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1885 reviews

***SPOILERS***





I spent a good portion of this book trying to figure out the name. Admittedly, it threw me off and wasn’t pleasant. Once I figured out that Benteen Calder was more of a minor character and the true story was between Joe and Sarah, I got into the book.

We follow a young 16 yr old Joe as he heads out to Montana as part of a cattle drive. During a big storm Joe is left for dead by none other than his employer, Benteen Calder. Joe vows to get even with him for leaving him.

Before the storm, Joe travels to town and saves Sarah from attack, while on her journey to her uncles. They fall for each other quickly and agree to meet when Joe travels through Sarah town.

Joe, after pulling himself from the brink of death, is saved by a pair of cattle thieves. Joe is forced to stay with them. Joe escapes narrowly to be found by a nice older gentleman who breaks horses in a more horse friendly way. A couple years later, Joe learns the thieves are not dead and they want to take from Calder. Joe is on board as he still wants revenge.

The heist goes down and the thieves are killed by some of Calders men. Joe is shot as well. The men recognize him and rush him to the Dr in town o love you to learn the Dr is out and Sarah is the local nurse. Sarah nurses Joe back to life and they have a brief moment of pleasure before Joe heads off to Montana.

Joe builds a life in Montana, marrying and having a child. Meanwhile, Sarah had gotten pregnant and is forced out of town. Calders wife remembers Sarah and asks her to come to Montana as the new towns teacher.

Joe and his wife divorce and Joe and Sarah reunite. They raise their son, and Joes other son visits. Joe eventually comes to terms with Calder, though never does get revenge.

Overall, I found the book utterly predictable in a bad way. You keep Joe and Sarah would end up together and they did. Nothing special. I will not be reading more in this series.

I want to thank NetGallery and Kensington Books for the copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Okay well I’m late to the party, by like a lot, but that is okay, this book doesn’t get old. The concepts are still the same. As a lover of food I appreciated the copious amount of poking fun at the weight loss world. Food is not “bad” or “evil”. A slice of cake every now and again isn’t going to kill you. Now eat a whole cake a day and yeah you might have a problem. But the group meeting thing always ends up about being about people being unable to stay in their desk when donuts are brought in and assuming other people hate them or are trying to sabotage them. I laughed as Jen failed with Atkins, I mean in concept who wouldn’t want bacon everyday…until you’ve eaten bacon three times a day for weeks! Then the celebrity endorsed weight lose meals, yup they have perfected cardboard in the freezer section. I loved the personal training stories. Working out can be grueling but then someone pushing you to your limit takes it up a notch, but sometimes you feel so good you can’t help but want to go back I truly commiserated with Jen and appreciated her humor. Losing weight is not the same for everyone and hearing others journeys makes your own feel less horrible.

The author reached out to me via Instagram and asked I read her book. The author wrote this book when she was 12. How could I say no to that?

I really wanted to like this book. I really did. However, after reading 60% of the short book I just couldn’t read anymore. At this point we’d already had a broke family fleeing their landlord, a forced out young sister, two killers who were killed themselves via a murder chip in their neck, a drug dealing dad who also died of a murder chip, a cheating mom, a cloaked man a brand newly out lesbian protagonist, and a club of teenagers who help the police solve murders with the endorsement of the mayor. It made me think of a teenage tv series. Now this would be perfect for that!

It was so unrealistic I just couldn’t handle anymore. The author also seemed to introduce an idea and then it was over, no elaboration, it just was.

With some development I think we will see great things from this author. If she would learn to focus and develop the plot lines more thoroughly she would be amazing.I’m excited for her future!

At first I wanted to DNF this book. I’m slow to do that because I find it typically pays off. I can usually tell by the first few pages if I will stop or not. Typically I finish unless I can’t get over the writing style. So what that means is this was a slow starting book for me. After about 130 pages I was hooked. The book itself is only about 360, so it took almost 1/3 of the way in to keep my attention. However, once it got going it went at a much quicker pace.

I’ve read some reviews that state authors always portray Muslims in a negative light and that this book is no different. I would disagree. Yes, one father beats his daughter. No that’s not a good thing. The book does a good job pointing out that this is not the norm. The books offered several portrayals of practicing Muslims and what different levels of religions look like. You see that with every religion and this book did a good job capturing what religion looks like to different people.

I particularly liked the two intertwining stories. While they don’t intertwine until about mid way into the story you are kept wondering if they ever will. Thankfully they do.

This story is powerful and makes you think about what being a Muslim in the US is like. This book is set in 2016, and if you remember it was not a particularly good time to try to come to the US or be a Muslim in the US. The book touches on that.

The book wrap things up nicely and while I did have a few questions, they were not major. All the main plot lines were completed nicely.

This was my first Jake Bendel book but it won’t be the last! I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the Publishers in exchange for this review, however the views are my own.

I was hooked right away. I devoured this book over a couple hrs spread over the course of my busy Saturday. I couldn’t wait to find out how everything turned out.

The premise is that a virus that genetically modules DNA is injected into the water supply in California. We follow Paige and Jake along with Cavanaugh from the FBI on their quest to solve how this happened. At the heart of it is Viktor who they thought was dead.

This book is a quick read and you won’t want to put it down.