Celler Bier Und Celler Silber: Zwei Amte...

Best thing

The Law of Attraction
by N.M. Silber
Book 1 of Lawyers in Love

Rating:  DNF'd at 26% || No Rating

I really tried to make myself finish this book.  It's only 242 pages, a fairly bite-sized novel, which would have only taken me approximately 4 to 5 hours to complete.  Except that that would have been about 4 to 5 hours too long, and 200 pages too many.  I might have sighed and rolled my eyes a few times before finally throwing in the towel after giving the book another hour of reading time and still finding myself frustrated.  And to be totally honest, I have several other books I'm more interested in reading to waste anymore time on this one.

This book was just ridiculously tedious, boring, and overly juvenile.  For a bunch of up and coming, hotshot lawyers in their mid-to-late twenties, our main couple and their friends all behaved like a squealy gaggle of teenagers.  The squealy kind who sit around gushing about the new girlfriend or the new boyfriend.  I'm not trying to stereotype or anything, but to be totally honest, grown men don't talk to each other the way Braden, Mark, and Adam do; and neither do grown women, if we really want to be honest with ourselves.

When in the universe of ever has one bro commented to another bro, that third bro's new relationship of two days is "strangely adorable"?

And then, whenever Gabrielle talked about Braden, I kept picturing that one girl in high school who got all excited because her crush happened to walk by and say "hi" to her, or picked up her pencil and handed it back to her with a dimply smile.  She got so super gushy about the fact that she flirted with Braden... and "OMG!" he flirted back!

Maybe I'm just irritated, but this book just didn't do it for me, and pulling the DNF trigger will probably save it from getting a one star review in the long run.

I'll admit that the first chapter was pretty cute, with the silly court cases and Gabrielle's strange defensive arguments.  But after that, the book just started rolling downhill.  I just couldn't make myself continue on.  I couldn't get past the squealiness of it all.  And while this might seem a bit over-extreme, I couldn't get past Gabrielle's use of the word 'tummy,' three times within one chapter, to describe her state of nervousness around Braden.

And even if I could have gotten past the squealiness, I'm not sure I could have unburied myself from all the details.  All the painstakingly, unnecessary details of every part of a first date conversation that sounded awfully similar to a character biography description.  All the tedious, overly wordy details about every action and every back story and every little step of Gabrielle's day.  All the extra, tangential details to describe the very mundane, banal evening of a date and a subsequent group get together, none of which was even remotely interesting.

Then there was the boob scene.  The boob scene?!  I swear, I might have seen that scene in a high school flick or something, it was so juvenile.  "Could you just show me your boobies before the guys get here?  Please?  And let me touch them?"  Well, he didn't actually say those words in the book, but he might have done so in my head with the way the scene was written.

Anyway...

Maybe this book is just not my cuppa, and maybe I'm just a bit far removed from my mid-to-late twenties.  Except... that I have read books about characters in their mid-to-late twenties, and they don't act like this.  In fact, I've read books about teenagers who don't act like this.

Finally, the book tries really hard to be witty and cute.  It's not really, but points for effort, I guess.

Maybe this book gets better.  Maybe it gets worse.  Some other reviews I happened to skim mentions that the second half loses appeal.  I'm not sticking around to find out.  I've got other books I'd rather be reading.

My first DNF of the year 2017.  I don't like to DNF, but sometimes it just has to happen.


***

Free Friday #5:

Page Count:  DNF'd at 26% (approx. 63 pages)
Cash Award:  +$2.00

Updated Bank Balance:  $221.00

Traum oder Realität?

Dieses Buch war ein Geschenk, was nicht auf meiner Wunschliste stand.
Aber da ich Jugendbüchern gegenüber ziemlich offen bin, war ich natürlich auch gespannt, was mich erwartet.

Olivia und ihre Schwester Mia kamen schon in der ganzen Welt herum. Sie sind in den verschiedensten Ländern zur Schule gegangen, da ihre Eltern entsprechende Berufe haben.
Nun möchte Livs Mutter sesshaft werden, denn die Eltern haben sich vor einiger Zeit getrennt, und die Mädels sollen bei ihrer Mutter leben.
Olivias Mutter hat jemand Neues kennengelernt, der in London lebt. Schnell wird klar, dass es ernst ist zwischen den beiden und schon wird davon gesprochen, zusammen zu ziehen. Doch der neue Lebenspartner hat ebenfalls Kinder...

Kaum in London angekommen, träumt Olivia einen seltsamen Traum von vier unbekannten Jungs, an einem Ort, wo sie noch nie war, und einem Ritual, an so etwas sie niemals glauben würde.
Da selbst ihr das zu viel Zufall auf einmal ist, versucht sie, zu begreifen, was genau diesen Traum ausgelöst haben könnte und was hinter dem Traum steckt.
Und prompt begegnet sie diesen vier unbekannten Jungs in echt...

Ich kam mit Liv gleich klar. Sie hat eine tolle, leicht zynische Ader, die mir gefällt.
Sie ist sehr realistisch, findet für alles eine Lösung und gewisse Situationen zieht sie in ihrem Kopf so ins Lächerliche, dass ich nur noch lachen konnte.
Die Autorin schaffte es, trotz meiner anfänglich kritischen Einstellung, mich immer mehr in ihren Bann zu ziehen, sodass ich zum Ende hin nicht abgeneigt bin, an der Trilogie dranzubleiben.
Ihr Schreibstil ist flüssig und der Roman ließ sich wie einen Jugendroman lesen.

Das Cover ist seltsam-schön. Der Hintergrund ist schwarz, im Vordergrund wirkt es verspielt und verschnörkelt. Die wichtigsten Aspekte sind auf dem Cover abgebildet, wie z.B. die Tür zu Olivias Träumen, und eine Eidechse, die diese Tür bewacht.
Wenn Liv träumt, werden diese Szenen kursiv dargestellt.

Fazit:
Nach anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten packte mich der Jugendroman doch noch. Ich vergebe vier von fünf Sternen und bin dem zweiten Teil nicht abgeneigt.

Silber-Trilogie:
1. Das erste Buch der Träume
2. Das zweite Buch der Träume
3. Das dritte Buch der Träume

A small farm in Maine by Terry Silver
Terry and Mark are photographers and buy a farm in 70's in Maine for weekends.
They farm the land as time goes on and all the changes that come about. Others teach them how to grow produce, flowers and herbs.
How they start with just one small plot and every year they enlarge it. Like story of greenhouse and the improvements after the first year they had to make.
Loved the part about growing seeds inside too early-this is what I have been known to do and the advice about rotating the crops.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).