2019 – Page 84 – Jill's Book Blog

‘Waiting on’ Wednesday – January 2

This is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. In this post we highlight a book that’s highly anticipated.

The book that I’m waiting on this Wednesday is The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe. The release date is January 22, 2019.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don’t bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas. Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it’s time to go back to Canada, where he belongs.

Yet, against all odds, those labels soon become actual people to Norris. Be it loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris, or Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. Not to mention Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who might, in fact, be a real love interest in the making. He even starts playing actual hockey with these Texans.

But the night of the prom, Norris screws everything up royally. As he tries to pick up the pieces, he realizes it might be time to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions and start living his life—along with the people who have found their way into his heart.

What books are you waiting on this week?

Review: Seven Days

Title: Seven Days
Author: Patrick Senécal (translated by Howard Scott and Phyllis Aronoff)
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: January 1, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

For fans of Stephen King’s Misery and Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman comes an engrossing thriller about a monster who becomes a victim and a victim who becomes a monster. From Patrick Senécal, the Quebec author who has sold over a million books worldwide.

One sunny fall day, Dr. Bruno Hamel’s life changes forever.

His beloved seven-year-old daughter, Jasmine, is the victim of a tragic crime. Grief-stricken, Hamel sets in play a meticulous plan. He will kidnap the man responsible for his daughter’s death and make him pay horribly for what he has done. He manages to ambush a police transport and disappear with his target.

But Hamel hasn’t accounted for Hervé Mercure, a detective with a troubled past who becomes certain he can track down Hamel by studying clues in his past—and in the increasingly unsettling phone calls Hamel makes to his partner, Sylvie.

Both riveting and provocative, this daring thriller is an enthralling meditation on what it means to be human—and to battle the monster within and without.

Review:

I have to start this review with some trigger warnings. This book includes the rape and murder of a young girl and graphic torture of a man. There was one point that I almost had to put down the book because the scenes were bothering me, but I skipped a few pages and kept reading.

This story was fascinating because it explored the morality behind killing. Bruno’s daughter was murdered, so he tortured her murderer with the intent to kill him. Is an eye for an eye applicable? Does it justify one death over another? Which one is the worse monster? The one who killed first, or the one who tortured a man for a week? These are difficult questions to think about.

I was expecting a twist to happen at the end. There was a slight surprise, but more the most part it ended the way I expected. Other than some graphic scenes, this was a great crime thriller.

Top Ten Tuesday – Best Books I Read in 2018 That Were Published Before 2018

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and it is now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is the Best Books I Read in 2018. I made a best of 2018 list yesterday, which divides the books into 3 categories (Adult, Middle Grade, and Young Adult). That post can be found here. This list will be for the best books I read in 2018, but were not published in 2018. Here’s my list: