About Face

Rating:
Summary: So much going on here, but...
Review: ...how could someone who was repeatedly raped, beaten and drugged fall so "easily" in love and not have any issues with physical contact?
The book starts out with many different characters, and points of views switch around so much it's sometime hard to follow. But the story is good and sucks you in, and you want to know how it will all unravel in the end (even though it's all pretty obvious to everyone but Casey).
I think if Ms.Michaels focused as much on Blake's/Casey's relationship as she did to weaving the great mystery, this would have been a great book. But it was pretty good.
If you're looking for romance, this book doesn't really focus or elaborate in the area other than the super predictable - if you're looking for a good murder/mystery - this is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: TOO drawn out.
Review: The plot takes place on an island, and it feels like everyone on the island has a few chapters devoted to him or her. I think that the plot is drawn out so much that it makes the reading frustrating. She seems to give a large part of the story to characters that are inconsequential to the plot. Although, the plot is a bit dark (childhood trauma) you are hooked right away. But the interest may fade with all of the added stories. I found myself skimming pages looking for the real plot to pickup again. If you have a lot of time and patience this is the book for you. For those of us that have little patience and much less time, it is an exasperating read and I do not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Truly terrible
Review: Thi is my first book by Ms. Michaels'and I am fairly sure it will be my last. I think the whole abuse them is so graphically and tastelessly done that it can hardly be considered entertaining, and any author who makes money from this sort of sensationalist rubbish should donate her time and money to rape and child abuse crisis centers.

In terms of the writing, it is terrible, completely disjointed. and supposedly trying to portray her disjointed memories. But since she is supposed to have amnesia what does she really remember. And every time she asks she gets all lies anyway. It starts looking more and more like the author does not even know what information to give us to tie the whole thing together, and there are some real inconsistencies and irrelevant information about people and places that make this whole thing read like a disorganized mess in need of a really good edit.

Even leaving aside the problems with the narrative structure, we don't care about the characters enough to weed it all out. The heroine Casey is so wooden and nearly always unconscious because constantly fainting, so that she is hardly of any interest and her boyfriend the wonderful doctor is too sterotyped and too good to be true.

Just as the mother and step brother and fiance are all too terrible to be true, and the motives of the villains are just unbelieveable. As is the fact that Casey forgives them all in the end and they live happily ever after!! Even the good doc can't believe when Casy forgives them at the end. This is absolute drivel of the worst sort, not romance, not a thriller. Don't waste your time.