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 Hound of the Baskervilles

This book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has been on my to-read list for such a long time, I finally decided to pick it up.  I wish I had done that sooner, I thought this story was fantastic.

The Hound of the Baskervilles had me terrified, the story had me guessing and every book that I read has me loving Sherlock Holmes more and more.

This story has Holmes and Watson investigating the death of Sir Charles.  His family has been plagued by the legend of the devilish Hound of the Baskervilles for generations.  The family fears the moor at night, they stay indoors so as to not tempt fate.  Sir Charles buys into the legend wholeheartedly, making all attempts to avoid the moor and making plans to move away from the area.  So why then is his dead body found out there late at night, the night before he is to move away?  Even more intriguing, why are there paw prints from a hound close to the body?  Holmes must solve this mystery before the heir to Sir Charles' fortune meets the same fate.

The Geography of Pluto

 I won a copy of this book as part of a giveaway.

The Geography of Pluto by Christopher DiRaddo is the story of a young man named Will who is a geography teacher living in Montreal. He is really struggling to get over the breakup of his relationship with his boyfriend Max. He makes half-hearted attempts at moving on, but can he? Will's mother is also facing struggles of her own. She is a cancer survivor, but the cancer looms like a dark cloud over them, always threatening to come back.  

While the story is about a young gay man, it is not a coming of age story.  I started reading this book expecting it to be a long drawn emotional tale about how a young man discovers himself.  I was presently surprised and very wrong in my original assumptions.  It is so beautifully written, I was captivated. It is about grief, love, and the beautiful city of Montreal. At times I found myself cheering for Will, other times he made me frustrated. It is definitely a story worth reading.  

The Man Within (Breeds #2, Feline Breeds #2)

I read the book The Man Within by Lora Leigh earlier in the month of August but didn't get around to putting my thoughts down until now.

Ever since she was a little girl, Roni has always been protected by her friend Taber.  He has captured her heart.  They are finally going to get together.  Then he brushes her off and never wants to see her again.  Her heart is shattered.  They spend months apart, then the news of the Breeds gets released.  She finds out that he is one.  Her father finds out as well when he sees the mark on her neck.  Her dad would do anything to sell her out, and he does.  This throws Roni back into Taber's arms, and his kiss seals the deal.  Even after months apart they are drawn to each other.  They are in a mating frenzy, chemically drawn to each other.  Nothing but pregnancy will make it stop.

This second book of the Breeds series felt a lot like rehashing the same things that happened in the first book.  There was not much of a plot and the mating frenzy had already been the main event of book 1.  There was the story line about Roni's father but even that I found weak.  All that being said, I did find it hard to put the book down.  I really do want to continue to read the series, I just hope that the other books have a bit more of a story to them.

The Cheese Stealer's Handbook

***I was offered a free ebook copy of The Cheese Stealer's Handbook by Shoshaku Jushaku by the author in exchange for my honest review***

I have no idea what I just read. Was it autobiographical? I can't tell if this book is one long drug induced ramble or if the author is just brilliant. Did these things really happen? Right from the start I wanted to wring the main character's neck. He is such an irresponsible jerk! The entire time I was reading this book I was thinking to myself, how can anyone tolerate this person. Why can't he just get something right. Why can't he just make one good decision? Apparently 'Shoshaku Jushaku' means 'one continuous mistake', so I get it. Very clever.

There are some parts of this story that are quite funny, and the story itself is very well written. Any book that is capable of invoking such strong feelings of like or dislike towards the characters in my view is a win. 

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.