The Lace Reader

Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Magical Realism

Length: 390 pgs.

Synopsis: The last time Towner read lace, a form of psychic reading, her twin sister drowned and Towner ended up in a mental institution. Now after 20 years(?) Towner's great-aunt/adopted mother has gone missing and Towner is called back to Salem. After finding out what happened to her aunt, sort of, Towner and a local police detective end up investigating another missing woman and a local cult leader, who just happens to be Towner's uncle. The plot of this story isn't linear and is very hard to explain.

Review: I have a problem with unreliable narrators. I'm an incredibly gullible person who tends to take things at face value when I read, especially when the story is told in first person. How could you lie to me when I'm inside your head?! Well...

I liked Towner from the beginning. Towner is in recovery from surgery when she first gets the news about her auntand having just undergone surgery myself, I was very concerned about the amount of traveling and exercise she was undertaking so soon during her recovery. I absolutely loved the secondary characters. Towner's hermit mother living on Yellow Dog Island infested by packs of wild golden retrievers (Take a minute and picture that. Remote Island. Adorableness running rampant. Ok, back to the story). Having been fascinated with the Salem witch trials since middle school earlier, I'm surprised I didn't read this book when it first came out.

Until the last 50 pages or so, I would have given this book four stars and then the twist happened. I'm not going to say what it is, just that I did not see it coming. And now I kind of want to re-read the entire book to see if there were any clues and I'm just ambivalent, or if it was just an oddly written book. In any case, the twist changes the entire feeling of the book and it made me doubt everything I had just read. That being said, if you like family drama, the Northeast, and sort-of-witchy witchiness I would actually highly recommend this book even though I only gave it 3 stars.

Unspoken

I loved this so much. This was hilarious!!! I should not have been reading any part of this book in public because there was a lot of laughing out loud. If I wasn't laughing out loud, I was chuckling to myself. I looked mental. This book was totally worth it. The writing was witty and the characters were well written.

The main character, Kami (Ok, I really didn't like her name.), was fabulous. I also really loved that Kami didn't fully depend on the male lead. She wanted to do things on her own and was not afraid to tell him that. She wasn't immediately in love or totally suckered by him. There was enough romance to satisfy romance needs and enough distance that it wasn't overdone. THIS NEVER HAPPENS ANYMORE! Why is the new trend to just instantly fall in love? Where is the getting to know him, being excited yet unsure how we feel, THEN the mistrust in our feelings phase AND THEN we are falling in love. She didn't spend pages pining over him and I thank the author for that. Sarah Rees Bennan deserves a high five and maybe even a hug.

There is a bit of a love triangle but not really. There are some reasons I can't get into without giving away some plot points but just know that it isn't really a love triangle. It's more of a third wheel triangle....that isn't a triangle...just go with it.

Not absent parents? What? This is unheard of. They care where she goes and appear more than the beginning and end of the book? What? Back up...nope..there they are.

We have to talk about Angela. The best friend that isn't totally forgotten once the boys show up. She is gorgeous but could care less and she HATES people. She wants to avoid them because they suck. I love her. She is so wonderful. There are three strong females in this book but they aren't over the top and you can still relate to them.

I can't wait for the next book in this series. I hope that it is just as hilarious or I will be upset. If the characters have totally different personalities I might lose it because they are so great as they are now. The next cover is so far a let down but I am more than willing to still read it.

4.5 stars. I loved this but the very last part made me hostile for reasons I can't get into. If you read it you know what I'm talking about. That knocked it down to 4.5 stars so still fabulous.