You

I received a free advanced copy of You by Caroline Kepnes as part of the Goodreads giveaways.

"You" is the story of Joe who is an obsessed, deranged stalker/serial killer.  He sees Beck, has an innocent interaction with her, and becomes absolutely obsessed with her.  He goes into stalker mode.  He follows her activities on facebook.  Steals her phone so that he can read her emails.  Obsessively checks her twitter feed.  Finds her address.  Watches through her windows.  Sneaks into her house.  Kills her boyfriend....

This story is told in the first person, so the main character is relating all of these events as if they are normal which adds to the creepy factor.  It is not a romance.  It is a view into the mind of a very sick individual.  He seems normal to everyone who meets him.  A real nice guy, innocent manager of a book store.

After reading this, I found myself checking the privacy settings on all of my social media accounts, making sure my curtains are fully drawn at night and double checking the locks on my car and house when I go inside.  This is an unforgettable, chilling tale.  I still have goosebumps.

The Prediction

**I was given a free ebook copy of The Prediction by the author Darren Sugrue in exchange for my honest review**

What if you could predict the date of someone's death?  What if that someone was a person you loved?  Would you try to stop it from happening? 

This is the dilemma that Daniel Gellar faces.  For his doctoral thesis, he created a mathematical formula that can tell what date a person will die on.  When he went to defend his thesis, it got rejected and he was forced to leave college and abandon his dreams. 

Twelve years later, one of the panel professors who had helped get him thrown out of college finds Daniel to tell him that one of the people he had performed his calculation on died...on the exact date Daniel had predicted.  He had also performed the calculation on his college girlfriend, and her time is coming near.  Can Daniel use this knowledge to save her?  Or should he let fate decide and use it as a case to prove his thesis once and for all?

This story had me gripped right from page one.  It was full of suspense and kept me guessing.  Sugrue does an outstanding job of reeling you into the lives of his characters.  I found myself rooting for Daniel, sharing the pain of Claire and John, and wanting to save Grace.  I am excited to see what else this author has in store.

Dream Student

I was offered a free ebook copy of Dream Student (Dreams #1) by J.J. DiBenedetto after I had entered a giveaway for the book and didn't win.  It took me a few weeks to get around to reading it, but now that I finally have, here is my review.

Sara is a typical pre-med student, trying to balance studying, dorm life, having fun, and suffering through the most unimaginable nightmares.  At first the dreams don't seem so bad, she sees a boy that she feels an intense connection with.  They later meet at a club and it is insta-love.  But she keeps having these recurring nightmares of a man brutally murdering young girls and dumping the bodies.  She wakes up screaming and crying.  It isn't until she sees an article in the paper with the girl's picture that she realizes that her nightmares are really happening.  She is viewing someone else's dreams while she is asleep.  Sara and her friends must work together to stop the murderer before he claims his next victim.

The concept for this story is nice and interesting.  It is a cool idea that you could be a crime fighting dreamer.  I think that the author could have done a lot more with it than he did.  At one point Sara visits the sleep lab on campus and they run tests, telling her that the results don't make sense.  They hook her up to all of the probes and scanners while she sleeps, and as soon as her nightmares begin according to the tests it is like she became an entirely different person.  As soon as Sara leaves the sleep lab, there is no follow up with that.  I would think that the professors took an interest in the test results and would want to investigate more, but they don't.

Also, there is a lot of content in the book that is unnecessary and boring.  It is frequently mentioning class schedules, and minute details about how the characters are spending their days.  A lot of this could have been eliminated with absolutely zero impact to the story.  If the author had worked a little bit more on character development and a little bit less on minute details about the characters' class schedules and studying the book would have been more interesting.  As it was, it was still an interesting read, the story had a nice flow, and the pace picked up quite a bit near the end.  I'd be interested in seeing what the author did with the story line in the other books of this series.

Edge of End

I received an ebook copy of Edge of End by Suren Fant from the author after I entered the giveaway for a physical copy of the book and did not win.  At first I had received an unedited copy, but a few days later the author emailed me to provide the final edited copy of the novel, which is what I am reviewing here.

Edge of End is a story about a man named Jonarhan who wakes up in the desert with no memory.  He stumbles into a town that seems completely abandoned.  He has some weird visions which lead him to a certain house in the town where he finds a woman named Elizabeth.  They realize that they are trapped in the town surrounded by supernatural beings, and if they want to survive they must escape as soon as possible.  The town is crawling with demons who will do anything to stop them from leaving.  Jonathan and Elizabeth fall in love, and will not leave the town unless they go together.

The story here is interesting.  It isn't amazing, it is just interesting.  If I were to review the story itself and nothing else, I would give it a 3 star rating.  Good, not great, not bad.  Worth a read if this is your kind of thing.  The love aspect between Elizabeth and Jonathan was a bit ridiculous, they would have passionate kisses seconds after brutally maiming a disgusting demon.  Also I felt the character of Elizabeth could use some work, she seemed dull and stupid at times, running off to get killed and having Jonathan come and save her.  I prefer stronger female characters who have a brain and use it.

The reason I am giving this book 2 stars instead of 3 is because of the writing+grammar (yes, even the edited final copy had many mistakes).  If a really good editor were to get a hold of this book it would be much improved.  So many times when reading a sentence, I would think to myself 'no one actually uses that word!' or find the same adjective used to describe something 3 sentences in a row.  It is so distracting when you are trying to read something, I kept trying to correct what I saw to be mistakes, thinking 'it would work much better if the author had phrased it like this'.  I shouldn't have to do that when reading a book.