sh3lly was kind enough to put this one on my radar last month and once I saw it was the next in the series that contained Burn Down the Night I was like . . . .



For those of you who know me, you know I don’t enjoy books in a series . . . . EXCEPT (pay attention, Ron) when the “series” is porn one like this where each novel works as a standalone and the only thing that makes them cohesive is a character might know another. The reason I have never read the first two books in this series is because it appears they are one continual storyline, and momma only got time for a few hunnit pages about any particular couple when it comes to her smut.

When I saw this was about a single mother of three, I was – well . . . . .



I have my own children and I like them most of the time just fine, but I pretty much despise everyone else’s and don’t want to waste my ladyboner reading about dirty diapers and snotty noses. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut since 5 Stars from me is like a Yeti sighting and I had given the previous book the fully monty I was willing to roll the dice. Boy am I glad I did! No disappointment here . . . or not much.

Wait For It was about Tiffany, the aforementioned single mother of three. She married a real douchenozzle who knocked her around the local trailer park until she finally decided she had enough. She goes to her buddy for help (who appears to be the focus of Books 1 and 2) only to find herself crashing a Christmas party and confronted by the ex’s brother Blake. Thinking Tiffany is some white-trash gold-digger who might be presenting illegitimate bastard children off as his brother’s, Blake makes Tiffany a deal she can’t refuse - $10,000 to disappear before his mother sees what the cat dragged in. Tiffany isn’t willing to sell her soul to the devil for cheap, however, and tells him to make it $20G instead. Fast forward a year and the two crossing paths again. Blake sees Tiffany in a true light this go around – a hardworking mom willing to sacrifice anything to make a safe home for her children. But Blake has his own demons too and spends most of his time making sure Tiffany knows . . . .



Unwilling to admit he might be developing feelings for his ex-sister-in-law, instead he offers her much needed cash to go to dinner with him. Not for sex, just dinner which caused a very strong reaction of . . . .



Luckily Tiffany’s sister was there to point out . . . .

“You think I should feel like a whore?”

“You’re kind of living the definition, Tiff.”

And that’s why I love this series. I realize the plot was completely far-fetched, but the dialogue and the emotions rang so true. I also love O'Keefe's female leads. They are broken characters for sure, and this story could have easily went in a “50 Shades” direction where the magic penis was there to fix everything while creating yet another controlling sort of situation, but it didn't . . . .



It took a looooooooooooooooooooooong time for these two to do the bibbity dibbity, but when they did that bitch took charge and oh my lort was it good. Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud . . . . .



4 Stars because the ending was rushed in a HEA that was stupid.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley!

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

5 Stars


No Country For Old Men has an unprecedented FOUR POINT THREE TWO rating amongst my Goodreads friends so what’s even left to say at this point? Allow me a moment to let the book speak for itself . . . .

“Do you love it? I guess you could say I do. But I’d be the first one to tell you I’m as ignorant as a box of rocks so you sure don’t want to go by nothing I’d say.”



The story here is of Llewellyn Moss, a single-wide dwelling welder living near the Mexico-US border with his child bride who is out hunting one day attempting to put some meat on the table and runs across a bunch of (dead) bad hombres, a pickup bed full of bricks of heroin and a satchel containing two million dollars in used bills. Rather than leaving what was most definitely not well enough alone, Llewellyn takes the money before thinking things through, marking him as target numero uno for the baddest mahfah you ever don’t want to meet, Anton Chigurh. Entwined amongst this storyline is that of Sheriff Bell, an old timer who has watched his corner of world deteriorate over the years due to the narcotics trade.

I don’t know how to “sell” a Cormac McCarthy so I’m not even going to bother. He is definitely not “normal” . . . .



McCarthy is incomparable to any other author and is very much a love him or hate him type of storyteller. There is no world building – you are plunked right into the middle of a scene while it is taking place. He also has a deadly allergy when it comes to using quotation marks, so if you can’t follow along without the proper punctuation guiding you, you will find yourself struggling. His stories are not for everyone as they are super light and fluffy. Ha! Just checking to see if you’re actually reading this crap. That was total B.S. – dude is about as bleak as they come. I’m telling you, even Mitchell was pooping his nonexistent drawers when faced with the bad guy in this one . . . .



He probably had a flashback to when he was a young warthog that I just couldn’t relate to . . . . .

(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

If you aren’t brave enough to tackle McCarthy’s writing, opt for the film version instead. It won all the Oscars which filled Tommy Lee Jones with glee . . . . .



Surprisingly, I had not ever seen this movie (but in the weirdest of coinky-dinks it happened to be on the night I finished reading so it’s at least now made it to the DVR). It’s probably a good thing too because although Josh Brolin is a quality actor, I picture him in the lead of “scientific motorcycle maintenance journals” (wink wink) and would have been easily distracted from all the stabby going down . . . .



Book number something or other in the Library’s “Read to Reel” Winter Reading Challenge

A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley

2 Stars

A Long Way Home will probably end up as a selection on all the lists featuring inspirational stories and here I go giving it a 2 Star. What can I say?????



The first sign that this isn’t a great book is the fact that the blurb isn’t a blurb, but rather the opening pages of the story. That should have served as my warning, but I was all about reading errrrrry book that went from “Read to Reel” and I didn’t even bother looking into this one at all before requesting it. Plus, the movie has received about eleventy Oscar nominations so it had to be decent, right? Wellllllllllllllllllllllll, the story was . . . . it was just terribly written and could have easily been an article in a Newsweek or Time type of publication rather than a nearly 300 page book.

The story is of a boy named Saroo, who at five years old becomes lost from his family and winds up on the other side of India. Not knowing his last name and only that the he lived in a place that sounds like “Berampur,” Saroo is labeled lost by the Indian government and winds up adopted by an Australian family. As an adult Saroo becomes a bit obsessed and uses Google maps to walk the various train tracks in hopes of spotting something familiar that will reconnect him with his past . . . .



There you have it. It’s quite clear immediately that Saroo Brierley is no writer (and if I’m calling it out, you know it must be bad) and the fact that he was only five years old when he became lost meant hardly any details of his story were remembered. This could have been a much more detailed tale if it wasn’t so one-dimensional and used contributions from his families (in both Australia and India) as well as the juvenile detention facility and orphanage to help make it feel more complete.

I have a feeling this is one of the rare occasions where the movie will surpass the book. I mean, just look at this child . . . .



I hate kids and I even kind of want to kidnap that one.

Book #9 (????? I’m starting to lose track) on the Library’s Winter Reading Challenge

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney

2.5 Stars

Look at here it’s another addition to the category of . . . . .



And when Ron Howard buys the rights to your novel before it even gets published you don’t even have to pussyfoot around. This one gets compared in the blurb to both Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train. (Two stories which have absolutely nothing in common, but who gives a shit right? Those name drops sell themselves!)

Per usual when it comes to these “if you loved ______________, you’ll really love this” comparisons, I found this one to be just aiiiight and absolutely not at all like its predecessors.

The Girl Before is told both in the “Now” and in the “Then.” The “Then” focuses on Emma and the “Now” features Jane. Both women had some sort of superbadawful they were trying to get over when an opportunity to reside at One Folgate Street presented itself. While each woman’s first instinct was to be wary of a landlord who made them answer an invasive questionnaire and would still probably turn them down, they each opted to do so for personal reasons – which eventually had them answering the question . . . .

“Do you know what a restrictive covenant is?”

To which I replied . . . .



I deal with that shizz errrry day and it’s boring as hell. Luckily this story wasn’t as boring as my job. One Folgate Street was a home designed to take care of all of your creature comforts via a smart program known as “Housekeeper” . . . .



But it was also a house with some skeletons in the closet . . . or at the bottom of the staircase/buried in the backyard, if you will. The Girl Before definitely isn’t anything that’s going to change your life, but it was an o-kay mystery thriller with some fairly decent twists and turns and it reminded me a bit of a blast from my past . . . .


(A book I’m terrified to read because everyone seems to hate it even more than they do the film.)

In fact, things were going along swimmingly until the point where this happened . . . .

“Yes Daddy. Yes.”



2.5 Stars it is.

So enough about the book, let’s talk about the movie for a second. Dear Ron Howard, even though the leading ladies in this story are described as Audrey Hepburn-esque brunettes, do me a solid and use the fact that these two women are interchangeable to your advantage . . . .





One’s even your own kid so you should be able to sign her up for cheap.

And if you need someone to make a cameo as the dead wife????? Look no further . . . .



(You can send my casting fee to kellyandthebookboar@paypal.com. Thanks in advance.)

Book #10(?????? I think) in the Library Winter Reading Challenge – “Read to Reel.”

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley!

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

4 Stars

The Casual Vacancy has been rated by nearly a quarter of a million Goodreaders and (in case you can’t tell by the 3.27 rating) a good chunk of them weren’t terribly impressed. Although I’ve already trolled my nemesis pal Ron 2.0 about reading this wrong, I’m not entirely convinced he did this time around. I’m also not going to try to convince any of you to read it. I’m fairly certain J.K. Rowling won’t have to resort to prostitution for my crap review not generating an additional book sale. Instead I’ll do what I do best – not talk about the book at all.

Stephen King wrote a review on this book and made a spot-on comparison to another seedy little novel about the goings on amongst the population of a quaint little hamlet . . . .



(Although that was the first story that came to my mind, I couldn’t help also thinking this was a less stabby version of King’s own Needful Things due to all of the characters being absolutely wretched. However, it’s in pretty shit taste to name drop your own book so mad props to you for keeping it classy Uncle Stevie.)

When I was a kid I looooooooved movies like Peyton Place (and someone please remind my geriatric self that would be a good selection for Banned Books Week) and I was so envious of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window . . . .



Who was able to peep on an entire apartment complex across from him when he was laid up (I totally would have been cool with having two broken legs if it meant I could people watch all day). Although Turner Classic Movies was a channel that played on the regular at my grandparents’ house, I had little interest in the happily-ever-after romances and giant production numbered musicals. Instead I tuned in over and over again to films like A Place In The Sun (are you familiar with that one? Dude knocks up his fat white trash girlfriend and then kills her when it looks like he has a shot of living the country club lifestyle with Elizabeth Taylor) . . . .



What can I say? I was a weirdo pretty much from the start and The Casual Vacancy fell in line with those mentioned above as being my type of story. The only decent human in the entire thing? Dead on page 1. Every other character ranged from depressing to despicable. Buuuuuuuut, even though I loved seeing how warped Rowling’s mind could go, this sucker was a slog. It took three solid days of reading to get through and if you know me, you know that’s a long time. It’s also a book where nothing really happens . . . . while everything is building up to happen. The big payout does come at the end but it is not without some serious investment in the lives of these townsfolk.

So read it if you want, don’t read it if you don’t want. And be thankful you won’t recognize yourself in any of these characters. Especially Samantha who is missing something in her real life that makes her develop a bit of an obsession with a member of one of her child’s favorite bands to the point where she buys concert tickets in order to go lust after the young man properly . . . .



Oh, wait . . . . .

4 Stars because even if I gave it less it would be 3.5 and I’d choose to round up for the simple fact that Rowling is savage as a mothereffer . . . .

Trapped by Jack Kilborn

2 Stars

“You one of the bad guys, ain’t you?”

“Bad as they come, brutha.”
(A request before I begin, if you will humor me for a moment. If you’re gonna troll me for reading this wrong at least come up with a quotable quote my friends can berate me with for eternity. I’m looking at you, “You Suck Turtles” lady – you done good.)

Now on with the show. In case you aren’t already aware, I are quite horrible . . . .



I truly don’t intend to be contrary to popular opinion and , believe it or not, often go with the flow and fall right in line with the masses when it comes to reading things rightly or wrongly. This time, however? I am forced to go against even my fave lil’ witch. I was secretly hoping for this kind of reaction to the news that I downstarred one of her recommendations . . .



If only so I could throw the nervous pisser dog at her and lock the door pronto, but alas she is not of the butthurt variety and didn’t even get annoyed. (She is obviously turrrrrrible at this interweb thing and should probably read the handbook on how to act a dumbass.)

Alright, so about this book I didn’t like. Trapped is the story of a camping trip from hell. A group of six juvies and their court-appointed guardians have gone to be one with nature and experience some group therapy. It doesn’t take long before you find out the kids ain’t alright . . . .




And for them to meet the locals . . . . .



If you’re looking for gross, this one delivers in spades. It’s gory and there’s also some of this for the iron-stomached . . . . .



This is a true blue “B-Movie” grade slasher tale in written format designed to make you cringe while reading . . . . .



So what was my problem? Well, the author decided to (1) give these future murder victims backstories which I could have given a shit about (I mean really, does anyone care about the home lives of people in films like I Know What You Did Last Summer or Wrong Turn???? Hell no, we just want to see them get the stabby stabby); and (2) he made them all speak ebonics. Now, I am not one who minds reading slang or accents, but this was obviously the whitest human in America (aside from Richard Spencer, of course) who was trying to be real “down” with how the urban youths speak today. And it was super annoying.

Anyway, everyone else loved this so read it. You’ll probably like it just like all my friends did. Don't want to roll the dice, but still want to read about a camping trip you'll never forget (without years of psychotherapy that is)???? Opt for The Troop.