I'm sure Fahrenheit 451 is trying to make a worthy point, but there was nothing I liked about it. First, the premise is just unbelievable. People want their entertainment faster and faster, so books are shortened until they are just a sentence or two. And various people found offense with different books, so the solution was just to burn them until there was no writing and books left. Huh?

The writing style is over-wrought and tiresome, going on and on with sentences of utter nonsense. It reads like some experimental fiction written during English class when the lesson of the day was how to turn a simple sentence into as many stuffy, emotional paragraphs as possible without repeating yourself. At one point, there was even a monologue of a made-up dialogue of opposing arguments for reading versus not reading, consisting entirely of obscure quotes from books.

On top of all that, the main character Montag is a freaking idiot. He goes through his entire life not questioning his occupation of book burning, then meets a girl a handful of times while out walking, and she mentions how it's important to talk to people. At this point, he has an epiphany, pulls out a book while his wife's friends are around, and badgers them with a reading of poetry. Then afterwards when he's found out to have a book, he's all like ZOMG and freaks out. I was afraid I had bruised my eyes from rolling them so much.

Everyone in here talks like they are either super dumb or in code that is so subtle I'm surprised anyone can hold a conversation with anyone else. Bradbury makes an effort to incorporate future tech, which just results in vague descriptions of existing technologies, like 3 walls of TVs (... or something like that? I still haven't figured that one out).

Perhaps Bradbury is making the point that if books were to be banned and burned, then over time people will forget how to write convincing stories with good plots, interesting characters, and understandable paragraphs. In which case, he's got me. Otherwise, having a worthy idea for a book is not enough to save this one from being a complete dud.

Readaroo Rating: 1 star

In The Kiss Quotient, Stella has Asperger's, which contributes to her troubles in the relationship department. So she comes up with the idea to hire an escort to help her practice and become better. To be honest, I was hesitant going into this book. The set up sounded like the story could turn out to be awkward and silly, but instead it totally blew me away.

The main characters in here are riveting. Stella and Michael are both such sweet, lovable characters that I instantly connected with them. It was lovely to see them grow and become more sure of themselves as their time with each other grew. Even though they each had their issues, they treated each other with kindness and respect. I couldn't help but love them and cheer for them as a couple.

Most romances I read tend to be beachy artificial affairs, with rather silly characters and issues. But this book contained so much more, including telling the story from the perspective of someone with Asperger's, showing how consent during sex is sexy, and the difficult decision of doing the right thing versus doing the easy thing, to name a few.

The sex scenes in here are graphic (just a warning), but they are also deliciously sexy and sweet. You can feel the sparks leap off the pages, which is something rare for me when reading romances.

Once I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down, and I finished it in just one day. This is the author's first book, so I look forward with bated breath to reading more from her in the future.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

American Fire details the true crime spree of 80+ fires that engulfed a Virginia town over a period of five months, night after night, until the arsonists were finally apprehended. It follows the townspeople as they went about fighting the fires while suspicions sprang up against each other in this small town. It also follows the arsonists, how they met, and what happened leading up to and during the crimes.

I enjoyed the book's journalistic, straightforward style. Hesse spent a lot of time in this town talking to residents, firefighters, law-enforcement, and friends of the arsonists, and it shows in how detailed the story is. The one thing I wished I knew more of at the end is the true motives behind the crimes, but we only know as much as the arsonist are willing to share.

At times, the narrative digressed into small rural towns falling on hard times, and Hesse tried really hard to tie that into the arson story, which I found to be a bit forced and irrelevant. Otherwise, it was an easy and fascinating book to read about a truly strange crime spree.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

Rich People Problems is the wacky and hilarious last book of the trilogy that started off with Crazy Rich Asians. This time, the matriarch of the family is getting old and on her deathbed. Upon hearing this, all her relatives pop out of the woodwork to rush to her side and jostle for a piece of her fortune. What follows is a slew of zany tactics as each person tries to overtly and secretively achieve their objectives.

What makes this series so awesome is that pretty much every character is lovable, even the "villains" (all except Michael). Most of the characters in this book have been introduced previously, and all my favorites are back: Astrid, Charlie, Kitty, Oliver, and even Eddie. Each has their own issues and motives, and all the story lines march forth cohesively at a good pace, satisfyingly reaching resolutions for everyone by the end.

Sometimes I get sick of reading all these serious books with realistic, mean characters who make everyone miserable, including the reader. That's why this series has felt like such a welcome reprieve. It's so over-the-top and outrageous that you never confuse it with real life. And most importantly, it reminds me that reading can be so much fun!

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

I wanted to kill him myself . . . If I didn't kill him, then I'd cripple him for life, so that he'd be with us in a wheelchair . . . If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he'd be easy to find. I would feel superior to him and become his master, now that he was crippled.

Ah yes, this is a psychological thriller in which we delve deep into the mind and thoughts of a stalker. Err, you say this is a romance? Ok, you've lost me.

Let me just come out and say it: Call Me by Your Name is awful. It reads like the obsessive, icky, slavish ramblings of an unbalanced teenager rather than the beautiful romance I was promised.

In order to have an enjoyable romance, I need to be able to relate to the characters. Unfortunately, I did not relate to a single person in here. It's unclear why the boys liked each other, other than pure physical attraction:

To think that I had almost fallen for the skin of his hands, his chest, his feet that had never touched a rough surface in their existence—and his eyes, which when their other, kinder gaze fell on you, came like the miracle of the Resurrection.

Yes, the book really reads like that, all of it. Elio analyzes every small action, glance, word, and absence from Oliver. And then he obsesses over them. And leaves clues for Oliver, ones that are certain to be creepy and criminal. And it just gets worse from there.

If this were a thriller about the inner workings of an unhinged stalker, I would understand. But I just cannot believe that this is supposed to be a romance, and the other person would reciprocate such desperate and inane infatuations.

It doesn't help that the writing style is so overwrought and full of itself. It's stuffed with references to obscure old writings and music, none of which I knew.

I don't understand how this book could be so highly rated. It was awful purple prose at best and romanticizing criminal behavior at worst. Unless you somehow like the passages I quoted above and can relate to them, it's probably best to avoid this book.

Readaroo Rating: 1 star

Sometimes a book shows up on my radar and its premise is so unusual and so intriguing, there is just no way I can pass it up.

A woman goes to a funeral home and arranges her own funeral. A few hours later she is murdered. In steps detective Hawthorne to try to catch the killer. But he wants someone to write about the crimes he solves, so he contacts Horowitz (the author of this book!) to be his scribe. And that's how Horowitz gets tangled up in this funny business.

The mystery itself has all the elements of a clever whodunnit, with a short but interesting list of suspects, lots of secrets slowly uncovered, and plenty of red herrings. It was great fun to follow along and to take a crack at solving it as the clues come in. The solution ends up being satisfying, and looking back, there were plenty of clues I should've picked up on but totally missed.

The part I was less sure about is Horowitz writing himself into the book. On the one hand, it's a clever way to make the story feel more real. He includes lots of details of his actual life, so the real blends in seamlessly with the fiction. But on the other hand, at times he includes a bit too much, so it comes across like he's either trying very hard to convince the reader that this is real or he's trying to promote himself. Still, since this is the first book in the series, it makes sense that there is more focus on the backstory, and I imagine that will lessen in the future.

Horowitz is fast becoming one of my favorite authors for coming up with the most intriguing premises for his mysteries. His Susan Ryeland series has the mystery within a mystery format, with clues for the outer mystery hidden within the inner mystery. And this series has him writing himself into it as the bumbling Watson to Hawthorne's Sherlock. I cannot wait to see what Horowitz comes up with next.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

A River in Darkness is the memoir of Ishikawa's childhood starting in Japan, how he ended up in North Korea, his subsequent life there, and finally his escape. Told in simple, straightforward prose, the story is stark and powerful in its depiction of famine, desperation, and complete hopelessness.

This book contains a lot of details on what it's like to live in North Korea, especially as a half-Japanese. It's both fascinating to get an inside look at the secretive hermit kingdom, as well as horrifying to see the atrocities that the government commits against its people through the years of endless famine.

Ishikawa's bitterness towards his life in North Korea is visceral and heart-breaking. His feelings of resentment and regret permeate this book. Even after he escapes, there is no happy ending for him. In the end, this is a sharply haunting look at life in North Korea, and the despair that drove one man to risk everything to get out.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Us Against You was one of my highly-anticipated sequels for 2018, following after the emotionally-wrenching and completely memorable Beartown. After reading it, it's safe to say that for me, it suffered from the sequel-syndrome, where it never quite achieves all that its predecessor did.

Probably the biggest negative for me is that this story took too long to get started. For the majority of this book, we are just reading about the extended fallout from what happened in the first book. It was frustrating to read at length about the townspeople sticking their heads in the sand and pretending that nothing happened, pretty much acting as they had been without learning any lessons.

There is a lot of repetition in the story, such as the same thoughts presented over and over with slightly different words, or the same event seen from half a dozen people's points of view. With so much rehashing, there just wasn't much new in this book that wasn't already in the first book. I had expected more in terms of plot from this book, and it just didn't deliver.

The style of this book also grated on my nerves. Backman writes as if there is an active narrator telling us the story, constantly foreshadowing events for us and making them out to be more horrible than they really turn out to be. The narrator voice also comes across preachy and holier-than-thou, constantly dropping nuggets of wisdom everywhere. It seems if you took the foreshadowing and the preachy passages out of the book, the book could easily be only half the length.

And yet, I have to give Backman credit. When the writing is not grating on my nerves, it's really quite beautiful. He constructs poignant passages and captures the essences and subtleties of emotional moments. Though there were a lot I didn't like about this book, the beautiful writing kept me reading on. But if there were to be a third book, I would probably skip it.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars