Author: Kerstin Gier

Review Round Up | The Guest List, A Castle in the Clouds, and Incomparable

Posted May 28, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was trying to get back into reading so I decided to follow my mood. I joined Book of the Month specifically so I could get an early copy of THE GUEST LIST and read it ASAP. In the end, totally glad I did! It didn’t fully grab me right from the beginning like I was hoping, but I sat and read the majority of the book in one sitting on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on my porch. The story follows a wedding on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. There are a few points of view: Jules (the bride), Olivia (the sister of the bride/maid of honor), Johnno (the best man and childhood friend of the groom), Hannah (the plus one – her husband Charlie is Jules’s best friend), and Aiofe (the wedding planner who owns the island venue with her husband). The final 40% of the book was a whirlwind of twists and secrets. I love when mystery/thrillers have shorter chapters at the end that rapidly go back and forth between points of view as things come together. I’ve had this issue lately where I figure out at least part of the “mystery” or whodunnit, so the endings of suspense stories have been […]

Review Round Up | Here Lies Daniel Tate, Just Dreaming, and Same Beach, Next Year

Posted August 3, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 backlist books I’ve read or listened to recently. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was pretty eager to get my hands on HERE LIES DANIEL TATE. I’ve thought about ALL OUR YESTERDAYS so much since I finished it a few years ago and have been hoping for a new book from Terrill. This one seriously did not disappoint! I expected something twisty that I couldn’t put down and I totally got that. “Daniel” is the ultimate unreliable narrator. He blatantly lies, tells you that he was lying, and always implies that maybe some of the story isn’t even true. I can’t say too much about him or the plot without giving a lot away about what happens, but just know that his unreliability does not change. I still, weirdly, found myself liking him as a main character. Mia was super adorable and Nicholas was really interesting as well. I have a few issues overall, but not much. I think the inclusion of some kind of “romance” was definitely not necessary. I mean, I can sort of see why it was included? Minor spoiler in italics: I think it was to show that the MC was really a normal human boy with feelings, or at least was starting to develop them. It added a little bit to his character because part of him really just wanted that normal life and […]

ARC Reviews: The Epidemic and Dream On

Posted April 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I was SO excited to grab this one from ALA back in January, but OF COURSE I waited forever to finally sit down and read it. There’s something wrong with me, okay? But after the cliffhanger at the end of THE REMEDY, I knew I had to get to it as soon as there was a break in my reading schedule. Honestly, I kind of created a break in my schedule; I knew this book was one I could finish in three sittings or less because I get sooo addicted to Young’s writing. This was definitely the case with THE EPIDEMIC! It took a few chapters for me to be reminded of what happened in the previous book. Thankfully, there was a pretty solid amount of recapping THE REMEDY without feeling like too much information. I still loved Quinn and was wondering what would happen with Deacon, after the previous book’s major cliffhanger about him. The biggest question I had throughout the story was HOW. How is all of this happening? Does Virginia have something to do with it all? How is it possible that suicide became an epidemic – something contagious – instead of something just related to groupthink. I was so eager to get to the end see everything tie into THE PROGRAM and THE TREATMENT. It’s weird reading a prequel series because you know how the world ends up afterwards… and it’s not a pretty place to be. I knew that my final rating for this story […]

Book Buddies Review: Ruby Red

Posted March 31, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. What did you think about Gwen? Is she the kind of main character you can relate to? Do you feel like she was characterized enough so far? Kaitlin: I think she was a great character! I mean, I really liked how she reacted to the situation she was put in and I do really look forward to reading more about her because Gwen definitely seems like she has had an interesting past. She is kind of the main character that one could relate to. I mean, I know what it’s like to have that one crazy friend but I see her as someone who has kind of always been overlooked and I honestly have not been through that struggle but I do like that though, how people who do feel overlooked get to relate to her and see how it is when an overlooked character finally get’s the attention. I am excited for Gwen’s character development […]

ARC Review: Dream a Little Dream

Posted April 10, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

The Story The main premise of this story revolves around Liv and her extremely vivid dreams. Her family, which consists of her mother and sister (Mia), has moved around quite a bit over the recent years to follow different university jobs for her professor mother. They make their “final” move to London because her mom has landed her dream job at Oxford. Enter her mom’s new boyfriend, Ernest, and his two children, Grayson and Florence. The new blended family joins together in Ernest’s house and adjust to their lives together. Meanwhile, Liv’s dreams are getting crazy. She’s seeing people from school, including her new stepbrother and his friends, and they seem to recognize her too. I was a huge fan of the different worlds going on in this book: the dreams and reality. I didn’t expect some of the events or main parts of the plot to be as dark as they were, though! That was a bit much for me but I’m excited to see what happens. The book itself was VERY introductory. I cut the first book in a series some slack because it often is more informational than action-packed, but this was definitely an extreme example of that. This book was purely setting the stage for the other two books in the series. I enjoyed reading it but felt like nothing was happening. There wasn’t a lot of action at all; it was mostly explaining how things worked and learning about the characters. The Goodread synopsis doesn’t […]