Book Review: 25 Days by Per Jacobsen
25 Days
Author: Per Jacobsen
Published: November 1, 2024
Paperback: 360 Pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: December 1-25, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone starts leaving gifts in the Christmas stocking mounted on the barn door.
Each morning brings something new, and with every passing day, the contents become more terrifying. Soon, the family makes a spine-chilling they’ve been dragged into a deranged game of Secret Santa, and if they want to survive, they will have to fight.
Curry’s a little nervous with what’s going to happen next!
Jessica’s Review:
I wanted to get my review for 25 Days in before we got too far into 2025, and thus father away from Christmas. This book is unique! Jacobsen wrote it ‘advent style’: Where the reader reads one chapter a day from December 1st and ends the book on Christmas Day. But ultimately in his author’s note he says that you can read it in the way that you choose. This advent style is what drew many of his first-time readers to 25 Days, myself included! I read it advent style and completed the book on Christmas. I admit I did fall behind three times, but still caught up and ended it when I was supposed to. I am very proud of that fact!
Jacobsen also had a Facebook group where readers could talk with him and his publisher wife Sarah daily in regards to the book, and many just had to keep reading, they just couldn’t stay with ‘a chapter a day’. I will say this: the further along you get in the book, the harder it is to stay with the ‘chapter a day’, but I can proudly say I did it!
We have the Gray family on vacation and their little stay in an isolated cabin becomes a living nightmare! I became attached to each of the family members, but had no idea who was going to make it to the end of the novel, if anyone did.
25 Days is a horror novel and will not be for everyone. It’s a violently graphic novel that will not be for everyone! Reader discretion is advised, especially with chapter 19. I can handle violence, but this chapter did a bit of a number on me! In addition to the torture of the family, there are animal deaths in the book.
Some readers were not happy with an ending that doesn’t give all the answers, but I loved it! Life and villains don’t always have complete answers. If anything, maybe we can get a continuing story in the future!
Jacobsen worked very hard on this novel, especially with the ‘advent style’. Imagine having to come up with a story that had to end with a certain number of chapters and to also have each chapter develop with enough of the story in it and keep readers wanting to come back the next day!
I enjoyed and appreciated 25 Days so much that it made my Top 10 of 2024, being number five! I will definitely be reading more of Jacobsen’s novels in the future.
There are some things that I just won’t see the same again anymore: Among those things are stockings, Secret Santa, isolated cabins in winter with snow, and snowmobiles! If you want to know why, then you must pick up 25 Days!
Purchase Links:
The Author’s Website where you can purchase signed copies or bookplates and more!
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Daisy Jones & The Six
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Narrator: Full Cast Narration
Published: March 5, 2019
Audio: 9 hours 3 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: December 5-11, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
Jessica’s Review:
Daisy Jones & The Six is a book that must to be listened to! I had heard that before and I agree that is the way to read this book! This book is everything that covers the career of a fictional band in the late 70s from their formation to their eventual fall.
Everything about this book feels like the telling of the ‘behind the scenes lives’ of an actual band and its members. It is a full cast narration with some well-known names participating. The narrations fully give the listener the sense of stardom with Daisy and Billy, along with the given sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
I couldn’t help but become fully involved in the story of Daisy Jones and The Six. This one is a definite five star listen and I definitely will be watching the mini-series!
There is also a PDF of song lyrics included with the audiobook.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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Audiobook Review: The One by John Marrs
The One
Author: John Marrs
Narrators:
Clare Corbett
Vicki Hall
Simon Bubb
Jot Davies
Sophie Aldred
Published: February 20, 2018
Audiobook: 11 hours 1 minute
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 4-9, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
How far would you go to find The One?
A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.
That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.
Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…
A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.
Jessica’s Review:
I first read The One back in 2018 and loved it! It was a re-read for my book club that I am in for this month, and we meet on Saturday to discuss it: And I’m looking forward to it! This time I listened to the audiobook and it was a cast narration.
Here is the link to my original review back in 2018. I can’t really add more to say than that as it would be spoilers. I can add to say what I think about the narrators: Which is the narrators all did a fabulous job! They helped to distinguish the characters from each other and just brought these five people to life with their experiences.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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