Welcome to my first post for CBR 16. I know it’s April. I’ve been a CBR posting slacker. I’ve been reading like a maniac though! I’ve read 33 books this year, so I figured it was about time I started posting about them!! Let’s get started…
I think I started this trio of books at the end of 2023, but didn’t actually finish the first one until January of 2024, so it counts! They came as one book on my Kindle, but they were 3 different books by 3 different authors, so I’m taking credit for reading 3 books, not 1! Also, they were mostly terrible, so I’m DEFINITELY taking credit for all 3.
This one started out kind of OK, but then it totally went off the rails. A little kid disappeared in a snowstorm, and eventually we find out he was kidnapped. Like I said – interesting premise, good buildup, but bonkers execution. The boy’s mother was a former CIA agent or FBI or something like that. Basically she had a certain set of skills… She was absolutely ridiculous. She went completely off the grid to find her kid. She didn’t tell her husband, the police, her parents, or anyone except one rando she used to work with. I get it, you want to find your kid – I would too. but it was just so incredibly unbelievable (like literally unbelievable) and ridiculous that I couldn’t enjoy it.
There was also a lot of repetition and dragging out of details. AND! The spelling and grammar were just terrible. I have had a Kindle for at least a decade, and I didn’t know it had the feature that you could report errors until this book. I reported sooo many errors I probably got on a list somewhere. They actually misnamed some of the characters sometimes. It just felt like it needed major editing and someone was like “I’m sure it’s fine, just publish it!”
My rating: 2
OK this book feels like a similar intro. I liked the beginning. I liked the setup. Then the bad guy was totally unbelievable. I think these three books were “sold” together because they shared the same underlying badness.
I guess all three have the shared topic of kidnapping too. I forgot that part. Two kids get kidnapped from a small town. The suspect was apparently planning it for years. He’s just off his rocker. He’s been collecting doll / robot parts to turn a kid into a doll / robot for wealthy clients. OK, it sounds a little weird, but believe me it was weirder than you think. There was one kid who got kidnapped, and then while they’re searching for the first kid another one gets kidnapped. One of them is older and keeps the younger kid calm. They interact every once in a while with the bad guy, and it’s always weird.
Again, just like the first book, this book needed an editor. I feel like it wasn’t quite as bad as the first one, but it was still pretty bad. I also submitted so many issues to that error reporting software. I wonder if it actually goes anywhere?
My rating: 3
And now we come to the final book. I think this was my favorite by far of the three. It still wasn’t very good though. We start out with an unsolved (or maybe solved? I can’t remember) kidnapping from thirty years ago. A guy comes out of the woods to this cabin (hence the title) and thinks it’s his home. It turns out he was kidnapped three decades ago and the cabin was his house when he was a kid. He’s of course all messed up from being kidnapped and growing up in captivity. I think they caught the guy that they thought did it, or they captured him and he got away or something? This is the trouble with reading a book in January and not writing about it until April! My old brain is NOT equipped!
So yeah it’s kinda coming back to me. This detective (who might be retired?) is working the case and he keeps seeing the original kidnapper around town and thinking he’s kidnapping new kids. Oh yeah I forgot that part too. There are new kidnappings that echo the ones from thirty years ago. That’s why the detective is on the case. They’re trying to figure out if the original bad guy is back, or if it’s a copy cat, or what. And they’re also trying to find the newly kidnapped kids!
There were also editing errors in this book, but the story was better, so I don’t think it enraged me as much.
My rating: 3