WWW Wednesdays #100 – July 20th

100TH WWW MEME CELEBRATION EDITION!!!

WWW WEDNESDAYS is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World Of Words and is all about answering the three questions below.

• WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?

I’m currently reading The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel and it is turning out to be an interesting read. I’m glad the reviews I’ve seen so far convinced me to get a copy of this book! I’ve also finally started my last TBR jar pick The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz, which is ok enough so far, although I do hope the plot will get a little more interesting in the future. I still have to finish The Neverland Wars by Audrey Greathouse as well… I actually thought about DNFing it because I am really struggling with it, but since I already made it this far I will just finish it.

• WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?

* The first book I finished since last week is Wanderlost by Jen Malone, which turned out to be a quick, fluffy and entertaining summer read. Not perfect and in a way a bit cliche, but I loved the road trip details!
* I then finished The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey; probably one of the first stories with zombies I absolutely loved. I still can’t believe it took me this long to pick up this book! Well written, excellent worldbuilding and Melanie is probably one of my newest favorite characters.
* I also finally continued The Stepmother by Claire Seeber, but unfortunately I wasn’t completely convinced by it. I liked the fact that  it reversed the roles of the typical ‘evil stepmother’ plot, but the pace is quite slow and I REALLY disliked the main character.
* The last book I finished is The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne, which turned out to be a well written, spooky read with great descriptions. The plot was a bit uneventful, but it is without doubt a great read.

• WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?

Depending on what genre I’m in the mood for, I will read When We Collided by Emery Lord. I might read The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne first though; especially since I really enjoyed her other novel. Talon by Julie Kagawa is most likely my next fantasy read; I have been wanting to read another dragon story for too long now! Secret Letters by Leah Scheier is another Sherlock Holmes retelling and my newest TBR jar pick.

ARC REVIEW: The Stepmother – by Claire Seeber

Title: The Stepmother
Author: Claire Seeber
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Realistic Fiction
First published: July 15th 2016
Publisher: Bookouture
Finished reading: July 16th 2016
Pages: 345

“Still, the thing lurks in the corners of my mind, that squat little beast called memory, its sticky fingers covering everything with a thin layer of slime.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Bookouture in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

I have seen a lot of positive reviews about The Stepmother and that was why I wanted to read this book by Claire Seeber in the first place, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. In fact, I struggled to get into the story at first. The pace is quite slow in the beginning and I had a hard time figuring out what the story was really about; the whole mystery around Jeanie’s secrets and how this was dragged out was starting to get annoying instead of intriguing. That might just be because I felt a strong dislike for the main character Jeanie in the first place (and her new family for that matter), but in general I had a hard time connecting to the story and my feelings for Jeanie definitely didn’t make it easier to enjoy this book. What I did like about The Stepmother is that it reversed the roles of the typical ‘evil stepmother’ plot. I could really appreciate that and made this story a lot more original. The pace also picked up later on and I definitely didn’t see most of the plot twists coming. I did feel that while the first part of the story was almost uneventful, there was almost too much information squeezed into the final part of the story. It made the revelations feel less important, which is a shame because some of the twists were without doubt a huge surprise. All in all not the best psychogical thriller I’ve read this year, but I guess I will give it the benefit of the doubt.

Jeanie can’t believe her luck when she meets Matthew and they get married not long after. She thinks she has gotten a second chance for both her and her son Frank, being able to start over after all that happened… But her new fairytale life doesn’t seem to be so perfect after all. Both Jeanie and Matthew have teenage children from previous relationships, and it is not easy to raise a blended family under one roof. Especially since Matthew’s ex-wife seems to have left her mark everywhere in the house Jeanie now tries to call her home… To make things worse, Jeanie’s step-daughter Scarlett rejects her and the terrible secret Jeanie is hiding is threatening to destroy her new marriage. Someone knows, and that person isn’t about to let go and let Jeanie have her fresh start. But who is behind the threats?

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately it took me a long time to get a proper feel for the story. In fact, the first part is mostly uneventful and almost boring, although the pace did pick up later on. The biggest problem I probably had with The Stepmother is the fact that the main character Jeanie is just SO unlikeable. I normally can get over that fact, but since the first part of this story is so character-driven in the first place, it made it really hard to enjoy reading it. The last part of the story was a whole lot more interesting, but there were so many revelations in such a short time that it almost felt like an information dump. I did like the fact that Jeanie wasn’t the typical evil stepmother and the many plot twists were without doubt creative.

WWW Wednesdays #99 – July 13th

WWW WEDNESDAYS is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World Of Words and is all about answering the three questions below.

• WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?

I’m currently reading Wanderlost by Jen Malone, which is turning out to be a quick and entertaining road trip story from what I can see so far. I’ve also started reading The Neverland Wars by Audrey Greathouse because I was in the mood for a Peter Pan retelling, but I can’t say I’m enjoying it. The tone and prose don’t seem to fit the theme at all and I’m struggling to continue this one… Same goes for The Stepmother by Claire Seeber: I started reading it last week, but I couldn’t get into the story and decided to keep it temporarily on hold and read a few other titles instead.

• WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?

* The first book I finished since last week is My Girl by Jack Jordan, which is probably one of the most twisted and disturbing thrillers I’ve read so far this year. If you are into the genre, definitely make sure to check out this book!
* I then finished Out Of The Easy by Ruta Sepetys, which is without doubt my new favorite of this author. The setting, prose and character development are excellent and I really felt like I was right there in the 1950s along with the characters.
* I also read The Night Stalker by Robert Bryndza, which by no means suffers from the ‘weak-second-book’ syndrome. It’s fast-paced, well written and has an intriguing plot and plot twists. It’s without doubt a very entertaining read!
* I then read The Straw King by Danielle Paige. This novella was surprisingly good compared to the last few previous stories, but I still wasn’t overwhelmed by it.
* I’ve also been able to finish Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, a title that was on my 2015 most-antipated-releases list. I enjoyed reading it and I admit it was a ‘cute’ read, but I did have some problems with the credibility of the plot. I mean, if the main character is really that sick, doing what she did is incredibly stupid.
* The last book I managed to finish is The Sister by Louise Jensen, which I ended up really enjoying. It’s dark, messed with your mind and has many plot twists… The story jumps back and forth between the past and present and there are quite a few unreliable characters, but it only added to the whole mystery around Grace and Charlie.

• WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?

Depending on what genre I’m in the mood for, I will read When We Collided by Emery Lord. Although I really want to read The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne as well, both because I’ve heard great things about it and because I want to The Fire Child by the same author. If I want something different, The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey is also high on my list… And my latest TBR jar pick is still The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz. (Which I should read soon since it’s been too long since I last read a TBR jar book.)

Friday Finds #93 – July 1st

FRIDAY FINDS is originally featured at Babs Book Bistro and showcases the most interesting books I’ve encountered during the last week and have added to my neverending TBR list on Goodreads. Below a selection of my newest additions; click on the book descriptions to go to its Goodreads page!

My finds: