Review: Don't You Cry by Cass Green

Title: Don't You Cry

Author: Cass Green
Publisher: HarperCollins

Publishing Date: September 6th, 2018

Pages: 336
Genre: Psychological Thriller

Series:  Standalone
Source:  Audio

 

One stolen baby. Two desperate strangers. One night of terror.
The USA Today and Sunday Times top ten bestselling author returns with a dark and twisty psychological thriller.
She saved your life.
When Nina almost dies during a disastrous blind date, her life is saved by a waitress called Angel. But later that evening, Nina is surprised by a knock on the door. It’s Angel – and she’s pointing a gun at her.
Now she’ll make you pay.
Minutes later, Angel’s younger brother Lucas turns up, covered in blood shielding a stolen newborn baby in his arms. Nina is about to endure the longest night of her life – a night that will be filled with terror and lead her to take risks she would never have believed herself capable of…

Another find searching around audible. I am really in the psychological thrillers right now and I don’t know many authors on the adult side. I have been poking around audible and just grabbing what sounds good. I saw this one, read the summary, and thought, well this sounds pretty crazy. So I grabbed it. This book was a really good read. I struggled with the rating and my thoughts just a tad. I liked the book and I enjoyed the book but it wasn’t quite the terror I was looking for. I did like the characters, I did very much like the story, I was just never on the edge of my seat. The premise was believable and I did like the touch of noir in the story. I think many times psychological thrillers have some noir in them and I do love these kinds of reads. All in all a very good and satisfying read.

Mina is in a bit of rut, she is recently divorced, her ex-husband has moved in rather quickly with a younger woman, her son is going out of the country for a vacation leaving her alone, she is truly in a rut. She goes on a blind date, almost chokes, meets a woman that saves her life. In this same night, she is alone in her house, drinking watching television, knock at the door. There is a woman that comes inside, later joined by a man and an infant child. This horrible night went from annoying to horrid fast as she is held hostage in her own home with a crazy woman, a man that may have murdered someone, and a child that has clearly been kidnapped. She must find a way to keep the baby and herself safe and escape if at all possible. 

I am pretty sure there wasn’t that much original in this story, but it felt like an original story to me. I have a hard time reading books that stick out when I read for 80 percent of my day. Maybe a little less but I do a lot of reading. I tend to stick to any kind of thriller more than any other read. So finding one in thrillers whether it be psychological, horror, mystery, or crime, I feel that they all kind of run together. I think this one may stick out in my mind for a while. This one was pretty much one night throughout most of the book. Close to the end, the timeline spans to a couple of weeks later… but for the most, part everything happened in one night. It was slow but not boring. In this night we go from learning Mina’s story to learning the story of those that hold her hostage, and the story of the night everything went down. A lot of story going on there.

The story is told from all three pov’s Mina, and her two captors. We learn a little bit about each character and the lives they have lived. As the stories contine to be told in bits and pieces, the bad guys don’t seem so bad anymore. There is a connection made, not just between the reader an the characters, but the characters in the story. By the morning, Mina knows it all and at this point, she doesn’t know what to belive but she knows she must do something. She wants to help the baby. The baby is her main objective. So the past is very relavent in this story… as in my psychological thrillers.

I really enjoyed getting to know each and every character. Mina was a very storng character. I really liked her. At first glance, she does come across as a bit of a whiner. She just recently lost her husband to a younger girl, her son is going away for a trip, she feels pity for herself in a major way. All this changes when the strangers come into her home with a kidnapped infant. This changes everything for Mina and the mama bear protector comes out. She isn’t a force in any physical means, but she knows how to figure these two crazy people out and start to use her mind to get something done. The entire time she never loses focus and stays strong.

There are many layers to this story and yes the underlying story isn’t much differnet from many stories about damaged people, the way it was told, the setting in which it took place, the charcters, the timeline. All if it together makes an uforgettable story. No, I wasn’t on the edge if my seat, but I was fully vested and I just couln’t put the book down.

I truly enjoyed this book and was on the edge of my seat with this read. 

Cass Green is the pseudonym of Caroline Green, an award-winning author of fiction for young people. Her first novel, Dark Ride won the Rona Young Adult Book of the Year and the Waverton Good Read Award. Cracks and Hold Your Breath garnered rave reviews and were shortlisted for eleven awards between them. She is the Writer in Residence at East Barnet School and teaches Writing for Children at City University. The Woman Next Door is her first novel for adults.

Wee Reads: It's Show and Tell Dexter! By Lindsay Ward

Ever since Finn was born, and even before then, we would read to him. We wanted to show him reading from an early age. Now he loves us to read the same books, over, and over, and over. But it is the sweetest thing, when he likes to pick out a book and climb into our laps. 

It's Show and Tell Dexter by Lindsay Ward

  

Dexter T. Rexter is going to school. But will anyone like him?
Tomorrow is the biggest event ever in Dexter’s life: his best friend, Jack, is taking him to school for Show and Tell Day! Dexter has been getting ready for weeks. But now he’s a little nervous. What if the other kids don’t like him? So Dexter decides to come up with a plan. He’ll wear a costume. Dinosaurs in bunny ears look good, right? He’ll recite state capitals starting with…uh…ah…er. Then he realizes something. He can’t dance. He can’t recite things. He doesn’t have ANY skills. What’s a dino to do?
This comical, interactive tale of belonging, friendship, anticipation, and first-day-at-school jitters lets readers experience the excitement and nervousness along with Dexter—and even offer him a little advice along the way.

Do you like this book?
Yeah! Because I love Dexter Dino. 

What's your favorite part of the book?
When he was a bunny! Because a t-rex can't be a bunny! And I like the song! And when he's an astronaut, it matches my room!

What do you think of the cover?
I like it, I like the t-rex.

Do you want me to read it again?
Yeah! Tomorrow.

The Dexter books are some of our favorites. It's a t-rex, so who can go wrong with that?

It's Show and Tell Dexter is about a toy dinosaur who is scared to go to his boy's show and tell day. He feels like he isn't good enough. So he tries on different costumes, does silly dances, and even tries to act like other animals.

At the end Dexter figures out that all he has to do is be himself and he's good enough. 

I think it's a great book that teaches you to just be yourself. The illustrations are cute and it was really fun to read.

Similar Books...

Lindsay Ward has a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University. Her most recent books include The Importance of Being 3 (Dial 2016) and Rosco vs. the Baby (S&S, 2016). She is also the author and illustrator of Henry Finds His Word (Dial, 2015), When Blue Met Egg (Dial, 2012), and Please Bring Balloons (Dial, 2013), which will soon be a play produced by the New York City Children’s Theater in 2017. Her work has been reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, The Plain Dealer, and the New York Times. Lindsay is currently working on her newest picture books Brobarians and Don’t Forget Dexter (Two Lions, 2017). She lives in Peninsula, Ohio with her family. Visit her online at www.lindsaymward.com.

Teaser Tuesday: Count All Her Bones by April Henry and The Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Books and a Beat. Bloggers choose two 

sentences out of our current read to pique others' curiosity.

Count All Her Bones by April Henry
 

Cheyenne sets out to save her former captor in this much-anticipated sequel to Girl, Stolen.
Six months ago, Griffin Sawyer meant to steal a car, but he never meant to steal the girl asleep in the backseat. Panicked, he took her home. His father, Roy, decided to hold Cheyenne―who is blind―for ransom. Griffin helped her escape, and now Roy is awaiting trial. As they prepare to testify, Griffin and Cheyenne reconnect and make plans to meet. But the plan goes wrong and Cheyenne gets captured by Roy’s henchmen―this time for the kill. Can Cheyenne free herself? And is Griffin a pawn or a player in this deadly chase?

Teaser: 

Cheyenne hadn't felt brave, though. She shivered at the memory of running through the words at night. Branches clawing her face. Tree roots tripping her up. Then it started to snow, adding the horrible knowledge that she must be leaving behind footprints.

Jenn's:

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning
 

Everyone knows what happens in the end.
A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss.
But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends.
One feared, one royal, and one already dead.
~~~~~~~~~~
Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.

A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.
But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.

The rise of Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic villainess is a heart-wrenching story of friendship, betrayal, and a girl pushed beyond her limits—to become a monster.

Teaser: 

She threw her body between the boy and the jagged edge of the rock. Her back took the hit with a huge crack. Her head snapped back, her skull missing impact by a hair. Just as she hit, the boy’s head bounced onto the pilled cotton of her bodice rather than smashing into the rock.

Top Ten Tuesday: Yepp, these were pretty good

Top Ten is an original feature/weekly meme originally created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl that features a great bookish top ten every week.


This week's TTT is popular books that totally lived up to the hype.

Ash- 
I really don't know what's considered a popular book? I'll just post the ones I liked that I've seen around a lot.



Jenn-

I took ones that I only read because of the hype around them and some it took me forever to read after seeing them everywhere.

These I didn’t have much interest in until I saw all the hype.