Reviews and Comments

This was my first Boyne book so I cannot compare this work to previous ones, but if the others are anything like this on, the man is a genius.

This was a bit of a beastie and that caused me to put it off longer than I should have due to bad experiences with longer books dragging on for the sake of additional pages. This did not drag on at all. Everything that happens to Cyril throughout this book has a purpose and an impact on his life as well as the lives of the people around him.

Cyril is a queer male in Ireland during a time where it was illegal to be so and could mean death if found out. Due to this, there is a lot of hate crimes and violence throughout the book that also end in some deaths, so definitely beware of that before picking it up. There is also a good amount of misogyny and discussions on the hypocrisy of the church. Again, everything that happens in here had a purpose behind it, so it never came across as just hating against anyone.

Highly recommend this one. I laughed, I cried, I gasped, all the emotions that a good book will pull out of your soul.

The story was enjoyable enough which was good since there really isn't a massive underlying story going on. You do not get any answers as to what is going on. You are literally following the MC as she is experiencing things in her life disappear and you never know anything more than what she knows.

All the characters in this book are anonymous, no names are ever given, but it felt right and did not detract from being able to follow the story at all.

There is not some big "AH-HA" moment where everything clicks. For me, it came across that in the beginning, the MC is afraid of losing her editor/friend (who does not lose his memories) after having lost her parents. But on the flip side, her friend is watching her deteriorate bit by bit as the memories are taken from her and she begins to forget how to live. It's eerie because of how quickly and easily the forgetting is accepted, and there is an underlying tension through the entire book because at any moment, a memory can be erased.

Not one that I will have an interest in rereading again, but found it to be a good read.

I wasn't sure what to expect when a prompt for a reading challenge was to read a middle-grade book. I figured I was going to be sucked into a pretty shallow storyline that wouldn't take risks and go deep because of the intended audience. This is 1000% NOT that book. This was better than some adult stories that I have read.

You follow Noah (aka Jonah) while he gets swept up into East Berlin with his parents and a whole slew of new rules to follow. I confess, I really don't know a whole lot about the Berlin wall and everything that happened, and there are side notes at the end of every chapter that explain what was going on in actual Berlin at that time. It was a great way to get educational information in without bogging down the book. I was worried for Noah and his family and those that they interact with and the stakes felt high.

The main character having a stutter that makes it very difficult to talk was appreciated as well. Nesbet did a great job with incorporating the stutter at times and referencing it constantly during interactions to help make sure that you remember how much more Noah is having to struggle in such a scary place. Absolutely loved every aspect of this book and will be having my kids read it.

This was an enjoyable read for sure. Group of female assassins/spies in their old age are suddenly targeted for death by the very group they used to work for.

The book has a good pace and I did not find myself bored at any time. I think the biggest gripe I have with it was that for being a book about professional killers, it didn't feel like there was a lot of action or suspense. The beginning scenes were the only moments that I worried about the characters. Don't get me wrong, they do a whole lot of crazy stuff through the book, but none of it really felt very high stakes because you just realize that this is a book where they are the best at what they do, so it kills the suspense vibes.

Still a good read, I love the badass old ladies and their friendships with each other. But it's not one that I'll ever be inclined to pick up again.

Really enjoyed this one. I'm not sure if I really enjoy stories involving ships or if I have just happened to pick good ones so far. The time jumping was well done as far as I'm concerned, and the butterfly effect was heavily in play which a few other books did not utilize.

Deja vu and foggy memories of times that did not happen run rampant through this book. Epilepsy seizures is what the doctors have deemed it to be. I found this to be a clever way to have things set in motion throughout the book.

I was able to figure out what Joe's part in the main story was pretty early on, but I wasn't bothered at all because I was extremely interested to see how he had come to be in the time we meet him at. I felt happy at the end of this book which is why I tacked on the extra .5 star. I'll have to look into some of Pulley's other works.