What I Read Wednesday

The Kind Worth Killing: A Novel
On a flight home from London, Ted meets an attractive woman named Lily. Over the course of the flight, the book shifting back and forth between characters, Ted reveals to Lily that his wife is cheating on him. Lily suggests that Ted kills his wife and offers her assistance. What follows is a story full of plot twists and character reveals.
I'll be honest. This book is pretty poorly written. I caught three instances of the usage of the wrong name, instances that shouldn't have made it past an editor. The characters aren't fully developed and are all truly pretty awful. But yet, I enjoyed this book. I didn't have to think. It had a satisfying ending. It kept me reading. This book is proof that they don't all have to be literary masterpieces to be enjoyable.

The Darkest Part of the Forest
I love Holly Black, so I was very excited to see this one was out. It did not disappoint.
In the town of Fairfold, humans and magical creatures (Folk) live side-by-side. There are rules, of course. Usually followed, sometimes broken. In the forest, lies a horned boy in a sealed coffin where he has slept for entire generations. The horned boy is the fascination of the children in the town, least of all Hazel and her brother Ben. One day, Hazel awakens to find glass shards under her fingernails, mud on her feet and the news that the glass coffin has been smashed and no one knows where the horned boy is. What follows is an unnerving descent in the magical world of Fairfold and the humans and Folk that live within. I loved this book, like I've loved all of her books. Despite the elements of magic within this book, it was still a real and relatable story.

Hellhole
Max Kilgore has a cool name, but not so much a cool life. A teenager with a chronically ill mom, Max enjoys crossword puzzles and dinosaurs. When Max can't sleep, he digs, searching for dinosaur fossils in a hill outside town. One night, he accidentally digs deep and unearths a devil. As unrealistic as this premise may be, I loved this book. Berg, Max's devil, was such a perfect mix of an absolute jerk and a clown that it was hard to hate him (although I did because, obviously, he's a devil). Berg moves in to Max's basement where he proceeds to wreck Max's life by playing video games, wandering around without pants and insisting that Max steal him junk food. Max enlists the help of a classmate named Lore, rumored to have one been a devil worshipper, to help him rid himself of Berg. But, as he was cautioned by Berg himself, a deal with the devil is never as simple as it seems.

All the Bright Places
This was described as The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor&Park. While I didn't think it was quite that--mainly because those were two unique books--I did enjoy it. There were parts of it that were a little too John Greene, but it was still a good book. The book alternates between the perspective of Violet and Finch. Violet is a popular girl, while Finch is the school screw up. While standing on the ledge of the belltower contemplating what it would be like to jump, Finch looks over and sees an equally contemplative Violet down the ledge. What spirals from this moment is a series of events where Finch pushes himself into Violet's life, until she finally accepts him… and then he begins to pull away. There are a lot of layers in this book. Sexuality. Teenage depression. Suicide. Bullying. Child abuse. It was a heavy book. Not one that I would like to read again, but I am glad I read it.

What are you reading?