Gut reactions.

As I have now thrown myself- with blissful abandon no less- into my Winter TBR list, I figure that I should cast an eye back on the pile that went before.

I'm not a proper reviewer, (as I'm sure that you are well aware by now); I generally just like to flag up the books that I have the urge to say something about.

So, instead of reviews I'm going with some reactions. For illustrative purposes, the pile looked like this and there were 6 other books in there as late additions or e-books.

They were, in no particular order;

Tammara Webber- Easy

Mike Wells - Lust, Money & Murder

Cath Crowley - Graffiti Moon

Maureen Johnson - 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Trisha Telep (ed.) - Kiss Me Deadly

Jerome K Jerome - Three Men in a Boat

My Star of the List award went to Cath Crowley's Graffiti Moon, which I gushed about here. (Yes, I know there hasn't been an award before. I just made it up. Like just now. Because I'm impulsive like that...)

Sarra Manning is the queen of voice. I'll take notes of how she writes.

John Green writes teen guy and friends banter soooo well.

Jenny Downham wrote possibly the best death scene I've ever read. I knew it was coming, I even knew how it was going to happen- because she'd told me, and yet still it crept up on me. Skillful. (She writes a smart teen sex scene too.)

Maureen Johnson was new to me, and has a voice that I really want to read more of. 

Tammara Webber’s Easy confirmed my interest in the emerging category of New Adult.

That's it for naming names. Now for some other comments;

With one of these books, I didn’t make it past chapter two. I got Bored.

In one of these books I hated the main character. She was criminally stupid and it annoyed me deeply. The ending  was a cliff-hanger and I literally did not care whether she lived or died.

One of these books was hugely over hyped on twitter.

One of these books must have been the “difficult second book” or the latter half of a two-book deal. Otherwise it dismays me that it both got the author an agent and a publisher.

One of these is an OK story, but nothing special and I suspect the celebrity of the author made the difference.

One of these books, the writing and POV were great, but the story made me feel deeply uncomfortable. But I think it was supposed to.

Two of these books have been made into films. I'd rent both on DVD, but there’s only one of them I would read again.

I think I need to start a little book diary to record my top-line reactions on each book I read as I finish them, and see if there is an even mix each time. Watch this space in March, then....