A Soul To Take by C.N. Bean and Book Buying Meme

I have been without the internet since Wednesday morning and it has been driving me nuts. I finally got it fixed this morning and have a ton to get caught up with, so this review is going to be short. I give this book a B-.

From Amazon:
Milwaukee homicide detective Rita Trible races against time to find a brutal serial killer stalking young boys only to uncover the secret life of a Catholic priest that the Church will do anything to hide and discover that her own child may be targeted by the murderer.

This book had so much promise. I thought that the premise was so interesting and could have had a good look into the inside of the Catholic Church scandals. However, I was left so disappointed. First of all, the main character, Rita, was so incredibly unlikeable. She is the head of the department and all of the staff disliked her and it wasn't difficult to see why. I couldn't stand her and would have hated to work for her. She didn't trust anyone and was the type of person who had to do everything herself. I hated the relationship she had with her son, who had lost so much. The writing wasn't that good either. Everything was just told to you instead of allowing the reader to see what happened. For example, the questioning of suspects doesn't take place and the author just tells you what happened. The book was almost 400 pages, so there was plenty of time and space to show the reader. Also, the time period just jumped all over the place without allowing the reader to see it. You would be reading along and all of a sudden, the author would mention that 5 weeks had passed since the last paragraph! The reason why I ranked it higher was because there was so much promise with the whole story idea.

J. Kaye tagged me a couple of days ago for a book buying meme. I just now saw it, so I will answer it real quickly. The question was if you plan on buying books for the holidays, how do you pick them out.

I do buy a few people books for the holidays. I have two young nephews and I like to give them books as part of their gifts. I just pick out whatever I think looks real cute for them. It may be something that I have read to a class that I have subbed for or what I have seen around. I am somewhat selfish, though, and tend to pick books that I would like. I always get my mom a couple of books for her stocking stuffers and when I do, I pick out something by an author I enjoy or would enjoy as we have a lot of the same reading interests. For another person I buy books for is on topics they like. Sometimes I hate buying books for others because I end up buying books for myself and then I am spending money on myself when I shouldn't be. I won't tag anyone, but if you want to play along, let me know!

I have so much going on right now and my head feels like it is going to explode! I am starting another job which I have to do training for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night on top of working all day. I was so far ahead on my Christmas shopping and even had everything wrapped but I haven't done any since Thanksgiving and have to get a move on. It doesn't help that DH's bday is 5 days before Christmas. Oh well, I know everyone is a bit busier during this time of the year, so I don't want to spend too much time complaining and whining. Happy Reading!