As some of you already know I received an e-reader from my daughter & son-in-law as a gift in December. I was thrilled to get it, it was exactly what I was looking for since I have been listening to my hubby moan about moving my books every time we move. My hope was to cut my stored books down to a handful of cherished friends & help save the planet’s trees in the bargain. Being a somewhat thrifty type of person, I thought I would take advantage of the bargains at Amazon.com where you can get books for next to nothing or sometimes free. It turns out you rarely get a whole book with these deals (usually just an excerpt) & they hope you will do a review on what you’ve read. To my way of thinking e-books should be quite a bit cheaper than their paper counterparts since the publishers save a lot of costs, but this is a topic for another post.
My first book is: Innocent by Joe Prentis.
On my e-reader this is 182 pages long which makes me think this is more than just an excerpt, although I wish it was an excerpt because it felt like so much of this book was missing. This is a murder mystery book set in a small town where there is some conflict between the local police department and the county sheriff’s department. At some point, the FBI even make an appearance. The story is told from the point of view of the County Sheriff who is married with a teenage daughter.
Since I don’t want to be a spoiler for the actual story, I will tell you there are a number of murders in the book, there are a lot of suspects and quite a few twists & turns. Unfortunately, the twists & turns seem like they are thrown into the story willy-nilly, leading to a lot of confusion about what this story is really all about. A whole host of characters out of the Sheriff’s past make an appearance in the story, most of them become suspects at one time or another & a few of them die. In fact, there are so many new characters introduced at different parts of the story, it’s difficult to keep them straight. There is a plot twist where the Sheriff sleeps with someone other than his wife, but this goes nowhere & does not serve the story in any way leading me to wonder why it’s there in the first place. At the very end of the story (in the last couple of pages), the Sheriff is faced with a moral dilemma which has not appeared anywhere in the story before this. The choice he makes is totally out of character from the way the Sheriff has been portrayed throughout the entire story.
I found the story difficult to read because of grammatical & spelling errors. Colloquial language is used throughout the story, but not just in the dialogue to give the characters more depth, it is used to describe actions such as carrying someone somewhere when they mean driving someone or delivering something.
Sorry Mr. Prentis, I would only give this story a 3 out of 10. There was an interesting premise to the story, but the way it was described was awkward & clunky. I found myself re-reading parts to see if I had missed something because not all the twists & turns seemed related to the actual story. Better luck next time!
Pink Ninjabi
Apr 16, 2012 @ 13:17:40
Can’t wait, I just received my eReader too! Lookin’ forward to your book reviews! :D. I was thinking about reading Hunger Games as I really liked Ender’s Game and figured there may be some similarities. Admittedly, I already watched the movie, but am hoping the novel(s) are less graphic. 😀
Pink.
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benzeknees
Apr 16, 2012 @ 13:31:17
I am planning on reading Hunger Games too, I have them in my cart at Amazon. I have read so many fine comments from other bloggers I can’t wait to read the trilogy.
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Pink Ninjabi
Apr 16, 2012 @ 13:57:33
wooo, I’ll definitely need to read it too! You know, you could totally start an online Book Club. Yup.. totally!
Pink.
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tadams4u
Apr 16, 2012 @ 22:58:10
I can eread on my iPad. But I prefer audiobooks. Lol
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benzeknees
Apr 17, 2012 @ 01:20:33
My husband would kill me if I had audio books in bed! LOL
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tadams4u
Apr 17, 2012 @ 08:28:39
I haven’t done that. Lol. Usually as I drive or before I get customers
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S.
May 08, 2012 @ 14:28:10
Hi Benzeknees,
I have been flittling around here for a while now seriously enjoying your point of view and words.
I wanted to let you know a couple of things in relation to ebooks. First, I have um… dozens? hundreds? of ebooks or pdfs (what kind of ereader do you have? Sony will read anything, kindle and kobo have a few limitations) that I would be delighted to share! There is also a site I love that has torrent downloads of thousands of book titles: http://theebooksbay.com/ You need an account (free) and a torrent client like Utorrent (http://utorrent.com Also free) and you are all set to go!
If you are curious but would like some help with torrents or downloading, feel free to ask!!
I had spinal fusion surgery last March after spending over a year trying to recover from a herniated disc and my ereader, who was already a dear friend, became my best friend and saviour of my sanity.
I look forward to reading more from you! Let me know if you would like a general idea of the types of epubs I have!
Best,
– S.
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benzeknees
May 08, 2012 @ 14:58:58
What a wonderfully generous offer to make! I am new to e-readers (I have a Sony because I wanted to be able to borrow from the library here in Alberta), so I haven’t done a whole lot of exploring yet. I did download a few bargain books (self-published) & have been a little disappointed in what’s on offer so far. I am currently reading the Hunger Games trilogy on my e-reader & thoroughly enjoying it. But yes, I would like to expand my library & perhaps be able to get some e-copies of books I currently have so my husband will stop complaining about having to move my books. I like anything Stephen King, most of Dean Koontz, Diana Gabaldon, Wilbur Smith, Brian Lumley.
I wonder if most devoted readers have back problems? I was born with Spina Bifida Occultis & have had back trouble all my life. Reading has always been my best friend. I wish you well in your recovery & thanks for the comments.
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S.
May 08, 2012 @ 19:12:19
Oh! Do I ever have some books for you! 😀 Whenever you are ready for more ebooks, let me know and I will send you a couple with instructions on how to get your own. alternatively you could give me some titles and I will send you the file. Just email me at gettingtheremyway@hotmail.com.
i loved the Hunger Games! I still have Mockingbird to read, but the first two were great!
Best from one Canuck to another,
S.
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benzeknees
May 08, 2012 @ 23:10:11
I noted in one of your posts you talked about no universities in your province so I thought you were a fellow Canadian. Whereabouts in this big country are you?
I will definitely take you up on your offer of help with e-reader titles. I am almost finished book 2 in the trilogy, so I’m looking forward to book 3.
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