Mini Reviews: Return to Me, The Cuckoo's Calling

Return to Me by Justina Chen.  Several years ago, I read and loved Justina Chen's North of Beautiful.  I haven't read any more of her books since then, but I've been meaning to.  I'm so glad I picked up Return to Me.  It was such a great read, full of beautiful imagery, Chen's unique descriptive prose, and well-developed characters.  There was nothing I didn't like about this book, and it embodies everything I love about contemporary YA.  The book was an emotional journey and I found myself tearing up several times.  Highly recommended!  Rating: 5/5 stars

The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling.
I bought The Cuckoo's Calling for Kindle when it went on sale the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I confess that I bought it solely because JK Rowling wrote it.  I figured, it was $3.99, why not?  The Cuckoo's Calling was a good read, but not as good as I'd expected it to be.  It's a true mystery, about a private detective called Cormoran Strike, who is solving the murder/suicide of a popular model, nicknamed Cuckoo.  The book is set in London, which I loved, and it was full of great imagery.  I really got the feeling that I was right there in London along with Strike and Robin (his secretary/assistant).  What I didn't like about this book was that it was slow, and it had an excessive amount of unnecessarily large words.  I kept thinking, "Okay, JK Rowling, we all get that you are either a) smarter than the rest of us, or, b) know how to use a thesaurus.  You can stop with the adjectives."  I had to look up about two or three words per chapter and that got old.  Instead of feeling a little bit educated, I ended up feeling agitated at having to stop the flow of reading to keep looking up words.  Besides these two complaints, the book was good, and I'd probably keep reading the series, if I could get the second book for a good price.  Rating: 3.5/5 stars