Not So Much Review - Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Vanishing Girls 

by Lauren Oliver
Expected publication: March 10th 2015 by Harper Collins 

 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident. Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late. In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

My Thoughts

DNF - pg. 72

I wanted to stop at page 52 kept going to page 73. Life is to short to force yourself to read something you aren't enjoying.

I should have listened to my gut and steered clear of this book. I am not a fan of contemporary or mystery however, I am trying to broaden my reading horizons. Well, I failed at it this time.

There biggest issue I had was there was nothing to hook me, sell me, get me involved, invested, or excited. That is the main problem.

Other problems I had were Nick and Dara are boring. I am really character driven but, I can't connect with Dara at all. The constant change of P.O.V. is something I normally adore, in this instance it kept pulling me out of the story. Well, whatever this beginning is since the story hasn't really even happened yet. Where are the girls that are vanishing?!?! My grandfather used to say if you walk like a duck and quack like a duck then you're a duck. Well I guess I'm a duck...who doesn't like mystery...or contemporary. This duck shall stick to fantasy. Don't let my thoughts sway you. Give it a try for yourself.

Non-Review: Insanity by Susan Vaught

Insanity by Susan Vaught
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Release Date: February 18, 2014

Never, Kentucky is not your average scenic small town. It is a crossways, a place where the dead and the living can find no peace. Not that Forest, an 18-year-old foster kid who works the graveyard shift at Lincoln Hospital, knew this when she applied for the job. Lincoln is a huge state mental institution, a good place for Forest to make some money to pay for college. But along with hundreds of very unstable patients, it also has underground tunnels, bell towers that ring unexpectedly, and a closet that holds more than just donated clothing....When the dead husband of one of Forest's patients makes an appearance late one night, seemingly accompanied by an agent of the Devil, Forest loses all sense of reality and all sense of time. Terrified, she knows she has a part to play, and when she does so, she finds a heritage that she never expected.

With her deep knowledge of mental illness and mental institutions, Susan Vaught brings readers a fascinating and completely creepy new book intertwining the stories of three young people who find themselves haunted beyond imagining in the depths of Lincoln Hospital

My Thoughts:
In the past few years I have discovered that I love creepy books.  The creepier the better and when I saw Insanity I knew I had to have it.  Unfortunately it didn't quite work for me and I ended up putting it down at 30%.  I know my rule is 50% but I sometimes you just know something isn't going to get an better for you and this was the case for me.

Insanity started out very creepy and at the point I was a very happy reader.  That ended soon after I finished chapter 2. What followed after the prologue felt like a totally different story and honestly if felt like a totally different author.  The writing in chapter one was very choppy and very scattered for me.  I couldn't ever really grasp what was going on.  One minute Forest is running down the hall and the next there are hounds and darkness around her.  I know this place is supposed to be creepy and crazy things are going to happen but I just feel like the author left out a lot of details that I needed to know.  I wasn't creeped out I was just lost.

I had problems with the characters as well.  Forest was really hard for me to connect with.  She seemed very young for being 18 if I hadn't known she was 18 I would have thought she was 15.  I'm not sure if it was her dialogue that made me feel that way or just how she acted overall but it didn't work.  Her part of the story felt very predictable as well.  When Levi was added into the mix I will admit I had an eye roll moment because he felt like every other bad boy out there.  He was fiercely protective of Forest even though she can hurt him with a singe touch.  Just to cliche for me.  I'm not sure where their storyline would have gone since I DNF this book, but I'm pretty sure they found a way to be together.

I have read other reviews that say the POV skips around and I did skim ahead and see this, but I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not.  The part I did read where Forest skips a whole bunch of time seemed very weird and out of place.  I don't know what the author was trying to accomplish and I'm guessing if I had read the whole book I would have found out but I don't want to have to dig through 100 pages of nothing to get that one page of creepy.

I know the author was going for creepy and weird, but there were too many low points that filled up the story.  I really wish the story would have stayed true to the prologue.  It was beyond thrilling and I loved it.  So for now I am going to set this one aside and let it go.

no rating