Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Weird look at the world of cheerleaders, coupled with a murder.

3 stars

Blood Defense by Marcia Clark

Attorney Samatha Rickman works to free a police officer accused of a double homicide.

Ridiculous premise and terrible similes, but otherwise a good read.

3 stars

Theft by Finding by David Sedaris

Diaries 1977 - 2002

Snippets from the author's diaries.  Some funny, some sad.

4 stars

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

Audio
Read by Emily Bauer
8.5 hours

Thirteen year old girl goes missing.  Was she abducted?  Told from the point of view of her best friend, Lizzie, also 13, who watches how the event affects her friends family.

I found the story a little creepy and the narrator a tad annoying, but not so bad I couldn't listen.

3.5 stars

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

Audio
Read by Jennifer Wiltsie

Lifelong friends in love with the same man, who is engaged to one and cheating on her with her best friend.  Who even wants this guy?

I like the writing style, but not really the story.  Narrator did a good job.

3 stars

The Secrets of Midwives by Sally Hepworth

Three generations of midwives (grandmother, mother, daughter) each with her own secrets.

I really liked this book in the beginning.  The second half about the father of Neva's baby was a little hard to swallow.  Mostly, the grandmother's secret was the most interesting part of the book.

3.5 stars

The Fever by Megan Abbott

Girls in a high school are getting sick.  Is it the vaccine they each received?  Or maybe the chemicals in the water and ground?  Or could it be something more sinister?

2.5 stars

If You Only Knew by Kristan Higgens

Audio
Read by Amy Rubinate and Xe Sands.
12 hours

Sisters Jenny and Rachel deal with marriage, divorce, love, life, etc.

I found the reader who played Rachel kind of annoying.

3.5 stars

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

How far will people go to protect an Olympic-bound athlete?  Interesting story that kept me in suspense after a slow start.  A look inside the world of female gymnasts and the physical toll it can take on them.

4 stars

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand

Audio
13 hours
Read by Erin Bennett

Twin sisters, estranged by tragedy, find their way back to each other 14 years later after the death of their father.  Title is also a play on the setting, which is the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

4 stars

The Circle by Dave Eggers

Biggest tech company ever desires to improve the world by monitoring every person, every second, of every day.

Okay premise.  I didn't really care about the characters.

3.5 stars

Braving the Storm by Jennifer Brooks

A hurricane super-storm wipes out that power grid for the eastern half of the USA.  Three families of preppers retreat to a cabin in the woods to fight for survival.

This book seems to be self-published, so there are lots of editing issues, but despite these, the story was still very readable.  I look forward to sequel.

3.5 stars.

How to Start a Fire by Lisa Lutz.

The story of three friends and how their lives interact over the years.  The story was good despite the constant jumping around of time.  It would have been better had it just been told in chronological order.

3.5 stars

Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

Audio
Read by James Van Der Beek
6 hours, 11 minutes.

Okay, when I went to play this I saw the back said "recommended for listeners ages 8 to 12".  I decided to try it anyway and I'm so glad I did.

Great story about a tv reality star trying to survive in the Florida Everglades.

5 stars.

Last One Home by Debbie Macomber

Audio
10.5 hours
Read by Rebecca Lowman

Estranged sisters are reunited.  Yawn.  Ok as chick lit, but the whole "heroine struggles with accepting new love interest" thing was kind of aggravating.

3 stars

Ruby by Ann Hood

A recent widow, Olivia, hooks up with a pregnant teen, Ruby.  Olivia decides she wants to adopt Ruby's baby, but will Ruby be able to give up her baby?

4 stars

South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby

Life for scientists and support staff at the South Pole.  The stuff about the research stations and stuff was interesting, although I really couldn't follow the experiment stuff.  I didn't really care about any of the characters.

3 stars.

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen

Audio
Read by John Rubinstein
12.5 hours

This felt like a Seinfeld episode.  This small group of characters keep interacting in different ways.  The title character was kind of far fetched.

I didn't like the reader at first, and almost skipped this book.  Turned out to be okay, but I didn't really love him as a reader.

3.5 stars

First Comes Love by Emily Giffin

Audio
Read by Emily Foster and Catherine Taber.
12 hours.

Title is very misleading.  I had feared it was some kind of sappy romance, but decided to try it anyway.

Tale of two sisters whose older brother is killed in a car accident and how it affects their lives.  Great characterization.

4.5 stars

The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones

Local Kentucky woman goes missing.  Honestly, the characterization was excellent, but I'm not sure what the whole story line about Emily had to really do with the main story.  I also feel like I didn't get the last chapter.

3.5 stars.

Good as Gone by Amy Gentry

Audio
Read by Karen Peakes
7 hours, 43 minutes

Eight years after being kidnapped, Julie returns home to her family.  Or is it an impostor?

4 stars

The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood

Audio
Read by Nina Alvamar
9.25 hours

The story of Ava and her daughter, Maggie, told over the course of a year.  Story is tied in with the books chosen by Ava's book club with the theme, the book that matters most to me.

This could have been a 5 star book, but for the incredible coincidences.

4 stars

The Mother's Promise by Sally Hepworth

Single-mother Alice is diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  What will happen to her daughter, Zoe who suffers from social anxiety disorder.

Good story, but the coincidences really took away from the story.

4 stars

The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly

Audio
Read by Dawn Murphy
9 hours, 50 minutes

Roz, a single mother buried in debt, accepts an offer of money for sex from a rich man.  One bad choice leads to another and Roz finds herself and her son in danger.  Tied up a little too nicely in the last chapter, but otherwise very good.

4 stars

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben.

Audio
Read by January LaVoy
10 hours, 14 minutes.

Maya's husband Joe is murdered only four months after someone tortured and killed her sister.  Maya, former military, investigates.

5 stars

The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth

Audio
Read by Therese Plummer and Barrie Kreinik
Case had no info on length of recording, but it was 8 CDs.

Sad look at a young woman, Anna, with early early-onset Alzheimer's disease and how she copes with losing her memory.  At the same time, a widow of a disgraced business exec who kills himself, comes to work at the residential care facility where Anna is living.

4 stars.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I wanted to read the book before watching the Netflix series.  Girl commits suicide leaving behind a series of audio tapes to explain why and who's to blame.

Pretty week characters.

2.5  stars.

16th Seduction by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Latest installment in the Women's Murder Club series.

Giant bomb in San Francisco.

3.5 stars

Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner

Rainie and Quincy are back on the job tracking a killer who just happens to be the older brother of their foster-kid-soon-to-be-adopted daughter.

4 stars

Keep Me Posted by Liza Beazley

Audio
10 hours
Read by Erin Bennett,

Cute story about two sisters, who live across the world from each other, who decide to keep in touch by snail mail.

4 stars.

The Deepest Secret by Carla Buckley

Audio
11 hours
Read by Kirsten Potter.

Picked this book based on the narrator, who I enjoy.  I was not disappointed.  Interesting story about a sick child and what a mother will do to protect him.

4 stars.

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

Audio
9.5 hours
Read by William Demeritt

Alternative fiction where instead of fighting the Civil War, the government makes a deal with the southern states allowing them to keep slavery under government regulation.

Interesting story of a man who escapes a plantation, only to be put into mandatory service by the government finding other runaway slaves.

4 stars.

The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

Audio Book.
Read by Cassandra Campbell.
12.5 hours.

I really enjoyed Ms. Brown's previous book, The Weird Sisters, so I had high hopes for this novel.  Sadly, I did not enjoy this one nearly as much.  The story switches between that of Madeline, unhappy wife in 1999, and her grandmother, who is facing similar issues in her life 75 years earlier.  The grandmother's (Margaret's) story is told through the journals she kept when she was a young woman.

3.5 stars

The More They Disappear by Jesse Donaldson

OxyContin and a crooked sheriff in rural Kentucky lead to destruction in a rural, Kentucky town.

I'm giving it 3 stars because I finished it, but it was pretty meh.

3 stars

The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel

I had really high hopes for this because it was written by the author of Station 11.  Sadly, this book was not nearly as good.

Gavin finds out he has a long lost daughter when his sister sees a child that looks just like she did when she was young.  Gavin then sets out to locate his high school girlfriend who disappeared when he graduated.

The intersecting lives felt like a Seinfeld episode.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

3 stars.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

Audio book.
Narrated by Kirsten Potter.
8.5 hours.

When the Conti's infant is kidnapped, many secrets are uncovered.

Wonderful story with a great narrator.

5 stars.

Cross the Line by James Patterson

Another incoherent Alex Cross novel.  Several plots, none fully developed.  Mr. Patterson has become such a disappointment, and yet I always try again.

2.5 stars.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Audio: 10.5 hours
Read by Kirsten Potter

What's left of Earth after a new plague kills 99% of the population?  Different POV and moving back and forth through time suprisingly did not make the story hard to follow.  Also loved the narrator and will have to look for books read by her again.

5 stars.

Paris for One & Other Stories by Jojo Moyes

Can this really be my first finish of the year?  I know I've started lots of things and then not finished, so maybe.  I guess that says something about this book.

Paris for One is more of a novella.  Nell plans a weekend in Paris for herself and her boyfriend, who proceeds to stand her up.  She goes alone, copes with lots of uncomfortable situations, and finally meets some people and ends up having a great time.  (Of course.)

The rest of the stories are true short stories.  Maybe 10 pages at most.

I enjoyed this book more than I'd like to admit.  Very chick-lit, but Ms. Moyes is skilled at characterization.

4 stars.