Denae VB

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“A book written from a dog's point of view, this chronicles the life of his owner, Denny, as he tries to start a career as a race car driver, gets married, has a child, and suffers both personal and professional loses throughout the dog's life. A really unique way of telling a story, with plenty of insight into how a dog might see the world, this was a great book. The characters are well-written and believable, no one is all-good or all-bad, and the story line is very compelling. I couldn't stop reading it!”

Denae VB wrote this review Sunday, February 28, 2010. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“Not as good as I had hoped. I was hoping for an historical fiction novel that dealt more with the "history" side of things than the "fiction" side of things. This was more of a murder mystery novel with lots of character development of the finctional characters, and not as much as I wanted of the true historical characters and events. The book takes place after the Civil War, so I understand that it wouldn't have a lot of battleground details, but I didn't feel like I really had a better understanding of John Bell Hood as an historical figure. I like Widow of the South better than this novel, maybe because Widow of the South dealt only with fictional characters. ”

Denae VB wrote this review Tuesday, January 12, 2010. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 0 stars

“Another great Cork detective novel. This one is definitely sadder than most, but still I enjoyed this as much as the other Cork novels. The book takes place outside of MN, but there are enough MN connections that it still reads like a "local author" kind of novel. Looking forward to the next in the series!”

Denae VB wrote this review Saturday, December 19, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Interesting book about the key members of the convention that wrote the US Constitution. Most of the main characters were founding fathers that I had not read much about - the author avoids spending a lot of time on Franklin and Washington and focuses on the people who made signficant contributions but those you may not have heard of. It's not quick read, there's a lot of information and you need to read carefully to understand all the nuances of why the founders made the decisions they made, but I learned a lot of things that I never knew, and felt the author did a good job of making the men seem very human and relatable.”

Denae VB wrote this review Saturday, December 19, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“The overarching story is about a 40-something man who loses his infant son in a tragic way, causing the break up of his marriage, and how he learns to cope with that loss by a long-distance relationship with a young Irish singer. I found the book hard to follow, as it jumps back and forth in time and in voice, sometimes talking about people and events that I couldn't relate back to the primary storyline. It was an interesting book, I especially liked the way music and what he listens to on his ipod weaves throughout the entire story and his entire life, but I didn't think the amount of time I had to spend reading it was worth what I got out of it.”

Denae VB wrote this review Saturday, December 19, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“This book is the true story of the 2008 season of a long-undefeated high school football team. The New York sports writer moves this family to small town America to follow the team. It's a very interesting read of how coaches think, how they plan for games, how they motivate their players, and how this coaching staff built winning teams year after year. It's also an interesting portrait of small town life, the good and the bad of it. The set up of the book is that it's really unclear if this team is as good as the teams before, but the games are not quite the nail-biters the blurbs lead you to believe. Still, it's a very interesting study of high school football and how small towns revolve around the Friday night games.”

Denae VB wrote this review Saturday, December 19, 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“I first heard of the Kurt Wallender series when I saw Kenneth Branaugh on the PBS Mystery! series based on the books, and if he was involved, I figured it must be good. I liked the way the book is both a realistic detective story, nothing flashy or unbelievable about how Kurt solves the case, and also balances that with Kurt as a son and father and interweaves a lot of interesting character development throughout the cases Kurt solves. It's set in Sweden, so it's also interesting to read about day to day live in Sweden. This was an easy and fast read that kept me interested in both the crime and the characters.”

Denae VB wrote this review Saturday, December 19, 2009. ( reply | permalink )