Book Blurb: The Girl in a Swing

Title: The Girl in a Swing


Author: Richard Adams (of Watership Down fame)


Genre: Horror? Romance? I dunno.


Synopsis: A man meets a woman while on a business trip and falls head over heels for her. They get married after knowing each other only two weeks and live happily ever after...until strange things begin to happen.


Stars: 3/5


Lauren's Review: I decided to read this book because someone I know listed it among their favorites. I picked up a used copy that had the same cover as above...which is why I need to tell everyone that this book is NOT a "beautiful, haunting, erotic love story and absolutely terrifying ghost story."

First things first, this book IS well written. Wonderful prose, and of course I loved that it was set in the English country side (I'd even been to a few sites mentioned!). That being said...

It is NOT a beautiful love story! It's like Romeo and Juliet (not the ending), these people have known each other TWO WEEKS! I just can't cheer on their decision to be married! And as for erotic...call me pervy, but in this Nora-Roberts-Danielle-Steel age, this book fell far short of erotic.

Which brings me to the most disappointing part...the horror aspect. This book just didn't scare me. Richard Adams is not a ghost story writer. At one point I was telling John what happened and he said "that sounds scary to me!" and I thought "yes, this should be scary...but it's just not."

It's a good book and worth the read, but that quote on the cover just left me expecting so much more than it offered. The irony is that this book is very similar to Rebecca, one of my all time favorite books. Two strangers meet, soon get married, weird stuff happens, scary ending. But with Rebecca I had no expectations so I really enjoyed it. With this book I expected so much, and it just fell flat. I blame the cover.

So...I guess you should never judge a book by it's cover? And don't read this book when you want a horror story.

Oops!

I've been MIA on the blogosphere for a loooong time, so I won't bother to review all the books I read while I was gone. Instead I'm just gonna list them here with how many "stars" I give them. I follow the Goodreads star system, which is:

1 star - I didn't like it
2 stars - it was ok
3 stars - I liked it
4 stars - I really liked it
5 stars - it was AMAZING!

So that in mind, here's what I've read:

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness - 3 stars

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - 3 stars

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton - 5 stars

The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner - 2 stars

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier - 4 stars

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins - 5 stars

World War Z by Max Brookes - 5 stars

City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin - 2 stars

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - 4 stars

Cocktails for Three by Madeline Wickham - 3 stars

Switched by Amanda Hocking - 1 star

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray - 2 stars

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - 5 stars

One Day by David Nicholls - 5 stars

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskill - 4 stars (would be 5 stars, but there's no ending!)

Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet - 2 stars

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart - 3 stars

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy - 4 stars

Something Blue by Emily Giffin - 4 stars

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb - 5 stars

City of the Sun by David Levien - 2 stars

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - 4 stars

If you want to know anymore about any of the books, let me know and I'll do a full review of it. If not, I'll just pick up from here!